Mr. Speaker, when such an important debate is resumed I think it is customary to indicate briefly what stage we had reached when the debate was adjourned. Yesterday afternoon this side of the House criticized this Bill very severely. We referred to new restrictions and to a diminution of rights. I do not have the time now to repeat what was said or to add to it. Government members will probably join a well-known columnist of a Nationalist newspaper in saying that we are putting our foot into it in this debate. They will probably also admit, as this columnist said, that if Natives are to have or if they have civil rights outside of their so-called homelands, then this is a deplorable measure. But that, they say, is the wrong approach; we must approach these changes from the point of view of Government policy. We must not grant citizenship rights to them outside of the reserves; they must have the status of visitors who want the opportunity to sell their labour. That is their approach, and I think before we go any further with this debate it is just as well to see whose general approach is correct and in particular whether the policy of the Nationalist Party represents a valuable approach in dealing with our Native Affairs problems in South Africa; whether it offers a hopeful approach. In the first place I want to call as my witness the old Nationalist Party itself. Hon. members opposite will all admit that the policy put forward by the Paul Sauer committed in 1946 and which was later accepted, visualized the ideal of complete apartheid, the ideal of total territorial separation eventually and a separation of the population groups. The ideal therefore was that all groups were to be confined within their own borders. That remained the ideal until 1959. I want to emphasize that that was the approach of former leaders of the Nationalist Party, of Dr. Malan as well as Advocate Strijdom, and one can sum it up in this way, “You cannot have your cake and eat it”. In other words, you cannot have Natives within your own country and withhold all citizenship rights from them. That was also the approach of the whole of South Africa until that time, and I contend that that was also the approach of the man in the street. In the meantime the number of Natives within the White areas has increased to such an extent that all of us, including hon. members opposite, have had to admit that we will always have the Native with us in the so-called White area. That is why the hon. the Prime Minister came along with his new vision in 1959, and his new vision was this, “You can have your cake and eat it”. He said that the Native was here with us and was always going to be here with us but that we need not give him any citizenship rights. We know what his recipe was. In the first place that the Native must exercise his political rights in the reserves in which he lived originally. But he soon realized that there were many families who were permanently settled in the so-called White area and he then had to pretend that these Natives were in the White area just temporarily, in spite of the fact that they are going to be here for ever. That is the reason why they have now come along with this Bill to represent the position of the Native as though he is a visitor who comes to work here. I think what I have said here fairly sets out their approach, and the question remains whether it is a valuable approach and whether it offers any hope for the future. On the one hand we have Dr. Verwoerd, the hon. the Prime Minister, standing almost alone; on the other hand we have almost everybody except Dr. Verwoerd, including people who were leaders of the National Party before he became Prime Minister. Hon. members opposite will want to know immediately, of course, what my opinion is in this regard, but that is not important; what is much more important is the opinion of perhaps the greatest South African historian in our history, a person who has been described by Professor F. A. van Jaarsveld as perhaps the brightest star on the horizon of South African historiography, namely Dr. C. W. de Kiewiet.

What!

Professor van Jaarsveld who himself is a very eminent historian and who is definitely not unfriendly towards the Afrikaans-speaking section and the Nationalist Party has said that in his opinion Dr. de Kiewiet is perhaps the brightest star on the horizon of South African historiography, and he said this because Dr. de Kiewiet revealed such an objective approach to matters. I want to quote what he said in his book, “The Anatomy of the South African Misery”, which is a very recent publication, and I want to ask hon. members to listen carefully to what he says and to go and read the whole book. He reveals a very sympathetic approach to our difficult present-day problems, and on page 47 he says—

He goes on to say—

He concludes this portion by saying—

I submit that the true position in South Africa is that the moment we accept the fact that the millions of Natives who are going to be amongst us forever, then we must also admit that we are a multi-racial country or, in the words of Dr. de Kiewiet, “we are a plural or multi-racial society”. Since that is the position we should cultivate a broad loyalty, a loyalty which will ensure that all people will stand together in times of extreme need. Let me quote now what Dr. de Kiewiet said in connection with our position—

That challenge is one which we on this side accept, but I am afraid that hon. members opposite want to run away from the extremely difficult problems which face us in this country. I contend therefore that history demands that these Natives should enjoy certain citizenship rights within the White areas, and it will therefore harm the Natives and the Whites if we accept this legislation.

I shall come back to what the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) has said, but I just want to say that I found the following report of a speech which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition held at Boshof in the Volksblad on 28 October last. In the part I want to quote he says that the steps which the National Party wants to take against the urban Bantu remind one of the communist labour forces of Stalin and the workers’ camps of Siberia. When I read it I could not believe my eyes. I could not for a moment believe that a man who holds that responsible position could make such an irresponsible statement. Still, to my great surprise, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition repeated it in this House yesterday in practically the same words. That, together with the venomous, bitter remarks of the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay), astonishes one and makes one wonder what those hon. members now really have in mind and what their idea is in opposing this Bill to the very end. Why do they make this type of allegation? I cannot see what they hope to gain by it. Surely they must realize that as time goes on increasingly fewer people take notice of such talk by those hon. members. All they can achieve by it is to blacken the name of South Africa abroad. Apart from that, they disturb the good relations between Whites and non-Whites. Has it never occurred to the Leader of the Opposition that by saying things like that he must cause some degree of incitement amongst the non-Whites, and he must arouse certain expectations on their part in regard to things they can never hope to get? Has he ever considered the fact that the ordinary man in the street, when he comes across this sort of thing, becomes restive and afraid, and then he asks for increasingly stricter legislation in order to protect himself? It is fortunate that they do not succeed in causing these relations to deteriorate, but now they come along with the allegation that this Bill deprives the Bantu of their last rights. I shall come back in a moment to these so-called rights, but I just want to say very clearly that this Bill does not take away the last rights of the Bantu.

This Bill amends the old Acts, and I want to emphasize that we have never recognized that the Bantu has civic rights in the White areas, and no Government, not even the old S.A. Party Government, recognized that the Bantu should have the right to own land in the locations. Therefore I say that we are taking away no rights, but yesterday we had to hear ad nauseum that we are depriving them of their last rights, whereas what we are doing is merely to amend existing Acts so that the regulation of labour and influx control will work more effectively. We had to hear ad nauseum about the rights of these people, but we heard nothing about the White man’s rights. Surely it is obvious that our children and our grandchildren are entitled to have rights and that they can expect us to hand over to them unimpaired that which is their own, their land and their heritage, and not just to give it to others. But I want to pose this question: Can the Bantu, just because he comes here to work and has worked here for 10 or 15 years, claim it as his right to remain here permanently and to obtain property rights?

Tell us why not.

To my mind, I view the matter like this. If I have a neighbour who has a large number of children and his backyard is too small, he cannot possibly expect or demand from me as a right that his children should come and play on my property and even erect a tent there. Good neighbours can always come to an agreement with one another, and I would rather assist my neighbour so to arrange his premises that there would be enough scope for his children, and that is precisely what our policy is in regard to the non-Whites. We are willing to assist them in their homelands and to guide them and to uplift them and to develop their homelands to such an extent that they can live a decent life there, but they should understand clearly—and I think they do—that that gives them no right to demand that which is ours.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition emphasized that this Bill takes away the “rights of permanent residence and home ownership”. I should like to know whether the Leader of the Opposition will ever admit that just because a Bantu has worked on his farm for 10 or 15 years and may even have been born there, he has the right to fence off part of his farm and obtain property rights there? Of course he will say that is ridiculous. To my mind, it is the same principle. If I have lived in a town and have looked after my garden for 15 years, why should I be under an obligation to allow a Bantu to stay there and obtain property rights? The principle is the same, and I cannot see why the man who lives in the town should give up his land, when the Leader of the Opposition will never give up a part of his farm. [Interjections.]

This Bill is also intended to protect the Bantu. If the law perhaps in the past did not do so in every respect as we would have liked it to do, if there were perhaps defects in the law, that is now reason why we should not remedy the position now. It may be that in the past the Whites were more concerned with other matters and did not devote sufficient attention to these weighty problems. It may also be that they did not look far enough into the future, or that they were sometimes lax, but if the law is not sufficient to comply with what we have always regarded to be the correct relations, the time has come for us to amend it. To my mind, there is no doubt that this Bill will be implemented sympathetically, as has always been done in the past.

We had to hear about “long-established rights”, according to the hon. member for Simonstown. The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) told us, almost with tears in his eyes, that the humanity of people is being deeply affected. I want to ask him whether his party did not think of affecting the humanity of people, or about long-established rights, when they as a party voted in this House in favour of beach apartheid. It is a fact that when it suited them they forgot everything about the humanity of man and about long-established rights, and they walked across the floor of this House and voted together with the National Party—which I think was correct—for separate beach and other facilities. The fact is that when their pockets were affected they did so, because then the holiday resorts in Natal found that this intermingling affected their pockets, and the members of the United Party were still not sure of the strength of the emergent Progressive Party, and so it suited them to vote conservatively. Not only did they accept the Bill, but they did so with acclamation. I quote from Hansard, from the speech of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg—

And he concludes by saying—

These are now the people who talk about long-established rights and who say that we must not affect the humanity of man. The hon. member for Boland also agreed. They also participate in this game of saying one thing to-day and doing something different tomorrow. Here I have the Argus of 22 January 1964. A Commission of Inquiry was appointed to investigate separate facilities on the beaches, and the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) gave evidence before it, and this is what I read in the Argus—

I think the time has arrived for us to be more honest with the other racial groups in our country. We should not just talk against apartheid and then be quite willing to apply it in our private lives. The hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) said yesterday by way of an interjection that they are quite prepared for the Bantu in the Bantu townships to be given property rights, but he said that that should not be done in Houghton. If that is not the epitome of discrimination and a violation of human rights, I do not know what is.

I want to emphasize what the Leader of the Opposition said in his speech, namely that the future of South Africa depends on the good relations between the races. I think nobody can quarrel with that. Therefore I want to make an appeal to everybody that we should stop making this type of propagandistic speech and that we should honestly express our intentions, and not raise hopes in the minds of these people which can never be realized. We must be honest with them and make them understand clearly that we are prepared to help them to develop their part of the country, but they cannot have our part of it. The Leader of the Opposition asked when that will happen, and whether the homelands will ever be developed in our lifetime. Whether it takes a short time or a long time will depend on the co-operation we get, but there should be no misunderstanding about it. It is not our fault that the Bantu homelands are under-developed. It is not our fault if of their own free will they preferred to neglect their homelands and to come and work for us. They had just as much time as we had to develop their homelands, but I do not want to make reproaches. There were reasons for it. That I do not doubt. I just want to draw attention to the fact that it is not our fault, but we are nevertheless prepared to assist these people and to put our hands deep into our pockets so that they may be able to live a decent life in their homelands. The Leader of the Opposition said that the laws passed in 1913 were intended to protect the Bantu. That is so, but now we are passing a law to protect the Bantu as well as the White man. When I say we are passing a law to protect the White man it is not so much to protect the White man against the Bantu because if we study these laws we see that almost all of them were made to protect the Whites against the consequences of incitement on the part of White renegades. Almost without exception these laws became necessary to protect the White man against the results of incitement by undesirable Whites. This Bill that we now want to place on the Statute Book is not intended to oppress people. These labour bureaux have been in existence for years already, and they are intended to facilitate the obtaining of employment and to have better control over labour and the inflow of Bantu. It is not only in the interests of the Whites, but also particularly in the interest of the Bantu who already live there. If we allow a large stream of unemployed to enter these areas it will be to the detriment of the Bantu who are already there, with all the political and economic problems which will result from it. It was mentioned yesterday that these aid centres are not intended to be prisons, but really to assist the Bantu when they are in need. The youth centres which are being established are intended to assist the young Bantu to be of use to his own people. The complaint we now hear to the effect that this Bill will paralyse the economy of our country is blatant nonsense. These labour bureaux have been in operation for many years and they have never yet paralysed our economy. On the contrary, our economy has never been stronger than it is at present. Therefore it is blatant nonsense to allege that this Bill will paralyse our economy. It is essential that people overseas should think well of us, but I personally believe that what the non-Whites think of us is much more important. Therefore I want to make a serious appeal that all of us should make sure that we deal with these people frankly and honestly so that they can clearly understand what our object is, and that we should not stir up expectations which we are not prepared to satisfy. If we are honest with these people, we can expect them to respect us, and we will respect them.

I hope the hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) will forgive me if I do not follow his argument. We disagree so profoundly in regard to this Bill that he will see during the course of my speech that we have nothing in common in regard to this matter. I want to come to the hon. the Deputy Minister who introduced this Bill yesterday and answer some of the arguments he advanced. In his second-reading Speech the Deputy Minister denied that the objective of this Bill is to convert the entire African labour force into a migratory labour mass. He will not, however, deny that the whole direction of this legislation is to reassess the existing position of the urban-born African and to reconvert him into a temporary sojourner. He has made several public statements to that effect. I do not believe either that he will deny that his Bill aims at preventing any African not already in the urban area from entering the towns in any capacity other than that of a migrant labourer. The Deputy Minister will gather from this that I recognize that there is a distinction between the terms “temporary sojourner” and “migrant labourer” I also agree with the Minister that this Bill does not initiate a whole new pattern of life for the Bantu. It does not, because 40 years ago the Stallard Commission laid down and set the whole tone of urban African legislation by stating that Africans should be permitted in municipal areas only in so far and for as long as their presence was required by the wants of the White population and should depart therefrom when they cease to administer to the needs of the White man. It was on that basic principle that the original Urban Areas Act of 1923 was passed. Already there are dozens of laws on our Statute Book, dating well back beyond 1948, applying only to Africans, regulating and prescribing their lives literally from the cradle to the grave. Not for them the ordinary lives of ordinary citizens, to move freely around the country of their birth, to seek work, to sell their labour in the best market and to enjoy the simple pleasures of family life without requiring permits from some official. These things I recognize the Africans have never had. They had the legal status of citizens, without the rights of citizens. As is well known, the party I represent is fundamentally opposed to this sort of thing. It is fundamentally opposed to racial discrimination. We are also opposed to the whole idea of Black citizens being denied the right of mobility in the country of their birth, and we believe that this is a fundamental right. To us any form of influx control, even if it excludes certain classes of urban-born Africans or certain classes of exempted Africans, is incompatible with the concept that South Africa is one country and that all its citizens should be free to move around inside it. I believe that if one accepts the principle of influx control and pass laws, to some extent anyway, one is accepting the basic principle that South Africa is divided into Black areas and White areas, and one accepts the basic principle behind Bantustans. Therefore as far as I am concerned a rural-born African should not be entitled to enjoy lesser rights than his urban brother. But this is not the same as saying that persons who are already enjoying certain rights should be deprived of those rights in order to level up the whole situation, and that is precisely what this Bill intends to do. What it tries to do is to put the clock back 40 years, back to the days of the Stallard Commission and to the time when the very first urban legislation was passed, which even then distinguished African citizens from the other citizens born in this country. It intends to remove the special rights that very slowly and very painfully have been acquired by a class of Africans who, despite all the pressures of the law, have slowly established themselves, de facto anyway, as permanently urbanized. As usual, economic laws have proved stronger than political laws. The poverty in the reserves together with the pull factor of the industrial needs of the towns, has drawn into the towns a large number of Africans, and not only on the original basis of migratory labour but also on the basis of stabilized labour, because the needs of industry have changed as well. People no longer require only the services of unskilled Black workers. They require the services of semi-skilled machine-minders, and those people have to be trained. Therefore the development has taken place of a stabilized class of urban dweller, and the so-called traditional pattern referred to by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) of using only migratory labour has in fact broken down, and as the natural result of that, certain specific rights have gradually been evolved in the laws dealing with urban Africans, and those rights are the rights which this Bill proposes to eradicate.

Now, what are those existing rights? The most important one, of course, is the statutory right of certain categories of Africans, even in the existing legislation, to reside in an urban area without fear of endorsement out, those dread words that day in and day out virtually spell economic death for hundreds of thousands of Africans queuing up outside the Bantu Commissioner’s offices in every city and town throughout the length and breadth of South Africa. It is the right of certain Africans to have their lawful wives living with them and also their children in the towns, and to seek work without hindrance in that town. In other words, it embodies elementary privileges which are denied to the less fortunate brethren of these urban Africans who happen to have been born elsewhere or who did not get to towns soon enough. It spelt some sort of immunity, though never complete immunity, from the operation of the pass laws and endorsement out. Now this immunity is being removed by this Bill, and I do not think the hon. the Deputy Minister will deny it.

I denied it yesterday already.

Then the Deputy Minister has not read his Bill, because if he looks at Clause 8 of this Bill and reads it in conjunction with later clauses he will find that every single Bantu in fact falls under the umbrella of me labour officer who might order him out of any prescribed area. It specifically states—and I refer the Minister to his own Bill—in Clause 8 (8) that every African, including those who fall under the old sub-section (1) of Section 10 of the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, shall in fact be included in the categories that can be handled by his labour officers, and the only protection these people now have is that the permission is required of the Chief Bantu Commissioner of the area. He is not even given the exemption, as was mentioned by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, given in last year’s Bill, that he shall be the last to be removed. This applies to everybody, including that specific category of urban African who has managed to get himself in an exempted category as far as the danger of endorsement out is concerned. Clause 8 and 9 make it absolutely clear that all Africans, and not just Africans illegally in urban areas or idle or undesirable Africans, are in fact affected. I presume, Sir, that thus too was what the hon. member for Heilbron meant when he said that the Bill attempted to return to the traditional pattern of treating all Africans in the urban areas as temporary sojourners. Sir, I believe that the underlying concept of the Stallard Commission was in fact morally indefensible in 1921. It was, however, at least in keeping to some extent with existing economic practice, because in 1921 there was only about 500,000 Africans in the urban areas, and the vast majority of those people were in fact migratory labourers. But the provisions of this Bill are not only morally indefensible, they are quite out of keeping with the economic realities of the situation to-day. There are over 3,000,000 Africans in the urban areas, i.e. one-third of the African population as against less than 12 per cent of the African population that was in the towns in 1921. To-day a third of the total African population is already in the towns, of whom a vast number are town-dwellers in the accepted sense of that term, that is to say, they consider themselves as per manently urbanized. In Johannesburg alone there is housed in Soweto, which is the show-place for tourists who come from overseas, over 500,000 Africans. Tourists are always conducted around Soweto to show overseas people how the Africans in the towns are housed. Hundreds of thousands of these Africans are permanently living there; hundreds of thousands of children have been born there. Sir, I want to know by what conceivable stretch of the most macabre imagination can a measure now be contemplated which gives officials the power to eject any single individual living in that town. Will the officials who conduct tours around Soweto tell them that in fact every single solitary house-owner in that area lives under the soul-destroying insecurity of endorsement out as instituted by this new Bill?

That is a false statement.

It is not a false statement. The hon. member must restrain his exuberant spirit. If he reads the Bill he will see that powers are given to the labour officer under Clause 8 which will enable him to endorse out any single individual whom he deems it in the public interest so to do.

In the public interest.

How do I know what any Bantu commissioner or labour officer is going to decide? He may very well decide, if fie is carrying out Government policy, that it is in the public interest to get rid of every family man in the urban area …

That is stupid.

… because the whole of the Government policy is in fact devoted to replacing family labour with migratory labour. This was stated by the hon. the Minister himself. It has been stated over and over again by the hon. the Prime Minister. It was stated when the Bill to remove freehold rights was introduced in this House some years ago. It was stated in the Bantu Self-Development Bill. Every single one of these measure has emphasized over and over again that it is not the intention of this Government to encourage family labour in the urban areas, and therefore in the public interest, in the eyes of the Government, it is obviously desirable to get as many people out of the urban areas who are there on a family basis and who are not there as single workers, or as married workers who come in as migrants and leave their families behind them in the reserves. Sir, when I think of all these hundreds of thousands of people housed at last in fairly decent houses at Soweto, with their gardens planted and with their houses painted and well looked after, and I realize the shattering effect that the insecurity which this Bill brings can have on those people, I wonder if White South Africa is truly not just mad.

How many of these provisions were in the old Bill?

One of the reasons why the attempts to organize massive resistance to the White man’s laws have failed in the past is simply because of the existence of this rooted class of people. They had something to lose and therefore they did not wish to lose this something. That is why they did not participate in these attempts to organize massive resistance to the White man’s laws. Now, Sir, this small bulwark has gone. Even those people who have purchased their houses or rather the leases on their houses, since they cannot really purchase the house itself“they can purchase the lease for 30 years, which is the maximum”can be endorsed out. Of course, what could have happened to them after the 30 years have elapsed, nobody has ever gone into in any detail; perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister would like to tell us what was going to happen to them; we know now what can happen to them, but even then 30 years was the maximum which they could have. Now all of them, even those who have managed to purchase 30-year leases on their houses, are exposed to the possibility of ejection by the Bantu commissioners. Sir, I want to say that some of these Bantu commissioners are quite ruthless in the exercise of their powers. That is only to be expected. Laws like these have the effect of dehumanizing the officials who have to administer them, because if they had any compassion whatsoever they could not in fact administer such laws when they know that every time they put the stamp “endorsed out” in the registration book of an African, this in fact denies him the right to support his family and to live with his family. Sir, last year a great deal was said in this House about the Snyman Commission. One of the most far reaching measures ever to be put on the Statute Book was in fact passed by this House in order, it was said, to carry out the recommendations of the Snyman Commission. The dire warnings which also appeared in the commission’s report have been completely ignored. The commission pointed out that the areas of unrest, where bodies such as Poqo have the greatest power, were areas like Paarl and Langa.

Snyman denied it in the report.

He might have denied it later verbally but it is there for anybody to see.

He said it was in the hostels.

Do you agree with her?

Sir, let me put it more clearly. In the Snyman Report there was the actual statement that the worst areas of unrest were Paarl and Langa. It so happens that Paarl and Langa were the two areas where the endorsement out procedure was in fact most ruthlessly being carried out in accordance, of course, with Government policy to de-Bantuize“or whatever expression one can use”the Western Province. The conclusion is obvious. If the unrest is greatest in those areas where those laws are being most strenuously applied, then surely the warning is implicit that this is not a direction of policy which should be extended to the other areas? I say that this is being done deliberately by this particular law. The very difficulties placed in the way of married men living with their families and their wives are being extended now to every single urban area in the country, and by so doing the Government is actually creating conditions of civil unrest, wittingly or unwittingly.

Sir, I do not intend to go into many of the clauses of this Bill which, as you know, has 101 clauses. I must say at once that the sight of relief that came from certain quarters when the original Sapa Report was published and when the White Paper was published, were certainly short-lived. Once one studied this Bill in any detail and got beyond what I can only call the deceptive verbiage of the White Paper, it was quite clear that in essence anyway this Bill is just as bad as its predecessor last year.

Worse.

Yes, in some respects it is worse. Because in fact what last year“s Bill enabled the hon. the Minister to do on a grand scale can now, of course, be done piecemeal by an official. That is one difference; so really all the vast powers to direct labour, although the idea of labour quotas has disappeared from this Bill, are still being retained in this version of the Bill, albeit piecemeal. Clause 8 again makes that clear and also makes it clear that all Africans, not only those illegally in the area, not only those who are idle or undesirable Africans, are in fact included under this tremendous umbrella of power which is being taken by the Minister’s Department.

Now, Sir, let us get to these famous “aid centres” which the hon. member for Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) spoke about so euphemistically. The fact that an aid centre has this name will, I can assure the Minister, be no comfort to an African who finds himself there as a result of his contract of service having been cancelled or because he has been refused permission to take up work or to be in employment in a prescribed area. Exactly the same vast powers of disposing of him will still vest in an official, and whether the official be called a director of labour or, as the White Paper referred to him, a “Prisoner”s Friend’, will not afford the African much comfort either. Indeed, Sir, it struck me that there was something Freudian about the use of the term “Prisoner’s Friend” in the White Paper because the aid centre virtually does take the place of the ordinary Bantu Commissioner’s court, and not only persons arrested for some alleged contravention of one of the incredibly complicated laws applying to Africans will find themselves there, but also anybody who is sent there by a labour bureau officer. Anybody whose contract of service has been summarily cancelled can be sent to an aid centre to be looked after by the “Prisoner”s Friend’. I say categorically that what this Bill is doing, inter alia, is to legalize the disgusting system of forced labour, and I use that adjective quite deliberately.

What do you mean by “forced labour”?

I will tell the hon. member what I mean. We have had experience of this before. It is an attempt to reinstitute the in-lieu-of-prosecution system of labour which came under such unfavourable scrutiny in this House not such a long time ago, when it was found that through an ultra vires circular issued by the Deputy Minister’s predecessor, something which this Deputy Minister is now legalizing in this Bill, the courts of law were circumvented in fact. An African arrested under the pass laws was sent to work on farms before actually having been convicted of any offence in a court of law. That is exactly what the aid centre can do now, because an African does not have to be convicted of any crime to be sent there; he simply has to have his labour contract cancelled; he simply has to be sent there by a labour officer, as well as those persons who are arrested for contravening one of the millions of laws dealing with urban Africans. Then, before he is convicted of any crime he can be sent to work in any area that the benevolent aid centre official decides he should be sent to. I say again that these provisions cover every single African who happens to find himself in an urban area—Africans who are born in the area as well as Africans who are illegally in the area as well as Africans who are idle or undesirable or Africans who are declared to be surplus Africans, as if they were surplus goods—chattels to be handed round at the will of the White man.

[Inaudible]

Sir, the only thing that the hon. member for Cradock knows about is surplus sheep and I wish he would keep out of this debate. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition mentioned that what at first sight appeared to be a concession to African women, and that is that the provision relating to restriction on their entry into towns did not appear in this Bill although it appeared in last year’s Bill, is in fact no concession at all. Of course, that is perfectly true. What has disappeared from the swing appears, of course, on the roundabout, the roundabout of regulations. Any regulations can be made to preclude African women from coming to the towns and, what is more important, African women have now lost a statutory right under this Bill. By the repeal of Section 23 of the Act, African women have now lost the statutory right which they have under (d) (ii) of that section of the original Act. They have lost the right to enter urban areas to visit their menfolk, be they their husbands or their fathers, for a short period, providing accommodation was available and providing the menfolk had been in the town for a period of two years. Sir, I do not know why the hon. the Deputy Minister sneers at that. He evidently does not know that this is a dearly-held right of African women. Heaven knows it is difficult enough for them to be with their families, but here we find that a statutory right to visit them is actually being removed by the repeal of Section 23 under this Bill. I shall not go into the details of the terribly wide definition of the words “idle” and “desirable”. I just want to say that undoubtedly the new definition of “undesirable” is aimed at any African who takes part in any political movement whatsoever. And as for the word “idle” I wonder what White men in this country would say if they were declared “idle” because on three consecutive occasions they have refused or failed without lawful cause to accept suitable employment offered to them by a labour bureau, and as a result of being declared idle could then be sent back to any place to which the labour bureau official decrees they should be sent, including the little platteland dorp to which the Deputy Minister referred so nostalgically yesterday in his second reading speech. I wonder what White men would say if they too, because they lost their job because they were declared to be idle, because they refused the sort of employment offered to them by a labour bureau, were sent back to the towns that they had left in the hungry ’twenties to come and seek better opportunities in the larger cities.

Sir, one can only say that in the last analysis therefore, because these laws apply only to Black men, laws which nobody would dare to impose on White men in this country, the only conclusion that one can reach is that the Government does not consider the Black man as a human being. It does not regard him as a person with the normal aspirations of a human being and the normal aspiration to have a secure family life. On the one hand we read all these pious expressions about family life; the newspapers are full of them. The Secretary for Information told us about the family being the most fundamental unit of human society; the Minister of Social Welfare said that there was an urgent need for the reconstruction of family life in South Africa; the Minister of Education pleaded for a return to basic values and for the preservation on the family as the basic unit of the nation, and yet on the other hand here we have the Government introducing a measure which immeasurably adds to the difficulties of the Africans to set up normal family life. Sir, as I have said before, this Bill to me is the very essence of baasskap. It ignores all the fundamental concepts of human dignity. It strips the African of every basic pretension that he has to being a human being, to being a free human being in the country of his birth, and it reduces him to the level of a chattel, to the level of servants, as the hon. the Deputy Minister referred to them. Already as I mentioned originally the African is harassed beyond endurance. Already by existing legislation, laws which have been put on the Statute Book with monotonous regularity as far back as 1923 and which have been continued by successive Governments and accentuated over the last 15 years, the African is harassed almost beyond endurance—by pass laws, by influx control, by labour regulations, by restrictions on mobility, restrictions on employment, all designed to maintain a cheap supply of labour.

Why do they come from other territories? Why cannot we keep them out here?

Sir, I wish the hon. member for Ventersdorp would keep quiet. He rumbles on like a broken-down tram. I say that these laws are all designed to maintain a cheap supply of labour for the White employers of this country, for the mines, the farms and secondary industry. [Time limit.]

I am not going to scold the hon. member who has just sat down too severely. She says so little that it is really not worth while scolding her for it. Sir, it will take the hon. member one minute to explain to this House everything she wants but instead of that it has taken her months and years and another half an hour to-day. What she wants is total equality in all spheres in South Africa. She wants the Bantu to be able to live where he likes except in her own home in Houghton. The hon. member has explained to us what was actually happening to the Bantu in this country but surely there is no proof of what the hon. member has said here. Does the hon. member not appreciate the services which this Government is rendering to the Bantu? Is she blind to what is being done for the Bantu in this country? Is her heart so pitch black that she cannot see the “White” and the good deeds that are being done? Sir, one sometimes feels sorry for the hon. member for not being able to see that which is good. Nobody on earth is so bad that there is no good in him.

[Inaudible.]

That hon. member should not interject: I have told here already that her eyes do not look like those of a woman. When the hon. member for Houghton looks to our side she only sees red. When she gets up in this House she reminds me of a cricket in a thorn tree when it is very dry in the bushveld. His chirping makes you deaf but the tune remains the same year in and year out. In her fight for the Bantu the hon. member also sings the same tune year after year. One must admire her for the fight she is putting up because she is absolutely alone. There used to be 11 of them but their numbers have dwindled precisely because of the fight the hon. member is putting up. I admire her for her honesty but it is unnecessary to waste so much time on it. She need only say to us: “Give us total equality and you will not hear me again in this House.” I should like to give the hon. member a little advice. Look, if South Africa is so bad that she really cannot live here together with us on this side—English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking; unfortunately, just for luck, we have no Jews on this side—there are other countries and places that will heartily welcome her.

Ghana.

There are other countries in which she will be happy and where they will carry her sky-high and make a little goddess of her but we definitely refuse to do so here. We say we have just as much right to be in this country as the Bantu can dream of having. We shall not allow the hon. member to give South Africa to the Bantu only to go to Palestine afterwards where they too have chased the Arabs away. There too the Whites cannot get along with Blacks. What the hon. member wants is something absolutely impossible. She wants to merge certain races and you cannot possibly merge those races. Surely that has already been proved in Africa. There you have proof positive that you cannot even merge the Bantu races. In North Africa they are destroying one another although they are all Black. Cannot the hon. member see that? Cannot she understand that you cannot put two racial groups together and expect them to live peacefully together. That applies all the more in South Africa where we have so many various racial groups. That is why we on this side of the House say we want to give the Bantu his lawful share. We are very honest when we say that. We have no ulterior motives. We have no intention of deceiving them but we do not want to deceive ourselves either. The hon. member wants to chase us into a corner; she wants to deprive us of what is ours whereas we do not want to deprive the Bantu of what belongs to him. We give him his lawful share and it is not our fault that he is backward. It is not our fault that they have come to look for work with us. They did not develop their lands, instead of that they came and worked for the White man but because they are not as clever as the White man, or because they have not experienced the development which the White man has experienced, we are prepared to help them in every respect, but we are not prepared to accept him in our homes, to give him our homes and to go and live under the tree where he has prepared a sleeping place for himself. I trust the hon. member realizes that we in this House have declared war on the idea underlying the policy of the Progressive Party. I think the voters of South Africa have also declared war on that idea. There is a small number who will follow the hon. member; there is a small number who do not want South Africa; there is a small number who is prepared to give the White part of South Africa to the Bantu as well. There is a small number like that and let us congratulate her on that small number but they will remain so few that they will never become a danger to South Africa.

I want to return to the attitude of the Opposition towards this Bill. It is only in respect of a few points that the Opposition differ from us. It will not take you long to sum up those differences, Sir, but the effect is so enormous that you will not be able to describe it even in a book the size of the largest Hansard. What is actually the standpoint of the United Party? In what respects do they differ from us? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition put it very clearly and I am thankful to him for having done so, because it gives the voting public outside an insight into the soul of the Opposition and that is what we need. What we have been unable to make overseas countries realize because they refuse to believe us, was put so clearly by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition yesterday that there can be no doubt about it. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition explained his federation plan by saying that the Bantu homelands must remain Bantu homelands and there I agree with him. The Bantu homelands must remain Bantu homelands but then he goes on to say that there should be no influx control; the Bantu should be free to stream into South Africa to their heart’s content.

That is untrue. You did not listen.

The hon. member should listen when he himself talks and leave me alone when I am talking. According to the United Party the Bantu should be allowed to come and live here, what is more, he should be allowed to bring his wife with him; he should be allowed to dump his entire family here but in addition he should also enjoy property rights here. He can be idle here and cause as much trouble as he wishes but there is nothing wrong with that in the eyes of the Opposition.

May I ask a question?

The hon. member is only trying to distract my attention. He can make his own speech and then he can put his own questions. I did not ask him any questions. Mr. Speaker, the Opposition want the Bantu to live here, they must have property rights here and they should be allowed to bring their families here. In other words, the Bantu must overrun South Africa at the cost of the White man because the Bantu will not provide his own housing here; he does not even build in his own area unless we assist him. They will be living under sacks all over South Africa, as they did outside Johannesburg, and the Bantu will become such a nuisance that no living soul will tolerate him. They will sit in squatters camps which will be the breeding ground for all sorts of crimes. We say we want to keep the decent Bantu here. The hon. the Minister stated that very clearly. The Minister said that if a Bantu had worked here and he went back and he wanted to return, he would be allowed to return. And if his former job has been filled the bureau will assist him to get other employment. Is that the thing which the hon. member for Houghton despises and belittles so much? She says all we are doing is to deprive the Bantu of rights; we are giving him absolutely nothing. The hon. member for Houghton can pucker her eyes; I have seen many a little woman do that.

The Leader of the Opposition said that we should allow the Bantu to own property in the White parts of South Africa. But at the same time we are not allowed to own property in the Bantu areas. As has already been said by an hon. member there are areas where the White man cannot acquire any land; they already belong to the Bantu. But hon. members of the Opposition are quite satisfied to give that remaining small piece of land which belongs to the White man to the Bantu as well. When we tell them that with that policy of theirs they want to make the entire South Africa black they nearly throw a fit; they say it is an unjust accusation. I want to ask them this question: What can you expect if the Bantu were allowed to make his home here, if he were allowed to buy land here and to bring his family here. What will remain of White South Africa in that case? According to United Party policy the Bantu will then have representatives in this House and in the Senate; in addition he will have the right to own property in our cities and towns; then he gets the vote and he demands more and more political rights, as is being demanded in the whole of Africa. Then we shall not only have to struggle to keep them apart but to keep us and them apart. We shall be living in suspense from morning till night. That has been proved in North Africa where all the Watutsis have practically been murdered. Did we hear one word from the United Party about that? No, Mr. Speaker. The Watutsi tribe is one of the finest and most intelligent tribes in Africa but they have been nearly exterminated by their own people. According to this morning’s newspaper the Christians are fleeing from India in their hundred thousands because of their religion, not because of the colour of their skin as is the case here, but simply because of their religion, but not a word from the Opposition about that. Sir, you cannot merge those two sections. The whole of UNO has already been called upon to bring peace to Cyprus and those are recognized nations who have been living together for centuries but to-day they want to murder each other. The United Party wants us to put White and Black together. What will remain of us in that case? What will remain of the White race if the United Party policy is applied? What will happen to the White man if there is no influx control, if they are free to work where they want to?

Whose policy is that?

I hope hon. members will remain quiet. Any minute from now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to say something improper. What will happen to this country if we allowed all those things which the Opposition want us to allow? The Leader of the Opposition said “to-day six months”; in other words, the Bill must not go on the Statute Book.

Hear, hear!

There you have it, Mr. Speaker; there you have the Boer haters. The Bill must not go on the Statute Book: in other words, we must do away with the colour bar …

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) is the biggest Boer hater of them all. Do away with the colour bar, according to United Party policy, make us all equal. In that case the hon. member for Houghton will be satisfied. Let us all be equal, Mr. Speaker, and then, I tell you, it will only be a few days before they destroy each other and destroy us as well.

If we have not yet convinced the United Party of our sincerity by the way in which we have treated the Bantu, then we shall never do so. In that case there is nothing left for us in this House but to fight every day of our lives. There are only a few of them there but I am sure there will be even fewer of them after the next election. Because the English-speaking section is becoming as conscious of Black infiltration in South Africa as the Afrikaans-speaking section is. The same thing will happen to those few who are still sitting there as happens to the person who is no longer wanted. They will be pushed aside. The people of this country are not stupid. We take note of what is happening in North Africa. We take note of what is happening in other countries. Only one thing remains for us, Sir, and that is that every nation, every race, as it has been created, must develop on its own; each one must go its own way and develop on its own as far as possible. That is the only way in which we shall achieve success in South Africa; that is also the only way in which the world will achieve success. The world will soon realize that what the United Party wants to do can simply not be done. When I said they wanted to do away with the entire Bill, Sir, they shouted “hear, hear” on the other side. What do you want then? Must we abolish influx control? Must we do away with all the other laws? Mr. Speaker, I think I have been sitting here for something over five years and I doubt whether I have heard ten words from the other side in favour of the White man. Every speech we get from the Opposition side is in defence of the Bantu as if we want to destroy the Bantu. Look at the Budget, look at the Budget of the Minister of Housing, look at the figures, fly over Johannesburg and you will see what this Government is doing for the Bantu. Be honest and speak again then. Mr. Speaker, we are absolutely honest …

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

Mr. Sneaker, I am dealing with the Bill. I am explaining to the Opposition that if they do away with the Bill by way of their motions what I have just said will happen. The only thing one can say, Sir, is simply this: If the Bantu legislation were removed from the Statute Book to-day, and you allowed equality, which is what the Opposition expects from us, there will be nothing but chaos in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what the previous speaker has just said and I want to deny categorically the claims he has made as being honest. Mr. Sneaker, you heard what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had to say on the question of this Bill. You must have followed it very closely. I want the hon. member to understand perfectly clearly that at no time did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say that he wanted unrestricted influx of Natives from the Transkei or from any other Native territory. He has never said so. On the contrary, Sir, he has declared from platform to platform that he would have a measure of influx control in keeping with the labour requirements. Hon. members opposite know exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has said. I want the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. Bootha) to understand that he told an untruth this afternoon when he said that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had said that. I say it was an untruth.

I was interested to hear the excuse from the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) that his province has had a great inflow of Natives. He used that as part of the excuse for the introduction of this Legislation. [Interjections.] The hon. member must keep quiet; I have the floor now. Surely the hon. member knows of the industrial development that has taken place in the Free State—his adopted province. There has been commercial development to say nothing about the enormous agricultural development, all of which have required additional labour, be it White or Black. Of course, he is not prepared to concede that.

I want to deal briefly with the affects of this legislation on agriculture. To me that is very important. The hon. the Minister knows full well that the farm labour is the most contented labour to be found in this country. It is content by virtue of the fact that it is able to enjoy family life plus the fact that they get additional food for their families. The hon. the Minister is now taking powers under this Bill which hold out the prospect of the breaking up of family labour. Because he can proclaim rural areas as prescribed areas and thus he can remove the whole of a husband’s family, wife and children, and leave the so-called prescribed area as a complete male area. The Minister knows full well that because of the continuity of the labour on farms there is greater efficiency and greater contentment amongst that labour. The fact that their labour is content has a great bearing on the efficiency of the farmers in South Africa.

I want to come to another subject that is extremely important to us in the eastern areas. I have just been advised by letter that the Government intends to send another 8,000 individuals from some of the places from which they are going to be “hounded out”, and I am calling it, because that is what it will amount to, to the location near Whittlesea. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether that is correct. Where does the hon. the Minister propose to accommodate all these other Natives who are to be displaced? They have to be accommodated somewhere. There are 60 women and 65 men with their families. Where must the surplus and redundant Natives, as they are referred to, with their families go to? Does the Minister realize that up to the present thousands of those must have come into areas in the Eastern Province where they have never belonged? Mr. Speaker, border industries will not absorb those people who are being ejected from this part of the country. Are they to be dumped in these released areas or the areas to be released in the far Eastern Cape? I want to assure the hon. the Minister that Kaizer Matanzima will not have them in the Transkei; they are of no use to him; they are going to be a burden to him. He has nothing to offer them; he cannot accommodate them. There is nothing in the far Eastern Cape to absorb the Natives who it is contemplated to eject from this part of the country.

Then I want to come to this question of released areas which is provided for in Clause 37. We are asked in this Bill to release four new areas. It is interesting to see the reasons for the release of some of them. If I may just mention one: Mnxesha is being released because it is surrounded and who is responsible for that? This Government, Sir, because it bought the Bryce-Ross farms and it also bought Miss Irskine’s farm thus making Mnxesha an isolated White spot within a Black area. Those are the circumstances. None of those farms were released areas or scheduled areas; they were areas adjacent to a scheduled area. By virtue of the fact that any Government can carry on with this creeping paralysis, they did so and they bought those properties.

What is your point?

I am coming to it. While on that particular subject, Sir, may I just remind the hon. the Minister that he gave an undertaking that he would give the greatest attention to the watersheds in that part of the country and Mnxesha happens to be one of the highlands in the watershed of one of the biggest rivers there that will be utilized to a very great extent for irrigation in that area in the not too far distant future. We have repeatedly asked the hon. the Minister whether, if he is to schedule these areas, he would schedule them and get the job over as soon as possible and not leave the farmers in suspense for a period of years, let alone the small farms that are to be scheduled in this Bill and which were scheduled in the 1962 Act. Prior to the introduction of that 1962 Bill I asked the Minister whether the farmers in the Potsdam, Edgerton and Umdanzani districts had been consulted, whether they had offered their farms and what the circumstances were generally. His reply was: “Oh, yes.” I think it is interesting, Sir, so interesting that I shall read what he said in Hansard (Vol. 2, Col. 2107)—

On returning to that area I found that many of those people had never even been consulted; they did not even know that they had been scheduled and to be proclaimed as a released area. After all our pleas and the undertakings by the Department at personal interviews, and the persistent protests we have made across the floor of this House against this delay, I have received a letter dated 7 February reading as follows—

This is the petition; it is a petition signed by no less than 28 of the owners and occupiers of land in Potsdam, excluding Edgerton …

But Potsdam is not under consideration now and you know it.

It refers to the scheduled areas which the hon. the Minister proposes to sell I want to warn this House and the country what may happen to those unfortunate farmers who are going to be displaced under these new schedules. The rest of them are sitting there and not a single farm has been bought in the area of Potsdam after two years. What was the area that is now a location next to Cyril Lord’s, Sir? It was a piece of Crown land; it was used as an out-span, plus a few adjoining farms that were purchased.

You are badly informed.

I shall be better informed after this speech if somebody would tell me something about it. The hon. member cannot deny that not a single farm of those 32 has been bought. Will he deny it? Of course, he cannot deny it. There was an interjection from that side of the House yesterday afternoon that we on this side of the House fought for all sections of the population but that we did not think about the “blanke bevolking”. I am thinking of the White man, Sir. How many hon. members opposite have any sympathy with those White men who are to be uprooted and who have to walk out and fend for themselves in comparison with the Native who has a job found for him and a place set aside for him? Do my hon. friends opposite realize that once that land is released it is taken completely out of the open market? Those owners cannot sell other than to a Native. Only the Trust can buy those farms. That is correct; the hon. Minister nods his head. Does he realize what prejudice is caused to those unfortunate Europeans? The Minister’s Department will not touch the 2,000-acre farm of a Native unless they can find another 2,000 acres for him, equal in all respects to his original farm, where he can be set up. Is the Government doing anything for these displaced individuals who are to be found in those areas? We do want to know how far this creeping paralysis is going to spread We are sick to death of it. Is the Government going to continue to release areas and leave these people in suspense? They claim that they cannot provide for their poor unfortunate families; they cannot develop; they can do nothing but sit there at the pleasure of the Government and wait for any length of time. It is two years since those farms were released. What does the hon. Minister propose to do about it? Can he give me any idea? Is there any cause for this delay? Have they done anything wrong? I understand that the Potsdam area was released in exchange for scheduled area No. 34. So surely something can be done about it. Surely these unfortunate individuals can be accommodated on that land in respect of which an exchange has been arranged. But nothing is being done.

Mr. Speaker, you will not allow me to take this matter much further but I admit the Government is in difficulty. Thousands of Natives are infiltrating into European areas. Is it Government policy that when they have infiltrated to come along to this House and say: “Oh, they are full of Natives; we shall now release those areas”? That is what is going on, Sir.

They have surrendered.

It would seem so. Not a word from the hon. the Minister. Has he given any consideration to where those unfortunate individuals have to be absorbed, absorbed under conditions very dissimilar to those under which they have lived all their lives? No, they can walk out with a kick in the pants I want to remind that side of the House that this side of the House is as conscious of the White man’s interests in this country as we are of anybody else’s. If you want to look anywhere for the protection of the White man’s interests in South Africa, Sir, you can look to this side of the House.

I am very glad to hear that.

It was time you heard it long ago. I hope you understand it. Will hon. members opposite spare one charitable thought for those people who are to be involved in what the Minister now proposes and those people who were involved when that legislation was passed through this House two years ago. There those unfortunate individuals sit—for what?

My Leader referred to one other point which I, with my more intimate knowledge of the Native than I think most hon. members on that side of the House, think it is my duty to follow up. Are my hon. friends conscious of the temper of the Native throughout South Africa? Had they been sufficiently observant, Sir, they would have realized that the Native was arrogant to-day. He is contemptuous towards the White man as opposed to the respect he had for the White man not so many years ago. [Interjections.] I am sure of my facts; I am more sure of them than almost anybody on that side of the House. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that I make it my duty to study this subject by getting out among them and knowing them. I know what their demeanour is towards the White man to-day in comparison to what it was years ago. We as Europeans in this country, Sir, have a duty towards ourselves in view of the arrogant and contemptuous behaviour of the Native in this country towards the White man; his failure to co-operate; his loss of respect for the White man. Those things exist, Sir, it is an undeniable fact. What contribution are we making towards remedying this position? We do not remedy the position by turning round and saying: Oh, that is just Communism. If it is Communism, Sir, then it has infiltrated right into the minds of those Natives. I am not surprised that some of the Native leaders who are the greatest advisers to that side of the House were indoctrinated communists. We have a duty to each other. As has been said, let us try to be honest with each other. If we are to be honest with each other, in the interest of all parties concerned, this state of affairs has got to be remedied and we have to investigate it with a view to finding a remedy. The sooner we can come together to discuss that problem and its solution the better will it be for South Africa and all parties concerned.

Sir, I hope the hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not react to his speech. I am sure that this Bill will be welcomed by many thousands of people in Pietermaritzburg and district, both European and non-European. The only pity is that planning such as this did not take place more than 25 years ago. I am particularly interested in the Bantu areas, some 6,000 odd morgen, which are to be bought in the Edendale/Swartkops location. This will include Wilgerfontein and Politque. Sir, Wilgerfontein, or Willow Fountain, was a very delightful place to live in some years ago. It was in fact one of the early British settlements. But today, because of bad planning, or lack of it, we find that the small farmer there has been completely ruined Those who were fortunate enough to sell out did so and got out in good time. But those who did not sell have been ruined. I know of cases where farmers have had to give up their farming operations because they have had their cattle mutilated, their pigs stolen and fowls stolen, their fences torn up and their farms ruined. I know of a woman who has carried on a gallant struggle right up to last year when her husband was so ill that he had to leave. Those are the people who will welcome this Bill with open arms.

I think the mayor and City Council of Pietermaritzburg has taken a very longsighted view. They have acted with alacrity. They have developed the Imbali Township which can serve as a model to this country. To this the Government will add 6,000 morgen which will put Pietermaritzburg on the map. Pietermaritzburg has a tremendous future ahead of it because of this. They will have abundant labour, full facilities for factories and Pietermaritzburg really has planning at its best. Pietermaritzburg has in fact a “builtin” future. As I have said before there are many thousands of Whites and non-Whites who will welcome this Bill. I am sure that hon. members of the Opposition will do well to pay a visit to Pietermaritzburg. The old capital city of Natal will show the way. We hear very much these days about business consortiums, and I am sure the Opposition will start almost at any moment with a United Party-Progressive Party funeral consortium. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that they have come to bury South Africa and not to save it. In fact I think South Africa should steer clear of the woe and doom of the Opposition and look on the bright side of this happy land.

The House will forgive me if I do not follow up the speech the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) has just made, because apart from its extreme brevity, it did not I feel contribute to the discussion of the Bill at present before the House.

Before I deal with the speech of the hon. Deputy Minister, I should like to say a few words about the contribution made by the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman). The interesting thing of his contribution was that it was directly in conflict with the contribution made by the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. Bootha). Because the hon. member for Rustenburg said that the United Party stands for the uncontrolled influx of the Bantu in the White areas and their establishment with full rights in those areas, whereas the hon. member for Heilbron earlier on was at great pains, Sir, to say that the first people who took away all rights of the Bantu in the White areas was the United Party in 1945.

How confused can you be!

These confusions arise because of the difficulty which the Government finds itself in in trying to justify the provisions of this Bill.

The hon. Minister was at pains to attack a certain organ of the Press which he said had perpetrated the journalistic lie of the year, and the hon. Deputy Minister said that the impression was created that the so-called last remaining rights of all Bantu were to be taken away. He said that that was an absolute untruth and the hon. Minister continued that the Bill does not affect the so-called rights of all Bantu; only Bantu who are illegally in White areas and who are workshy or idle or undesirable can be affected by the proposed legislation. Mr. Speaker, for a few minutes I shall show by reference to chapter and verse that in saying that the hon. the Deputy Minister made a statement which was false and misleading. I say that designedly because that is precisely what his speech was. The hon. Deputy Minister knows and so does the hon. member for Heilbron, that under the existing law certain protections are established under Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act in respect of those urban Bantu …

On a point of order, the hon. member used the words “false and misleading”. Is he allowed to use the expression “false”?

The hon. member used the word “misleading”.

I proceed to refer to the specific clauses in this Bill which justify my saying that the hon. Deputy Minister’s speech was both false and misleading.

On a point of order, I do not want to question the bad manners of the hon. member, but I want to ask whether it is in order for the hon. member to talk of “false” and “misleading” statements?

The hon. member said that a statement made by the hon. Deputy Minister was false and misleading and that he was going to prove it.

On a point of order, the hon. member repeated twice that the speech of the hon. Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration was false and misleading and that he was going to prove his statement. Is the hon. member in order in saying that?

The hon. member did not say that the hon. Deputy Minister deliberately made a false and misleading statement. The hon. member may proceed.

As was pointed out earlier in this debate, Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act provides three categories of protected persons: Those who are born in an urban area, those who have worked for one employer for 10 years, and those who have been in that area lawfully for 15 years. These categories, provided the persons who fell within them committed no offence or crime of any kind, are protected under the existing law, and in three respects which one can point to at merely a cursory glance of this Bill, in three respects those rights are removed, without those persons being either idle, or work-sky, or having committed any crime. In order to illustrate this, because hon. members opposite will not accept it when it is said, one has to refer specifically to the clauses of the Bill which contain these provisions, and which justify my complaint and accusation against the hon. Deputy Minister. Under Clause 8, Section 21 ter (b) (vi) they can have their employment cancelled (anyone of the persons falling in these categories) “in the public interest”, and despite their having committed no offence, despite their not being idle or work-shy. They can have their contract cancelled, and consequently those people are referred to an aid centre.

Where do you get this?

Look at the specific provision I refer the House to. The hon. member will find it there.

If it is in the public interest. Those are the key-words.

Of course those are the key-words: In the public interest so far as an official is concerned is the implementation of Government policy, and the implementation of Government policy implies the removal of these people because the Government wishes them to be removed.

Mr. Speaker, having had the contract cancelled and having been referred to an aid centre the person concerned can be shipped out, and he can be shipped out under Section 21 ter (7) or under Section 28ter (4) (b). The protection of Section 10 is specifically excluded in respect of these categories in terms of Section 21 ter (8). There is the first example where one of the persons in the protected categories, who is neither illegally there, nor work-shy, nor idle or undesirable, can be shipped out. That is the first substantiation of the charge that I make against the hon. Deputy Minister.

When he is undesirable.

It is true that such an order must be confirmed by the Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner for the area concerned, but as I have said he has to carry out the orders of his Minister, and this section will be invoked in order to implement the policy of the Minister. There is no protection there at all.

If your contention is right, you could have done it under the word “undesirable”.

The second example of what I have in mind would be to refuse permission for a change of job in respect of one of these protected persons under Clause 48. You merely require the labour bureau to refuse permission to work in respect of one of these law-abiding persons who are not idle and who wish to work. You can refuse them permission to work, or to change a job, and they go straight to the aid centre, and from the aid centre they are on the slippery slope of being shot out of an urban area. A second example of a man who does not fall within any of the categories of the hon. Minister, a perfectly legitimate dweller in an urban area, law-abiding, who wishes to work, can be removed at will. But there is a third example and that is to offer a person who falls within a protected category under Section 10 a job on three occasions in terms of Clause 61 (2) (a) (ii), and if he refuses because the job happens to be miles away from where he is living with his family, or because it happens to be a job for which he is unsuited, and he turns it down, because he is in a better job himself, then he too is on his way to an aid centre and can be shunted out. In respect of the last example which I have given, again the protection of Section 10 is specifically excluded in terms of Clause 61 (8) and (9), and this is a third category of persons who are neither illegally there, who have committed no crime, who are not work-shy and who are not idle or undesirable persons. It is for those reasons that I lay the charge against the hon. Deputy Minister to which some of the hon. members opposite take exception. I would gladly have any hon. member sitting on the other side of the House show me by reference to the clauses of this Bill where I have misstated or overstated the position, and I gladly issue that challenge at this stage.

I have dealt so far with the difficulties and the tribulations that will be set the urban Native dweller upon the implementation of this Bill.

So far you have proved nothing.

It is very difficult to prove anything to those who cannot grasp what is being said. But there is another side to the penny. I have dealt with the side of the urban Native worker. Let us look at the other side of the penny, which is how this Bill affects the White farmer. I wonder how many farmers opposite realize what drastic effects this Bill will have on the operations of the farming community.

Is that why the Agricultural Unions approve of these provisions?

If the hon. member for Cradock had read the first page of this Bill, he would agree with me. I would be glad if the hon. member would forbear from interrupting for about five minutes perhaps and listen to what this Bill contains so far as the farming community is concerned. It is clear from the Bill, Mr. Speaker, that the trouble begins when an area is proclaimed a prescribed area, and from what the hon. member for Heilbron said in his speech, it is quite clear that all the White areas of South Africa will become prescribed areas, because, as he said, there are far too many Blacks on the platteland and many of them owing to the danger which they constitute, must be got rid off. The only way to do that is to prescribe the platteland as a prescribed area. When once that is done, Sir, you may not employ any Native labourer except through a labour bureau.

What is wrong with that?

You may not keep any Native labourer in your employment except with the permission of a labour bureau. That is under Clause 48. It is the officer in charge of a bureau who has absolute control over the labour force of a farmer. I cannot imagine anything more undesirable than to have one’s entire labour force on a farm, or in any other industry, subject to the personal discretion of one junior official.

False and misleading.

Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, how the discretion of some junior officials can be influenced by personal animosities; can you imagine how they can be influenced by blood relationships with certain individuals, not to mention the fact that personal inducements can play a part in respect of an individual, a junior official who has that amount of power to wield.

What about the Labour Control Board?

Mr. Speaker, many farmers, particularly in Natal and the Transvaal, have for generations built up a personal relationship with a group of families from whom they draw their farm labour. I am not speaking of the tenant labour system, because I do not know about that system which is not used in my part of the country, but many farmers in the Transvaal and Natal in particular draw their Native labour from the adjoining Native reserves, they draw it from kraals with whom their families have been associated for generations. There is a personal relationship which makes the whole thing work That freedom to negotiate freely with people with whom one’s family has been associated for years, disappears, and the official with no sentiment attached, decides.

I wonder if hon. members, particularly of the farming community, appreciate the inconveniences attached to this system. I do not know how far hon. members who are farmers, live from labour bureaux. In my own case I am situated 15 miles from the nearest Native Commissioner’s office where the bureau will be established. I draw my labour supply from a distance of some ten miles away, which is 25 or 30 miles from that labour bureau. In order that my labour can come and work for me, they will have to go to the labour bureau, pass my farm, for a distance of some 30 miles and then come back to me, a distance of 50 miles, in order to come to the place where they have to work, not to mention the fact that I will have to go an equivalent distance in order to arrange for that labour to come to my farm. To whose advantage is that? How can this possibly benefit the farming community in any way, when not only is there this tremendous inconvenience both to the farm labourer and to the farmer, but where you also have this direct interference with what should be a personal relationship between the farmer and his farm employee. Not only that, but in terms of Section 21ter on page 11 any particular labourer, or all your labour, can be dismissed contrary to your wishes by any official from that labour bureau.

Let us now come to the farm inspectors. I wonder how many hon. members opposite have read a little about farm inspectors in this Bill? Admittedly it is tucked away in the regulations so that one might not notice it. But what is the position? They are called “labour liaison officers”, but the White Paper lets the cat out of the bag, because it labels them what they are “farm inspectors”. They are established under Section 38quat on page 47. They can be given such powers as may be prescribed for them, and we know precisely what powers will be prescribed for them because it was set out in the Bill last year, in 1963, and they are as follows: They have the power to enter upon any farm without the owner’s permission, they may snoop and investigate anything they like, they may examine the books of the farmer without his permission, wherever those books and records may be, whether they are on the farm or whether they are with the farmer’s accountant or bookkeeper. They can seize or take away any book or papers and they can demand any explanation in regard to anything they might find in those books or papers; they can question the owner of the farm or any of his servants, or his wife, or his children under oath in regard to the contents of any of the books or records. It amounts to a criminal investigation into the affairs of that farmer such as takes place in a court of law, except that the farm inspector is both prosecutor and magistrate in this instance. He is both.

These provisions so far as the farming community is concerned, constitute an inquisition and an imposition They are there to control and bedevil what should be a personal relationship of master and servant. I do not know of any country in the world where the relationship of master and servant is so controlled and beset by red tape and rules and regulations outside of the Soviet Union as was said by the hon. Leader of the Opposition yesterday.

What have the agricultural unions said about it?

They have not had time to read this Bill. And do not let the hon. member tell me that the agricultural unions have supported this measure, because they have not and he knows it.

False and misleading.

I hope the hon. member will get up and quote chapter and verse where the agricultural unions have supported this measure.

The interference with the business life of the farmer does not end there so far as this measure is concerned. There are provisions to prevent him from recruiting labour; there are provisions which prevent him from employing any recruited labour at all, or in respect of certain types of work, or from certain areas. There are further provisions to prevent him from obtaining an employer’s recruiting licence. There are farmers, principally in Natal and the Transvaal, whose livelihood depends almost entirely on their obtaining a ready supply of recruited labour, and it is difficult to conceive why it is necessary to have measures of this kind merely to prevent the influx of Bantu into the urban areas

The hon. member for Heilbron has said that we must get rid of the Bantu from the White areas on the platteland particularly because he says there are too many Bantu there. He says it is a danger and they must be got rid of. I wonder if this is not the explanation behind the whole of this measure. I wonder, Sir, if this is not an attempt to overcome that extraordinary difficult point in Government policy which is the presence of 6,000,000 or 8,000,000 Bantu in the White areas. With these figures the whole of the apartheid policy makes nonsense as long as these Bantu are still present in the White areas, and I wonder if this Bill is not an attempt to overcome the difficulty. I think that the cat poked its head out of the bag for the first time in a speech by the hon. Minister of Labour speaking to the “Onderwysersunie” in Durban in 1962, when he said this—

What does that mean? Does the hon. member for Heilbron agree that it is Government policy eventually to eliminate all Bantu workers from the White areas? Is that the policy? You see, Sir, one gets no reply. I believe that the hon. Minister of Labour when he said just that spoke of what the Government wishes to see done. That problem was highlighted by Dr. Geyer when speaking in 1962 to the South African Bureau of Racial Affairs. He said this—

Am I right in thinking, Sir, that this is the answer to the problem, that this is the beginning of an attempt to get rid gradually of all the Bantu in the White areas? That is where the problem begins, Sir, nor where it ends, because there is an almost grotesque situation facing hon. members opposite. They stand for a political philosophy which makes sense only if all the Bantu are removed, but their material interests and their company directorships (there are many opposite) demand the increasing presence of Black labour in the White areas so that their businesses can flourish, so that the economy can flourish. They are faced with this situation, to which I see no answer. I am glad to say, that if their political theories succeed, their economy crashes, because the Bantu will be moved out, and if their material interests succeed their political philosophy crashes and the Government is moved out. I may say that there is light on the horizon, because I believe that the material interests of hon. members opposite will prevail. The economy will go ahead and their political philosophy will crash, because it depends ultimately on this Bill succeeding, which can only be justified on the basis that the Bantu are to be moved out, the very question to which the hon. member for Heilbron refused to reply and to which I predict the hon. the Deputy Minister will also refuse to reply when he replies to this debate.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to deal in detail with what the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) has just said, except to deal with one point he has made namely that the hon. the Deputy Minister made a statement which was incorrect and misleading. He never got to that point in his argument in order to prove it, except that he mentioned one thing namely that when it was in the public interest such a labourer had to be dismissed from his service and that he could then be removed from that area but he never proved that the hon. the Deputy Minister had made an incorrect statement.

In the past it was accepted as obvious and very few people ever objected to the principle of migrant labour. That was the policy in principle of migrant labour. That was the policy in principle and it is still to-day the policy. It is a policy as old as South Africa itself, a policy which cannot simply be thrown overboard. From the earliest days the Bantu has come to work in the White areas; he remains here for a while and then he returns. Systematically, as the cities developed, locations came into existence round those cities and some of the Bantu remained there. But in spite of that many of those Bantu have retained their tribal connections. I should say that 99 per cent of the Bantu in the White areas still have tribal connections to-day. The object of this legislation is to consolidate and to control the position in regard to our migrant labour system and to prevent migrant labourers from becoming a permanent national group in White South Africa. [Interjections.] As long as they do not constitute an undesirable element and do undesirable things and become redundant, they may remain here. That is the essential difference between our policy and the policy of that side of the House. That is the difference between us and the Opposition who at one stage even accepted the principle of migrant labour. As the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) said here to-day we were all agreed with that to-day. I shall return to the question of migrant labour at a later stage, particularly as far as the mines are concerned, of which we hear so little from that side of the House.

The Opposition have turned a somersault and in respect of this legislation they are busy throwing overboard all traditions and principles appertaining to migrant labour. They no longer subscribe to the principle of migrant labour but to the principle that the Black man must remain permanently in the White area. In other words, they want to introduce integration.

Last year we passed the Transkeian Constitution Act. That Act contains an old principle in connection with Bantu homelands or reserves, a principle which has existed for years and which only began to take shape in 1913 under the policy of the old S.A. Party Government. That Government established the principle that no White man could buy land in the reserves. The old S.A. Party envisaged separate development. We are often still reminded by United Party supporters that the principles of the United Party are based on the policies of the late Generals Botha, Hertzog and Smuts. Was that their policy? It was not their policy. They have departed from it completely. They have a liberal policy today. As far as I can ascertain the United Party have departed very far from those principles. By opposing this legislation the United Party is departing completely from their pre-war policy, the 1936 legislation. By opposing this legislation the United Party admit that they are caught in a political trap from which they cannot escape. By passing the Transkei legislation last year we have already transferred political responsibility to the Xhosas.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to read his speech? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member may continue.

We passed the Transkei legislation last year and political responsibility was transferred to the Xhosas. In other words, we have reduced our own political responsibility in respect of the Xhosas. That responsibility rests on them to-day and a great responsibility has been taken off our shoulders. Before the election of the Chief Minister in the Transkei, certain bodies, particularly the Press, interfered and tried to get rid of Kaizer Matanzima, not to have him elected, but in the meantime nine of Chief Poto’s people returned to Matanzima and to-day they accept the policy of separate development.

Under which clause are you speaking now?

It falls under this Bill. As the United Party is constituted to-day, with its left wing and its right wing.

Nonsense!

Surely there are two wings which do not agree on the question of policy, and you are aware of the fact that you are losing voters amongst the White public.

You have left out a comma.

Order! The hon. member must address the Chair.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) made reference to a labour shortage on the farms and the hon. member for Zululand also said there would be a shortage as a result of this legislation. I welcome this legislation, particularly in view of the relief it will bring about in the agricultural sphere. There are no squatters in my constituency but there is a great evil in the shape of the so-called Black spots amongst our farming community.

According to the latest census figures there was an average number of over 70 Bantu on the farms in the Griqualand East area and those farms are not very big; they average 500 morgen in size. On two of those farms there are over 500 Bantu. It varies from farm to farm. That is the type of Bantu who is causing the trouble, that big concentration of Bantu in Black spots in the White areas. This legislation will eliminate the Black spots which are artificially created in the White areas on White farms; it will eliminate all the trouble which such a Black spot creates in the immediate vicinity, it will stop the platteland from becoming Black which is caused deliberately and because of selfishness. It will put an end to the position where we have a redundant labour force, a labour force which never really exists, because the people who lie around there are usually loafers. They are young Bantu and Bantu women and the Bantu who work on the mines and that always gives the impression that there is a great deal of labour in those areas, but that is not the actual position. There is a shortage of labour but those people infiltrate illegally into those White areas. That position will now be controlled by this Bill.

These people serve no purpose except to place an unnecessary burden on the shoulders of the S A. Police. That is the type who usually cause all the trouble amongst the farm labourers. They are the people who encourage the farm labourers to brew a superfluous quantity of beer and to do all kinds of illegal things. They make themselves guilty of all sorts of crimes. I dealt with this matter at meetings in my constituency last year already and everybody welcomes this Bill. We knew it was coming because it was Tabled last year already. No farmers are opposed to this legislation. [Interjections.]

However, I want to return to the question of migrant labour. They have migrant labour in European countries, also in South America and in many other countries. Those migrant labourers are not naturalized in those states. They come and they go nor do they take their wives and children with them. They go and work there and then they return to their own areas. The position in South Africa is that we draw our labour potential from all the Black areas, as well as from the adjoining territories. The main source of labour of the mines is migrant labour. Why does the Opposition never mention that? They actually refer to migrant labour but in the meantime they place the emphasis on the other types of migrant labour, such as the migrant labour in the cities, but they say nothing about the mine labour. It is because the mines represent the financial group and when it comes to rands and cents our friends opposite are very quiet, because it will affect their pockets and their constituencies. As long as everything is rosy in the country, economically, everything is all right, then the Opposition does not mind. Then the migrant labour can come into the White areas.

May I put a question?

No, the hon. member has been sleeping. I do not know what question he can ask. I think it is important that I give the number of migrant labourers who are in the mines. This is according to the 1960 census. In 1912 there were 206,000 labourers on the mines and in 1961 there were 408,000. That means nearly 100 per cent more than in 1912. That represents half the number of foreign Bantu in this country, because there are 860,000 foreign Bantu in South Africa. How many of the Bantu of the Republic work in the mines? There are 146,000 from the Republic, 72,000 from the Protectorates. 86,000 from tropical areas and 82,000 from East Africa. Those are the people who are supposed to be treated so badly. We heard from that side of the House yesterday that very few of these people had their wives and children with them. I saw a photograph in the English language newspaper yesterday afternoon showing how badly we were treating our Bantu in South Africa. Here it is, Sir: “Stay together and starve”. On the other side you have this: “Work without wife and family”. [Interjections.] Do you agree with that.

Order! The hon. member must address the chair.

Hon. members plead for that but why do they not also plead that the mine workers should be allowed to have their wives and children with them on the Rand? They only plead for the others. They are therefore not consistent.

According to the report of the Committee on Foreign Bantu there were 836,000 foreign Bantu in the Republic in 1960, a 265 per cent increase since 1911 to 1960, but according to hon. members opposite we must allow them to remain here and eventually absorb them and their wives and children and accept them in our White areas.

If we do not pass this legislation what will be the future pattern of White South Africa? Everything indicates that it will ultimately end in the destruction of the White man. We on this side of the House are not afraid of Black nationalism; on the contrary, we welcome it; we canalize it and we create areas where the Black man can live his own life, where he can develop and where he can also develop his own nationalism. But what we as White people are afraid of on this side is Black imperialism which will exterminate the Whites as far as possible by bloodshed and force. We are trying to prevent that and that is why we welcome this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, quite a number of speakers on the other side of the House have welcomed this Bill, and I think for that reason alone I should move—

Agreed to; debate adjourned.