Mr. Speaker, the last speaker on the Government side contended, as did many of his colleagues, that the farm labourers were not affected by this Bill. Speaker after speaker on our side made it crystal clear that they were affected, and vitally affected. The last speaker on the Government side also pointed out that mine-workers were migrant labourers and nobody on this side of the House has or will contradict him as far as that is concerned.

The essence of the Government’s policy and the reason for this Bill is that the Government maintains that the town Native is not a permanent resident here, that he is a temporary sojourner or a migrant labourer who must realize that fact or else. This Minister has pretended that these people were temporary sojourners, that their roots were in their homelands and that they accepted the fact that they had no roots in our urban areas. Speaker after speaker on the Government side has travelled far and wide in words through Mexico, the U.S.A., Korea, Austria, France, Italy, in fact through every country in the world, to justify this Bill by drawing analogies between conditions in South Africa and the conditions in those countries. They have even gone so far as to confuse seasonal labour with our own urban Native problem.

During the last recess the Johannesburg Municipality invited parliamentarians to visit the Soweto Township. I personally have in the past spent a considerable amount of time in those townships, particularly a few years ago when, through an ex-servicemen’s organization, I assisted in the building of 200 houses for African ex-servicemen at Jube with the assistance of the National War Fund and the Johannesburg City Council. So I would suggest that my words are not tainted with the complete ignorance of the subject matter of this Bill that has characterized most of the speeches from the other side. I have also been very interested in the Daveyton Township; I have attended many meetings of their Advisory Board, which is now the Urban Bantu Council. So far it is difficult to see what change this has brought about in the position and powers of this council.

In the years that have passed I have seen the growth of the number of Black men and women and children in these areas. I say that if anybody visiting those areas, as those parliamentarians did—I am looking at some of them now; I shall ask them a few questions in a minute—and looking at that development says he is not struck by the immensity of it all, that his thoughts do not turn to the future of those people and our future and says that the proposals set out in this Bill will help to any degree to solve this great problem we have on our hands, I am afraid I shall not believe him. Sir, after seeing those townships I am sure every member of that party was more concerned then about the future of the White man than the future of the Blank man. I think anybody looking at that development must realize that those African countrymen of ours are here to stay and nothing can stop them. You only have to go through those townships to realize what development has taken place in the Native; he has developed from a labourer in a sub-economic house to a wealthy Native who lives in the same conditions as the White man. I can assure you, Sir, that throughout there is a desire in the mind of the Black man to follow the White man’s way of life. That is their only desire. Anyone who knows the burning desire they have for their children to be educated must realize that they cannot stay in the same position and that they also cannot simply be treated as little blocks of wood. One cannot help wondering what the future holds in store for them and for us. When you see the buildings erected by these Bantu, men who have been trained in the building industry in the special training centre in Johannesburg or on the job in other towns on the Reef and elsewhere in the country, buildings that would grace any European town or city, you must appreciate to the full the advance they have made in acquiring European skills.

As I have said, the essence of Government policy is to regard these migrant labourers as temporary sojourners and that they accept that position. I wonder whether hon. members opposite, when they stood on that little hill in the middle of Soweto and saw the houses stretching to the horizon in every direction—houses with human beings in them with the same desires as we have—did not have the same feeling as I had. I said in a very loud voice: “Look at all these temporary sojourners”. I want any hon. member opposite who accompanied that party to tell me honestly whether those people can be regarded as temporary inhabitants? If he does he is not sane.

What are you prepared to do for them?

You know what we are prepared to do for them. In regard to their temporary housing arrangements I want to quote from the report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts dated 6 May 1963—

That is a temporary sojourner, a good boy who has got a lease of 30 years, can will the property to his son, and to all intents and purposes has a lease in perpetuity. Mr. Speaker, I find great difficulty in reconciling the word “temporary” with “perpetuity”. We are told, and one would have thought, that the views of the people themselves have been taken in regard to this so-called “temporary” arrangement. I want to quote from the C.S.I.R. Annual Report for 1961—

In other words, Mr. Speaker, 90 per cent of the people living in those areas are certainly in their own mind not migrant labourers. The report goes on—

And then it deals with the mine-labourers who are migrant workers.

Mr. Speaker, I tried to follow up this question of the Bantu’s views in regard to the matter as to whether they are detribalized or whether they have their roots in their homelands. I asked the hon. Minister last session whether there were any reports, apart from this one of the C.S.I.R., dealing with the degree of detribalization and permancy of Bantu in urban areas. His reply was—

1. (b) reports from other sources of research have also come to my attention;

These are departmental reports and are available in libraries.

I asked him, following that—well one can hardly call it a reply—I asked him a further question and asked—

The Minister’s reply was—

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that conditions have changed considerably as far as the urban Native is concerned and his outlook—if his outlook is going to be taken into account—and that the only possible help that could have come to the Minister would be from the Tomlinson Report. What does the Tomlinson Report say about this particular matter—

There were 1,500,000 in 1951 out of a bit over 2,000,000, which is two-thirds of the Natives at that time who were considered by the Tomlinson Report to be “permanently” established in the European areas. Now again I find great difficulty in reconciling the word “permanent” with the word “temporary”. And surely this proves that the report of the C.S.I.R. must be correct, and if that is the case the Minister is basing his whole case on wrong premises. He has not investigated the viewpoint of these people and has completely disregarded the opinions of experts. The vast majority of town Natives are permanently detribalized, and there are only two ways in which to get them back to their so-called homelands, viz. coercion and force. The hon. the Prime Minister has told us that he intends to make the Bantu-stans so attractive that the Bantu will be swarming back there of their own free will. If ever there was a pipe-dream, that is one, and all hon. members realize that. Is there a third method, a combination of the two? I am not sure. There is certainly something subtle going on and I would like to read the words of Professor Moolman, one of their experts who was on the Tomlinson Commission. He said—

Then they discuss influx control measures, no ownership clauses and an absolute ban on foreign Bantu. It has become progressively more difficult for new-comers to enter White urban areas, and they say that it can fairly be claimed that this stream has been halted.

That is one of their experts, but there are millions additional Natives in the towns now. They are there, and their number is not getting less but more.

What is the position under this Bill as far as the Bantu are concerned? They say they are permanent residents, they buy houses, they educate their children, devoting all their energy in an effort to reach the White man’s mode of living, and they have no roots in the so-called homelands. This Bill says that they are not permanent, not even if born here, not even if they are here in the third or fourth generation. The Bill says that no man will know whether his wife and children can stay in the White areas. The Bill says that even if the authorities have sold a man a house on a “lease” of 30 years, really in perpetuity, he can be kicked out with his family on a trivial excuse.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, this can do nothing but antagonize these people who will be with us as long as we can foresee, who will be with us for ever. What is going to happen to the middle class which is so necessary, so essential for the future of this country if we are to escape the dangers we are continually warned about, namely the coming of Communism? The Bill says that if a man loses his job, he can be kicked out. Kicked out to where? Nobody knows. I say this is slave labour.

What?

I say this is slave labour. You are endeavouring to make a man so desperately unhappy that he will either accept slavery or accept what you want him to do, namely go back to his homeland. You say it will work? What chance has it to work? It is desperate legislation. When the hon. Minister tells us that he has information that a man is a temporary sojourner and that he has a desire to return to his homeland, I say that is simply not true.

The hon. Deputy Minister said that the Bill was a guarantee to the Bantu that his labour would give him security in the White man’s area, security for his wife and children too. Yet this particular Minister is doing his best to drive industry away from those areas.

You are talking nonsense!

Nonsense? Look what happened at Roodepoort, the Minister’s own constituency. There was a concrete works there, a factory which was up against the difficulty of getting more Black labour. The influx control regulations cutting up the Reef into small areas made it very difficult, and no additional labour was available at Roodepoort. They were prevailed upon to open another factory out at Rosslyn near Pretoria. I do not want the hon. Minister to tell me that that is a border area. If he does say so, it would be a fatuous remark. It is in the suburbs of Pretoria. There is plenty of labour available in areas adjacent to Roodepoort. But what happened? This factory was induced to open another factory in Rosslyn …

Induced by whom?

As a result of the efforts of this Minister and his laws and the Government and its laws. The number of Natives available near Rosslyn, we are told, is plenty—there is a vast hinterland on which to draw to bring in the necessary Natives. What is the effect of this particular action, combined with other actions? Roodepoort has lost this extra industry.

They are very happy.

They have lost this industry just at a time when the last mine in the Roodepoort area, Consolidated Main Reefs, is closing down. My information is this mine will stop producing next month. And at such a time this hon. Deputy Minister in his own constituency forces a local industry to expand elsewhere and not in its own area. They simply had to do so. There are so many laws that it reminds one of the words of Walter Scott: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!” This Government deceiving itself, it is deceiving its own members here, but the people it is not deceiving are the people outside, as they will find out in due course. The web is getting more tangled as we go forward, and I would like the hon. Minister to tell me why he has allowed himself to be manoeuvred into the position that he prevents the expansion of an industry in the Reef area, in his own constituency at a time when a mine which is of vital importance to the area is closing down? The further you go into this matter, the more you realize the unfortunate position in which South Africa finds itself under this Government, and I am entirely in accord with my Leader when he says that this Bill should be read “this day six months”.

I just want to make a few remarks in regard to what the previous speaker has said. It is well known that the United Party is fighting a dual battle against this legislation. They are fighting it, firstly, because it is alleged that the family life of the Bantu will be disrupted, and secondly, because they maintain that settled persons will be evicted forcibly. We have been told that the United Party will fight to the bitter end and for that reason, I as a poet, have tried to write a little poem which reads as follows—

It actually amounts to just that, Sir, because we have heard about the fight to the finish. I grant them that they have actually started a fight to the bitter end, the end of the United Party who is dying.

The previous speaker has expressed his concern about those Bantu in the peri urban areas. I remember the terrific struggle that party put up when this Government wanted to provide better housing for the Bantu in those areas. To-day, in different circumstances, they feel sorry for the Bantu because it is alleged that they will be uprooted from those areas which that party begrudged them and which they opposed so strenuously at the time. In the past the United Party agreed, although there was a vast difference of opinion and dissension that the Bantu should have property rights. I now want to ask that party whether they are prepared, and is it their policy to grant property rights in the White area to all Bantu owners and occupiers of property? Is that your policy?

You know what our policy is.

I should like to have a reply because you cannot make such a stupid statement as to allege that we have started a process of uprooting. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself spoke about Stalin-like methods. I really think it is not worthy of a Leader of the Opposition to talk about Stalin-like actions in these days in which we are living …

What will be the results of this legislation?

The provisions of this Bill are already contained in legislation, legislation which was applied by the United Party in the year 1945 and prior to that.

That is not true.

As the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) also did yesterday, it is becoming very popular on that side of the House to make liars out of this side of the House and the hon. the Deputy Minister, but the hon. member never proved that the hon. the Minister had told a lie. He could not prove it. If you look at the 1945 Act which the United Party applied during their régime, you will find a sub-section on page 115 of that Act, Act No. 25, Sir, which already provides for ejectment orders. You will also find that Section 28 (2) (1) refers to ejectment orders. But what do these ejectments orders, as provided for in this Bill, really amount to? Exactly to the same thing as those contained in the old Act which the United Party applied. What is more, it is in the interests of the orderly inflow of labour. It is in the interests of the employer and the employee because if there is an abnormally large flow of labour in a direction where they cannot be employed it causes disruption for both the employee and the employer and the group to suffer most because of that is the Bantu. The arguments advanced by the Opposition are nothing but politicking therefore.

Reference has been made to the disruption of family life. As somebody who comes from the platteland, I can tell you, Sir, that it often happened under the United Party Government that thousands of Bantu came from the platteland to the big cities to work there and that they worked there for periods of 12 to 18 months without even thinking of returning to their families. But according to the Opposition this Bill must be rejected. We must conclude, therefore, that the United Party want this state of affairs to continue. I want to know this from those hon. members opposite who pose as people of such wisdom: How will this Bill, when applied, differ from that old legislation; how will it disrupt family life? On the contrary, the fact of the matter is that this Bill will promote family life amongst the Bantu because they will not be moving in all directions. During those years to which I have referred there was nothing wrong with that. There sits the then Minister of Native Affairs, Sir. In his days they took no steps and made no regulations to prevent the Bantu from moving from the platteland to the big cities for long periods without ever coming near his family. Surely family life was also disrupted under that party. I want to emphasize that this legislation will to a great extent solve that problem. I think I have said enough as far as the statements made by the United Party are concerned. The United Party is fast talking themselves into their graves. That also applies to the last speaker who spoke about slave labour. He is a person who calls himself a South African yet he says we are making use of slave labour. I must say that it borders on scandalous behaviour on the part of an hon. member in this country to insinuate that we are using slave labour.

What else is it?

More and more opportunities have been created for the Bantu under the present Government but the hon. member did not make that remark with the object of opposing this legislation, but he made it deliberately in order to make it more and more difficult for this Government to create something permanent for both the White man and the Black man in this country. I want to deal with the mixing of the races. In terms of your policy further property rights will not only be granted but the franchise will be extended as well. Who will then fall victim to slave labour? If that hon. member were to live long enough I would not be surprised if he would walk with a pick and shovel with somebody looking not quite like him holding a revolver in his back. If his party were ever to come into power that would be in prospect for him. We want to spare the Black and the White man that and that is why I deprecate the hon. member having spoken about slave labour.

I now want to come to another matter. I actually got to my feet to express my appreciation to the hon. the Minister for incorporating in this Bill provisions in respect of the squatters and the labour tenants on the platteland. Our experience on the platteland is that because of the numbers of squatters and labour tenants we have a surplus labour force which cannot be absorbed. That is why the S.A. Agricultural Union, and practically all farmers’ associations on the platteland,—I do not know what Natal’s attitude is towards this matter but I think they also associate themselves with this to a large extent—have expressed the opinion that these Bantu farms should be prohibited and done away with; that there should no longer be such labour farms where the owner only uses the farm to make labour available. We are pleased that there will be a gradual decline and that those contracts will eventually be quite illegal and no more entered into. It is not only in the interests of the White man that this measure in respect of squatters and labour tenants is introduced. It is also in the interests of the Black man on the platteland because if this system is continued and non-Whites are also required to have a higher standard of civilization, it will be impossible for the non-White who lives alone on a farm where he keeps stock and goes in for agriculture to be paid a good wage. We look forward to the day when we on the platteland shall have a simple system under which we can employ Bantu. I am convinced that a redundant number of non-Whites on the platteland is not in the interests of either the White man or the non-White man, because those redundant Bantu cannot be employed. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) has alleged that the farmer on the farm will no longer be able to get the necessary labour. I differ strongly from him there. I think he differs from himself because I think the time has arrived for the South African farmer to organize his farming activities on such a basis that he will head more and more in the direction of mechanization. If we mechanize more our production costs will be considerably reduced and the need for a large labour force will disappear. That is why the policy of the Government is so realistic, it is realistic because it gradually wants to move the non-Whites to their Bantu homelands where opportunities are being created for them and where they can enjoy all social, political and other rights and where one man has one vote. He will gradually receive all the things in his Bantu homeland. That is why this legislation dovetails beautifully with the National Party’s policy as a whole. It will create a future for the Bantu in his homeland and it is a guarantee to the White man that he will be able to continue to live in the White area undisturbed and without any interference, without the slightest fear that there will be talk about dictatorial powers or oppression or the begrudging of rights. If however, we cannot apply this policy to the fullest extent, we are faced with the policy of the United Party as an alternative. It was noticeable when I referred to Liston and those people how Cassius on the other side opened his mouth and shouted, but now they are as quiet as Liston is at the moment after he has been medically examined.

The Opposition has not made out a case that this legislation will disrupt family life. I am convinced that in respect of the platteland it will give rise to a pleasant family life for the Bantu until such time as we can place those people in their homelands according to their ethnic groups. That is the only road open to us and that is why I welcome this Bill. I am pleased that I can repeatedly tell the Opposition that they are betraying the Republic of South Africa if they want to hinder us in carrying out the plans which we want to carry out in the interests of both the Black man and the White man in this country.

I got the impression, listening to the last speaker, that he has not read the Bill, that he had been given a few references in regard to the old legislation passed by the United Party, but may I say that the few references which he made were wrong. He spoke about the 1911 Act and also the 1945 Act. Might I remind him what the 1911 Act was about—

I never referred to the 1911 Act.

The hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) yesterday also quoted a single sentence of the Act trying to make out that in this Bill before us they were following up the old legislation, but if you look at the heading, you find it says “to regulate the recruiting and employment of Native labour and to provide for compensation to Native labourers in certain cases”. It is very clear that this was a measure that dealt with influx control in respect of Natives coming to the cities, and in Act 25 of 1945, the same thing happened. It dealt with influx control and said—

The hon. member does not know what he is talking about. But I want to come back to the Bill, and first of all I want to deal with the speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister who has been handling this Bill. Sir, may I say that for vagueness and for glossing over facts his speech took the first prize. When one listened to him, he gave one the impression that this was a most benign measure designed to facilitate better living conditions for Whites and non-Whites. I want to quote what the gentleman said—

And then he talks about a “parallelistiese reel”.

But I did not pronounce it that way.

He says—

natuurlik dat jy in die ander man se tuisland kan wees vir arbeid of diens wat geregverdig kan word maar sonder aansprake op die ander man se regte wat vir hom in sy tuisland sy voorkeur is. Tussen blank en Bantoe geld dit na albei kante toe in hul tuislande… . ’n Ander maatstaf is dié van harmonieuse leefwyses wat verseker moet word… . Die welmenende toepassing van hierdie maatreëls kan ’n beter ordening van die leefwyse van blanke en Bantoe moontlik maak.

Then he talks about the practical applicability of the measure, and he ends up by talking about the fact that there should be “geen saambondeling van teenstrydighede nie”. He is enthusiastic about it and he goes on to say—

It amuses me to see what this hon. Minister can become enthusiastic about. Last year he became enthusiastic about the washing of dishes and the scrubbing of floors. Of course he must be doing a great deal more washing and polishing now because his friend has left him, and that is why his speech has so little to do with realities. But he was not only satisfied to make all these appeals to us and to tell us what an excellent Bill this was, but he went on to warn the Opposition time and time again, alluding to the Rand Daily Mail and the terrible things it said, and this is what they said—

Order! The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) must stop interrupting now.

They did not tell the whole story. Then he goes on to say—

So he goes on, but at last the cloven hoof shows in his own speech. In the last paragraph of his speech he says this—

But, Sir, that is not so. This is incorrect; it is untrue. Each and every one of us have, if we so wish, the right to live in the place where we were born, and not only that, but to live in any place in South Africa. Did he not prove it by going away? Heaven knows South Africa would have been much better off if he had stayed there. But he talks about truth and honesty and he asks the members of the Opposition not to be misled. He keeps on appealing to the Opposition. He says—

But the Minister forgot to explain to the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) what the Bill was really about, because what does the hon. member for Heilbron do? He begins by saying—

Now where is the Rand Daily Mail lying? Where was it saying something which was untrue, when this hon. member says so in the very first paragraph of his speech? He goes on and then blames the Leader of the Opposition for having said that this Bill will foster insecurity among our people. But he goes on and says that not only in the urban areas does he take away the right of a Bantu to live, but it makes of him only a working entity. He also says—

But the Minister talks about truth and honesty and appeals to the Opposition that we should limit ourselves to the truth. But the hon. member for Heilbron goes on and says—

But how many of our Bantu population have their rights in the Transkei? What about the rest of them? What will happen to them?

Read further.

The hon. member for Heilbron need not get excited. I will read further. He goes on to say—

On a point of order, do we have to listen to this cackling from this corner?

Order!

He goes on to say—

Let us look at this a little closer, this story about the Bantu having rights in his own areas. Now I come to the Deputy Minister’s senior, the Minister of Bantu Administration, and this is what he said when he was questioned by the farmers at the Congress of the S.A. Agricultural Union which he opened, and, Sir, I find most significant that they asked him to open that conference. This is what he said—

Where is the honesty and where is the truth, and where is the argument of the hon. member for Heilbron to say that these people whose rights are being taken away now will have rights in their own homelands? Where are those independent Bantustans? But the most amusing thing of all, of course, if it were not so tragic, is that the hon. member for Heilbron goes on to say—

One wonders how much one can believe and what words mean amongst the members of the Nationalist Party. I am thinking, e.g., of the fact that when my leader spoke about migrant labour the hon. the Prime Minister said there was no such thing as migrant labour, and this whole Bill is just to regulate migrant labour. The hon. the Deputy Minister in this long speech of his spoke for about H minutes on the subject of farm labour. There were 35 lines all in all, and half of them were crossed out. This was all in regard to those clauses of the Bill, Clauses 19 to 38, which deal with labour tenants, with all kinds of labour on the farms, and with squatters living on the farms. As I say, about 34 lines of this lengthy speech from which I have been quoting alluded to Clauses 19 to 38, i.e. 19 clauses, clauses which affect the farming community in this country as nothing else has affected them for a very long time, but here I find that the Deputy Minister keeps on harping on the fact that the S.A. Agricultural Union supports him in this. In fact, I think he repeated that about four times.

Do you deny that?

What is the truth? I have here before me the Bantu policy of the S.A. Agricultural Union, and what is their first paragraph?—

[Interjections.] What does the hon. member for Heilbron say now? They go on to point out that the labourer on the farm is dependent on the farmer for medical aid, for schools and other facilities, and that he is constantly on the property of his employer, and even after his day’s work is done he is still under his supervision, and he has to be considered as a permanent feature in agriculture. They say this will continue to be the traditional relationship of guardian and protégé. Sir, surely this is something that has been built up over the years. They go on to talk about the efficiency of farm labour and they say that skill is necessary in the handling of machinery. Then there are five lines, and this is what the Minister only alluded to. They say—

The Minister omitted to say that. How can you have full-time farm labour under this Bill? The farmer will have to put in an application for labour to the labour bureau and he will get a body delivered to him whom he has never seen and who has never seen him. Where are these conditions of trust? Where is this knowledge, and where is this feeling of a relationship of guardian and protégé? But they go on and deal even with the families of the Bantu labourers. They say that he should be taught several skills, and then they go on to say—

They say that the buildings should be erected by the farmer with a subsidy from the Government. They say no policy of centralization should be followed in this connection. They talk about the method of instruction and the treatment of these people and the spreading of infectious diseases; they talk about his health and hospitalization and the help the farmer gives him; they talk about his housing, nutrition and remuneration, and they say—

They even deal with the young Bantu girls, who constitute a portion of the family. So they go on and deal with all the facets of the life of a person on a farm, and they look upon him as a permanent inhabitant there, not to be pushed here to-day and gone tomorrow. [Interjections.] Then they speak about the remuneration which the farmer gives in kind, and they mention the accommodation, the water and the food and the fuel which the farmers supply, the grazing and the gardening and the free dipping and the fact that the labourer has no transport, but is transported by the farmer and that all this is taken into consideration, and they say—

They end up by saying—

And that is the point I wish to make this afternoon. Sir, who is this Minister and what is this Nationalist Party that they should undertake to arrange the whole contract and the whole atmosphere of living in South Africa? What is this Government, and who is this Minister, to come and tell me that because he deems it fit and in the public interest from my farms must be removed the Native families who have lived there for four generations and longer? Who is this Government and who is this Minister to tell me under these clauses I have quoted that my Natives must be limited to a certain number? Who are these people who try to arrange the whole atmosphere in South Africa, and do it in such a calamitous way … [Interjections.]

Sir, I have not the time to deal with it, but I have the latest census here.

Read it.

I will not read it to oblige that hon. member; I will say what I want to say. I want to say that large numbers of these people are living on our farms and have lived there for many years.

Sentimentalism.

Sir, this hon. member says I am being sentimental. I plead guilty to that—if, to have feelings for the people who have helped me to get where I am to-day, is being sentimental, then I am guilty. If, to have feeling for my father’s old foreman who served him all his life is sentimentality—then I am guilty. If I have a deep regard for those people who have served my family and ancestors through four generations—if this feeling is sentimentality then I am guilty.

Again I say for many years this civilization of ours has lasted, and for 300 years we have never needed a Nationalist Government to upset the balance of things, especially in regard to our farming community who have done more than anyone else to promote the stability and the good relationship between all sections of the farming population.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) has repeated the speeches of the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) and for the rest she has quoted from one or other agricultural weekly instead of making her own speech. I wonder whether the hon. member has had the decency to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister’s permission to quote his speech here. [Interjections.] Because we agree with what the hon. the Deputy Minister has said in his speech; we have no fault to find with it. I deplore the way in which the hon. member asked the Deputy Minister who he thought he was and who the Government thought they were to do such things? I deplore the mentality that side of the House has revealed towards the Deputy Minister. During the course of my speech I shall try to deal with the attacks she has made even though her speech was nothing but a repetition of previous speeches.

The Bill before us, Sir, is one which was already opposed by the Opposition at its first reading, before they really knew what was in the Bill. The Deputy Minister has explained the good intentions of this Bill and one would have thought that after that the Opposition would have thought better of it and would not have opposed the Bill but we found exactly the opposite. That side of the House have unnecessarily been intolerable and they have unnecessarily used harsh words. I think, inter alia, of the speech of the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) who referred contemptuously to this Bill yesterday. His speech reminded us of the speeches Mr. Hamilton Russell used to make in this House. That once again proves how a person can be blinded by his own political selfishness and his desire to score a point. We are dealing with serious legislation, legislation which is in the interests of not only the Bantu but of the White man himself and the Opposition comes along and, typical of them, place a malicious interpretation on this good legislation. By doing that they deliberately want to create a wrong image of South Africa in the world outside. I refer to the remarks made by the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) when he referred to slave labour. It is really scandalous that a member of this House should talk about slave labour, Sir, while he should be au fait with the position and while many of the Acts of the Statute Book were placed there by the United Party and while many of these restrictive measures were introduced by them.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition has referred to a few matters in respect of which I should like to say a few words. He said in the first instance that this Bill lent itself to corruption. I regard that allegation as a blot on the good name of the officials of the Department of Bantu Administration, White and non-White. It is a blot on the good name and integrity of our officials. The second point he made was that if we were to have rioting or a revolution in this country, the Government would be responsible for it. He pointed to this side and said: You would be the guilty ones. On the other hand, can we not lay the same charge at the door of the United Party and say: You are insinuating that there will be a revolution and it has your blessing? I think we are more justified to make the charge, in view of their speeches, that if there were to be rioting on the part of the Bantu it would have the blessing of the Opposition. Fortunately the reverse is the case. The Bantu in this country are becoming more and more well-disposed towards the White man. The good relationship is being improved by this Government because the Government ensures the existence of everybody.

In interpreting this Bill the Opposition also made us understand where they differed from us and hon. members repeated the points on which they differed fundamentally from us. The first is in respect of land ownership, namely, that the Bantu may own land in the White areas, we differ from them there, but secondly, Sir, I understand from the United Party that they agree with us on this point that the White man may not own land in Bantu areas. If they agree with us on that point I want to ask them this: Why this discrimination against the White man? The third point is this: It has become clear from these discussions that the United Party do not agree with our policy of separate development. The policy of the United Party is a policy of integration; it is a policy of laissez faire; let us all eat and be merry and live together. The difference between the United Party’s policy of integration and the Government’s policy of separate development has been very clearly highlighted in this debate. This Bill is closely linked with the Government’s policy of developing the Bantu’s homelands and of creating opportunities for the Bantu to make a living there. The policy of separate development envisages an orderly reduction of the number of Bantu in the White areas; it envisages their orderly removal from the White areas and their resettlement in their own homelands. This removal will take place in an orderly manner and in a way that will not cause any friction. I personally believe that this Bill will be a great weapon in the hands of the Government to accelerate the tempo of the flow of Bantu back to their homelands. If this turn in the tide of the flow of Bantu to the White areas, which, according to the Tomlinson Commission will be reached in the year 1978, can be put forward a couple of years, that will in itself be reason for us to support this Bill.

The Opposition is apparently in favour of influx control because there was influx control when the United Party was in power. They are, however, opposed to the erection of border industries, as we have heard on numerous occasions. In other words, the position, which existed in the big cities before this Government came into power, must continue to exist according to the United Party. They want a continual inflow of Bantu to the cities in accordance with economic laws. They want the Bantu to be able to flow freely into the White areas and once the Bantu is in the White areas, the United Party flatly refuses to agree to the Government having the right to send those Bantu back to their homelands, no matter how they came here. The result of such a thoughtless policy will be that the number of Bantu in the White areas will increase much faster than it will under the policy of this Government. If you were to give the Bantu the right to own property here and to have political rights, we can write Ichabod to the continued existence of the White man in this country. The Opposition have referred to the practically totalitarian powers which this Government is supposedly exercising to move the Bantu labour force and they have referred to the citizenship rights which the Bantu are supposed to have in the White areas where he has been born, rights which we are supposed to be withholding from the Bantu. Mr. Speaker, what does the Bantu expect in the form of citizenship rights? I shall mention a few things. In the first place, he is anxious to have property rights. Well, we have already discussed that and it is clear what the attitude of the two parties is in this connection, but in the second place—and I should say this is the most important right he will want as a citizen—he wants the franchise. Being numerically in the majority he will never be satisfied with only eight representatives in the White man’s Parliament, the number which the United Party want to give them. Whether those eight representatives are Black or White, the Bantu will never be satisfied with that number and the Opposition will ultimately have to give way to the pressure from outside; they will be unable to resist it. As opposed to that this Government offers the Bantu something better. We are continuing on the road on which we set our feet in 1948. Apart from property rights in his own homelands, we ultimately want to give the Bantu the franchise as well. We believe it will satisfy him if he, as a fully-fledged citizen, can also exercise his citizenship rights in his own homeland. With such a policy we can satisfy the world outside because it is fair and just. With such a policy we recognize their human rights and we recognize their human dignity. Let me tell the Opposition very clearly that we believe only the White man should have property rights in the White areas and only the White man should have the franchise here, but in the Bantu areas the Bantu is given the opportunity to develop to the fullest extent. Mr. Speaker, the White man and the Black man need each other. The Bantu needs us to purchase his labour and we need his labour for various purposes. We should negotiate with each other in a peaceful and tolerant way, and the object of this measure is precisely to remove those points of friction which existed under the old legislation and to place the flow of Bantu labour to the White areas on a more orderly basis. That is what this legislation envisages. The Government has done a tremendous amount for our Bantu. The United Party is to-day playing the role of the so-called advocates of the Bantu but just think of the poor housing conditions that existed under their régime. To-day, however, they suddenly suggest that the Bantu is being very unjustly treated. What has this Government done for the Bantu as far as housing is concerned? During the 14 years from 1948 to 1962 no less than R102,000,000 have been spent on housing for the Bantu; 1,093 housing units have been erected for the Bantu. Mr. Speaker, deeds and not words count. This Government has proved beyond any doubt that it is the friend of the Bantu in this country. Instead of the Bantu, as the oppressed ones, fleeing in great numbers from our country, we find exactly the opposite. We find that they are streaming to our country and they are doing that because they realize that they are better off under this Government’s policy of apartheid. A few years ago when we became a Republic the Opposition scared the Whites of this country; a few people became scared and listened to the United Party Press and left the country but most of them have returned again. In the case of the Bantu, however, we find that only those few who caused trouble here left the country but for the rest we find that Bantu are streaming into South Africa in great numbers and they are anxious to remain here for the very reason that this Government knows how to establish good race relations. Sir, the object of this Bill is to bring about better administration; it removes points of friction and it gives greater security not only to the Bantu but to the White man as well. The Opposition have expressed themselves in no uncertain terms on the question of the removal of the Bantu from the White areas. Mr. Speaker, if we want to keep the Bantu in our White society so that they can work here, it is important, in the first instance, that we have work for them, but it is also important that we have housing for them. It is when that Bantu is unemployed that he becomes an agitator. He must have work to keep him occupied and he must have an income. I want to state to-day that there are still thousands and tens of thousands of redundant Bantu in the White areas. I believe that the numbers of those redundant Bantu in our White areas can be drastically reduced. I am firmly convinced that that can be done without any detrimental economic affects to the White man. I believe it can be done without our productivity suffering in the least. I also believe that the relationship between employer and employee in South Africa can improve. The position to-day is that there are about 20 employees to every employer—in European countries there are five employees to every employer. Of the 20 employees four are White and the remaining 16 Bantu. I believe that the object of this Bill is to reduce the difference between the number of White and non-White employees.

Why? Tell us how you can do it.

This Bill contains a number of improvements on the previous legislation as well as a number of advantages in comparison with the old legislation. This Bill contains benefits for the Bantu. Those benefits have already been mentioned but there are a few further benefits that I want to refer to. The provision contained in Clause 8 in connection with aid centres is not a provision which is not in the interests of the Bantu. There are numerous provisions which are in the interests of the Bantu. These aid centres are places where the Bantu will receive advice from the Department free of charge.

Where does the clause state that.

This is a clause which we welcome.

Why?

Reference is made in Clause 4 to the cancellation of service contracts. In the past a service contract, if there was trouble between the Bantu employer and the employee could not be cancelled, or dissolved by a magistrate. It will be possible in future, in terms of Clause 4, to cancel such a contract. If the magistrate is of the opinion that the contract is not in the interest of the Bantu or the employer, he can cancel it. I regard this provision as one which will also be in the interests of the Bantu.

Why?

The hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) will never understand the position. If that contract is not in the interests of the Bantu and it is cancelled by the magistrate, it will naturally be in the interests of the Bantu, but the hon. member for Durban (North) will never understand that.

Where does the clause refer to a magistrate?

Reference is made in Clause 8 to the labour bureaux. It is also in the interests of the Bantu that there should be labour bureaux.

May I ask a question?

No, the hon. member will get an opportunity to make his own speech. I am not prepared to answer his questions, Sir. These labour bureaux are only a continuation of existing institutions. How can this clause be against the interests of the Bantu then? Provision is made in Clause 45 for the imposition of heavier penalties on non-Bantu persons living in Bantu areas. How can this be a measure which is anti-Bantu? Then I refer to Clause 9 which is an improvement on the proposed Bill of 1963. Where a Bantu has returned to his homeland and he wants to return to his former employer in the White area and his former employer cannot re-employ him, he can in future return here if he can be placed somewhere else.

With another employer?

This too, therefore, is a provision which is in the interests of the Bantu. Then I come to Clause 51 which deals with the removal of a Bantu who is living illegally in a prescribed area. I want to know from the United Party what their policy is in this connection. Provision is made in this measure that those people who are agitators, who are afraid to work, who are undesirable, who have entered the country illegally and who are redundant, can be removed. I challenge the United Party to tell us precisely what their policy is in respect of these five groups of persons I have mentioned.

They have no policy.

Let them tell us whether they regard those persons as persons who should be allowed to live permanently in the White areas. I challenge them to reply to that question. I also want to refer to Clause 73 which deals with consultants who may charge the Bantu a fee. They are now being done away with. They are prohibited from doing so by legislation, unless they are advocates or attorneys. I think that is in the interests of the Bantu. I cannot see how the United Party can be opposed to this provision. According to them not a single provision of this measure is in the interests of the Bantu. Provision is made in Clause 78 for the establishment of community authorities. This is something completely new. Where various Bantu groups live together and where it is difficult to divide them into ethnic groups provision is now made for the establishment of community authorities …

Where do you see that?

The hon. member apparently does not know what stands in the Bill.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal to the United Party to be a little more tolerant in this debate. We are dealing here with the most important political problem we have in this country and when we discuss it it is necessary for us to be tolerant; that we approach it calmly, that is to say, if the Opposition can think calmly and soberly about it. They will not divert the Government from its course; the Government has already chosen its course; a course that will ensure that the White man will retain his home in this country and it is precisely there where we differ from the United Party’s policy of economic and political integration which must ultimately lead to it that the White man will be ploughed under in this country.

The hon. member who has just sat down has demonstrated that he is extremely sensitive to the criticism of this side of the House of the contents of this Bill. I think after having listened to the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and to the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) the essence of this Bill has now become perfectly clear to the House and we are ad idem on the very important question that this Bill seeks to take the whole of the Bantu population outside the scheduled and the release areas and turn them into a rootless, non-stabilized working entity, as my hon. Leader so aptly put it. The hon. the Deputy Minister himself was very apprehensive of criticism. He knew that he was venturing onto dangerous ground here so he tried to gild the lily by attacking the Press and by appealing to this side of the House to ignore some of the opinions expressed in the Press. The point is that this Bill virtually takes the whole of the Bantu labour pool, the huge Bantu labour pool, of South Africa and converts it into a Gulliver, bound hand and foot by the Lilliputians in the country. It puts the Bantu completely at the mercy of the Government, to be moved around at the whim of the Government. Sir, what we are mainly concerned with is the effect that this Bill will have on our country. After all, it is the duty of the Opposition to warn the Government of pit-falls and dangers which legislation of this kind may bring in its wake. Sir, in 1921 2,000,000 persons were employed in the South African economy. In 1960, some 40 years later, this figure had risen to 5,250,000. Of this number 65 per cent, approximately 3,500,000, are Bantu. This process of continued economic integration has been going on for many years, and it will inevitably continue. That fact was recognized not only by the Tomlinson Commission, but it is recognized by all economic observers, and the Minister and his party know full well that economic integration must be accepted as a fact. There is no question at all that the Bantu is as vitally necessary to the economy of South Africa as the White man is, the White man who provides the knowhow, the capital and the leadership in this field. In these circumstances we must find some method whereby White and Bantu can co-exist peacefully in this country; we must find some method which will give everyone a fair share in the economy of the country and enable everyone to play his part in the future development of South Africa. The United Party has set this out very fully in its own policy of race federation. It has endeavoured to meet the challenge of the future; it has provided for the proper housing and the general socioeconomic development of the Bantu in the various areas in which they are employed or in which they reside. Sir, no Government in my opinion can change the normal laws of economics which have prevailed over the centuries and which will in time overtake any of the man-made laws which are being used to try to stem what is a normal and natural development in any country. We believe that the Government is completely blinded by its own ideologies.

Are you going to maintain influx control?

Influx control is a normal method of dealing with the flow of labour. There must be influx control to ensure that the necessary amenities will be available for that labour. It happens everywhere in the world.

Are you going to maintain it?

We have said that we will maintain features of influx control which are important to the economy of the country. Sir, influx control is nothing new in South Africa, but it is not necessary to do what this Bill attempts to do and that is to destroy the very soul and the very heart of labour. This Government must realize that if you are to have a satisfactory labour force then you must deal with that labour according to the normal laws of economics. The Tomlinson Report itself dealt with one important feature of this much bandied about question of migrant labour. It talks about the tremendous losses of output, the tremendous loss of man-hours and of economic production. Sir, I quote from page 87 of “The South African Economy” by Professor Hobart Houghton, in which the following quotation appears from the Tomlinson Report—

Then, Sir, there is the question of transport of people who come to live here for a year, 15 months, 18 months or maybe two years, and then have to be transplanted back into an economy which the Government has hardly yet commenced to develop. The position in this country has been compared by the hon. members for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) and Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto) with the position in other countries where people cross borders in order to meet the labour needs of other countries. But, Sir, these people have freedom of movement; they have proper homes; they are citizens of the country of their birth; they live in a viable economy; the money which they earn is taken back to their own country, and they sell their labour freely at a price which is determined by the standard of their skill.

Do you want freedom of movement for the Black labour here?

Yes, there must be a free movement of labour in our country.

How can we have influx control then?

I am not going to answer any questions; I do not have the time. We have always believed that there must be a movement of labour to the sources where labour is required and where it can be used.

How then can you maintain influx control?

There will be influx control at the initial source of the labour, as far as labour from the reserves is concerned. (Laughter.) Sir, there is nothing wrong with that. In the case of labour from the reserves you are dealing with completely unskilled labour which is not conversant with local conditions, and in the interests of the labourer himself you have to exercise influx control so that you can be sure that when he does come here there will be housing for him. Sir, we had that problem after the war. During the war years, when South Africa was engaged together with the Allies in a great struggle for certain ideals, this country, the United Party Government laid the foundation of the tremendous industrial development which is taking place in this country to-day. That called for large numbers of workers and influx control could hardly be put into effect because there was a great demand for labour by industries. The result is that at the end of the war we were faced with a tremendous backlog of housing and many other problems which we had to overcome. Influx control can play its part but there is no necessity to apply influx control so stringently that it virtually destroys the ambition of the worker to achieve something and to improve his position, to improve his skill and to play his part in the socio-economic future of the country. No person in the world is prepared to accept the policy of the Government which says that it is going to take the labour pool of about 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 persons and use that labour wherever it suits the Government, completely ignoring the question of human rights and turning those labourers into animated tools of society, tools which can be used purely for labour purposes and shifted and thrown about at the will of the Government. We are not opposing the policy of the Government because we think they are wrong and that we must be right; we are concerned with the future of South Africa, and we believe that the Government’s policy is not without great dangers to the future of this country. For that reasons I would like the previous speaker to know that we stand solidly behind every word that our Leader said in his speech yesterday when he warned the Government about the implications of the policy underlying this Bill. Sir, I do not want to repeat something which has become a cliché and which is so true in this country, and that is that this Government tries to live in a modern economy with an ox-wagon outlook. Sir, we have to keep abreast of modern times. I always wonder why the Government is afraid to face up to a policy which can bring about peaceful coexistence in a country such as ours. We are a very powerful people; why should we not be able to measure up to the difficulties of the times instead of always trying to seek refuge behind policies which unfortunately, I am afraid, do not hold out the prospects of success which the Government would have us believe. I agree with the hon. member for Heilbron in this respect that if their dream of eight or nine settled areas with viable economies, led by White enterprise and assisted by White capital and White know-how, can be realized, then there might be some logic in what they are doing. If those areas can be properly and fully developed and the inhabitants of those areas can move freely from one viable economy to another and sell their labour across the border, thus reaping the benefit of their labour and their skill, then, as I say, there might be some logic in their policy, but the whole policy is so unbalanced.

There is no logic in your policy.

Only one Bantu state has so far been established with no prospect of anything else in the foreseeable future. What real efforts have so far been made to develop this economy? And in the midst of this state of uncertainty a Bill of this nature is introduced. This Bill, Sir, is virtually the last chapter in so far as the Nationalist Party dealing with the Bantu in South Africa is concerned. A newspaper has said that we have not seen the end of it and that there will be many more amendments. I want to say this that there is enough in this Bill to create a period of restlessness and uncertainty in the country. It is not sufficient merely to be able to say to the world that we appear to have a stable Government. The importance is to realize that some of the things we are doing and some of the policies the Government is carrying out can lead to unpleasantness.

We are not foretellers of doom, Sir. The United Party has no necessity to hide behind that type of façade. It is important that the country should know what is contained in the policy of the Government. We know the problems we have had to face in the past with regard to the non-Whites and their labour. We know that it is important that they should have normal settled conditions because you cannot change human nature, whether it is contained in a particular colour of skin or another. The important factor is that it is labour and that it should be dealt with in the way labour should be dealt with.

A very important factor that one must bear in mind is the purchasing power of the labour with which we are dealing. The purchasing power of the Bantu has increased to approximately R1,000,000,000 per annum. The purchasing power of the Bantu will continue to increase and will perhaps play the most important part in the future economic development of our country. In spite of all our efforts in regard to immigration we shall not be able to measure up to the importance which that purchasing power of the Bantu will mean in this country. Our objective should not be to prejudice that purchasing power. Our objective should be not only to make use of it but to give these very people the opportunity of enjoying the benefits and fruits of their labour. That does not cut across the normal traditional outlook of the people of this country. It certainly will be of value in ensuring more contentment and a happier future for South Africa than will be the case under legislation of this nature.

I could deal with this Bill in great detail, Sir, but I do not think it is necessary to repeat some of the statements that have already been made. There is no question that this Bill removes any right to permanence. But I shall not stress that point because the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) accepts that there is no question of any permanent residence here. It does not matter who the individual is, whether he has lived here 50 years or 30 or 20 years, it does not matter whether the man has a family or not, whether he owns the house in which he lives. His ownership of that house, in any case, is fictional, because he owns the building but not the land. The Bill itself, Sir, is one that must be completely condemned. In the Committee Stage we shall have an opportunity of going into further details.

I should just like to make this further point, namely, that the time has come for the people of South Africa not to be so much concerned with making debating points as to what people outside would say about what we were doing. Only the people of South Africa can deal with its problems; only the people of South Africa will be able to find the solution to our problems. It is up to the people of South Africa, therefore, to make up their minds. There is already panic in regard to the so-called independent states that are going to be established in this country by the Government. There is something else on the go with regard to the adjoining territories, something even more laughable is going to be attempted. All that are only palliatives which the Government is using to satisfy the rank and file of its followers, followers who speak very much as the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Niemand) has spoken, who has blindly quoted the policy of his party and giving the country no further facts and nothing to justify the Bill and the policy of the Government.

I want to conclude by saying that we should like to hear from the other side of the House how a Bill of this nature is going to ensure (a) our future economic continued success; (b) better race relations in this country; (c) the high standard of morality which the White people of South Africa boast about and (d) a future for White South Africa, to which we, as leaders in this country, as people who have lived here for 300 years and have a stake in the country, are entitled. When I talk about the White people, of course, I do not talk about a section of the White people as represented by the Government side of the House, but I talk about the White people of South Africa. I do not even talk about the various sections to which the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. Bootha) yesterday referred. He also manifested himself yesterday as one of the great architects of dismembering and carving up South Africa, in the human sense. He probably runs a butchery business at Rustenburg. I should like to get an answer to these questions, Sir. I think the country is entitled to an answer to these questions. The country should not be bludgeoned all the time by legislation of this nature with which the previous speaker, as well as other hon. members opposite, dealt so coldly, with a complete absence of any human feeling; so indifferently that you would have thought they were talking about the logs of wood that we were going to cut down in the various forests in this country for use in some construction work that may take place here, there and anywhere else. We should like to know how South Africa’s future is ensured by the Nationalist Party efforts in this Bill which, as the Leader of the Opposition has rightly said, is the second leg of geographical dismemberment of South Africa and which hon. members opposite say is going to ensure the future prosperity of the people of South Africa and above all the safety of the White people of South Africa. The challenge must be accepted and answered.

The hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) was very clearly under the spell of his own eloquence. I greatly doubt whether that is the general view of the House. In the course of my speech I shall refer to some of the points he raised. However, it occurred to me, Mr. Speaker, that he was speaking much less wildly than his colleagues, and I seek the reason for that in the fact that he possesses more knowledge on urban racial matters than a large proportion of his colleagues.

To me the dominant feature of the debate thus far is the fact that the pitiful collapse of the United Party has seldom before been exposed in all its nakedness as it has been by this Bill. How does one explain the political stupidity of the United Party in continuing to advocate a point of view which was a long time ago emphatically and repeatedly, rejected, not only by the Nationalists in this country, but by their own supporters? One election after another has been lost on this matter we are now discussing. Yet the United Party comes forward with the attitude they are revealing in this House. The proverbial donkey does not knock itself against the same stone twice, but it seems to me that this elementary lesson is beyond the comprehension of hon. members opposite. Anybody with a respect for logic would have been fully justified in expecting the hon. Opposition to support this Bill at the second reading, and that only in the Committee Stage would they express certain misgivings about certain provisions. But what is the United Party doing? They are trying to persuade the world that this measure is an evil thing; it contains not a single positive step, but it is a negative measure which is going to wreck our community. That senseless amendment is defended in the wildest language I have ever heard in this House. Hollow phrases and wild language have been used by the hon. the Opposition in attempting to explain their case. To me the worst thing of all is the fact that they evade the actual contents of his Bill. They try to evade the issues because they are unable to refute what we on our part are stating, namely that it is a positive measure.

This Bill deals with the realistic regulation of sound human relations in our country. It goes without saying that a great variety of thorny situations are involved. Permit me to say, Mr. Speaker, that the Government is fully aware of those situations, but the lesson the hon. the Opposition apparently have never yet learned is that not only is the choice between good and evil, but also very frequently between inferior and superior values. The underlying main principle of this Bill has repeatedly been explained by hon. members on this side. I submit that it is endorsed not only by Nationalists, but by the vast majority of the electorate in this country. I wish to go further and say that the underlying main principle of this Bill is endorsed by all the White people in Africa. They see their salvation in the basic principles of this Bill, and that is why they are all coming to this country when all they have built up in other countries is being taken away from them. The main principles of this Bill are founded upon the conviction that the Whites and the Bantu are separate entities which, in order to fulfil their destiny on account of their difference, cannot be incorporated in one single community. I say that is a principle which has been accepted by all the White people in this country throughout the ages.

I should like to quote what the Stallard Commission had to say on this matter, Sir. I should like to add that a large part of our legislation has been based on their formula. The Stallard Commission said this—

This principle which the Stallard Commission formulated, has been enshrined in legislation by all the Governments we have had in this country. In the thirties, the then Government once again gave very serious consideration to this matter when in November 1931 a select committee of the Joint Houses of Parliament was appointed to examine the Native Laws Amendment Bill. In October 1932, that select committee was converted into a commission which heard evidence from all interested parties, particularly the city councils of the country. Subsequently the matter was once again referred to a select committee of the House of Assembly. I say that the then Minister of Native Affairs, the hon. P. G. W. Grobler, therefore was on solid ground when, in introducing the second reading of that Native Laws Amendment Bill, he said—

As this Bill shows, the Government still adheres to the principle laid down and generally accepted at that time. Restriction of the entry and the employment of the Bantu in prescribed areas is not a new principle either. In fact there are labour bureaux already in more than 50 per cent of the existing local authorities in South Africa. Clause 8 of this Bill only seeks to make statutory the establishment of labour bureaux which have hitherto been established by regulations. I should like to emphasize that sympathetic application of admittance to prescribed areas and the judicious reconciliation of the supply of labour with the demand for labour, has given general satisfaction. Hon. members opposite know that, although they say certain things against their better knowledge.

I should like to say further that the effectiveness of this measure has also been proved in the course of time. In support of this I quote from a speech made by the hon. the Deputy Minister in Johannesburg before the Sabra Congress last year—

However, the hon. the Opposition are inconsistent in their attitude to this vital matter. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has accused the hon. the Deputy Minister of having a guilty conscience while speaking.

That is true.

But I think he should search his own conscience. And the hon. member who has just made that interjection should do the same. Together with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, there are, sitting in the front benches to-day, several members who in 1937 still voted for this Native Laws Amendment Bill. Unfortunately all of them are not in the House now, but if my memory serves me correctly then I think of the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker), the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson), the hon. the Chief Whip of the Opposition who now looks up with so much surprise. I am thinking of the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl). Mr. Speaker, those hon. members did not at that time have such sensitive consciences against the same principles as they have to-day. At that time we did not hear of injustices done to these people; we did not then hear of the shapeless labour force concentrated in the cities, and which was regarded as transferable. I ask them whether they are repudiating their former standpoint? It is a pity the hon. member for Green Point is not here now. I know he is a right-thinking person, and that he would like to live at peace with his conscience, but I should like to hear him on this matter. I should also like to ask whether the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was speaking on behalf of these people when he rejected this Bill with his meaningless amendment, and wiped out all the work they and their colleagues had done in this field in the past.

It is clear to me that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition acts in this House as the mouthpiece of the people in his midst who are progressively disposed. When he rises here, he speaks for the newspapers and for overseas countries, but when do we hear the truth, Mr. Speaker? Only when the United Party and the Progressive Party are opposed during elections. I should like to mention a few incidents from that history to show you the other side of the picture. I quote the following from what a United Party candidate wrote in the Sunday Times of 28 January 1962, when he was opposed to a candidate of the Progressive Party—

Do you see now, Mr. Speaker, why the hon. member for Florida spoke so cautiously and comparatively moderately? He knows the difficulties. The author of this article continues—

Mr. Speaker, the United Party candidate who wrote that was a certain Mr. Patrick Lewis. He was introduced by the Sunday Times as a leading authority on urban Native problems. I must say, judging from the excerpts I have quoted, that he sounds quite a sensible person. This Mr. Patrick Lewis even received recognition overseas in that a Leadership Exchange Grant was awarded to him by the American Government. In other words, he is a greater authority in respect of the urban Bantu than the hon. member for Florida, who in his time was also a Chairman of the Non-European Affairs Committee of the Johannesburg City Council. He is a greater expert also in the eyes of the United Party than the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel). In any event, a Leadership Exchange Grant was awarded to him and his work was recognized overseas.

Gorshel had to pay for his own trip.

I may add, too, that the Sunday Times apparently regards this Mr. Lewis as a greater expert than the father of this policy of the United Party which I should like to call a mule policy; one which is uncertain about its origin and which has no prospects for the future.

We know the United Party is trying to get away—you saw how the hon. member for Florida tried the same trick—by saying that they are not opposed to influx control, but that they merely wish to apply it in a more humane manner. In other words, they wish to bring about a change, albeit by way of application. What does Mr. Patrick Lewis say about the amendment of the influx control measures? He says the relaxation of control has led to the shanty towns, Moroka and Shanty Town, outside Johannesburg and the most appalling conditions in which people have yet lived in this country. That is what their expert, Mr. Patrick Lewis says. And now the hon. member for Florida comes along and urges amendments to our influx control measures. Then Mr. Lewis adds this—

I hasten to put to you a further consequence of the relaxation of these influx control measures, Sir. What was that result? The result was that the Johannesburg employers who themselves had no accommodation for their non-White employees contributed under the Natives Services Levy Act, and under the Natives Transport Services Act. In order to provide housing for those employees, the White taxpayers of Johannesburg also had to make a large contribution because the Johannesburg City Council wiped out the deficits in the Bantu Revenue Account with money from the White rate fund. Over a period of nine years more than R20,000,000 was provided from these two sources in order to house those people. I am not surprised at all that Mr. Patrick Lewis asks—

Who is advocating that?

I ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he is prepared to rise and urge that full rights of ownership be given to the Bantu who are established in Johannesburg and the other towns on the Rand and throughout the country in this manner with funds from these sources, in consequence of which we shall be faced once again with the problems so well described here by Mr. Patrick Lewis? Is he prepared to propose that the White taxpayers of Johannesburg or of the Rand should foot the Bill for the 7,000 morgen of land to be bought and the 65,000 houses which, according to departmental formulae, will have to be put up if the 2,300 morgen of undeveloped industrial land, which is already available on the Rand, is allowed to be developed injudiciously? Of course he will not have the courage to advocate that in this House. It is clear to me that the Opposition are trying to talk round this Bill as far as possible, because they are two-faced. It is a privilege for me to support this Bill because its underlying principle flows logically from the policy always advocated by the National Party.

The hon. member for Westdene (Mr. van der Spuy) said in his opening remarks that the Bill before us is a positive measure which will improve labour relations in this country, and he then went on to quote a report way back in 1922 and he seemed to ignore the figures of to-day. I would draw his attention to the latest report of the Bulletin of Statistics which shows that the urban Bantu in 1951 in this country were 2,390,000 and in 1960, nine years later, 3,471,000, so that it is quite clear from an examination of these figures that a bigger proportion of Bantu to-day are living in the cities than was the case in 1951, all of which period was covered by the rule of this Government.

The whole object of this Bill, Mr. Speaker, is to divide this country into Black and White areas, all the White areas being prescribed under Clause 46 of the Bill. Every area proclaimed under the Urban Areas Act under this Bill will be a prescribed area. It seems to me that the members of the Government, at least the hon. Deputy Minister and some of the speakers, are living 50 years behind the times. Their whole attitude is this, that the Bantu are regarded as labour units to be taken from their kraals and from their reserves as and when required, being sent back when their services are no longer required. They are no longer regarded as having any right whatsoever in the White areas. The whole object of this Bill is to divide the people so that eventually there will be complete economic division and complete geographical division between the people, an object which I am certain will be impracticable. But that is the object of this Bill, to regard a labour unit as a unit to be used as and when required, that is basic to the theory of Nationalist Party thinking. Mr. Speaker, if we are going to build any defence against Communism at all, we have got to win the Black man onto our side, and there is no Bill which is going to endanger the safety of both Black and White more than this Bill if it is applied as envisaged in the various clauses of the Bill which we will examine in due course. If the Bantu is to advance, he must have the best opportunity to advance to the highest degree of which he is capable, and he will not be able to do that if you put him through the syphon of the labour bureau and the so-called aid centre. The tragedy is that this is a young country, rich in minerals, rich in natural resources, and the advance is made in industrial techniques and techniques of management are such that it is a pity that there are not more members on the Government side who are acquainted with modern management techniques. Any examination of the statistics which are available will show that in the main South African secondary industry depends, and so does the mining industry, upon Bantu labour, and to liken that labour as all migratory and then to quote the cases of Western Europe where there is a certain measure of migratory labour, is not a fair analogy, because in the main that migratory labour in Europe is only temporary and the country as such does not depend solely on that labour. The Italians that go to Switzerland, and the Italians that go to Germany and return at the end of ten months are not permanent labourers and they have a country to which they can go, but in the main the industries of West Germany look in the first instance to their own labour and the main labour of South African industries is Bantu labour, and you cannot claim the analogy of the migratory labour of Western Europe and put that in the same position and ally that to the Bantu labour in our factories.

What do they do in Germany if they do not have their own labour?

They would get labour from Italy.

That is precisely what we are doing.

But they have a freedom of choice. I am glad that the hon. member for Krugersdorp has intervened. He knows a little bit about labour and labour problems, and he knows that the people in Italy can get their passport and sell their labour to the best advantage. That is not going to be the position under this Bill. Under this Bill the Bantu have to go to the so-called labour aid centres …

Explain to us what is the difference between the labourers from Italy who go to Germany and return to Italy and the Natives who are recruited under the Mozambique Treaty for our mines.

That has nothing to do with this Bill. This Bill deals with Natives who are born in this country, who are South African citizens. The hon. member apparently has not even read the Bill. This Bill has to do with people born in this country, who work in this country and who belong to this country. The hon. Deputy Minister laughs because as far as he is concerned they do not belong to the White area of South Africa, they are foreigners. That is the tragedy of the situation, because that is going to do harm to the economic development of this country. If we are going to have an efficient industrial development, we have to have trained people, and our trained people are at their best when they can live in a stable society. Anyone who has had the experience of going to Europe and visiting the factories that use migratory labour will tell you that the most efficient labour is that labour which is stable and which has their family life with them. Visit the leading engineering companies in Germany, visit the leading companies and the fine precision works in Switzerland, and they will tell you that their most efficient artisans are those who are there on the spot, who have their own families and their own family environment. The migratory labour, the men who have no roots, who work for a season and go away are generally speaking not as reliable and stable as those who are permanently settled in the country.

I disagree with you as far as the gold-minding industry is concerned.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I claim that I probably have had a little more experience in secondary industry than the hon. member for Krugersdorp and when it comes to the training of labour I would sooner have the Bantu who has been trained and who has his family near him than one whose family is in the reserves and whose mind is not on the job. The hon. member refers to the gold mines. They know the difference. It is the gold mines of the Free State who asked that they should have family labour. The hon. member for Krugersdorp should know …

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, my time is limited. But I will tell the hon. member also about Sasol, which is a Government organization, under Government control and Government influence, and Sasol has found it essential to have married quarters for Bantu in the Sasol area.

That is not correct. You know that is not so.

The hon. member is not entitled to say that it is not true and that I know it is not true.

Order! The hon. member for Heilbron must withdraw those words.

What must I withdraw? We all know that it is not true.

The hon. member must withdraw that the hon. member for Pinetown knows that it is not true.

I withdraw those words and I regret his ignorance.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw unreservedly.

I withdraw.

The hon. member for Krugersdorp should know, and if he goes to Sasol he would see for himself, that there are Bantu working for Sasol who are living in married quarters. I have been there and seen it for myself.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, the hon. member knows the Rules of this House and knows that the time is limited, and he himself has for that reason refused to answer questions.

I was saying before I was interrupted by these interjections that industry prefers to have trained staff, a trained staff which is a stable staff, and prefers to have artisans and qualified industrial workers which it can train under stable labour conditions, and you can only get stable labour conditions when you can have people living in reasonable proximity for their work with their own families. There is no hope for South African industry to be really efficient if it is going to be recognized, as this Bill recognizes, that the whole of the industrial development of South Africa is dependent for at least half of its labour force on migrant labour. The Bulletin of Statistics shows that more than half of the industrial labour of this country, more than half of the industrial workers in secondary industry are Bantu workers, and on that basis, if this Bill goes through, every Bantu worker will be regarded as far as South African secondary industries are concerned as a temporary labourer. The labourers can be moved to other parts of the country at the discretion of the labour officers appointed under this Bill, they can be moved because “it is in the public interest”. They can be moved if the official concerned feels that it is in the public interest.

That is not true.

Might I ask the hon. member to study the Bill. He would see it there for himself. Selection of staff in a modern industry requires the training of specialized personnel. This Bill shows how out of touch the Government is with actuality. If we are to have efficient production in our secondary industries, we have to ensure that you can train people to the best of which they are capable, and how can we train people under these circumstances? How can the industrialist train his labour when he does not know from where his labour is going to be drafted? Once this Bill is passed, it will be possible to direct labour to different areas “in the public interest”. So instead of industries being directed to Springs, labour may be directed to Rosslyn because it will be “in the public interest” that they should go to the borders of Pretoria.

You are now talking the greatest nonsense!

I hope the hon. Minister will come to my constituency and see what is happening to-day in my constituency. I challenge the Minister to come to Hammarsdale and inquire personally of the number of Bantu at Hammarsdale who do not belong to the area. I challenge the Minister to go there and ascertain the number of workers who belong to Hammarsdale. They have been drafted here. Permission has been given in some cases to come from Lamontville. I have known of cases in the Pinetown area where Bantu have been available in the Pinetown area but have been told that they could go to Hammarsdale. If that is not drafting I would like to know what is. The hon. Minister says it is nonsense, but this is the direction in which the officials are moving. They have not got the power to force it. When I have had occasion to challenge it, they said “Well, that will be done in due time”, that the time will come when this Bill is passed and that is going to be held over the heads of these Bantu. When they come to the Pinetown magisterial area for work they will be told: “You are drafted to Hammarsdale, you are drafted to Farm A or to Farm B, or to Government work. So and So”. There was an outcry from Government members when certain members used the words “slave labour”. That may be going a bit far, but certainly when a man cannot sell his labour freely in the market, then he is restricted.

That is the position under your policy and you know it.

If we are going to build up a sound industrial complex in this country with efficient labour and efficient management, it is essential to build up a sound labour tradition, and we have got to see in this country, as they have in Western Germany, in France, in Belgium, in the United Kingdom, the second and third and fourth generation working in a factory. What hope is there of this being developed in this country under this Bill? What hope is there for a man to be able to say: My son will be able to come into the factory after me, and my son’s son. If we are going to build this country into a rich country, into a country which can take a leading part on the African Continent, then it is essential that we build up industrial skills and efficiency to such an extent that we can compete with any other nation in the world, but we cannot attain that standard of efficiency, until the workers in the factory can be sure of their living, can be sure of a stable family life, can be sure that they will be able to live a normal family life. This Bill condemns them forever to be migratory labourers and migratory labourers so long as they live at any time outside a Bantu area. Under those circumstances there is no prospect whatsoever of Bantu labourers being able to look long term for industrial progress and industrial development. Hon. members surely have some experience, or if they have not it is time they did have, of the value of loyalty in a firm, the value of loyalty of being trained in the firm and being associated with an industry and have a contact over many years with an industry, building up an industrial pride. We have it in our Province of Natal, the skills developed in the sugar industry over the years. Under these measures I cannot see many others than Zulus being allowed into Zululand and yet the most efficient people in the cane-cutting section of the sugar industry in Zululand are not Zulus at all, but are Pondos. The most efficient units are Pondos. But is the Minister going to allow Pondos to continue to go to Zululand?

Why not?

I hope the hon. Minister is going to confirm that, that Pondos are going to be allowed into Zululand.

Yes.

In various parts of the country we have industrial skills acquired over the years, different people acquiring skills and acquiring pride in a particular industry and if industries are going to develop in this country there must be a reasonable measure of stability and we see no signs of stability in this Bill.

Speaker, if we are going to get efficiency in industry, we not only must have loyalty, but also the team spirit in the factory, and this team spirit in the factory can be maintained and improved only if there is a careful selection of labour. Is there going to be the opportunity for industry to select their labour, with the trained personnel? In most leading factories to-day they have a special personnel department which examines labour and tests labour and interviews the various labour units to study efficiency factors and consider whether they are suitable for various types of employment. They have the opportunity of testing labour in one department and transferring it to another. Not always does the employee selected for a particular branch of industry find that he is suitable when he is first tried. Yet this is the position under this Bill that a man going to these aid centres, if he refuses work three times, he is an idle and dissolute person, and the tendency will be for a man to accept the first job offered to him because there is a danger of being declared an idle person. Yet times without number we know from our own experience in industry that quite often you cannot judge a man at the first interview. And here the judgment is being put in the hands of a labour officer, and quite often not a senior officer, in many cases it will be a junior officer and a junior officer who is open possibly to corruption, as the hon. Leader of the Opposition said.

Is that not true of the whole Civil Service?

If we are going to get the best labour trained, we have to give the opportunity to the various personnel departments in our leading industries to examine the prospective employees. There is no provision for this in this Bill. They will all be treated as units in a queue. I see no provision in this Bill for the classification of workers, for the classification of their various aptitudes. If the Bill in this form becomes part of the law of this country, as it looks it will do, it will certainly undermine industrial efficiency in this country. The only hope for the future is that the economic laws in this country will prove to be more powerful than man-made laws. I hope time will tell that the economic laws will prove that this Bill is as impracticable as it is stupid.

Having listened to the speakers of the United Party, it is quite clear to me that this legislation has caught them offside. They expected, and allowed themselves to be told by their Press, that a very drastic measure would now be introduced here. And because the Press said that there would be a “total war”, they must pretend to wage a total war, but they do not know how to do so. They come with a number of generals who do nothing else but retreat, and they are now the people who have to wage this war. Looking at the Press reports one would think that a tremendous debate was taking place in this House, whereas what we have here is a very feeble effort on the part of the United Party. After having listened to the speeches here, it is quite clear to me that the United Party is pleading for just one thing, and that is to make Black the White portion of the public of South Africa. In terms of the policy of the United Party, we will have a Black Republic, not only in the reserves, but also here.

Now I want to ask the Opposition whether they are in favour of influx control or not? Are they in favour of the Bantu just coming in here at will? Because the whole principle of this Bill is that we want to try to control this influx, but hon. members oppose it. But I want to go further. The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) said that there are more Bantu in the White areas of the Republic than there were in 1950. Of course that is so. But how many would there have been had the United Party been in power? Had the United Party been in power, we would really have seen how many Bantu there would have been in the White areas.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said here that a middle class of Bantu should be established. I agree. But then I also want to ask where the leaders of a revolution came from? Not from the poor section, but usually from the middle class. We see that now also. I have nothing against there being a middle class of Bantu, but that is where the leaders of the revolution always come from.

But I go further. The Leader of the Opposition said that if a revolution were to break out in South Africa this Government should be blamed for it. What are they doing? They are now telling the Bantu that a revolution should break out in South Africa. They are telling the Bantu of South Africa that they now have the right to rebel in South Africa. It is a scandalous thing for the Leader of the Opposition to say that a revolution will break out in South Africa and for him to intimate to the Bantu that they are entitled to revolt.

Then they say further that there was no consultation here. They say that the public was not consulted, nor the Bantu. Which Natives had to be consulted? Sobukwe? Or Matanzima? They were opposed to Matanzima. Would those hon. members have been satisfied had we consulted Matanzima? They who acted against Matanzima and who did not want Matanzima? They who did not want Matanzima now say that he should have been consulted. But the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) asked the Leader of the Opposition what he meant by “surplus labour”? Then he said that it would mean that the Bantu who is now living and working here will have to get out and somebody else will have to take his place. That is the reply he gave to the hon. member for Heilbron. Utter nonsense!

But I come to another aspect. The hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) said that only foreign Bantu were employed on the mines. As far as I know, about 50 per cent of the Bantu employed on the mines to-day come from our own homelands. They are prepared to allow that; they are prepared that people from the homelands should work in the mines, but they are not prepared to say that those people should work in the factories.

Before passing over to another point, I just want to react to what the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) said here yesterday. He quoted what Dr. de Kiewiet had said. Dr. de Kiewiet is supposed to have said that this legislation was immoral. Dr. de Kiewiet does not even live in South Africa. He is a professor somewhere in New York. He might as well have quoted Keppel-Jones, who fled from South Africa. Why did he not quote him?

Or Shakespeare.

The hon. members for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) and Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) said that an attempt was being made here to restrict the labour tenant system. The hon. member for Durban (North) will in any case not have a seat by 1966, so we can therefore ignore him. But the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg objected to the labour tenant system being curtailed. Now, I know that this system has been in operation for more than 100 years in Natal already, and also in the other provinces, but in spite of that voices have been raised against that system on various occasions already, not only now but as far back as 1939. Then a committee was appointed, the Native Farm Labour Committee, which reported and said the following—

It went further and said that this system could be completely abolished, and that was when the United Party was still in power. In 1960 an Inter-Departmental Committee was appointed, of which I was the chairman, and various memoranda were submitted to us. There were approximately 29, apart from those of private individuals; 18 advocated the abolition of the system, 11 were opposed to its abolition, but even those who pleaded for the system to be retained said that they realized that changes should be made in this system. At that time, 1960, the S.A. Agricultural Union said that this system should be abolished, but that it should not be done immediately; it should take place in an evolutionary manner, and that is precisely the method now proposed in this Bill, to abolish it gradually. I know there are other associations, such as the Natal Wool Growers’ Association, which pleaded that it should be retained, particularly where there is mixed farming and stock farming. But in general it was condemned. I just cannot understand why those hon. members now plead for the retention of this system.

I want to come to another point, and that is in connection with Section 10. It is now said that in terms of Section 10 certain Natives, even though they have been here from 10 to 15 years, will have to leave the White area, Bantu who are unemployed or work-shy. Do hon. members want to protect those Natives? Do they want to allow those Natives, who do absolutely nothing, to remain in these areas? They have been here for 15 years and perhaps they have even been in gaol, but they must still remain here. And that was not always the policy of the United Party. The policy of the United Party at one time was that the Bantu in the White area was a temporary worker. They also said so. I have here a speech made by Mr. Heaton Nicholls to the students of the University of the Witwaters-rand in 1935, in which he said this—

Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Heaton Nicholls was the leader of the United Party in Natal. He says—

That was in 1935, but now they have suddenly changed completely. We say he is just a temporary sojourner here. They also said that in 1935. Even in their policy of 1954 they still went so far as to say that the influx into the White areas could not be stopped. Does the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) agree with that, that the inflow of Bantu into the White areas cannot be stopped? [Interjection.] Can it be stopped, or can it not? Will the hon. members of the United Party be able to stop that inflow? Will the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) answer that question?

We will control it. (Laughter.)

They say it cannot be stopped, but that they will control it, but if we try to control it, that is wrong. Those hon. members maintain they have always said that they would control it, but that is precisely what we now want to do.

But not in this way.

The hon. member says they will not control it in this way. That hon. member told me yesterday that he was going to speak in this debate, and now I want him to state an alternative method as to how they will control this inflow. I challenge him to get up here and to say what alternative method they will evolve to control it.

And I will watch him.

I say with all the emphasis at my command that the hon. member will get up and criticize, but he will suggest no practical alternative method of applying that control.

I want to mention just one thing. In their policy of 1954 in regard to the fact that a Bantu can remain in the White area for 72 hours without a permit, they say that this provision will be amended to make it less harsh. Now he must also tell me in what respect they will amend that section which deals with the 72 hours, in order to make it less stringent. Possibly they will say he can remain in the White area without a permit for a week, or a month, or possibly they will say he can remain here for a year, but I think they will allow him to remain here forever without a permit. That is the way in which the United Party sets to work. Not a single constructive argument was advanced here. They tell us the old stories about economic interests being affected, in spite of the fact that South Africa has developed economically under this existing legislation. I think the industrialists of South Africa are very glad that we have this legislation. In the first place they realize that it will create all kinds of problems if the Bantu are allowed to enter uncontrolled, because that is what those hon. members plead for. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) said yesterday that she wanted to have no control of any kind, and that is also the attitude of the United Party. Their attitude in regard to this Bill is identical to that of the hon. member for Houghton. It is no use those hon. members now saying that they differ from the hon. member for Houghton. The language they use here is absolutely identical to that of the hon. member for Houghton. The only difference is that whereas she says frankly that she does not mind and that they may just come in, they dare not say so. Therefore I say again that this legislation will be welcomed by all sections of our community. It will be welcomed by the municipalities, the industrialists and the farmers.

Mr. Speaker, it is a good thing that the title of this Bill merely states what the Bill in fact does, that it amends certain other Acts. We have become accustomed now to have the title of a Bill reflecting something completely opposite to what is included in the Bill. We are quite entitled, after hearing what the Minister of information had to say, to expect the title of the Bill to deal with the removal of restrictions on the entry of Bantu into the urban areas. [Interjections.] I will deal with a question put to me by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel), but I will do so in my own good time. Hon. members opposite cannot treat me in this House as they want to treat the Bantu outside. The poor Bantu cannot speak for themselves, but I can still speak for myself, and I can say what I like within the rules of the House.

In considering this Bill, the House must first make up its mind what it is intended to accomplish by this measure. It is intended to turn the Native labour force into a labour corps to be controlled by the Government of the day, which is unfortunately the Nationalist Government. They will use the Bantu where they want him to be used, and not necessarily where he should be used or where he is required. The labour bureaux will control Government policy. It will not be left to the municipal labour officer to say what labour will be allowed into that area. The Bill sets out to give him certain powers, but there are always overriding officials. The Regional Director or the Minister or the Secretary for Bantu Administration will always have the power to direct what is in the public interest, and through the regulations which can be passed by this Government in terms of the law the Government itself will control what type of Bantu are allowed into what area.

This Bill shows the typical way in which the Nationalist Government proceeds to govern. They first give an indication of a line of policy which they intend pursuing, or a Bill which they intend introducing, and when the public reacts and it is quite clear that the indignation of the public is great, and the conscience even of the Nationalists themselves rebels against it, then they make concessions and say they will introduce something lighter, and the people are so glad to avoid the dire consequences of what was originally intended that they look upon any change as a concession. What they do is to warn us that they will do certain things, and then they say they will not go quite as far but will make a concession. Take the example of this Bill. Whereas previously the Bantu was prohibited from doing certain work, they will now be permitted to do certain work. When you talk of a prohibition it is a denial of some right or privilege, but when you talk about permitting them to do something the idea is created that something is being bestowed upon them, that they are being given some relief.

What is your policy?

I will come to that. Obviously the way to win approval for legislation is to announce, after a measure like this is introduced, that you are going to introduce something more simple. That was done in this case. The Minister himself in introducing the Bill adopted this attitude. He distinguished this Bill from the Bill introduced in 1963, and he told us what he had left out of this Bill. He mentioned that labour depots were left out because the words did not sound too good, so now they call them aid centres. I want the Minister to tell me in his reply what the difference is between a labour depot and an aid centre. I am sorry he has not told us what the difference is. He said in the 1963 Bill there were powers granted to cancel contracts because of labour quotas and that had been dropped. But what are they doing in this Bill? It gives the power to cancel contracts when it is in the public interest. And who decides when it is in the public interest? Under the previous Bill the public knew what the labour quota was and they knew where they stood, but now merely with the excuse of public interest they can cancel any contract. Then he spoke about the requirements for women. He said the clause requiring women to carry certain documents when entering the urban areas was dropped, but what does he do now? In the clause providing for regulations to be framed he specially gives himself the power to make regulations requiring certain documents to be carried by women. Then he says—

He does it at his own risk. If he leaves the centre voluntary, he may be put in gaol. [Interjections.] The Minister says he leaves at his own risk. How does he get to the centre in the first instance? Either he is arrested for some breach of the law, and he does not necessarily know what he is being arrested for, and before his trial he can be taken to this centre, or he is convicted of an offence and taken to the centre. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must give the hon. member an opportunity to make his speech.

Then he is told that he must stay there until work is found for him, or if it is not found he must return to the reserves, to a scheduled area, and if he does not do that, if he leaves this aid centre on his own, he will be taken by the police and put in gaol and forced to go somewhere else.

Then the Minister spoke of examples of concessions which are made. He said in aid centres they allow a Native to return to his work within a year. I agree that that is about the only concession I can find in the Bill, that a Native will be allowed to return to the same work within a year. Then he says—

That is interesting. That is done not to break up family life! We have been stressing the importance of family life all these years. The very thing the Government is doing is to destroy family life. Here the Minister gives as a reason for expelling them from the urban areas that they do not want to disturb family life and therefore the Government will pay for their families to go with them to the reserves. And so I can go on about the relief which is given in this Bill.

But now I want to deal with an accusation which was made against us by hon. members opposite that we want to allow uncontrolled entry into the urban areas, and that we do not mind how many Bantu flock into the urban areas. That is one line. The other line is that we, the United Party, passed the Acts which apply control. Well, the United Party is the party which applied influx control in 1945 and we did it because of the fantastic development at that time under a United Party Government. Bantu were flocking into the urban areas and we decided that we had to control that influx in order to see that they had work and accommodation. When the members of the Progressive Party broke away from the United Party and first stated their policy, they at first did not approve of influx control; they were going to control the influx through labour bureaux, but at the time, in reply to the Progressive Party, we said it cannot be voluntary; it will not work, and if you uplift control you will get the Bantu flocking into the urban areas. We made it quite clear. Why did the hon. member for Port Elizabeth challenge me to state what our policy is? That is our policy, but we will not do it in the manner the Government does. We will do it in a humane manner. Our policy is to do just what the Minister said, not to disturb family life. One hon. member opposite wanted to know whether we would allow the Bantu to own property in the urban areas. Sir, they are all rushing to buy our policy publication because they realize that we are the only party which has a published policy. They can buy it and they know what our policy is in regard to the permanently urbanized Bantu. They know we want to encourage him to live there with his family, and therefore we allow him to have his wife and children with him in order to create a middle class Bantu.

What about the mines?

That hon. member should know. He was a member of our party for a long time, but thank heaven he is no longer He should know that the position of the mines is quite different and that the majority of the labour there is foreign labour.

Nonsense!

May I ask you a question?

No, I am sorry. My time is limited. Our policy is to have influx control, but we differ fundamentally from this Government in regard to the method of controlling it. We will control it to avoid surplus labour and not to have unemployed Bantu in the urban areas, but the Government applies control for a different purpose altogether. They are not doing it to avoid having surplus labour; they are doing it to get rid of the Bantu altogether. Although every Bantu in Langa and Nyanga can get work, they will still, in the public interest, say they must get out because they want the Coloureds to get the work. The policy differs completely. Now I want to ask the Minister this. He also said that they have consulted certain bodies. Did they consult the Bantu? He cannot say there is no one to consult with. He has his chiefs. Has he consulted the Transkeian Government? This is most important. I want to ask him whether this Bill applies to the Transkei? Is he going to send Bantu back to the Transkei in terms of this Bill and force them to stay in certain parts of the Transkei, as he can do in terms of this Bill, seeing that the Transkei is still a scheduled area? Has he consulted with the Transkeian Government as to whether they will allow him to send people back to the Transkei, people who have never lived in the Transkei? Has he arranged with them where they will settle these people? Because I would remind him that in terms of the Transkei Constitution Act our Acts do not apply to the Transkei if the Transkei can deal with those matters itself. I want him to answer this question because labour is an important question and the Chief Minister has already said, when explaining why he was asking for self-government, that one of the reasons was that he wanted to be able to negotiate at top level with the Republican Government on the question of labour. Once this Act is passed, this Government will not be able to make concessions to Chief Matanzima, and I can see the first rub coming. This is an important point and I hope the Minister will not just gloss it over.

In terms of this Bill, too, it is not only those who have come into the urban areas recently who can be removed. The Minister keeps on telling us about the protection of Section 10 (1) (a) and (b), but I would like to point out that although in terms of this Bill it might be said that an African can buy a ticket and travel by train anywhere in the country and stay anywhere for 72 hours, the public must not be misled by that. People could always do that. They can travel around the country today. In terms of our 1945 Act, control was exercised. Why is this system of control being amended? Why are those Acts being amended if the Minister says that everything he is asking for now he already has in the existing Acts? I will tell you why, Sir. It is because they are taking power now to be able to stop a Bantu from travelling anywhere, and they can do it by regulation and the Bantu will have to have a permit before he can visit any White area. It is all nonsense to say that in terms of this Bill a Bantu can travel anywhere he likes. If that is so, there was no necessity to introduce this Bill. It is not intended that he can visit any town for 72 hours. They have deleted the word “work-seeker”. Can the Minister tell us that a Bantu can enter a town and walk around seeking work for 72 hours? If he cannot do that, what is he going to be allowed to do in the 72 hours, and how will the Department know what he is doing? I say that they do not intend to allow him to come in for 72 hours at will; the regulations will stop him in some way. Sir, it is also said that the Nationalist Government asks nothing more for the Whites than it is prepared to give the Bantu. The hon. member for Pretoria (East) has said that the White man cannot own property in the Native reserves, why then should the Native be allowed to own property in the White areas? Of course, that is typical of the ignorance of Government members as to what is contained in the Bill and what the position in the reserves is. A White man can own property in the reserves, and he does own property there. The trading stations in the Transkei are owned by White people; they are in the scheduled areas. But would you believe it, Sir, even at this stage we, the Whites of the Transkei, do not know what our position is. We are as confused as to our future position as the hon. member for Pretoria (East) was as to the true position to-day. We are still waiting to find out what our position is. The White man can own property in the reserves and the Black man used to have certain rights in the White areas. Sir, to try to liken the Black man in South Africa to the Italians seeking work in Germany or in Switzerland is absolute rot. Whether the Nationalist Party likes it or not the Black man is a South African. The Government made them South African citizens when it passed its Citizenship Act. The only justification that there could be for treating the African as the Government treats him in this measure would be to apply the Transkeian law to the rest of the country; to make him a citizen of his own country, of a separate country. Sir, the Native who has been given his own citizenship rights in the Transkei was not consulted. And when the Native in the Transkei talks about freedom he means freedom of movement, and when you ask him what he means by freedom of movement he says, “I want freedom to move to sell my labour”. That is the point which Chief Sebata has made all along. The freedom which they seek is the right to move about to sell their labour because they want to be part of the whole of South Africa. There can be no excuse for denying the Bantu the right to move about to sell his labour where it is required. That is all we ask for.

Why did you support the pass law and influx control?

I have told the hon. member why we support influx control. The Progressives have realized that one of the reasons why their policy is not accepted by the majority of the people is because they propose to do away with influx control. They want voluntary control. You cannot have voluntary control. In order to enforce influx control you have to have the pass system. Sir, you would not allow me to go into the whole question of passes at this stage but the hon. member for Houghton ought to know what our policy is with regard to exemption from the pass laws. She knows what our policy is with regard to passes and she supported it. She knows that it is our policy to grant exemption to certain classes of Bantu. It is because of the necessity of influx control that we in the United Party will retain the pass system when we come into power, but we will apply the law in a humane manner. I say that the Government would like to regard all the Bantu as foreigners. That is why the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) likened them to the labour coming from Mozambique to the mines. Sir, I ask you what has the Mozambique Convention got to do with this Bill? The hon. member is quite wrong if he thinks that this Bill deals with foreign Bantu. It does not deal with the Bantu from Lourenco Marques or Portuguese territory. This Bill deals with South African Bantu, who have no other country to which they can go. You may be able to send the Transkei Bantu back to the Transkei where they have their own government, but what is the hon. member going to do with all the other Bantu? Where are the Bantustans for them to return to? Where is he going to accommodate them all? Sir, I say that the sooner this Government realizes that the Bantu expect to be treated as South Africans the better it will be for them and for our country.

Before coming to the speech of the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, and to the Bill, I should like just to clear up one little matter, and I am pleased the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is present. In his speech, as reported among others in the Cape Times, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that if we were to be faced with a revolution—and he referred to the Bantu—the Government would be responsible for it. He said: “The persons who will have to bear the blame for it are sitting on that side of the House.” Now I should like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition this question: If he were a Bantu, for then he would be affected by this measure, would he participate in such a rebellion?

What would you do?

As he says the Bantu will be justified in revolting, I should like to ask him …

On a point of order, am I entitled to reply?

No, you know well enough that you are not entitled to reply.

Is the hon. member entitled to misquote me?

It is not necessary for the Leader of the Opposition to make a speech in reply to my question. The question is of such a nature that he can say “yes” or “no” to it. I should like to have clarity on this matter. If someone were to ask me that question, I would simply say “yes” or “no”. According to the speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition he justifies a rebellion on the part of the Bantu in consequence of the acceptance of this measure.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, one thing at a time. The hon. member over there will not put me off the track. I first want to clear up this matter. My question to the Leader of the Opposition is a very simple question, namely: If he suggests that the Bantu will be justified in revolting as a consequence of the passing of this measure …

He did not say that.

It is no good hon. members making those interjections. Will the Leader of the Opposition then participate in that rebellion if he were a Bantu?

May I ask the hon. member what he would have done had he been a Bantu?

Had I been a Bantu, I would refuse to participate. On the contrary, I should have welcomed this Bill. That is my reply. What is the reply of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition? Is he refusing to reply to this question by a simple “yes” or “no”? No, he is zipped. If we could have a reply to that question, there would be a good deal of clarity on the point of view of the Opposition. It seems to me, in the absence of an answer from the Leader of the Opposition, that he and his followers do not mind using language here that may have that effect. While they themselves do not mind others involving themselves in such trouble, they refuse to tell us whether they would participate in such a rebellion if they had been Bantu. No, Sir, that is not the kind of language a Leader of the Opposition ought to use. A driver uses that kind of language, but not a Leader. I am very sorry, for I have always regarded the Leader of the Opposition as a very moderate person. I am very sorry that the Leader of the Opposition regards a small spark which the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has taken from an ordinary torch battery as a flash of lightning and has been frightened by it. I shall be very pleased if when we discuss these matters in future, the Leader of the Opposition will show more moderation, and that he will not be scared by the sparks from the hon. member for Houghton.

Now I should like to reply briefly to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. Among other things, he said that we do not want the Bantu to have the right of land-ownership in the White area of South Africa. That is a settled matter, and that is one of the matters on which we have adopted an irrevocable attitude. But then he stated that Whites may in fact own land in the Transkei. The hon. member knows very well that that is a position we inherited and that it will remain so in the future.

What are you going to do with us?

The hon. member knows what the policy of the National Party is. He knows that the Whites are there temporarily, and that that land which is owned by Whites to-day could in fact be alienated. He knows that that land can never be transferred to another White man again. The logical result of that of course is that that land will eventually pass into the hands of Bantu in the Transkei.

What is going to become of us, the Whites?

You will become a migrant labourer.

Now I should like to come to the points made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition here. He says stricter control is now being applied. Were we not for years reproached by the Opposition because stricter control was not being exercised, and because there was still a steady influx of Bantu to the White areas? Did they not always complain that there was no effective control, and ask that the control should be tightened up? Now that we are turning on the screw, the Leader of the Opposition complains that we are applying stricter control. His second point is that the Bantu are unable to sell their labour freely. In what respects will the Bantu now have less freedom to sell his labour than he had in the past? I should like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or any other members on that side this question—take the Bantu employed on the mines: Is he selling his labour freely under the present state of affairs? No, the hon. gentlemen are unwilling to reply to that, because they know that exactly the same conditions of service applying at the present time, and exactly the same wages being paid at the present time will continue unchanged. What becomes of the argument of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that the Bantu will not be able to sell their labour freely? In what way can this measure prejudice the conditions of service and the wage rates of the Bantu? The Leader of the Opposition and his supporters are wielding a crowbar here, and they are trying to undermine the foundation of Bantu homelands with that crowbar. The Leader of the Opposition and his friends over there want to frustrate future possibilities of development in the Bantu homelands in advance. They want to lure as many Bantu as possible from the Bantu homelands to the White area, and in that way they want to undermine the Bantu homelands, because as soon as you remove the influx control measures, it goes without saying that multitudes of Bantu will be lured from the Bantu homelands to the White areas. The complaint now is that we want to remove more and more Bantu from the White areas. But hon. members know, or they ought to know, that under the policy of separate development greater provision is to be made for the Bantu to make a living in his own area. In the first place there is the five-year development scheme within the Bantu area, and in the second place there are the border industries. We want to create opportunities for the large Bantu masses in the Bantu areas, in those areas themselves and in the border industries, in the interests of both the Bantu and the South African industries. I ask hon. members opposite: if a Bantu is unemployed, if he refuses to work, if he has not been employed here for years, what do they expect should happen to such a Bantu? Judging from the criticism of the Opposition, it seems they want that Bantu to have the right to remain in the White area even if he refuses to work and even if he is an habitual idler. Do you know what the Opposition are doing Mr. Speaker? They are now criticizing the Government because the Government has come forward with a measure under which it is taking powers to enable it to take steps against that type of person who is unwilling to work, for whom there is no work—the work-shy, the assassin and the robber. All of us know that these gangs of robbers we find in the cities at the present time consist of people who have never worked. We are now making it possible to remove them. But apparently the Opposition want them to have the fullest right to remain in this country. I ask you, Sir, what must those robbers do here if this is not their homeland? Those are the people whose cause the Leader of the Opposition has been championing. I want to tell the Leader of the Opposition that if we wish to preserve good relations between Whites and Bantu or wish to establish it, we must create conditions in South Africa such as those we shall have under this Bill, where there will be fewer idle Bantu in the White area. At the present time one is finding hundreds of idlers here in the Cape, on the Witwatersrand and in other big cities. They are loitering about on the streets and in the public gardens, and they wait for an opportunity to commit theft. On a Saturday afternoon I could show you here, in Cape Town, in your beautiful gardens within a hundred paces from Parliament, numerous loafers who stroll around and intimidate people and beg money. Those are the kinds of people the Leader of the Opposition and his comrades do not want us to deport from South Africa. Those are the people they are protecting.

But Saturday afternoon is a holiday.

Now I ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition what he proposes to do with these hundreds of loafers one finds in the big cities?

Where are they?

You see, Sir, that is the kind of answer one gets from the Opposition. In other words, as I have said on a previous occasion, the Opposition are very keen to create conditions here in which chaos will be rampant. Not a single member of the Opposition has told us clearly what we should do with these multitudes who have never worked, who refuse to work, who spy upon the homes of Whites who are in their offices or working in factories, so that at night time they can go and perpetrate evil things. Those are the people the Opposition wish to protect. Mr. Speaker, we are not hiding anything; this is a measure which is calculated to clinch properly the pattern of separate development, for here we also are dealing with a Bantu population of which the vast majority could be employed usefully. Here we are regulating matters by legislation, not by “government by regulation” to which the hon. members are constantly objecting. Here the position is being set forth clearly in legislation so that the Bantu of the Transkei and other Bantu areas in the Republic as well as the Bantu of neighbouring territories will have no doubt about the conditions under which they will sojourn here in the White area. Here we are dealing with the treatment of citizens of other States by our Government which has a responsibility to those other Governments, and for that reason the matter has to be put on a proper basis so that those people, when they come here, will understand clearly that they will be permitted to enter the White area of South Africa to come and work here, and that they will be permitted to reside here as long as they are employed, but that they will be removed if they commit an offence here or if they become loiterers and join gangs of robbers, of which we have a large number in the big cities of South Africa at the present time. As a result of this legislation the Bantu authorities both in the Republic and in Southern Africa will know precisely under what conditions their citizens will be permitted to come here for employment, and what treatment will be meted out to them. In this way the relations between White and Black will be placed upon a sound basis. If there is one thing that disturbs the good relations between Whites and non-Whites in South Africa at the present time, it is these crimes, murder and theft, that are being committed by Bantu idlers who walk about in gangs during the day time to see where they can break in at night time. That is the state of affairs that disturbs and embitters the relations between Black and White. What galls the White man and makes him embittered is the fact that while he is at work, these evildoers walk about and spy out the country, and during his absence or while he is asleep at night they break into his home. We want to get rid of and control that element in South Africa more strictly. We do not wish, as the Opposition suggests, to take the power to deport all Bantu arbitrarily. We do not wish to cause dislocation in our economy, and no law-abiding Bantu will be thrown about as the Opposition suggests under this Bill. No honest Bantu doing his work will be affected by this Bill. This measure is aimed at the kind of Bantu who deserts one employer for another, who obtains a so-called permit to come and work here and then immediately deserts his employer once he is in the White area. That kind of idler also infects other Bantu and that is a state of affairs we can no longer tolerate. If we were to comply with the demands of the United Party and simply permit all those who wish to enter the White area just to come here, it will result in a clash. You cannot expect the citizen who returns to his home to-night after a hard days work, to be satisfied with the fact that his home has been burgled in his absence. It is nonsense to say that steps will be taken in an irresponsible way against people under this Bill, and that the labour force will be dislocated. That is a story which is sucked out of a thumb which should have been cut off a long time ago already. The hon. member said, among other things—just listen to this kind of reasoning—that it will be left to the Government to say how many people will be allowed to enter a particular area. According to the hon. member, municipal officials will be less corruptible than officials of the Department of Bantu Affairs.

That is not what I said.

The hon. member prefers the judgment of the municipal official. According to him the little municipal official stands head and shoulders above the officials of the Department of Bantu Affairs who are in a position to pass a proper judgment in the light of all the information at the disposal of the Department. But no, in the view of the hon. members, the municipal officials are more competent and more able than departmental officers. I should like to ask the hon. members of the Opposition this: Do they want a Bantu to be admitted to a certain area in the interests of a certain individual when it is in conflict with the public interest? Here we are taking steps in the public interest. Do the hon. members wish to prefer the interests of a private individual to that of the public? That is the implication of their attitude. Sir, I would like to refer briefly to Clause 8 on page 13, and I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister to clarify the position a little more in view of the criticisms of the Opposition in regard to these provisions. He should make those words a little less susceptible to misconstruction, as they have been misconstrued here. It should be put beyond all doubt here that we are guarding the interests of the public here, and that certain individuals will not be permitted to employ labour in conflict with the public interest and public security. For instance, one cannot permit certain wealthy individuals—and here I should like to ask the hon. the Minister for his very serious attention—to employ certain Bantu when those people are doing nothing but inciting evil and agitating and perhaps organizing sabotage. I think the hon. the Minister should reconsider this clause. I hope these words of mine will not fall upon deaf ears, because I feel very strongly about this matter. You know what the Minister of Justice has to cope with, Mr. Speaker. One cannot really refer to that, but one sees what is coming to light in our courts of justice; it is coming to light how people with lots of money are carrying on. I think we should draft the law in such a way that those people who carry on here with Chinese and Communist funds, and who are hiring innocent Bantu to commit sabotage, may be restrained properly. I am asking that because the Opposition here are championing the cause of that type of person. When the Minister has amended the clause to that effect, as I have asked, and when we reach that clause in the Committee Stage, I hope the Opposition will rise and fight it, so that they may stand exposed to the eyes of the public, and so that the public may see that our charges against the Opposition are in fact well founded, and that in these days they are sometimes acting very rashly by making speeches in this House that create the impression in the minds of those people who have money to hire saboteurs in this country, that the Opposition are ready to champion their cause in this House. So I do hope the hon. the Minister will amend this clause in the Committee Stage so that there can be no further misunderstanding.

I should like to emphasize once again that the time has now some for us to place the relations between the Republic of South Africa and the various Bantu tribes in the Republic on a sound basis, and that the honest and good Bantu worker should be enabled to receive protection, and not be treated in the same way as the criminal. In this connection also there is a tremendous difference between us and the Opposition. Whereas we are here mainly dealing with the undesirable element, the Opposition wish to label with the same tag the undesirable elements, the evildoers, the robbers and the good Bantu workers. The object of this Bill is to remove the bad elements gradually from this country, and to send them to where they ought to be.

Where is that?

Are you not aware of the various Bantu countries? Do you not know that Bechuanaland and Basutoland and various Africa states have elements living here? Must I now give you a description of each of those countries? I say that unfortunately there is a large number of them in this country, and many of them come from beyond our borders; they do not even belong here. Those elements are taking note of the pleas of the Opposition in this House. In other words, they will necessarily associate themselves with the point of view of the Opposition; they will necessarily seek an opportunity to give effect to the pleas of the Opposition in this House, namely that they should be permitted to enter our country and come and play a role in South Africa which will create nothing but confusion. I think that in this respect the Minister has the approval of 90 per cent of the White people and 90 per cent of the Bantu.

The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) obviously started his speech on the wrong foot and with a wrong concept of what my hon. Leader had said. He adopted a silly approach to a serious problem and I think even he will agree that he fared very badly when he tried to extricate himself from it. To judge from the rest of the hon. member’s speech it seems that he is equally confused as to what this Bill will do to the economy of South Africa and to the image of South Africa outside our borders. Perhaps he should be enlightened and I shall endeavour to do so.

Last year when the session ended some overseas observers described South Africa as “having become notable for its gold, its gaols and its authoritarian rule”. Instead of assisting South Africans of all races to be able to refute that description appropriately, this hon. Deputy Minister now comes forward with further evidence, in the form of this Bill, to justify and to confirm that description. Because instead of desisting from adding to the already vast powers of the Minister to shackle individual freedom and the free movement of labour the Government now persists in demanding from Parliament still more authoritarian powers, still more bureaucratic authority and still more siege conditions for the bulk of the people. I believe this Bill is the most foreboding measure that has yet been introduced in this House. My hon. Leader has given warning about some of the evils that the Bill holds within it. The country is going to be very grateful to him for having done so. The way in which the hon. member for Krugersdorp and other hon. members opposite have reacted to the warnings of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition shows to what an extent the country is going to be grateful to him for having issued those warnings. As has already been said, this Bill places an onerous burden of restrictions on the masses. Nothing quite as comprehensive or as restrictive to the livelihood of so many people has ever been introduced in the form of a single Bill. We have here a monstrous, certainly a massive measure, to curb and control the most common of human endeavours, i.e. to earn a living and to procure a home. Those are the most human endeavours of the individual and this Bill is primarily directed at making that attainment extremely difficult. The consequences of a Bill of this nature, of course, must affect in one way or another, the future, not only of the people who are mostly concerned, but the people of all races. The repercussions of this type of legislation are likely to go very far, Sir.

What the Government is doing now is to set the socio-economic clock of South Africa back. I think it is possibly setting it right back to the days of the Great Trek. And the paradox of the situation in that regard is that when this Bill becomes law it will bring about a new Great Trek. This time it will be Black Trek back to the reserves. In planning this step the Government plainly demonstrates that humanitarian principles and economic considerations have lost their tug-of-war against racial ideologies. In order to divorce economics from politics and to keep living standards adequate for all, this tug-of-war has been waged almost session by session. The Government is now determined to have its way and the contest is likely to be finally settled in the terms of this Bill. As I have said, humanitarian principles and economic considerations are finally to give way to racial ideologies.

The point has been made, and I want to stress it, that to keep labour constantly on the move and to regard each Bantu person in the so-called White areas as a displaced person in a foreign state, whether he be in a town or on a farm, is obviously going to bring about some form of disruption to farming, business, trade and industry. I repeat, therefore, Sir, what I said last session, namely, that authoritarian rule and free enterprise have no affinity. Like oil and water, Sir, they just do not mix. The repercussions of this legislation and the determination of the Government to put politics first and economics only a bad second, is going to have repercussions much further afield than we think. In that regard let me recall to the Minister the words of a prominent British industrialist who is sympathetic to South Africa, and who came here as recently as November last as a guest speaker to the Federated Chamber of Industries. That gentleman, in expressing the hope that economic sanctions against South Africa would not be imposed at international level, nevertheless saw fit to give this warning to South Africa also at international level—

He was speaking, as I say, at international level and I believe it is an ominous warning that he gave. Therefore it is a warning worth recalling on this occasion when the Government, for its own purposes, is set upon demonstrating to the world at large its own determination to let political considerations outweigh economic considerations in a big way in South Africa.

I come to the second consequence of this Bill to which I wish to refer. If I were asked what was the most significant feature about this Bill, apart from its volume of words, some of which have changed between last session and this Session in form but not in meaning, I would say this: The pre-eminent significance of the Bill is how clearly it demonstrates what a tangled mass of laws, amending laws, and laws to amend amending laws, the Bantu people, and everyone else as well, has to contend with to-day. To unravel this mass of legislation and proposed legislation calls for quite a superhuman effort on the part of people who are versed in the law. But to those people who are not so versed, particularly to those persons who are mainly affected by this Bill and who had no say in its making, the sense and meaning of the law is quite incomprehensible. I need only quote a very simple instance to illustrate my point. One of the most far-reaching changes in this Bill revolves around what is called “prescribed areas”. It is in those areas where there is going to be ever-active and ever-present restriction on employment, on residence, on family life and on business occupation. Indeed, Sir, there are going to be restrictions and controls at every level of employment and on every form of residential tenure. The very first clause in this Bill refers to these prescribed areas. I turn to page 5 of the Bill to find the definition of a “prescribed area” in Clause 1. This is what I find—

So I go on to page 59 and quote from Clause 39—

So I plod on to page 61 where I find Clause 46. I am going to read a portion of this to indicate to what extent the Statute Book has to be traversed in order to find out what a prescribed area is. This is what it says—

Sir, the definition goes on for another 33 lines. But I pause here to put the same question as that put by the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes): Will the Minister please tell us where the Transkei figures in this definition? Because if the Transkei is to be regarded as a scheduled Native area, or a released area, as defined in the Native Trust and Land Act of 1936, then the Transkei legislation which was passed in this House only last year appears to me to be quite meaningless. It seems to me, therefore, that the Transkei is not going to be a non-prescribed area. That makes nonsense of the the legislation. But presumably it is going to become a prescribed area. This is not a triviality. The practical aspect has been referred to by my hon. friend; I am now asking the hon. the Minister to resolve the legal aspect for us. He must tell us precisely where the Transkei is going to figure in this legislation.

There are many other and more complicated examples of this new and involved form of legislating by cross-reference I do not want to go into any more. I think I have read enough to establish that with the passing of this Bill the rule of sanity in South Africa will have fared just as badly as the rule of law has under the régime of this Government. You see, Sir, this break with the rule of sanity is revealed in another direction as well. As my hon. Leader has indicated …

What about the rule of truth for a change?

I would commend that to the hon. member after having listened to his speech a few moments ago. The break with the rule of sanity is to be seen in another direction. As my hon. Leader has indicated the obvious purpose of this Bill is to gear-up the Minister’s bureaucratic machine to enforce the Government’s territorial apartheid policy, known as Bantustans. I have not got time to go into that, Sir, but the purpose of the Government is quite clear. In those parts of the country where the economy is going to be dynamic, i.e. in the towns and on the farms, Bantu people will not be admitted as participants in a free enterprise economic system; they will only be able to come there as ciphers or units under a rigidly controlled labour scheme. They can come there not to offer their labour in the open market—that point was also made by my hon. friend as well—but to get work they will in future be at the mercy and at the behest of some official. When they are given an opportunity to appeal, the appeal will be heard by yet another official in the same Department. Now, Sir, to say the least, this is an unwholesome and a dangerous system of administration in any circumstance. But it is a more dangerous system where the only alternative for the Bantu concerned for himself, his wife and his dependants, is to go to the reserves where the economy is not only stagnant but dead and where, as everybody knows, the population numbers are already far bigger than the land can carry. In terms of this Bill, therefore, to get work it is to become the gift of an official. It is to become the gift of an official, and a gift that is going to have great value to both the employer and the employee in what is quite obviously going to be a closed circuit labour supply.

The point was made by my hon. Leader and I stress it, that it is both unwholesome and a dangerous system to introduce, a system under which a commodity of such value as this will be, will be the gift of an official. I will not repeat the arguments about the possibility of corruption, but I would commend the warning to the Minister.

One wonders, Sir, how much longer South Africa, under the régime of this Government, can fly into the face of history in this way. There was a time in history, not so very long ago, when the inhumanity of man by a master race elsewhere in this world evoked from a great statesman the following words—

Then he continued—

That is the warning that my hon. Leader has given and the warning that I reiterate and that I ask the Government to have regard to. Sir, every clear-thinking person knows full well that a prerequisite of security of the State is security of family life at all levels of the community. That has been stressed throughout by this side of the House in the past and it has been stressed in this debate, because it is important. But the Government turns its back on that aspect of the matter. It fails to recognize that simple human truth. It simply insists on tightening this grip, this authoritarian grip, in a way which must eventually erode almost completely the little security which the Bantu and his dependants, the family unit, still have: it will keep the Bantu worker as a migrant always on the move; and it will limit for the Bantu people still more the opportunity to share in the economy that they have helped to build up. Sir, this is a thoroughly bad Bill and I shall vote against it.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, inter alia, said the following. This Bill puts the socioeconomic development of the country back to the time of the Great Trek. He uses these words in a period of full employment, both as regards Whites and non-Whites, and at a time when there is the greatest harmony between employers and employees, at a time when the White taxpayer has ensured housing for the non-Whites of a quality which compares well even with that of employees in European countries. Therefore the hon. member must forgive me if I hurl his own words back at him and tell him that if he makes such an allegation it is “a break with the rule of sanity”.

The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) and other members who discussed the agricultural aspect of this legislation tried to scare up bogies to frighten the farmers. As a farmer I want to tell him and others opposite who tried to scare up bogies that I do not know what type of farmers they have in their areas. The farmers in my area, however, will certainly not be frightened by this legislation but will welcome it 100 per cent. I want to give the hon. member for Zululand this warning—it is not for me to reveal what negotiations took place between the hon. the Minister and the relevant agricultural unions—that the hon. the Minister will reply to him on this point and he will be astonished by that reply.

I allege that this Bill will in no respect in any way unnecessarily and unreasonably restrict the White farmer as an employer. As a first example, I want to mention the establishment of the Bantu labour control boards, in terms of Clause 24. These boards will consist of an official and at least three other members. Those three other members must all be landowners. They must all live in the particular area for which the board is appointed, and they must actually be farming, not only that, but the chairman of that board will not have an ordinary vote; he will have only a deciding vote. If that is not a democratic institution to take decisions in regard to the interests of co-farmers in the area concerned, then I do not know what is meant by a democratic institution, or how a democratic board can be established. I cannot for a moment imagine that such a control board will in any respect act maliciously, undemocratically or unreasonably against its co-farmers, and if that happens in exceptional cases the aggrieved person in any case still has an appeal to the Minister. Moreover, the Bill provides that in the event of such a labour control board finding that a farmer has too many non-White labourers, Bantu, on his farm, a reasonable period is granted in which he should reduce the number of labourers. I want to ask the Opposition this: Is there no other legislation on the Statute Book already which appoints committees, etc., to exercise discipline over our farmers? I think, e.g., of the provisions of the Soil Conservation Act. Has that Act ever been applied unreasonably? Can they quote to us the examples of people who reasonably felt aggrieved and who were unreasonably treated by these soil conservation committees? A big fuss has been made here in regard to the so-called labour liaison official who can take action against farmers in the event of their farms falling in prescribed areas. Now I want to ask the Opposition whether this is the first official to be appointed in terms of an Act who will have the right of access to and inspection on farms. What about weed inspectors, stock inspectors and members of the Police Force? Can they give us examples of where in the past unreasonable action was taken against farmers, and where these people went out of their way to rub the farmers up the wrong way? No, Sir, I want to allege that to the farmers who are really interested in agriculture, the progressive farmers, these provisions will be welcome, because in regard to agriculture we are entering a completely new era, an era of mechanization, an era in which the progressive farmer realizes that he must manage with fewer labourers and that he must house that smaller number of labourers better, feed them better and pay them better in order to achieve greater efficiency. Therefore I cannot see how a labour control board or a labour liaison officer will ever even take the trouble to try to apply any of these measures to the farming population.

I want to deal with another clause affecting the farmers, Clause 31, which deals with the siting of housing and the congregating of Bantu on certain farms. I want to welcome this clause very heartily. Unfortunately we sometimes find that one farmer has a grudge against another, a neighbour of his, and then he sites his Bantu houses in a spot which is undesirable and constitutes an annoyance to his neighbour. In terms of the provisions of this clause, this nuisance can be dealt with. In addition, we have the position that a man may live in a spot where there are White inhabitants, but where there are one or two farms which are not occupied by Whites, and that there is an unreasonable flocking together of idle Bantu. This Bill now provides that that position can be combated also, and the farming population welcomes it very heartily.

Then I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to Clause 34 of the Bill. It is not clear to me whether the repeal of the existing section which is proposed here will in future make it illegal, and subject to penalties, for a White farmer still to apply the system where he can allow a Bantu to be on his farm as a share-cropper, and where that Bantu can then have his own cattle or a tractor and work for that farmer on shares. I want to appeal to the Minister, instead of having Clause 34 vague in this regard, to insert a positive clause in terms of which it is made a punishable offence in future for a White farmer or a White landowner to enter into such a type of share-cropping contract where a Bantu works for him with his animals or his tractor. The reason why I say this is that in my constituency some cases occur where one has small White farmers in one area and then next to them there is a farm of 2,200 morgen which is cultivated by Bantu in that way, and that gives rise to grievances on the part of those small farmers.

The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) yesterday quoted Dr. de Kiewiet, in which he expressed a cynical opinion in regard to the chances of our policy being successful in this country. Well, personally, I do not attach much value to Dr. de Kiewiet’s opinions in this regard, because he is prejudiced. Dr. de Kiewiet attacked us a few years ago in the Rand Daily Mail—not the Nationalist Government, but the whole of the White population of South Africa—because we do not integrate with the non-White population in the same way as the Spaniards and the Portuguese did in South America. Therefore I regard his views in this regard as being quite prejudiced and of not much value. But now I want to ask the Opposition whether they do not perhaps consider it necessary at this stage to pay heed to the words of a person who has his feet planted much more firmly on Mother Earth than Dr. de Kiewiet. I refer to Peregrine Worsthorne, a brilliant and influential journalist and editor, who, inter alia, said the following in Life of 19 September 1963—

Further on in the same article he says this—

Now the tragedy of the situation is that not only do we not get the co-operation of the West, but we also do not get the co-operation and the encouragement of our friends opposite. On the contrary, the Opposition has succeeded in this debate of inclining more to the left than even the South African Institute of Race Relations. In this pamphlet issued by them they went so far as to laud quite a few of the recommendations made in this Bill, but the Opposition went much further to the left and they see nothing good in this Bill.

They even surpassed Helen.

In conclusion, I want to say that we will continue with courage and conviction along the road we have chosen. We regard this legislation as essential for the full implementation of our policy of apartheid. We know that our border industries and the developments in the homelands will in years to come attract the Bantu back to those areas, and for that reason we should also devote attention to the other side of the picture and make our White areas whiter.

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the hon. member who has just sat down and various other speakers opposite telling this House what they feel will be the achievements of this Bill. I do not doubt their honesty of purpose, and therefore I had to come to the conclusion that they are subject to self-delusion, because at the most dangerous time in the history of Africa and of South Africa a Bill of this kind is introduced in this House. The hon. member for Kroonstad (Mr. A. L. Schlebusch), who has been talking on the farming aspect of this Bill—I wonder whether he realizes that the restrictive clauses of this Bill will equally harm agriculture and commerce and industry. The hon. member quoted Mr. Peregrine Worsthorne, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph in London. I wonder if Mr. Worsthorne would have written those words if he had seen the clauses in this Bill. Sir, the Bantu Laws Amendment Bill must be viewed partly on its own and partly against the background of the general apartheid policy of this Government and also in relation to the establishment of Bantustans. On its own it is a piece of cruel and repressive legislation, contravening many elementary human rights. It is also short-sighted opportunist legislation. It ignores the existing economic needs of labour in industries, and it also ignores the consumer power that could be developed for industry and agriculture and commerce through the higher standard of skill and the higher standard of living among the settled urban Bantu population in the towns and equally in all the White areas. It is short-sighted because it is increasing the lack of security among the urban Bantu to-day, including the growing Bantu middle class through whom contact could be made for the civilizing influence of religion and education and Western ideals amongst the Bantu masses. This Bill is bound to turn every self-respecting, educated urban Bantu into a secret propagandist, and through this cruel legislation the grapes of wrath are going to be reaped not only by this Government but by the whole of South Africa. It is cruel legislation because the provisions of this Bill circumscribe the movement of Bantu labour. Such restrictions have not been enacted in any country in the world since the dark Middle Ages except in Nazi Germany, the reference to which the hon. member for Heilbron took such exception in this House the day before yesterday. Sir, all such ancient legislation has been wiped out in all enlightened civilized countries of the Western world and they have also wiped out the cancer of Nazism from the body politic of the Western world. But this Bill before the House contains a dreary list of restrictions, including restrictions on changing occupations, on changing jobs, and it seems to me that the hon. the Deputy Minister had to draw on the ancient basis of the Indian caste system which was designed to keep the subjugated Indian races in perpetual bondage. It is the same system. In Ancient India, too, the conquered original inhabitants could not change their occupations and the Untouchables were condemned to the lowliest of jobs without a hope of a better life. Why does the hon. the Deputy Minister borrow ideas and systems of suppression from the Dark Ages? Why does he not learn from the experience of Western Christian civilized countries? Sir, with the introduction of a Bill such as this the country can well ask: Is the country moving back under this Government towards the Dark Ages? One wonders how the deeply religious Afrikaans-speaking South Africans tolerate this Government any longer when it presents a Bill of this kind. It seems to me that there is a spirit of secrecy here that shuns bright sunlight and that is leading us back to the Dark Ages. Sir, it is time to stop this process of degeneration. This side of the House hopes that the well-meaning supporters of the Government are now going to wake up and protest and act against the unnecessarily restrictive clauses of this Bill which offend elementary human dignity and also damage the economic interests of commerce, of industry and of agriculture on which our economic security here in South Africa depends. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister not realize that it is impossible to develop modern industry with herded migrant labour, herded under this Bill like convict labour, ruled by petty beaurocrats appointed to administer the maze of restrictions and complicated regulations which are laid down in this Bill? This Bill impinges on the movements, the residence, the occupation and even on the settled family life of the urban Bantu and the Bantu in the so-called White areas.

So much for this Bill itself. But I think we should now view this Bill against the background of the Government’s policy of apartheid as embodied in the Bantustans policy. It is obvious that these Bantustans are designed to serve as the receiving, the storage area, of the Bantu who will be gradually pushed out of White areas by this Bill. The present Bill provides the machinery for such a push as and when it is needed, and the two pieces of legislation together, the Transkeian Constitution Act and this Bill, are the corner-stones of the desperate policy of the Government, intended to deal with the admittedly difficult racial situation here in South Africa, but there is no finesse in the Government’s policy at all. It is quite simply cruel and oppressive and purposeless. In brief, in effect, it amounts to this: The Government is establishing Bantu areas through their Bantustan policy, such as the Transkei Constitution Act, and the Government sets up machinery to herd the Bantu into Bantustans through the Bantu Laws Amendment Bill. This Bill which is before us now rips off the curtain of pretence, and the true intention of the Nationalist Government now stares in the face of all thinking people. Under the powers of this Bill and the administrative machinery to be set up under this Bill Bantu labourers can be herded into places of the Government’s choosing. Of course, the Bantu working in the White areas who are not needed can be and will be herded back into their respective Bantustans which so far have not been established. Until now only foreign Bantu could be handled in this manner, but now the Bantu of the Bantustans will share this treatment with the foreign Bantu. The Bantustans were set up by the Nationalist Government as their solution of the racial problem of the Bantu in South Africa, but the hon. the Prime Minister himself was reported to have said in East London in 1962 that the “forcible removal of the Bantu from the Western Cape was not contemplated but that they would be attracted to the Bantu homelands by better opportunities than are now offered to them”. Nobody can deny that if the Bantustans could provide better standards of living than the White areas and if a better life could attract the Bantu to their so-called homelands, then under Government policy as laid down in this Bill the pressure of Bantu in White areas is going to be reduced. But the Government propagated this idea as a peaceful solution to the supporters of the Nationalist Party, and the well-meaning people believed their leaders. Now the lid is off and it appears that the Bantu will not be attracted back. They are to be pushed around and herded in the Bantustans as and when decided. The detribalized Bantu, the urban Bantu, is to be pushed into so-called aid centres. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories spoke earlier on about these aid centres. Aiding whom or what, Mr. Speaker? According to this Bill the aid centres are going to harbour Bantu who fail to comply with certain provisions of the Act as well as Bantu whose contracts of service have been cancelled or who are not permitted to take up employment. Clause 12 (28)ter of the Bill says that any reference to Section 27 of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1955 to a police station includes a reference to an aid centre. Surely this does not sound like a strength-through-joy camp. The generosity of this Bill goes a little further by providing that nothing prevents any Bantu who is unemployed from being admitted to an aid centre at his own request. Thus we have provisions in this Bill that Bantu committed for breaking regulations as well as Bantu who are not permitted to take up employment can be placed in aid centres. In terms of Clause 14 any unemployed Bantu can apply for admission to such an aid centre that contains law-breakers as well as innocent unemployed Bantu.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill affects 11 previous Acts of which nine were enacted before the Bantustan White Paper was introduced into this House. The years of these Acts range from 1911 to 1957. It seems that if the Bantustans, as the Government believes, are the solution to the Bantu problem and if the Bantu homelands will be able to attract their own Bantu people from the White areas, there is no need for the restrictive powers of this present Bill. It should be quite obvious now, even to the blindly trusting supporters of the Government, that even if the Bantustans were to become as prosperous as the hon. the Prime Minister dreams that they will be, the Bantustans should be built up to such prosperity and then it should be awaited to see whether the Bantu flocks to their own land of promise. And such a build-up will take many years if it is really intended. This hurried legislation that we have before us suggests that the building up of the land of promise is in fact not intended. The attraction to future prosperous Bantustans is not believed by this Government. This Bill is providing a means of force by driving the Bantu into Bantustans and so-called aid centres. This Bill, in fact, gives away the much advertised notion of happy Bantu in prosperous Bantustans. This Bill is a bad Bill, Mr. Speaker. It will disillusion the Bantu leaders in existing and future Bantustans and it will depress and upset and agitate urban Bantu in urban areas. It is going to harm South Africa’s economy. It is also going to give the Western nations yet another means of criticizing South Africa itself. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister really believe that this new export article is going to win South Africa more friends among the Western nations? The Bill should be withdrawn. Time should be marked until the Bantustans, if the Government believe in their policy, reach the self-supporting stage. If the Government believes that this can be achieved then instead of tightening 11 previous Acts into one such as this present Bill, the success of the Bantustans would justify material relief from such old Acts. I feel that this Bill shows that the Government itself does not believe in the success of its own Bantustan policy and prepares for the worst now. The measures contained in this Bill are like an X-ray that penetrates and discovers growths of deadly maladies, and the Government’s Bantu policy as contained in this Bill discloses the hidden purpose of the Government’s and their leader’s cunning policy. This Bill marks one further stage towards the implementation of this Government’s policy which we on this side of the House do not uphold. For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I, together with my Leader and the hon. members on this side of the House, reject this Bill.

Business suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

Evening Sitting

After having listened to the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss), I must say I never thought that a lady who is generally regarded by us as being a particularly refined, calm and politically well-balanced person could be capable of uttering such irresponsible nonsense. She was like the proverbial spider which, instead of nectar, could suck only poison from the prettiest flower. After having listened to her, one feels inclined to warn the hon. the Minister of Justice against granting any further rights to women.

Order! The hon. member must discuss the Bill.

The hon. member has a distorted view of the Bill before us. Her allegations and statements are in my opinion designed to disturb race relations. She used words such as the following: That this Bill will harm both the industrialist and the farmer. I have gone through the Bill, but I have found nothing of that nature in it. On the contrary, it is quite clear to me that this Bill will have a very favourable effect in respect of the position of the Bantu labourer vis-à-vis the farmer, the regulation of his labour, and will make it easy both for him and for the farmer to obtain labour through the labour bureaux. That will also apply to industrialists and other employers in the urban areas. She says the Bill is “cruel and oppressive” because it affects the human rights of the Bantu. She says it is “short-sighted legislation”. It is statements such as these which, when they reach the ears of the Bantu workers in our urban areas and also on the platteland, put them up in arms against the White employer because, not being well-informed, he is inclined to believe such allegations, to believe that this Government is putting “cruel and oppressive legislation” on the statute book. Surely that is not true. This is not “short-sighted legislation”; it is legislation which indicates that the hon. the Deputy Minister is looking far ahead and is creating opportunities for the orderly and peaceful coexistence of the Bantu employee and the White employer in the cities and also on the platteland. It is visionary because it can foresee the ever-growing problems facing us and it wants to prevent them. This Bill can serve as a basis for the future. Therefore it is not at all shortsighted but is legislation which will have a very useful effect in future. The hon. member says that it limits the freedom of movement of the Bantu. I do not see that in any single clause of the Bill either. The freedom of movement of the Bantu who register themselves in an orderly way at the labour bureaux and report to the authorities to get their documents in order so as to come from their homelands or elsewhere to the industrial areas or to the platteland in order to obtain employment is being regulated here. It is in the best interest of the Bantu as well as of the Whites, because it enables the Bantu to report to a labour bureaux without much trouble, and if there is work available he can get it immediately. It becomes unnecessary for him to look around for work. If he goes around looking for work himself he may become a vagrant who eventually makes himself guilty of all kinds of crimes. Therefore I do not think there is any substance in the hon. member’s arguments. In fact, in so far as the general arguments of the Opposition in regard to policy and Bantu legislation are concerned, it is clear that there are a few fundamental principles which they do not understand or, if they do understand them, they do not want to accept. It is this very lack of understanding and of political logic which has led to their degeneration. The hon. members opposite suffer from a political malady which shows very clear symptoms of weakness and inefficiency as an energetic Opposition. Visible symptoms of that disease are, inter alia, the urge to try at all times to be all things to all people, the urge to try to please the audience, to seek to please the Press and to try to satisfy the outside world, instead of adopting a clearly formulated standpoint in a debate, which would prove that they also have a policy which they are convinced is the best one for the regulation of race relations in our country. It is also what, according to Native custom, one would call the beating of drums which must be heard from every hilltop, which has to resound from hill to hill in the Bantu homelands, which must be heard in every house in the Bantu locations around cur cities and in the platteland, as well as the UN. That is what they are busy doing with all this scaremongering. It is superficial criticism which at times reaches very a low level in this debate. So we had from the usually sober hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay), and from the more aggressive member for Benoni (Mr. Ross), all kinds of accusations. The latter accuses us of passing legislation which really amounts to slave-driving. Sometimes when I look at the face of the hon. member for Benoni, particularly in a debate like this I feel I should not like to be the slave who falls into his hands, because the cruelty and hatred on his face is plain to see, and if he should have in his hands the whip which symbolically he puts into ours then tyrannical slave-driving would reign supreme. Those arguments of the Opposition remind one of the howling of a pack of wolves in a bush close to a pride of lions which are enjoying their prey. It reminds one even more of the howling of a jackal as it approaches a farm, because wolves really howl because their cowardice and their inability to catch their own prey or to chase the lions away from their prey so as to devour it themselves. The jackal howls because he fears the farmer’s dogs; he wants the dogs to begin to bark so that he will know where they are. That is precisely the case with the Opposition. They make wild statements which in essence are more wrong than anything else. As against that, the Government has an honest Bantu policy and accepts territorial and racial separation as fundamental. It bases this policy on historical and traditional grounds, and consequently it bases all Bantu legislation it introduces in this House on those two principles.

The Government puts its policy unequivocally to the voters, and has accordingly every time still obtained the majority of seats at an election. It puts it unequivocally to the Bantu, and the Bantu are increasingly beginning to accept it. The Transkei affords the proof of that; the fact that nine members of the Opposition group in the Transkei have already gone over to the governing party proves that the policy of the Government is being accepted to an increasing extent, and that it is being accepted as an honest attempt. In the rest of the world farsighted statesmen and ethnologists increasingly accept it as the only correct policy. That already appears in the statements of the Turkish leader in regard to the settlement of the political dispute in Cyprus. The Government does not set its sails according to the wind, nor does it try to flatter anyone; it does not try to be all things to all people. It simply makes an honest attempt to achieve something positive for the Bantu as well as for the Whites in this country. The Government wants to protect the White minority, but at the same time to recognize the rights of the Bantu majority. It wants to do so not only in the Bantu homelands, but also in the urban areas and the platteland. This Bill, just like previous Bantu legislation, is a positive step forward in the attempt to put race relations on a better basis in our country. That is admitted even by people and Bantu leaders in the African countries who are not well disposed towards the policy of this Government. For example, I read about a prominent Bantu leader in Northern Rhodesia, Joshua Nkomo, who said over the television that he regards the actions of the British Government as hypocritical, but that the policy of the Government of the Republic is at least an honest attempt on their part whereby the Black man in Africa and in the Republic know precisely where they stand in regard to the policy of this Government. That is significant. The problem with which the Government is faced is that around our large cities and industrial centres millions of Bantu have already congregated and that the tremendous growth of our industries is attracting even more Bantu to those centres. This Bill as a whole aims at nothing more than orderly arrangement and sound administration for the urban Bantu as well as for those on the platteland. It is not aimed against human rights as the Opposition alleges. This Bill aims at administering the affairs of temporary workers in the White area; it is aimed at the work-shy and the idle vagrants and the undesirable Bantu in the White areas, who constitute a nuisance and a danger. It is aimed at those who are superfluous and who ought to be removed to their homelands, and it comprises regulations in regard to the residence, the admission and the removal of Bantu and the control of influx and outflow. I would like to ask the Opposition whether they will not recognize the traditional territorial and racial separation as the basis of our social and constitutional order and our Christian way of life in this country? Why do they not want to recognize it? It has been recognized for years, and it is a tradition in our country that dividing lines have always been recognized. Why does the Opposition not admit that the principle of the establishment of Bantu homelands has been approved, that it is a fact which now just has to be accepted, that we should go further in regard to the implementation of legislation which will ensure it? Why does the Opposition not want to recognize the principle of full citizenship for the Bantu in their homelands, as well as those Bantu who are related to the Bantu in the homelands but who are in the White areas? Why do they not want to recognize the principle? Why do they not recognize that the Bantu in the White homelands is here merely on a temporary basis? If they were to recognize these four basic principles the Opposition and the Government could find themselves on common ground and there would be a joint approach to the solution of our colour and racial problems. There has surely never before in our history been a more urgent need for a joint approach and for a White united front against the growing non-White united front in Africa and in South Africa.

The Bantu in Africa knows precisely what they want. They have a unity of thought and they deliberately try to attain unity. They want the whole of Africa for themselves. They want to claim for themselves everything that the White man has established in Africa, and as soon as possible. They want to liberate Africa from the White man and they want to govern it alone. I have said that the Black man knows what he wants, but the National Party also knows what it wants, namely that it wants to retain its rights over a small White spot in Africa. The National Party wants to protect this White area as a home for our descendants. The Government also knows that it cannot withhold human rights from the Bantu. Therefore it has clearly formulated its policy of separate developments. Its implementation is difficult and it is a slow process, but it is making progress, and to that end legislation of this nature is absolutely essential. I have said that the Bantu knows what he wants and that the Government is aware of its duty towards the Bantu, but I regret to say that the Opposition do not know what they want. They have no clear concept of what role they should play as an alternative Government, what policy they should formulate to take up a clear standpoint between the policy of the Government and that of the Progressive Party. They find that very difficult, and that is where they fail so completely. The Leader of the Opposition says that the Bill as a whole should be rejected because it is a far-reaching deprivation of individual freedom and human rights. I have read through the Bill, but find nothing in it which can be regarded as a deprivation of the human rights of the Bantu. In all our highly industrialized cities the labour force is being increasingly automatized and mechanized. The rights and privileges of the workers are curtailed in the interests of good order and discipline, without its being regarded as cruel legislation or a curtailment of human rights, as hon. members opposite allege. In fact, in our country, both the Bantu workers and the employers will welcome this legislation because it is in the interests of all of them. [Laughter.] It is members of the Opposition and the inimical English language Press which disturb race relations in our country. It is they who, following the Leader of the Opposition, describe this Bill as a communistic, suppressive proclamation. It is they who make shocking allegations, like the hon. member for Simonstown, who said that certain of the provisions in the Bill resemble the Nazi Belsen concentration camp measures. It is they who call it a slave measure, a piece of cruel legislation. If these things coming from a so-called responsible Opposition, are to be believed by the Bantu, it can have a catastrophic effect. The Leader of the Opposition suffers from many misconceptions. He says that this Bill prevents the establishment of a permanently established middle-class Bantu, to the detriment of our economy. Sir, to every thinking person a permanently established and steadily growing Bantu population constitutes the greatest threat. These Bantu will surround and eventually weaken our industrial cities and make the position untenable there, and eventually overshadow them like a black cloud. They will make increasing demand for more political rights, and it is particularly the urban Bantu who are the breeding ground of those agitators. There is already sufficient proof of that. I am convinced that if this so-called more developed middle class becomes permanently established in and around our urban areas and even in the platteland, the Afro-Asian bloc and UNO will increase their demands for the granting of full citizenship to them in our White state. They will say that this middle class which is permanently settled in the White area cannot be refused full civic rights in the country in which they live. Sir, the developing Bantu homelands within the borders of the Republic are by far not as dangerous to the White man as the blackening of our urban areas and the platteland. Then the Opposition still wants to give more rights to this class. However, he only mentions one of the privileges he wants to attach to it, and that is property rights. The question is: What will this eventual full citizenship to which they will be forced mean in terms of the policy of the United Party?

That is not true.

What will it mean? Are you going to keep them back forever? Are you going to keep them under? Are you first going to create a middle class and then tell them that they will be on an equal basis with all the others who are less developed than they are? Will the agitation from outside not be concentrated particularly on these people, and will they not say that more rights should be granted to these people? A permanently settled urban Bantu population constitutes the greatest danger to the eventual solution of our racial problem. Then the Leader of the Opposition says that this Bill curtails the freedom of movement of the Bantu worker and prevents him from offering his labour where he likes. I do not find that anywhere in the Bill either. But I do find that there will be an orderly regulation, that the Bantu can offer himself at any time, and that if he acts according to rules which are quite normal and which have always existed and which are now just being streamlined a little, he will still always be able to find work. It must just be done in an orderly manner.

Then I come to the last point, the complaint of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). She says that this Bill establishes a permanent system of migratory labour. But this Bill in no way makes a complete change in our labour arrangements. I would have welcomed it had it been so because in my opinion the only eventual solution of the problem lies in a steadily increasing conversion of our labour system into a migratory labour system, and I should like to prove that such a conversion is practicable. [Time limit.]

I listened attentively to the hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) and I was surprised to hear him touch on a subject, at the beginning of his speech, in connection with the various animals that we on this side of the House are supposed to be protecting. I wondered whether the hon. member was dealing with the Bill before the House or with a Bill that still has to come before us or whether he was dealing with the floods in the Kruger National Park. Towards the end of his speech, however, the hon. member for Marico came to the Bill under discussion and he said something which deserves the attention of the House. I do not want to be unreasonable towards the hon. member for Marico. I have been destined in the past to follow the hon. member in a debate and there was very little to reply to on those occasions and I find myself in the same position this evening, Sir. The hon. member told us that we should welcome this Bill because it would bring about separate development and that if we were not in favour of separate development we shall ultimately be ousted from the cities by the agitator and so forth. The hon. member for Marico was not the first to have said that. Other members too had already said that the object of this legislation was really to send back those people who were exploiting and inciting the Bantu, the so-called undesirable element. When the hon. member said that I asked myself why we had a Minister of Justice. Why did we give the Minister of Justice great and far-reaching powers in this very House last year for the very purpose of dealing with the subversive elements in South Africa? It appears that we do not have the necessary confidence in the hon. the Minister of Justice and that we have to confer the same powers on the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development.

This is a preventive measure.

The hon. member for Marico tells us that we shall be ousted from the cities by the agitator and the exploiter. But I think hon. members have forgotten that under the National Party régime too—this has never been denied by anybody on that side—there will still be 6,000,000 Bantu in so-called White South Africa, if we are to believe the Tomlinson commission report. What then? Will South Africa not then too be delivered into the hands of the agitator and the saboteur? But this legislation is being piloted through the House because, as we are told, me must protect the White areas. The Bantu have their own area where they can develop to the utmost but we have to protect ourselves and this side of the House has repeatedly asked: Surely the existing legislation give you sufficient power to handle the position which exists in South Africa at the present moment?

No.

The hon. member for Vereeniging says “no”, and that is why they come forward with this legislation. Here I have a cutting for the Burger of 5 September of last year in which a speech made by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, Mr. Daan Nel, before the Nationalist Party Congress at Pretoria, was reported and in which he said this—

That is the headlines of the report.

Hear, hear!

The hon. member says “hear, hear”, but at the same time he says this legislation is necessary because they do not have the necessary powers. But Mr. Daan Nel boasted before the Nationalist Party Congress that during the eight months prior to 5 September of last year they had already returned between 60,000 and 80,000 Bantu to their own areas where they had been resettled.

What about it?

Do you hear that stupid question by the hon. member for Vereeniging: “What about it?”, Sir. The argument which comes to mind immediately is this: If that was already possible last year under the Nationalist Party régime and under existing legislation, why introduce this Bill? If the hon. the Minister could already bring that about last year and before, why must we have legislation this year to prevent the White areas from becoming more Black? I want to quote what Mr. Nel said. He said—

Then the report goes on to say—

This is exactly what happened. At every congress where the colour question and the question of the increase in the number of Bantu in the cities are seriously considered, we are told that we should follow the policy in South Africa which was followed by all previous Governments, namely to protect ourselves against redundant Bantu but that if we wanted to remove all Bantu labour from South Africa we should be prepared to make big economic sacrifices. The Nationalists appreciate that at their congresses when this matter is discussed.

Who allowed you to take part in this debate? Your speech is not right yet.

The hon. member for Vereeniging is sometimes right in the conclusions he draws but the fact of the matter is that no matter how right his speech is, his brain is never right. Whereas my speech may not be right but my brain is always right.

This legislation is being introduced at a stage where the Government can proudly boast that it will mean a new dispensation for the Bantu. Everything will be done for him in his own area; it is there where his brightest future lies. If those areas offer him such a wonderful future, Sir, I want to know this: Why this legislation? Why are we afraid that the White areas in South Africa will be overrun? I am afraid this legislation is clearly tantamount to a motion of no confidence by the Government in its own ability to develop the Bantu areas in such a way that they will not constitute a threat to the White areas. That is the only reason for this legislation. But because of their lack of confidence that they will be able to develop the Bantu areas in such a way under their own policy, that they will keep the Bantu there, the White areas must now be specially protected. Perhaps I do not blame hon. members opposite for that because they are afraid the White areas will be overrun.

This legislation is another example of the philosophy of our friends opposite and that is that the permanency of the group can be accepted, but not that of the individual. I think everyone admits that our economy will always to a large extent make use of migrant labour not because the employers prefer that but because some employees prefer it. Periodically they return to their country. But the majority of our so-called migrant labour force never go back to their own areas because they have no such areas and they do not know them and those are the people who are moving between Heaven and earth. They do not have a homeland or they never return to it and according to hon. members opposite they can lay no claim to the White areas. I ask myself this question: What is the motive behind this legislation? There can only be two motives. The first is that the Government is too sharply criticized within its own ranks because of the increasing number of Bantu in our so-called White areas and now they are trying, as they have repeatedly tried unsuccessfully during the past 15 years, to stop this process.

The second motive may well be a serious attempt to reverse the process, to make it all the more difficult for the Bantu to come to the White areas and I believe it is the latter. I believe this legislation is an example of an attempt to make it all the more difficult for the Bantu to come to the White areas. I believe this is an attempt to check this movement and to reverse the whole process.

We have been asked to be straight with one another in this debate. The Deputy Minister who is piloting this Bill through the House and the Government must choose which of the two roads they want to follow, the so-called road of removal or the road of actual removal. They have to choose between those two alternatives. It is either an attempt to heed the criticism of their own people and to do nothing as they have been doing for the past 15 years, or it is a real attempt to reverse the process. If it is one of actual removal, it is a mere bluff to say that they are only going to remove the undesirable elements. Then they are bluffing when they say that they will only send back the instigators and the saboteurs and the communists because they already have power to deal with that small percentage of Bantu. The hon. the Minister of Justice has locked up one of those whom he has suspected of subversive activities on Robben Island. The Government therefore, has all the power it needs to take action against those people and they are the people who have to be honest with us. They should tell us that their policy is not only to send back the communists and the instigators and the saboteurs, but all Bantu. [Interjections.] I have already said that it was being made impossible for the Bantu to come to the White areas and the process of returning the Bantu who are in the White areas must now be accelerated. The hon. the Minister tells us in very veiled words that if it is in the public interest they are prepared to send back those people. But when they stand on public platforms they usually say you cannot build a future for the White man on a Black proletariat in the White areas without endangering your own future. The hon. the Minister and his supporters lack the courage of their own convictions to entrench that in legislation in unequivocal words, because this Government is very much afraid of the consequences of what is actually its real policy, and its real policy is ultimately to remove every Bantu from the so-called White areas. Hon. members opposite argue along these lines: Their philosophy is that you cannot have various racial groups together in one area without having clearly defined borders between those races. The Nationalist Party is therefore in actual fact in favour of the removal of all Bantu from the White areas. But now you have this contradiction, Sir, and that is what I cannot understand of hon. members opposite. They do not accept the Bantu as a permanent resident in the White areas but as a migrant labourer. They do not accept the principle of giving any form of controlled property rights to the individual Bantu but at the same time they erect one housing scheme after the other which proves the permanency of the group. They say they cannot accord property rights to the individual Bantu but they build one house after the other to show the people that the Bantu will always be here. Hon. members say it is dangerous to give him a piece of land in his own separate area outside our White cities and it is dangerous to allow him to erect a house for himself on that piece of ground but it is not dangerous to allow the Bantu to hire a house in his own area in the White areas. I simply cannot follow the arguments of hon. members opposite. I can only come to one conclusion and that is that this legislation before the House is merely an excuse so that they can tell their supporters that they are really introducing apartheid and that they are carrying it through. They have been talking about apartheid for 15 years but in the meantime there has been more and more economic integration in South Africa. The hon. member may ask his question now.

May I ask the hon. member what property rights they are prepared to give the Bantu in the White areas of South Africa?

If you pay half a crown for our policy you can read it there.

No, a sixpence.

To assist the hon. member I shall give him our policy and I shall pay for it myself. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. member knows perfectly well that the United Party’s policy in respect of property rights in the White areas is that they will be granted in those areas which will be allocated to the Bantu, as you are to-day establishing separate residential areas for the Bantu. Those rights will not be given to every Dick, Tom and Harry. (Laughter.) We have repeatedly said that the giving of those rights to responsible people will be controlled. Even the hon. member for Vereeniging will be considered if he applies for a property under the United Party policy.

I want to conclude by saying that I think this legislation, over and above all the points that have been raised by this side of the House, is a most blatant example of how the actions of that side of the House contradict themselves in this respect that they preach apartheid yet we still have integration in our areas, both on the platteland and in the cities. There is economic integration in all spheres. But they present this legislation to us as an example of the way in which the Government is applying apartheid but I believe that just as they have failed in the past 15 years they will fail in future, and this legislation will go on the Statute Book not as an example of an attempt to keep the White areas White but as a White elephant in proof of the fact that this Government has failed to check the process of development in South Africa because the process of development compels you to make more use of Bantu labour if you want to have that development.

Mr. Speaker, we have just listened to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) and he really made a very important statement; this side of the House listened attentively to that statement. And it was as good as if his leader himself had made that statement, because his leader and his Whip actively assisted him when the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) put that question to him. He made it very clear to us that Tom, Dick and Harry would not get the right of land ownership in the White area, but that certain other Bantu would in fact get that right. It follows that the very latest policy of the United Party is that there will also be discrimination in respect of the award of ownership of land within the White area. Instead of giving a complete blueprint of their policy, and how they would apply that labour arrangement in the Republic, the hon. member criticized first the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and thereafter the hon. the Minister of Justice. It really seemed strange to us that the hon. member misunderstood the Bill so completely. The main object of this measure is to regulate the influx of Bantu and the Bantu labour market, and for that reason it has nothing to do with those saboteurs to whom the hon. member referred. We have adequate powers to deal with saboteurs, etc., but here we are dealing with those who are work-shy and undesirable.

The hon. member accuses this side of the House of never having had the courage of our conviction by admitting that there will always be non-Whites in the White cities. It is a trite thing we are saying; we say from time to time that there will constantly be non-Whites in the White areas. We have even admitted that until the year 1970 the influx graph will show a constant gradual rise, because there is such tremendous economic development in the large cities, and in spite of all the steps we have taken that is still so. But one of the main reasons for this state of affairs, is the fact that we inherited such a bankrupt state of affairs from the United Party in 1948, and notwithstanding all the measures we have taken we just could not succeed in stemming that tide. But the United Party is always charging this side of the House with that. [Interjections.] If the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) will wait for his turn, he will have an opportunity to make his speech. When we come to this measure, the United Party complains that it is an indecent measure. When we come forward with such a positive measure as this, they refuse to support it, and they treat it as if it is an iniquitous thing.

But the hon. member also reproached the Minister of Bantu Administration for having made a certain statement at the Transvaal Congress of the National Party, that several thousands of Bantu have been settled in the homelands, and that is perfectly correct. I do not know why the hon. member makes that statement. It is already being done with the machinery at our disposal, but it is very clear that further steps will have to be taken to perfect those things on which we are engaged further. I think the hon. member has done the two Ministers in question an injustice, by accusing them of not using the powers that have been placed at their disposal. The hon. member says also it must be accepted that at all times, and apparently also in terms of their policy, migratory labour will constantly have to be used in our cities. That is the very thing we are admitting. That is the very basis on which we are now establishing this labour market of the Bantu in such a way that their labour may be offered in an orderly manner, with little inconvenience to the Bantu himself and also in the interests of the progress of the country. But it is very clear to people who listened to what the hon. member had to say, that the hon. member was not familiar with the contents of the Bill, otherwise he would not have relieved himself of those inanities here.

In the short time at my disposal I should have liked to express a few thoughts on the extent to which this Bill really will affect our agricultural community. Several previous speakers have dealt with the subject of what the effect of this legislation will be in our cities and large towns, but very little emphasis has fallen on how it will affect the farmers. The Opposition also raised some criticism, that the Minister has not consulted sufficiently, and that there has been harsh treatment and that the farmers actually are being prejudiced. Mr. Speaker, really that is not so. I should like to point out briefly that our agriculture has undergone a tremendous change of late. We find that at the present time there is very keen competition in agriculture. There are various contributory factors that induce a farmer to make a business of his farming activities, and in consequence of that it is necessary for him to economize from various angles in order to promote greater efficiency so as to produce a proper margin of profit. One of the factors exercising the minds of the farmers particularly of late is the regulation of their labour force. One of those arrangements is to have the minimum number of Bantu on the farm, and thereby prevent a congregation of Bantu on the farm, for our farming units are becoming progressively smaller. There is progressively less scope for settling large Bantu families on the farms. It is true also that the farmer arranges his affairs in such a way that he in fact prefers to avail himself of migratory labour, who complete a certain job and then return to their homes. That is why we say that in this way, as indicated in this Bill, we are really providing those facilities which he would like to have for the farmer. The farmers welcome migratory labour because they are making use of it to a large extent, but where we are now concerned with labour regulation on the farms, and where we are being accused by the Opposition of using a disrupting method of doing so, I emphatically want to deny that. I also wish to deny the allegation made against the hon. the Minister that there has not been any consultation. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) said here this afternoon that a Government Commission had been appointed to investigate the effects of Chapter IV of our Masters and Servants Act, and to give the Government some guidance as to the attitude of the farming community in respect of labour tenants. We have already had the data from a previous speaker, and it is very clear that the vast majority of the farmers prefer not to make use of labour tenants any longer, but that we should like to see a system in the rural areas that will make full employment possible. What we mean by full employment is that when that family then lives on your farm—and there are many such cases, and in the future there will also be many—is that the head of the family, after having been in your employ for the fixed period, will not be permitted to go and work elsewhere, e.g. in the cities, and leave his family on your farm. The object really is that that man will continue to be in your full-time employment, and his whole family will work for you. In the rural areas we have become quite accustomed to this system. We farmers are familiar with the procedure of getting our labour requirements from our labour bureaux, and in our experience—and I am now speaking for the area I represent—we welcome the system of labour bureaux, because you may register your requirements there, and those officials do everything in their power to place labour at your disposal under certain conditions, and those conditions expressly provide that the farmer’s labour is made available. It imposes certain obligations upon the employer and he must honour them. In terms of the old legislation, the labour tenants were under the control of the Labour Tenants Control Boards, but the scope of those boards only encompassed labour tenants, and it is very clear (and organized agriculture agree fully with this) that we have to adopt a method of getting away from that system gradually. Consequently the labour tenants control board cannot act properly either, for they are restricted to those labour tenants only. Now the farmers are welcoming the proposal to establish Bantu labour control boards, and these Bantu labour boards will have a much wider field to cover, and will bring about much better régimentation of our labour forces, and also have the effect that the board will have control over all Bantu labourers in the agricultural industry. That is why we say it is something we are familiar with, and it satisfies a need that has arisen among the farmers, namely, that there should be more effective labour regulation. For it is true that any farmer—it does not matter what he farms with—finds it necessary to have certainty in regard to his labour force.

We welcome this Bill further, because it eliminates those shortcomings and problems that existed in the past, e.g. that a farmer because of his lack of discretion and other considerations which we do not wish to discuss here, could house his Bantu at a certain place on his farm, frequently to the great inconvenience of his fellow-farmer and neighbour, and there was no existing legislation to deal with such a situation. That resulted in a host of problems in the rural areas. That is why we welcome the fact that the Minister has come forward with this measure that such a farmer—and the legislation is very clear; he is not being dealt with harshly—will be given proper notice that if he does not remove his Bantu housing from where it is, he will be dealt with. The measure is very flexible, and everything indicates that we are trying to arrange these matters in a sensible manner. But it is a long-felt need in the rural areas, and we are very grateful to the hon. the Minister for putting the matter right now.

In the country districts we have frequently also had the phenomenon—and we know those people; we know how they can carry on when they begin to celebrate, and there is no limits to the loudness of their jubilations and expressions of delight—and that has frequently caused us much inconvenience. There was no legislation to curb these things in the rural districts either. Therefore we are grateful that those gatherings—and please note that as regards religious meetings … [Interjection.] No, we are not discussing political meetings. I just wanted to say that religious meetings will be permitted, but the hon. member will agree with me that it will not be desirable at all the other kinds of gatherings, that good order should be disturbed. For that reason we are thankful for this measure, as there is no legislation applying to the rural areas, but only to the cities in this regard. It is a great relief to us.

But now we come to the position of the released areas that are being acquired for the Bantu homelands. Hon. members opposite surely know that there is nothing in the 1936 Act that compels the Minister to consult a certain group of people. It is true that it is provided that he may do so after consultation. As we frequently have to deal with these matters, we can say without fear of contradiction that there are no known instances where the Minister acted harshly and purchased certain land without consultation and to the detriment of the White community. In all cases the Minister duly consulted the South African Agricultural Union, and the South African Agricultural Union is extremely proud of the fact that they are consulted by the Minister in this manner. We heard when this debate was commenced that the United Party were going to oppose this legislation absolutely, and would fight every clause thereof to the very end. Now we should like to point out, and because incidentally it comes about that a portion of this land falls within the constituency I represent, that the portion which has to be acquired now in terms of the Third Schedule, Area 41, is mentioned in this Bill. We are thinking of the farm Varschwater which is to be purchased now, a farm which is situated within the released area. There was due consultation—I can testify to that—with the owner and the agricultural union and the local authority, and every attempt was made to satisfy all interested parties. The owner himself could not be persuaded to acquiesce fully. We may say that the price he expected to get for his farm was unreasonable. According to present standards it is an uneconomic unit, if the truth were told. But we leave it at that. We respect that man’s property, and we regret that it is necessary to take those steps. But surely we cannot permit the interests of the individual to supersede the interests of the community. Therefore we are glad the Minister has proceeded to expropriate that land. But the point we wish to make in this connection is that that farm will be used specifically in the interests of the Bantu in order to develop a Bantu township within the homeland, and that town is being established there deliberately with the express object of placing those Bantu within reach of the White community where they will be able to offer their labour to a great extent. It is known already that the farmers are beginning to make arrangements to go and fetch much of their labour there, and return it there again. And that is not all. That land is absolutely necessary for the effective development of the homelands and for the establishment of border industries in that neighbouring town, in the interests of both Whites and the Bantu. Now I wonder what the United Party of that local community will say when they become aware that their colleagues here in the House of Assembly, are fighting tooth and nail the proposal that that land be made available in the interests of the Bantu as well as the White community of Groblersdal. That is one of the instances where the White man and the Black man need each other, and when we are dealing with that position, we should discuss these matters with much greater discretion than the United Party speakers have shown to-night.

In conclusion I should like to say that the United Party, by doing what its Press has presaged, namely that this Bill will be fought tooth and nail, have done and achieved two things in particular. The first of these is that it has satisfied the leftist and liberal element in their midst. I do not think there can be any doubt about this. The second thing they have achieved is to prove to the people outside that they are prepared to quarrel with and resist any proposal emanating from the National Party—even if it is in the best interests of the Republic.

Mr. Speaker, if ever there was legislation brought into this House which was unnecessary, if ever there was legislation which was redundant and distasteful, then it is this Bill which we have before us to-day. This side of the House would not have moved this amendment if we did not feel very deeply about this Bill and its contents. Surely, Mr. Speaker our Bantu have enough to contend with already. There are laws already regulating his coming and going, his birth and his death. Surely that is enough! What more does this Government want to do? What more can they expect the Bantu to take? My advice to the Government is to stop pushing these people about.

The Bantu has only one thing which he can sell, namely, his labour. He should have the right to sell that labour in the best possible market. However, this privilege is now being taken away from him.

Where in the Bill?

Let us take the case of a Bantu wanting to leave the reserves in order to come to a town. From the moment he starts his journey he is enmeshed in a mass of laws and regulations which bewilder him. They absolutely bewilder him. He is supposed to be an ordinary, poorly educated individual, but yet he is expected to absorb what is contained in this Bill, things which we find hon. members on the other side of the House cannot even understand. It is a serious business, Sir, if we find that people legislate whilst not knowing what they are legislating about. Hon. members opposite do not fully realize that human beings can take so much and no more. This, what the hon. the Deputy Minister presents to us so sympathetically and so gently must not be taken to be anything else but a harsh law dealing with people who have feelings, who have the right to live in this country, the right to earn a living and with that in mind to sell heir labour in the best market and at the best price. Yes, the hon. the Deputy Minister says that he is going to see that they are treated fairly. When the Bantu eventually comes into an aid centre and he is offered employment, is he going to have the right to say how much he wants for his day’s work? Is he going to have the right to say whether or not he can do the job being offered or to say that there is other work which he can do better.

Of course he is going to have that right.

What will he be faced with? He will be faced with the possibility that an industry is going to be established in a particular area and that he is going to be sent there to provide labour whether he wants it or not. That industry will depend for its labour on the labour bureaux. If these bureaux, on the other hand, decides that they will not send sufficient labour to that industry, that industry will not be able to exist. What happens to the Bantu who have come in despite influx control. These influx control laws should be sufficient to render this whole Bill redundant. A proper influx control should not be anything else but a regulation of the numbers of Black people coming into our towns…

You would need an entire police force to keep them out.

The hon. member for Standerton says it is going to need the entire police force to keep them out. But the position is that they are going to need the entire police force to administer the regulations under this Bill. Earlier on it was stated what difficulties were going to beset our country. So we have to be realistic about the feelings of the individual. You cannot expect people to accept this type of legislation. The sooner the Government realizes this, the better it will be for the country.

Mr. Speaker we are terribly in need of Black labour. We need every single physically fit person. Not a single one need be redundant. In every phase of work and in every phase of our professional life there is a shortage of manpower. But the Government, instead of getting busy to develop the talents which are offered, are retarding these talents. What possibility is there for a labourer to get advancement under these regulations?

Why should he not be able to get this advancement?

Let the hon. member get up and tell us. Does he expect a man working in Johannesburg to live there permanently while his wife and family are living in another part of the country? Does he expect that? Or does he expect that the man will shortly return to his home? Is not that what the hon. the Minister wants—temporary labourers who will return to their homelands after a while? What can we expect for the future? Can we expect a contented Bantu people in South Africa? Can we expect that they will be satisfied with the lot facing them?

Have you consulted them on this?

That is not a question which I should answer. The hon. member knows full well that the Bantu never had the opportunity of answering the question he is now putting to me. They have never been given the opportunity of discussing the Bill with anyone in the Cabinet, let alone the hon. member for Vereeniging. Let me say that if they had had an opportunity, they would have put their case to the Minister in a reasonable way so as to make this legislation, if not entirely redundant, then somewhat more acceptable to them. But what is being done now? The Bill is being thrust on this House. It affects the majority of people in this country particularly. What does it mean? It means that the Minister and a handful of Nationalists are going to determine the destinies of millions of people. That cannot be right; that cannot succeed; it is doomed to failure even before it starts.

Another tragedy attached to this Bill is that it does not make any distinction whatsoever between the various types of Bantu—not even a distinction between the lowest labourer and the man in the highest ranks of a profession. Everybody is being treated in the same fashion. The doctor who wants to come from the Transkei and practise in Soweto will have to go through the same sausage machine as the ordinary labourer. Now, if this doctor wants to go and work there, but the labour bureau concerned decides he must go and work at some other centre, he will not have the option. He will have to go where he is sent and that irrespective of the fact that that man’s intelligence is perhaps much higher than those in the labour bureau. This is the sort of thing we on this side of the House are expected to accept. But this is not the sort of thing we, the Whites shall succeed with. We do not want that sort of thing and we shall vote against it. We shall do everything in our power to obstruct the passage of this Bill because it is distasteful. There is nothing, as I said earlier on, in it which we can accept, nothing at all. It constitutes a harsh piece of legislation, and the Bantu will suffer under it.

Tell us about the Graaff rebellion.

Mr. Speaker, that is the type of interjection we get from responsible people. I think it is shocking that the hon. member should have the temerity to come to this House to say something like that.

But let us for a moment go back to the question of the disruption of family life. There is one thing with which the Government is going to succeed under these measures. For years they have been afraid of the population increase amongst the Black people. Here they might be able to put a brake on that increase by keeping the father away from his family. This is one thing they may succeed in. Apart from that, this legislation is going to cause the White people of this country untold misery and that will come sooner than we think. [Interjections]. Do not hand me the handkerchief because it is members opposite who will cry. When the time comes, they will shed real tears and then they will come to this side of the House to help them out of the mess they are in. How can we have a stable population in this country of ours if we adopt these disruptive measures? A family is formed in the Transkei. A Bantu man marries a Bantu woman, either in the church or according to tribal rites. Now, the time may come when the man, as a result of conditions in the Transkei, may want to come to a town to work. He then leaves his homeland and the only chance he has of ever getting anywhere in life is never to see his wife and family again. That is his only chance. He may, of course, be able to go home for a couple of weeks. The hon. the Minister has extended it to one year which means that if the Bantu returns to the town within that year, he will still be able to take up his previous work. But can you tell me, Sir, what employer will take back a worker after he has been absent for one year? No employer will, with the result that that man will have to start from the bottom again.

You are totally ignorant of the facts.

There is one more point I want to query with the few minutes left to me. We have been asked “What about the mine labourer?” We have been charged with being responsible for supporting and advocating migrant labour for the mines.

What is your answer to that charge?

My answer is quite a simple one. It is simple for everyone who knows what happens in respect of the mines. 90 per cent of the Black people coming to work in the mines come from outside South Africa.

That is not true.

Another point is that they come to the mines knowing full well that they are going to work on the mines. A further point is that they are looked after from the moment they leave their homes, no matter where, until they come to the mines. They are looked after all the way. And when they come onto mine property they know that they are there for a short period—not longer than nine months. If I am wrong in my facts, hon. members should get up and tell me. When these nine months are up, they go back home again. By then they have completed their contract and they have the right to come back again. That is the difference between contract work for a short period and that with which the Minister presents us here to-day. In terms of this all Bantu irrespective of the type of work they want to do, will have to go through the same machine. What is more, they will never have any say in the White man’s land—forgetting that, in a South Africa with a permanent population of Black people spread right throughout it who are here to stay, no artificial divisions are going to be effective. We can never get over the fact that we are integrated economically. We can never ignore the fact that we depend upon them in our industries, in fact in our entire economic life. And if we do not treat them fairly and squarely, they will end up with being our enemies instead of our friends. We cannot get away from that.

It is not yet too late to go back an revise the legislation which they have had thrust on them over the years. We do not need to have, what the hon. member for Odendaalsrus called “harsh laws which will be administered sympathetically”. We do not want harsh laws. What we do want are fair and just laws for everybody. If that is not possible, we cannot have a contented South Africa. I have already said that our industries depend on these people; so do our professions. If immigrants from outside can be an asset to our country, how much more can our own people be an asset to our country? These people can be a tremendous asset—through their work, their buying power and everything else. We need all. But what are we doing here? We are restricting their movements; we are restricting the types of work they can do and we are going to restrict the wages they can earn. The only result of the passing of such a measure can be an unhappy South Africa because the majority of the population will be unhappy and discontented.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat made two statements to which I want to react. The first is that mine labourers can go back to their homelands after nine months. This statement is not true. The service contracts of the great majority of these Bantu do not make provision for nine months, but for 24 months. It would be uneconomic for the mines to employ Natives on any other basis. Therefore the statement the hon. member made is not worthy of him. The second point he mentioned was in regard to the professional Bantu. He asked what would happen to these people. Does he stand a chance in the country, or will he also be subject to regulations applied to him by a junior official? Evidently the hon. member has not done his homework. Has he read what is stated in the explanatory memorandum? I will read it to him in English so that he may understand it. Under par. (j) on page 7 of the memorandum the following is said—

1. (a) Bantu in possession of letters of exemption;
2. (b) certain registered Parliamentary voters …

Who are they?

The hon. member should not become so frightened. In a moment it might be said that he is becoming hysterical over nothing. Besides, it was not necessary for my Whip to come and sit next to me and to tell me that I was saying the wrong things!

May I put a question to the hon. member?

I am not prepared to reply to it.

You are afraid.

I want to continue with my quotation. Other groups of Bantu who are included are—

1. (e) certain ministers of religion and teachers;
2. (f) certain State and provincial officials;
3. (g) certain professional Bantu.

It is particularly the last group to which I want to direct the hon. member’s attention. He says that no provision is made for these people. That is incorrect and untrue. It is a scandal Mr. Speaker, and immoral and treacherous when there is a discussion in regard to the relations of White and non-White always to try to sow suspicion and to interpret clauses in an untruthful way, thereby destroying the racial peace which prevails in the country today as the result of the good work of the National Party and those officials, senior or junior, whom the hon. member has accused of fraud. That is the greatest scandal. It is a great shame to talk so treacherously about the officials of a Department.

The hon. member must withdraw the word “treacherous”.

I withdraw it.

On a point of order, Sir, I should like to have your decision in regard to referring to a statement as being treacherous, and to a person of whom it is said that he is committing treachery.

That is not a point of order. The hon. member may continue.

Mr. Speaker, I say that the course of action of the Opposition is certainly unpatriotic towards South Africa. We have achieved racial peace to-day.

Where?

Show me a single place where there is no racial peace. Show me one incident. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) is telling a lie when he says there is no racial peace in the country.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it. Do you know, Sir, why those hon. members are so concerned to-day? Do you know why they have started this mock battle? It is because they see that the four streams here in the Republic are flowing alongside each other very peacefully, and they do not want that to be so. They want those streams to be diverted into each other so that racial riots may take place. Now they are bitterly disappointed because the Government has succeeded in making these four streams flow peacefully alongside each other. But the voters have found them out, whether they are the White, the Indian, the Bantu or the Coloured voters. Those voters have confidence in the policy of the National Party, and not in the policy of the party opposite.

May I put a question?

I am not prepared to reply to a question. I notice that the hon. Whip is becoming panicky. He thinks he can push me into a corner, but I am too clever for him. I should like to know where he stands in his party. Has he joined the rebels, or does he still stand with the others?

We are not apologizing to-night to the United Party, the Progressive Party or the outside world for this legislation. We are not prepared to place legislation on the Statute Book just because the world favours it. We are only concerned with introducing legislation which will ensure racial peace in our country. But we are not prepared to pass legislation merely to have the world think more of us, and then to create a second Congo here. We are not introducing this Bill simply to satisfy the wishes of the Deputy Minister or his officials. On the contrary, this is a well-considered Bill. It was drafted after thorough investigation into the problems in our country. Various Departmental Committees investigated the problems and now we come along with this legislation. It is not just the will of the Deputy Minister, but in order to meet a need and because of existing problems which his Department experiences from day to day. According to hon. members opposite, the whole of our economy will now be paralysed by the institution of labour bureaux, and just because of a whim of the Deputy Minister!

You do not understand matters.

In so far as the hon. member for Salt River is concerned, I may say that I am better acquainted with a labour bureau than he is. The hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie) said that Clause 8 of the Bill only deals with the establishment of labour bureaux, but that is not so. Clause 8 gives the Minister many other powers, e.g. powers to get rid of undesirable persons. Do hon. members opposite want the undesirable Bantu in our municipal areas?

Where is that contained in Clause 8?

In the new 21ter (6) (b) it gives the Minister the right to get rid of many Bantu if his presence in an area is not in the interest of that area. The hon. member should not think that because he is a sea lawyer he can catch me out! After careful investigation it was found that in our cities there were various Bantu who enjoy protection in terms of Section 10 because they have been working there for ten or 15 years, etc. Now they rely on this and believe they will always be there and therefore they need not show any responsibility towards the State, and consequently they can do as they like. We find that although in our urban areas 70,000 Bantu are registered as unemployed, there are still 15,781 vacancies which cannot be filled. I want to ask the hon. member for Salt River whether he knows what happens at the labour bureaux? Every morning the recruiters come and ask the Natives sitting there whether they want work. If they are asked whether they want to work in the Railways nobody gets up. The same happens if workers are sought for Escom; and the same applies to local authorities. If, however, they are asked which of them want to become office boys then they all rise. It is that type of Native we want to get rid of.

I want to ask hon. members opposite whom they pleaded for here this afternoon? Whom must we keep here? Did they plead for the Bantu who on three consecutive occasions has refused to accept employment? Or for the Bantu who within six months was convicted of misbehaviour, negligence, intemperance or laziness? Is it for those people that hon. members pleaded to-day? Or were they pleading for those Bantu who refuse to maintain their families? Or for those who are addicted to liquor? Or for those who make a living out of smuggling? Did hon. members plead for them to-day, or did they plead for that Bantu who makes himself guilty of various contraventions in terms of the various laws? Did they plead for the Bantu who possesses a firearm without a licence, or for the one who maliciously damages a property of a local authority? Did they plead for the Bantu who is convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act? Do they want those Bantu in our areas? Is that the Native they want here? Sir, the National Party is just as concerned about having a strong middle class Bantu community in our White areas, but we will not allow this type of Native, whom we want to remove from the midst of the middle class Bantu community, and who is a canker in that community, to remain there. We particularly want to assist in removing this canker from the midst of the Bantu who are busy developing into a sound middle class. We are prepared to assist them there.

Hon. members so often ask whether we have consulted the Bantu. Have any of the Opposition members ever spoken about an advisory board in a location in their areas? These are the things those people would like the Minister to do, viz. to get rid of those elements who are a pest to their families in the locations. It is those elements we want to get rid of.

I should now like to discuss certain matters with the hon. the Deputy Minister.

Thank the Minister.

This Minister does not need my thanks because he is rendering a service to the Republic of South Africa. Do you know who will thank him? The population of the Republic of South Africa. I now want to tell those hon. members this: They may perhaps think that they have won a few votes with the dust they have kicked up here to-day, but they have lost a few seats. That is what I want to tell you; you will lose quite a few seats.

Order! If the hon. member has such secrets he wishes to tell the hon. members of the Opposition, then he should communicate those secrets to them through the Chair.

I apologize, Sir. In view of the fact that the South African Agricultural Union approached the Minister of its own volition and asked that Bantu labour control boards should be established to control the Bantu on the various farms, I want to appeal to-night to all the local authorities on the Rand to come forward on a voluntary basis to co-operate with the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration. We have a tremendous problem which we would like to solve, a problem which should not be the problem of the Minister alone; it should be the problem of every local authority which wants to protect the White race. I appeal to those local authorities to co-operate so that we can turn that flood from the Bantu homelands to the White areas in the opposite direction. I want to ask the municipalities, without affecting the economy of the country, to co-operate voluntarily with the Minister to get the surplus Bantu out of the White areas. That is where the great difference lies between the National Party and the United Party. We say the Bantu is only in the White area to sell his labour. The United Party regards him as a permanent inhabitant. Now my appeal to the local authorities is that they should assist that Bantu who can no longer sell his labour in the open market in the White areas to find a proper home in his own homeland. We do not want just to dump him there and leave him there. We should like him to spend his old age in peace and quiet, not in luxury, but in comfort. I want to appeal to all the local authorities to co-operate with the Department of Bantu Administration by making provision in the Estimates for assistance for these people to develop the Bantu homelands so that the Bantu who are in our urban areas to-day will eventually be able to return to their own areas. I further want to appeal to the Bantu business man, who to-day makes his money in our urban Bantu locations, to develop a pride in those Bantu homelands and to assist them to develop. Here I should like to refer to our Jewish business men in the Republic of South Africa who are assisting Israel to develop.

Now what has that got to do with the Bill?

I am appealing to the Bantu business men and definitely not to the hon. member for Transkeian Territories, because he would just be a nuisance there. I appeal to the Bantu business men in the Republic to give expression to their pride and to invest their money in the Bantu homelands. They should assist in building up those homelands so that they can once again return there, because to-day they are making their money out of the Bantu in the locations in our areas. If the United Party would just leave us alone to solve the problems which we see so clearly, there would be no difficulty. On the contrary, the Republic in recent years, under the leadership of the National Party with its policy … [Interjections.] The hon. member does not know what she is talking about. She is a stranger in Jerusalem. If she tells us to-day that there is no peace here, she does not know what she is talking about. The highest authority, Parliament is busy placing legislation on the statute book to ensure racial peace in the country and to expand the economy of South Africa not only to the benefit of one group, but to the benefit of both White and non-White. I want to tell hon. members opposite this. You will not deter us. We shall continue because we know the electorate stands four-square behind us, not only the Whites but also the non-Whites.

The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) has repeated one of the most glaring misrepresentations about this Bill we have heard constantly throughout this debate from Nationalist speakers, and that is that this Bill is either intended to create racial peace or that it will achieve that object. It will do the very reverse. The hon. member for Brakpan has suggested that the only reason why we were fighting this Bill was because we were losing support amongst the electorate to the Nationalist Party. This is the sort of illogical nonsense that we have been hearing from Government speakers throughout this debate. What logic is there in saying that we are fighting this Bill because we are losing support? The reason why we are fighting this Bill is because, as I said in my first-reading debate speech, this is the most inhuman apartheid measure to be introduced in this House.

The hon. member for Brakpan referred to Clause 8 of this Bill, as have other Government speakers before him, and he has made the point that this clause deals only with undesirable Bantu, Bantu who are idle or in an area illegally.

That is a strong point.

If the hon. member who said that this was a strong point would do what I would like to suggest to the hon. member for Brakpan, and that is, to study the clause he would see that what we have been saying on this side of the House throughout this debate is the true position and what the Government members have been saying is a misrepresentation of the position. Clause 8 not only deals with undesirable Bantu, idle Bantu and so on; it deals with every single Bantu who happens to be in the White areas of South Africa. Let me illustrate to what extent the hon. member for Brakpan is completely misleading the House; when I asked him where it was stated in Clause 8 that the only Bantu dealt with by this Bill were the undesirable Bantu, he referred me to the wrong clause altogether. The section in the clause which grants powers to deal with Bantu is not the section referred to by the hon. member for Brakpan at all, which was sub-section (6) (b) (vi), but sub-section (8). It is perfectly clear from sub-section (8) that all Bantu are affected and not merely undesirable Bantu.

Unfortunately my time is limited. I would have liked to continue with the hon. member for Brakpan because he made many statements that I would have liked to deal with. Before I leave him, however, I should like to deal with his reply to me that in Clause 8 the provision to deal with undesirable Bantu is in the subsection that I have quoted. His reply was most revealing. I should like to read sub-section 8 (6) for the benefit of the House—

1. (b) may refuse to sanction the employment or the continued employment of any Bantu in the area if he is satisfied:
   1. (vi) that it is not in the public interest that the relative contract of employment should be entered into, etc.

We on this side of the House had assumed that this clause would be used to carry out Government policy of removing Bantu from urban areas, for example, the Western Cape. In other words, that in respect of such Bantu it would be held to be against the public interest that they should remain in this area. But we now find that this provision can also be used against undesirable Bantu. That was a most extraordinary statement from the hon. member for Brakpan that this clause could be used for that purpose. It shows to what extent members on the Government side of the House are unaware of the real provisions of this Bill. Last night the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) drew attention to the many false and misleading statements made by the Deputy Minister in his introductory speech to this debate …

On a point of order is the hon. member entitled to refer to the false and misleading statements made by the Deputy Minister?

Order!

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I am entitled to say that. I did not say that the Deputy Minister knew the statements to be false and misleading. I have merely said that the statements are false and misleading.

Sir, on a point of order, the hon. member positively stated that the statements were false and misleading, implying thereby that the Minister knew them to be so.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

I want to deal with another of these false and misleading statements made by the Deputy Minister during his introductory speech. Before doing so, however, I should like to draw attention to the fact that this hon. Deputy Minister made a particular point of dealing with, what he called, journalistic lies in relation to this Bill. He then went on to give the Opposition a moral lecture on how they should conduct themselves during this debate. In those circumstances, Sir, we on this side of the House are entitled to expect that he himself would have been scrupulously careful in the explanations that he gave about the Bill.

I come to the question of the aid centres. The hon. the Deputy Minister said this about them. First of all he referred to the aid centres in that portion of his speech where he was dealing with provisions in this legislation which, as he puts it, “vertolk kan word as toegewings of verligtingsmaatreëls”. This is what he went on to say—

That is perfectly correct.

I am interested to hear the hon. member for Heilbron confirming that this is correct.

I now come to the Bill. Before I refer the hon. the Deputy Minister to the Bill, let me explain that aid centres, in terms of this clause, are entitled to receive persons who voluntarily go there at their own request. That is stated in sub-section (6) of Clause 12. Obviously, in respect of those persons the provisions in regard to detention do not apply, because they go there voluntarily. The persons that I am now dealing with are those persons who are sent to the aid centre, either after being arrested and before being charged, or those persons who are sent there after conviction for an offence. I refer the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Heilbron firstly to Clause 12 (28ter) (5) which reads—

Sub-section (4) of Section 5 of the Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act deals with persons who are arrested because they do not have reference books and it says that “the Native Commissioner may … if he deems it necessary, cause the Native to be detained in any reception depot, lock-up, police cell or gaol for a period not exceeding seven days …” Then it goes on to say that that period can be extended for further periods of seven days, up to a maximum of 30 days. I repeat, Sir, that sub-section 28ter (5) of this Bill deems an aid centre to be a reception depot for the purposes of this clause. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, these hon. members must not try to run away. I am dealing with their contention that persons cannot be compulsorily detained in aid centres. They must not try to drag a red herring across the path. This clause makes it perfectly clear that in respect of persons who are sent to an aid centre, having been arrested because they have no reference books, may be detained there for a period up to 30 days. [Interjections.] Of course they are being “detained”. This section says they can be “detained”. The hon. member for Heilbron must read it. He certainly should know it because he is an attorney.

That deals then with those persons who are sent to an aid centre because they have been arrested for not having reference books. I now ask the hon. the Deputy Minister and other Government members to look at Clause 12, Section 28ter (2) and they will see that it says—

Let me read that section, substituting “police station” by “aid centre”—

Thus in respect of Bantu who are arrested and have not yet been convicted, it is quite clear that they may be detained until such time as a warrant is issued and they are brought before the court. This is in Clause 12 28ter (2). That then deals with the Bantu who have been arrested for being without reference books and the Bantu who have been arrested without warrant. That leaves convicted persons.

In respect of convicted persons I shall show that the necessary implications of the provisions of this Bill are such that no court of law can come to any other conclusion than that persons who have been sent to an aid centre after conviction may be detained there. I might interpose by saying that if that were not so, if that were not the intention of the hon. the Deputy Minister, what would be the point of going to the trouble of arresting a person, of charging him, of bringing him before the court and of having him convicted and then sending him to an aid centre, if once he got there he could say: “Thank you very much, I don’t want to be here; good-bye”? The Deputy Minister is toying with this House, Sir, if he puts this forward seriously.

Let me deal with the other provisions of this Clause which I suggest make it clear that there is a necessary implication. Sub-section (3) says—

Then it goes on to say that

Sub-section (4) gives the Bantu Affairs Commissioner certain powers. One of these powers, whether or not a person has been convicted of an offence, is to hold an inquiry and then to do certain things such as repatriating the Bantu or returning him to his homeland etc. etc. Mr. Speaker, how can any inquiry be held and how can the officer in charge of the aid centre take into account, as he is required to do before he comes to a decision, the family ties and other obligations of the Bantu, unless two things are necessarily implied, firstly, that the Bantu shall be obliged to remain in the aid centre, and secondly, that the Bantu shall be obliged to answer relative questions to enable the manager to come to a decision …

Why?

A welfare officer can give that information.

But there is a further sub-section which hon. members on that side may also perhaps not have seen. The powers which are given to the managers of these aid centres go further. They are given the power to exercise all such powers as are conferred upon a court in terms of sub-section (1) of Section 352 of the Criminal Procedure Act, and, Sir, the manager shall be deemed to be a peace officer, that is to say, a policeman, for the purposes of that Act. In other words, the manager is both a magistrate and a policeman in one person.

On different occasions. Sometimes you are a good lawyer, but now you are not a good parliamentarian.

That is more than I can say for you—that you are ever a good lawyer.

In the light of these provisions it is clear beyond doubt that any court of law that is required to interpret this section will necessarily have to come to the conclusion that it must be implied that the persons who are sent to an aid centre may be compulsorily detained. The hon. member for Kempton Park is an advocate and I am sure he will agree with me when I say that it is one of the cardinal principles of the interpretation of statutes that all the sections of a statute must be so interpreted that each shall, if at all possible, be made to work. Now, Mr. Speaker, this clause cannot be made to work if a man, once he gets to an aid centre, is entitled to say: “You cannot keep me here; I am going out.”

I repeat again that that statement of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s which I read out was false and misleading. And in that regard I also wish to draw attention to the White Paper. On page 9 of the White Paper this statement appears—

I suggest that an explanation of this statement in the White Paper is required from the hon. the Deputy Minister.

The gentlemen on the other side of the House seemed to be rather upset when the hon. the Leader of the Opposition compared this Bill with Russian communistic legislation.

It was a scandalous comparison.

It is scandalous that this House should be asked to pass such legislation. Mr. Speaker, I should like to read this clause to which I have referred before and I should like to ask the hon. members on that side of the House to show me one Bill in any other country, except Russia, where any such provision appears. That is the provision whereby after a man has been sent to an aid centre—and I point out that this is after arrest but before he has been charged or convicted—the Bantu Affairs Commissioner or the officer in charge of the aid centre may hold an inquiry whether or not that person has been convicted of any offence, in other words, once the man has been arrested and put into an aid centre he does not have to concern himself with the charge any longer. The Bantu Affairs Commissioner or the officer in charge of the aid centre goes on to inquire, and having inquired, he can do any one of these things—

And then these words, Sir—

I challenge that side of the House to show me where there is such provision in any legislation, except Soviet Russia. I may be mistaken, Sir; it occurs to me that there may be one other place and that is Ghana. Perhaps that side of the House would prefer to be compared with Ghana.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.