In terms of Standing Order No. 50, I beg to indicate that the debate on the second reading of the Bill, excluding the reply of the member in charge, will terminate not later than 5 p.m. to-day.

Mr. Speaker, during all the years that I have been sitting in this House I have never yet heard so many wild, so many irresponsible, so many reckless statements harmful to our country as I have heard during the course of this debate. I would have thought that hon. members of the Opposition had learnt their lesson by now because they did exactly the same thing in the past that they did during this debate and every time it had cost them thousands and thousands of votes. Yet they are getting more and more reckless. They said they were going to fight this debate to the bitter end. I think they were right: They have fought to the bitter end. I think what they have said in this debate is very definitely going to kill them.

The hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie), who spoke last night when the House adjourned, knows very well what the object of these aid centres is. He knows very well that the object is to use them in order to do away with something which the United Party also very much wants to have removed. They are the people who have been complaining for years about the thousands and thousands of Bantu who were put in gaol because they had committed minor offences, because they had contravened the pass laws, minor crimes for which they should actually not go to gaol. They have always asked whether something could not be done with that type of person. We are doing nothing else under this clause than to do something with these thousands and thousands of Bantu who have committed minor offences. The Minister is now establishing aid centres which will make it unnecessary for those people to go to gaol, which will make it unnecessary for those people to come into contact with criminals. He wants to place them in a position where he can advise them, where he can meet them, where he wants to guide them and tell them how they can prevent anything similar happening to them in future. That was what the Opposition asked for but what does the hon. member for Musgrave say? He says they are not aid centres; they are labour gaols. The Minister is not establishing aid centres to assist the Bantu, he says, but he is establishing a kind of Siberia—that that was how Stalin set about things. I want to know from the member for Musgrave whether he is not ashamed of himself for deliberately placing such a false interpretation on this clause.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “deliberate”.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. But is he not ashamed of himself for placing such a mischievous and wrong interpretation on this clause? He should be ashamed of himself. He knows it is to assist the Bantu and not to send him to Siberia and not to treat him the way Stalin treated his people. I maintain with the greatest sense of responsibility that only an enemy of South Africa will place that interpretation on this clause; only somebody who does not mean well with this country will place such an interpretation on it. I want to tell that hon. member that shortly before he was nominated as the United Party candidate he was a member of the Progressive Party. [Interjections.] I am now charging him with having joined the United Party for one reason only and that was to come and sit in this House because he knew that as a Progressive he would never have come to this House.

How did you get here?

I got here by taking a seat away from you. That was how I got here. I want to tell the hon. member for Musgrave that if he wants to violate his conscience in this House it is his own business, but if he wants to harm the good name of South Africa in this irresponsible way it becomes our business and we shall deal with him.

Why do you not reply to his arguments?

Mr. Speaker, for the past 50 years and more every single Government in this country has been faced with the problem of controlling the Bantu who were streaming to the platteland and the Bantu who were streaming to the urban areas. And from time to time every Government has passed legislation to control the influx of Bantu to various parts of the country in the interest of the White man but mainly in the interest of the Bantu. The Botha Government, the Smuts Government and the Hertzog Government introduced control measures. Every Government introduced such measures and from time to time those measures were attacked by the communists, the liberals and the leftists in this House. Mr. Speaker, as industries developed and as that flow increased it became necessary from time to time to smarten up those control measures. They were smartened up by way of the Urban Areas Act by General Smuts in 1946, I think, and this Bill is nothing else than another smartening up process of the control measures to control that flow of labour and to control that flow in the interests of the White, in the interests of our industries, in the interests of the gold mines, but mainly in the interests of the Bantu in the Republic of South Africa. But it is not the communists and the leftists and the liberals who avail themselves of this opportunity of saying the most scandalous things about South Africa, but the United Party. They do not produce facts, they do not draw reasonable conclusions from the clauses of this Bill but they blatantly say things which are not true, and they come to impossible conclusions. They have made a deliberate attempt in this debate to try to besmirch the good name of South Africa as much as possible. They did exactly the same thing when we dealt with the church clause, that clause which was incorporated in an Act when the present Prime Minister was still Minister of Native Affairs. They then told the country that that church clause spelled the end of freedom of religion in South Africa. They then said that it would destroy ecclesiastical freedom in South Africa; they then said that the church clause forbade the Bantu to worship where he wanted to or to worship whomsoever he wanted. The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) is ill and I wish him a speedy recovery, but he said at the time that the church clause meant that he would no longer be able to have his domestic servants present when he had family prayers. Those were the scandalous things they said. I do not know whether the hon. member for Hillbrow has held family prayers since the acceptance of that clause, but if he has and if he has asked his servants to be present he must surely have discovered that the church clause had nothing to do with it whatsoever. I challenge those hon. members who said those outrageous things about South Africa, namely, that it would put an end to freedom of religion, that it would put an end to ecclesiastical freedom, that it dictated to the Bantu where he should worship and whom he should worship, to mention one Bantu who, since the acceptance of that clause, did not worship where he wanted to and whom he wanted to. Let them prove to me that all the churches have not retained all their freedom, that every religion has not retained its full freedom. But they knew at the time, just as well as we did, that the only object of that clause was to prevent agitators from misusing religious services to create a disturbance. They knew it but in spite of that they said to the world that that was an attack on the freedom of religion. I am now telling them that they know that the only object of this clause is to smarten up the control measures in respect of the difficult problem which has confronted every Government. They know very well that what is envisaged by this clause is to improve the state of affairs. But they go out of their way to besmirch the good name of South Africa and to say outrageous things about South Africa: Slave labour, forced labour; gas chambers in which we want to kill the Bantu, corruption of officials, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition even talked about a revolution. If the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) who is talking to him now would just give him a chance I should like to address myself to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. member for Pinetown tried to ridicule the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) when the hon. member for Krugersdorp said the Leader of the Opposition had encouraged a revolution. I charge him with having become so hysterical that what he actually did do, and I shall prove this to his own satisfaction, was nothing else than to encourage a revolution in this country. Because what did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say? He said that if there were a revolution it would be the fault of the Government.

Hear, hear!

Listen to that, Sir. If there is a revolution it will not be the fault of the people who revolt, but the fault of the people who want to overthrow the Government of the country by force. It will not be the fault of Mandela and those people, they will be innocent, but it will be the fault of this Government! Sir, I have never in my whole life come across a more deliberate attempt at incitement and that on the part of the Leader of the Opposition. And then the Cape Times and the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) say that this legislation wants to introduce “a system of forced labour”. They say moreover that a system of “forced labour” already exists in South Africa. I challenge any hon. member on that side of the House to mention one Bantu outside a gaol who is not free to work where he wants to, who cannot give up his job to-morrow if he wants to. Mention one Bantu outside a gaol who does a job because he is forced to do it. Mention a single one to me. But they tell the world that we have a system of forced labour. Listen to what the hon. member for Simonstown went on to say, Sir. He says that this legislation will create a position in South Africa “which is reminiscent of the unsavoury days of the press gangs. When you wanted labour for a particular area, you introduced certain regulations and sent out the press gangs, who whipped them up and you sent them off to work, and that was the last that was heard of a good many of them”. Are the members not ashamed of themselves for preaching such falsehoods? Are they not ashamed of themselves for defaming this country in that outrageous and shameless manner? They know as well as I do that that is not true. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) need not pull a face …

At the language you are using.

My language is resented! But his colleagues can tell the world that gangs of Black labourers are sent somewhere and that that is the last that is heard of a good many of them. In other words, they are murdered. Is there language strong enough to condemn that, Sir? But he goes further. The hon. member for Simonstown says these words in the Bill, “the treatment and disposal of return to their homelands” spell evil things. He takes the word “disposal” and to what conclusion does he come? That the word “disposal” means that we want to burn our Bantu labourers in South Africa in gas chambers like Hitler burnt the Jews. These were his words: “You do not dispose of human beings. Germany dealt with the disposal of human beings. Germany disposed of human beings in gas chambers.” But the most shocking thing of all is, Sir, that the words “treatment and disposal” are not new words in this Bill—they appear in the 1911 Act of General Botha. That was the Act which the hon. member for Simonstown and the hon. member for Transkeian Territories used when they were still in the Government benches. That Act was on the Statute Book at that time, but then it was all right. To-day they tell the world that the intention is “to dispose of these people in gas chambers”. To what lengths can your lack of patriotism go, Sir? Can one’s hatred of other people go to such lengths that you say such things about your own country when you know in your heart of hearts that they are not true? What do they hope to achieve? They will not gain votes by it and they know they cannot gain votes by that. They know that in the past they have lost more and more votes by acting in that way. Why do they say those things if it is not that they do not mind what happens to this country as long as their party may possibly derive benefit from it?

Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says that we want to create a “cheap labour pool” with this legislation. But on the other hand the hon. member for Transkeian Territories says precisely the opposite. He does not say that we want to create a labour pool but that we want to send all of them back to their areas.

Is that not your policy?

As far as possible. But if that is our policy and we can achieve that without upsetting the economy of the country and without doing economic harm to the people and we can move them in a well-organized way, surely we are not creating a cheap labour pool, but we are trying to get away from it. Who are the people who want to create a cheap labour pool in this country? Who are the people who do not want to do anything else with the Black people than to turn them into a pool of cheap and inferior labour? And not only temporarily but permanently. There they are on that side, Sir. I accuse the United Party of wanting the Bantu in the White areas and of wanting him here permanently for no purpose other than to use his cheap labour. The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) has proved that. When we accused him and his party of wanting to grant property rights to the Bantu in South Africa he said it was not true, that they only wanted to give him those in his own residential areas, that they only wanted to give him those in Langa, in Nyanga and in Meadowlands and in those places. I want to ask the hon. member for Pinelands this: If they only want to give the Bantu those pieces of land why then do they want the Bantu here? Are they going to allow the Bantu to start a business in Adderley Street? Will he enjoy property rights there? Will he be able to purchase land elsewhere than in Nyanga? Will he be able to purchase a farm in the Stellenbosch district? Will he be able to purchase a farm in Paarl? Will he be able to open a factory here? Why do they only want to give the Bantu those pieces of land? They only want to give the Bantu those pieces of land because they want him here permanently, in a permanently inferior position, simply to use his labour.

Then the hon. member for Transkeian Territories asked what citizenship rights we were prepared to confer on the Bantu? He knows exactly what citizenship rights we are prepared to confer on the Bantu. What rights are they prepared to confer on the Bantu?

You know.

What are they prepared to do? To confer major political rights but no other rights. He will not be allowed to purchase any land in the business centre of Cape Town; the Bantu will not be able to buy a farm in order to farm there; he will not be allowed to start a factory. He can get a small piece of land but he cannot open a factory, and he will not have the right to do business in that area; they only want to keep him there so that they can use his cheap labour in all time to come.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says further that we must “build up a middle class of Black people”. He should come with me to Sharpeville. There I shall show him a Bantu middle class who own houses; there are probably 100 or 150 houses which are better than those owned by many members of this House; ten of those houses are very definitely better than my house in Vereeniging. We are building up a middle class there. Why should the Bantu be condemned to remaining a middle class only? Is that what they call a Christian-like policy? Is that the policy they want to sell to the world? Is that the policy under which, as the hon. member for Simonstown says, they keep count of their consciences as Christians? They begrudge the Bantu everything higher than a middle class. That is the maximum. “Build up a middle class of Bantu.” Why not a higher class, why not an elite? Why should he not be given the opportunity of developing like the White man? What are they prepared to do for that Bantu middle class? Are they prepared to give the Bantu who belongs to the middle class any rights here?

And where will the lower class be?

Exactly. We of the National Party say we are not only prepared to build up a middle class of Bantu but we are prepared to place him in a position where he can build up a governing class, build up an industrial class, build up a landowner class, build up an elite. That is what we are prepared to do for them.

We, too, in the Transkei.

Listen to that, Sir! Yet they are always telling us that our Transkeian policy is a failure because we still have millions of Bantu in the White areas. What is the United Party prepared to do for those Bantu, those millions of Bantu who are going to remain here, according to them? They say they are prepared to allow them to build up a middle class at the most. They are not prepared to give them anything here, they are only prepared to give them something in the Transkei. What better proof do you want, Sir, that their intention is merely to keep the Bantu here in a perpetual state of subjugation and inferiority? Why do they want to do that? For one reason only and that is to use that Bantu labour, the majority of Bantu outside the Bantu areas.

What about equality?

I can tell the hon. member that we support equality provided the Bantu achieves that in his own area and the White man achieves that in his own area. They, however, have a “ceiling” and that ceiling is a middle class for the majority of the Bantu in South Africa.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) says—and he must correct me if I do not quote him correctly—

Is that correct?

For once you are right.

Very well. I say that the policy which he and the United Party subscribe to is based on colour and colour alone. I want to ask him this: Luthuli, the Nobel Prize winner, may not sit in this House under the policy of the United Party. Why not? For one reason only and that is because he is Black. I want to ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether that is correct.

No.

In other words, in certain circumstances Luthuli can sit in this House. According to the United Party policy, the policy that will be applied if they come into power to-morrow, Luthuli can. I am asking the hon. member for Transkeian Territories …

May I reply?

No, I only have a few minutes left. Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout tells us that a policy based on colour and colour alone is condemned, while his party’s policy is based on colour and colour alone. Let him tell me whether under his policy Luthuli’s children can sit with his children on the same school benches? Why not? Only because of their colour. Is that so or is it not so?

And Matanzima’s children under your policy?

Of course not, but I am not discussing our policy now, I am discussing the policy of the United Party.

What this side of the House are prepared to do and we are doing by way of this Bill is to bring about an orderly flow of labour to the White areas and to create the opportunity for the Bantu not only of building up a Bantu middle class, but of building up a Bantu governing class, an industrial class. Under our policy the middle class and the working class of Bantu will be looked after in such a way that he will be better off than any working class in the whole Continent of Africa, and much better off than the working classes in other parts of the world.

I want to conclude with a final word to the hon. member for Pinetown. He told us last evening that our policy should be “that the Black man must be in a position to sell his labour in the highest market”. Is that his policy? He says “yes”. How can you say that is your policy when you say at the same time that there should be influx control? How can you maintain that when you are telling a number of Bantu to stay where they are, that they cannot come and sell their labour here in the highest market?

That is not our policy, and you know it.

But of course it is. The minute you have influx control that is surely the position. Is the policy of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories to have influx control? How can you have a policy under which you have influx control and say at the same time that the Bantu can sell his labour in the highest market? Surely you apply a policy of influx control to prevent a certain number of Bantu from going to Johannesburg, from coming to Cape Town, from going to Durban and Port Elizabeth. They may not go and sell their labour there. And then, Mr. Speaker, these humbugs come and tell us they are prepared …

Order! The hon. member may not use that word in respect of hon. members.

I withdraw it, Sir, but I wish I knew a word to describe them. They know it is not their policy that the Bantu should be allowed to sell his labour in the highest market. The fact of the matter is that we have a Bill before us which envisages that which all Governments have envisaged in South Africa and in respect of which all Governments have to a greater or lesser degree passed legislation to bring about an orderly state of affairs. The irrefutable fact stares us in the face that our lowest group of Bantu in South Africa, the working class, is better off than any other Bantu in the Continent of Africa. He is better off as far as housing is concerned, better off as far as medical services are concerned, better off as far as education is concerned. One would have imagined, Sir, that if anybody had any patriotism in him he would have told the world about those things, but hon. members of the Opposition do not broadcast those facts. They tell the world that a revolution is pending. They tell the world that we are using gas chambers, they tell the world that here is slave trading in South Africa. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) tells the world that this Bill means Middle Age slave trading. Well, it may give them satisfaction. That is why they are such a miserable bunch. I wish to congratulate the hon. the Deputy Minister on this legislation; it will bring greater prosperity to the White man; and above all, it will bring greater prosperity to the Black man in the Republic.

One wonders why the hon. gentleman who has just sat down congratulated the hon. the Deputy Minister on this Bill when from his speech it was quite obvious that he was doing all he could to run away from it. I think the most remarkable thing about the hon. gentleman’s speech was the time at which it was made. The hon. member followed the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie) who last night, before the adjournment of the House, was dealing with the aid centres, and he delivered a legal argument in relation to the aid centres, in relation to the clauses of the Bill, and he set out to and achieved the object of proving that these “detention places” were gaols. The most significant thing, Sir, is that although the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) was sitting here and listening very attentively, and the hon. member for Heilbron (who is an advocate) was also present. The Government did not put them up to break down the legal argument of the hon. member for Musgrave. Because the argument of the hon. member for Musgrave is foolproof and correct in law as he argued it. But they put up the hon. blustering member for Vereeniging who delivered the blustering speech that he has delivered just now. That is very significant, and so we must assume that the case the hon. member for Musgrave made is unanswerable in law. But the way the hon. member spoke, one would think that these aid centres were going to be the Carlton Hotel for the Bantu in South Africa.

Sir, one of the things that the hon. member said, and I am glad the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs is present to-day, one of the things he said was that only an enemy of South Africa would say the things that we have said.

Yes.

Yes, and they also said that we were only smearing the name of South Africa overseas. Sir, the person who is smearing the name of South Africa overseas is this Government by introducing this very Bill, and the hon. member must not expect, and he can get confirmation of this from the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the rest of the world is going to believe what the hon. gentlemen who sit on that side of the House say this Bill means. That is not going to be the yardstick as to what this Bill means. That yardstick is going to be the Bill itself. Let me tell the hon. gentlemen over there that the outside world is going to read the Bill, and the people the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs will have to deal with are people who have read the Bill, intelligent people who have an unbiased outlook towards this Bill, unlike people who are blustering and running away from it as hon. members over there and who have not read the Bill. I would be very interested to know how the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs is going to explain this Bill overseas.

Then the hon. member for Vereeniging took up the Leader of the Opposition when he said that if there were a revolution hon. members on the other side would be guilty. The hon. member said they would not be guilty, but the people who started it would be. Of course. What happened in France when they had a revolution? The people who were guilty of revolting were the peasants, but who was responsible? The aristocracy. Take Russia, who was responsible? The aristocracy. The point is that the aristocracy in both these countries could have avoided that revolution if they had been sensible, if they had seen the writing on the wall, if they had listened just as this Government could now. And they did not have the benefit of an Opposition that is as patient and as loyal to its country as the official Opposition in South Africa. Sir, this is typical of the attitude of the hon. members over there, typical of the Government, and I regret to say typical of the way the Government through its Department has handled the whole Bill which is now before the House. What happened? The day this Bill was introduced into this House what happened? Every evening newspaper carried a report from SAPA that this was a Bill which made many concessions as compared with the 1963 Bill; every one of certain four important clauses, they said, were not in the Bill. The hon. Leader of the Opposition proved conclusively that they are in the Bill. Where did that report come from? It was ticking over the machines to the Press while the debate on the introduction of the Bill was going on in this House. Where did it come from? It could not have come from the White Paper because that was only available in this House at 2.15. So it must have come from the White Paper given departmentally, this white-washing paper which tells half the story of this Bill and conceals deliberately the other half of the story. It must have come from the Department, Sir, it must have been a hand-out from the Department. Why must they do this? Why must they try and white-wash this Bill?

When was that?

I am saying that what appeared in the SAPA report must have been a hand-out.

You do not know what you are talking about.

Let me tell the hon. Minister what was in this report. The SAPA report appeared in the Star of that day and it says—

That is not in the White Paper. Where do you see in the White Paper that that clause has been dropped? Where do you see in the White Paper that the clause that related to the form of job reservation has been dropped? Nowhere at all! But what did they do? And unless you had seen and compared the Bills you could not have known it. What they did was to take three little words out of the clause of the 1963 Bill dealing with the regulations. Whereas before the Minister could prescribe the form of the documents to be carried, they took those words out by a sleight of hand, by a deliberate sleight of hand …

Order!

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that they deliberately took the words out so that the meaning was completely changed. In other words, instead of having the power in the Bill, they gave the State President, that is to say the Minister, the power to make those regulations. And what happened after that? The pattern followed is exactly the same.

On a point of order, the hon. member said that by a deliberate sleight of hand, the clause was changed. Should the hon. member not withdraw those words?

The hon. member may proceed.

The Bill was introduced in this House on Tuesday and on the Monday after that it came up for second reading. Goodness me, how does the Government expect a measure like this with 101 clauses, dealing with 11 different Acts, in respect of which as the hon. Leader of the Opposition said we have to compare last year’s Bill with this Bill, as well as looking at this legislation, how can the Government expect that we could have studied the Bill properly in the time available? I charge the hon. Minister of bringing this Bill before the House so that that opportunity would not be available to us. I say that for a very good reason. It was quite obvious that none of the hon. members opposite knew of the import or the contents of this Bill, and as I know some of them, I believe they would have been appalled if they had really known what is in this Bill. But they did not know and they made these speeches, all political speeches which would have been worthy of a second-class gathering of Nationalist hooligans somewhere in the country.

Order! What did the hon. member say?

I say these speeches would have been worthy of being delivered to a second-class gathering of Nationalist hooligans.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I am not referring to any gentlemen in this House.

Order!

I withdraw the words. Let us get down and examine what the purpose of this Bill is. The purpose is to get control—and this is the irony of the whole thing—over the one indispensable asset of South Africa, that one indispensable asset to our future, the key to our whole future, namely Bantu labour. The purpose of this Bill is to get control of that Bantu labour and to control it completely and absolutely; because once you have control of it completely and absolutely you have controlled completely and absolutely every facet of our life and of our development and everything in South Africa. That is the purpose of the Bill.

Now, how do they do it? They use as the instrument to achieve this purpose—and I am coming to the object in a moment—the labour bureau. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has indicated that these were found, as far as he was able to ascertain, to be almost identical to what is found in Soviet Russia. So I think one is entitled to say on that part of the Bill that it is a communist measure, a totalitarian socialist measure, and nothing else. It is found nowhere else.

Order! I think the hon. member should withdraw the word “communist”.

Very well. I withdraw it, Sir. I say it is found nowhere else but in a totalitarian socialist country. Now I shall indicate to hon. members opposite that this Bill has nothing whatever to do with influx control. If influx control was in fact the object of this Bill, the machinery we have at present is completely sufficient to deal with it. The object of this Bill is to control completely and absolutely every person and every enterprise in South Africa, whether White or Black. The hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler), speaking last night, said something, and I do not think he realized how near the mark he was, when he said that this Bill was “die grondwet vir die toekoms”.

Now, by withholding with this control the granting Bantu labour you have South Africa, commerce and industry and even residential patterns absolutely at the mercy of the Government. Let us look at these clauses and perhaps the hon. gentlemen can tell me what they have got to do with influx control.

Let us look, for example, at Clause 8, the new Section 21 (6) ter where the power is given to the bureau to refuse to sanction the employment or the continued employment if in the complete and absolute discretion of that official certain situations exist, including that he is not satisfied that the employment is in the public interest or that it should be allowed to continue. He has an absolute discretion. That means that no contract whatever cannot now be cancelled once this Bill becomes law.

But let us look on page 19 of the Bill, at Clause 9 (h). Perhaps the Minister can tell us what that has to do with influx control?

Where do you get it from that the whole Bill deals with influx control?

Regulations under that clause can be made as to the classes of employers to whom Bantu labour may be made available by any bureau. Why does he want this power? What sort of employers is he going to refuse to give labour to? Let us not forget that no one under this Bill can get any labour at all except through these bureaux, so that this clause which provides for these regulations also provides that the regulations must be obeyed. Those clauses can put every single employer completely at the mercy of the Government, and indeed, at the mercy of a junior official. The hon. members wonder why the Leader of the Opposition said that this Bill could lead to corruption. Can you imagine what it could lead to in these circumstances, Sir?

Then on page 21 it is provided that different regulations may be made in respect of different areas and in respect of different classes of Bantu and employers, and perhaps that is the most significant one of all. In other words, in Durban he can say he will not give any Bantu labour to the textile industry, or in Cape Town to the iron industry. This is what this Bill says, and I want to know why it says it. What has the Minister got in mind? The powers that are granted here to set up these labour bureaux is pure, simple Communism, pure, simple, socialist totalitarianism.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “Communism”.

I withdraw it. What has all this to do with influx control?

You behave yourself like a communist.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

But he is a communist.

Who said that?

I did.

The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw it.

Sir, the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) has repeated it.

That is an absolute lie.

On a point of order, the hon. member over there made an accusation against the hon. member for Heilbron which still stands. Must he not withdraw it?

Order!

Quite clearly these powers have not been dealt with by the hon. the Minister in his introduction or by any other hon. member, except by the Leader of the Opposition. But these powers can put every householder, every enterprise, every community and every local authority at the complete mercy of the Government. Why are these clauses in the Bill? What has it to do with influx control?

But nobody said it did.

Why is the present position not allowed to obtain? Surely the persons most concerned are the urban areas themselves and they are in the best position to control influx. They do not want too many Bantu in the towns in order to protect the interests of the Bantu there. But what happens here?

In Clause 8 the Minister takes the power to override the decision of the labour bureau, and on page 15 new Section 21ter (10) (c) he takes the power to “determine in respect of any or all prescribed areas, that any or all of the powers and functions of a municipal labour officer in respect of any class of employers or Bantu specified shall be exercised by the district labour officer”. Why is that being done? Quite obviously because this Bill has something to do with something else besides influx control, and because the local authorities will only exercise it in respect of influx control. Where the Minister wants to exercise it in connection with the socialism he wants to introduce here, he wants to get his own boys to do it because he cannot expect the local authorities to do it, nor would they do so. If that is not so, why are those powers in the Bill?

What the hon. members have said in regard to these labour bureaux, namely that they are only statutory bodies, is nonsense. Where are these powers in the present law of interference with the ordinary labour bureaux? They do not exist.

This is an evil and truculent piece of legislation. It is a foreign piece of legislation. This legislation has no foundation in any Western democracy—none whatever. Not only the Bill, but the manner in which it was handled, smells to high heaven of the methods employed in the countries where the philosophy contained in this Bill obtains.

One of the other interesting things about this debate has been the way in which hon. members opposite have tried to out-Waring Frankie by talking about how this makes for better race relations. As long as these people can work they can stay here, according to the objects of this Bill. You have race relations between people—human beings—and this Bill takes the “human” out of the expression “human being” so far as the Bantu is concerned and makes the relationship one between a human being and a thing. Far from producing better race relations, this Bill must inevitably harden and embitter race relations. Mention was made in this debate of the middle class of Bantu being the bulwark against Communism, and indeed they are, but what incentive is there for these people, who stand as such a bulwark, and to have any interest whatever in the maintenance of law and order when this Bill takes away from them the very things they as human beings aspire to achieve?

Let me say that it is sad to reflect how much worse race relations will be, when this Bill is passed, between the White officials and the Bantu people concerned, because new relationships are being created, and it cannot be nice for the Bantu to know that they are being regarded not as people but as things. It must affect the relationship.

That is a fundamental difference between us. We believe as a matter of basic inflexible principle in the dignity and importance of the individual regardless of colour, and this Bill indicates the Nationalists do not. It is tragic for South Africa.

The Minister must realize that he is not the only person concerned with race relations in South Africa. Race relations here, as anywhere else, are achieved by a change of attitude. The Minister must not forget that many industrialists have tried to ameliorate the race relations that exist and they have tried to establish a better atmosphere. The Chambers of Commerce and Industries have tried to establish better relationships and a better atmosphere between themselves and their Bantu workers. I have not the time to read it all, but I just want to read one little bit at the end in which they said—

How true—but now this Bill denies this basic truth.

My hon. Leader told hon. members here that they were facing a moment of truth. We will face a moment of truth with this Bill, and the responsibility of members of this House is not just to agree or to disagree with another piece of legislation placed before us. This is a Bill to change completely our attitude towards the Bantu people and it will create a breach which, heaven knows, we may never again be able to bridge if this Bill becomes law. The responsibility of hon. members is willingly to bring this about and not to vote according to the thoughts they express in their speeches. The responsibility of every member is to search his conscience because in the end the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of every single member of this House.

Mr. Speaker, at first I did not propose to reply to the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell). I think he really does not deserve a reply, but I shall nevertheless reply to him because he did try to use legal arguments here and there.

But before doing so, I should just like to raise another point, namely, that this debate has incontrovertibly proved that the Opposition is from day to day moving more and more to the left. The hon. member has accused us of trying to “our-Waring Frankie”, but he is “out-Heroding Herod” with the Progressive Party. The hon. member for Durban (North) stressed the fact that the labour bureaux have been established to control labour. That merely proves my point that he is moving more to the left every day. This new Section 21bis contains not a single provision that is not already in existence.

But he did not even know that.

The hon. member serves as a Member of Parliament for a very illustrious province, but he is not even familiar with his brief. He does not even know the famous words of Lord Hewitson to the young barrister, namely “claw the facts”.

He claws fiction.

I have here in my hand the relevant Government Gazette according to which labour bureaux are being established under the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911. The Minister has taken the opportunity here of consolidating the numerous regulations dealing with this matter. There are no less than 69 documents one has to refer to in wanting to know only the most important of those labour provisions. Labour bureaux are being established under these regulations in the office of every magistrate, additional magistrate, assistant magistrate or special justice of the peace. District bureaux are being established, but under that section not in the urban areas. In Section 3 bureaux are also being established for every prescribed area, that is to say, urban areas. But the hon. member does not even know why the section is drafted in that manner. It was the complaint of the hon. members opposite, particularly of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman), following in the footsteps of the former hon. member for Wynberg, that we regulate everything by regulation. I can understand the complaint of hon. members that we do everything by regulation; but I cannot understand why he should complain when it is not done by regulation. He merely wants to have a grievance. In this Bill the Minister establishes by statute the labour bureaux that already exist by regulation. Now the hon. member for Durban (North) asks what this provision is doing here; according to him it does not concern influx control. It is as the Minister of Lands has said. The hon. member clings to the fabrications of his own imagination. I proceed.

Must you?

I regret to say that hon. members opposite are always trying to evade an objective approach. It is clear to me that they are beginning to rebel against their own leadership and the inherent Communism there is …

Order!

I withdraw that word. They have already waited too long to become leftists and that is why they are so resentful. I am thinking of the hon. members for Port Elizabeth (South) and Port Elizabeth (West). To me it sounded like a lot of leftist propaganda. The hon. member for Durban (North) stressed, as did other hon. members yesterday, the other provision in the Bill in regard to the cancellation of service contracts. The power to cancel service contracts already exists under the regulations, namely under Regulation 6. The Minister has said so in his speech and it is stated in the White Paper as well. But it suits hon. members to cover up the true facts. If the Bantu is not employed bona fide by an employer, the service contract registered in that manner may be cancelled. In terms of this new clause, the Bantu Commissioner may terminate the service contract. What is not provided for in the regulation is the cancellation of the contract for reasons of public policy, with the approval of the Secretary. The White Paper also says that. We have nothing to hide. But the reasoning now is that if it may be cancelled in the public interest, then public policy, the policy of the Government is also public policy, in other words, the official may cancel the service contract if it is in conflict with the Government’s policy. I am sorry the words “public interest” have been used. The correct words to have used would have been to say that it was prejudicial to public security. I should like to ask the Minister whether he does not think, in view of the fact that the Opposition has nailed its flag to this mast in this respect, that he himself should consider using other words, e.g. that contracts may be cancelled when they are prejudicial to public security. I cannot understand the hon. member for Durban (North) making that statement, namely that public policy may also be public interest. I can understand the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) objecting to that, but what appeared from the Langa riots? Those intimidators were registered employees in Cape Town, but they were not doing any work. Their work was to stroll around and terrorize other people. I can imagine the Progressive Party being interested in having their organizers in this class of employee.

How dare you say that? It is absolute nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, when you throw a stone into a dog kennel, and you hear a yelp, you know you have scored a hit.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to insinuate that I and the Party to which I belong employ agitators to incite people?

I did not say that the hon. member hires agitators to terrorize people, but I can imagine that she will employ people to make propaganda for her Party; she will register them in her name and in that way she will send them into the Bantu areas. However, I do not wish to do her an injustice, but I am still searching for a reason why she has been so emotionally concerned about this section. I cannot understand it, but it may be that the fault lies with me and not with her. Then there is something else in Section 7, namely, that a service contract may be terminated when an order for removal has been served on such a Bantu. In the Native (Urban Areas) Act we have a long list of circumstances under which a Bantu may be served with an order to move from a certain area. The hon. the Deputy Minister has already referred to that. He said that if they are ordinary criminals or deal in drugs or intoxicating liquor, they may be removed from a certain area. Hon. members will find that in the new Section 29 which has been inserted in the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, 1945, an Act passed by the United Party Government. It has now been superseded by Section 36 of the Native Laws Amendment Act No. 54 of 1952. Basically the provisions are still the same.

Before my time expires I should like to deal with the so-called great juridical argument of the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie). I have to warn the hon. member that with his testimony he will one of these days be the younger Pitt, the great jurist on the other side, with equally poor arguments. He must know very well that we will take him up if he makes submissions which have no juridical substance. Sir, here we are dealing with the so-called aided centre. This institution has been created in the Principal Act, because we wish to eliminate the pinpricks from the policy of apartheid and influx control. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) has already said so, quite rightly. The hon. the Deputy Minister also said so in his introductory speech. In practice the following happens: When a Bantu is charged under one of those Pass Law provisions or when he contravenes it, he may be taken to such an aid centre. The hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) must not shake his head now. I shall come to the juridical argument just now. I say when such a person is taken to an aid centre, an official there will inquire into the circumstances of that Bantu. After inquiry he may permit him to remain there, or else order him to be sent somewhere else. The order is made after proper inquiry and with due regard to the family connections or other ties or commitments of that Bantu. In other words, when such a Bantu comes to the urban areas, he is brought to that aid centre. He may abscond if he so wishes; he is not in prison. The aim is to help him after full inquiry. That is the object of the new provision, but hon. members of the Opposition do not believe in our good intentions. They are always seeing something wrong, and then they accuse us of all kinds of things.

May I ask a question?

The hon. member may do so in the Committee Stage. I do not think he can ask a question I cannot answer. His argument is this: Because the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act are applied to certain people who are brought to this aid centre, this aid centre now becomes a prison. Let us analyse that: In practice this is what happens: The police arrest a Bantu who in their opinion has committed an offence; they may charge him, have him convicted and imprisoned, but they may also send him to that centre. When he arrives there, he is a prisoner; so he cannot abscond although all the other Bantu who are there may abscond if they so wish. So in respect of that Bantu, it is arrest; he is there under a different Act from the one under which the other Bantu are there. Let me take up the hon. member further on his own reasoning. We sometimes take a prisoner to a hospital; we send a warder with him and the warder guards him. Does that hospital now become a prison and do all the other patients in that hospital now become gaolbirds? So you see, Sir, how ludicrous that argument is. But I come to another argument used by him.

There are some people who may well be kept in custody there.

Mr. Speaker, I did not worry the hon. member last night; he must now give me an opportunity to make my speech. He made another point; he said that the fact that the Bantu Affairs Commissioner may hold court in this aid centre, makes a prison of this aid centre. He says the Court will now make a prison of the aid centre. Or was it the great lawyer, the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) who used that argument?

It was the same member.

Yes, it was that hon. member. He says because a Court may be held in that aid centre, the aid centre itself becomes a prison. Let us examine his argument. We sometimes hold an inspection in loco; we go and inspect the spot where an accident took place in the street. That place is visited by the Judge and the barristers. Does that place become a prison now?

That is an absolute misrepresentation of my argument.

I am taking the hon. member at his own word, or can I not accept his own words any longer? Let me put it in another way. Sometimes we go along and hold a sitting of the Court in a hospital; we record evidence from people who are in extremis there, or for some other reason. Do the other patients in that hospital now suddenly become prisoners? Sir, that merely shows how hollow the hon. member’s arguments are. He did not grant himself the time to reflect deeply upon the things he said here; it is because he is so obsessed with his leftist ideas; it is because he is so obsessed with liberal ideas that he might be able to relieve himself of at public meetings, or leave unanswered in his bedroom. Here he cannot do that.

May some people be detained there or not?

The hon. member asks whether some people may be detained there or not? I ask him a counter-question: If a person is under arrest in a hospital, then the question is not whether the man may be detained there. The question is, what is the nature of the institution in which he is. Is it a hospital or a prison? In the case of the aid centre, the reply is that all those who are there are not under arrest, and they may abscond if they wish. Any person who finds himself in such an aid centre must only remember that if he does not avail himself of the services of the officer in charge of that aid centre, he is kicking against the pin-pricks, and that he will have to deal with the police. However, remember this is an officer who wants to assist the Bantu. But the hon. member does not appreciate that.

Those who are brought there by the police may be detained there.

That is a complete misrepresentation of what really happens in practice. Then I pursue that argument a little further: The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) yesterday stressed the breaking up of the family. When an official cross-examines such a Bantu, he is specifically required to do the following things (Clause 12, Section 28ter (4) (b))—

“Any other place.”

When that commissioner studies the whole background of such a person, with due regard to his family affairs, how can we say that is a break-down of the family? The hon. member over there raised another matter also, and that is that we might not permit the wives and children to come and visit there. Do they know what happened in 1945 when shanty towns came into being on the Witwatersrand in particular? What was the result? Those people were living in hovels that become the breeding grounds of all kinds of evils. The hon. the Deputy Minister went out of his way to say this: “Look, my aim is to help these people and not to harass them; if you are not satisfied with the decision of the official dealing with the matter, you may appeal to the Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner.” Here I refer to the proposed new Section 28 quat on page 26, which I shall read out to the hon. member in English—

Now that is derided, and the worst of all is this: The reason why hon. members of the Opposition scoff at it is because they say they cannot trust the Bantu Affairs Commissioner and the Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner, because corruption is rampant in the public service. Are they not ashamed of themselves? Do they have any experience in this connection? If so, why have they not reported it to the Attorney-General or to the police? Of course at every level of the community there are people who transgress, but in our country we have one of the great supporting pillars of democracy, and that is an incorruptible Public Service. Those people are working very hard for very little money in exchange for security in their old age, and then hon. members opposite say “Hear, hear” when people make insinuations of corruption against public servants.

Speaker, I reside in Pretoria, and I shall explain to every official I see there what the approach of hon. members opposite is in regard to the corruptibility or incorruptibility of officials. I shall tell them what hon. members opposite have said here. Sir, it is a great privilege, when an order has been made against you, to have somebody else to adjudicate on it, that is to say, somebody who is not concerned with the matter at all, and who can approach the matter completely objectively and give an objective decision on it. Under this section he has the privilege of submitting to the Bantu Affairs Commissioner matters that would be inadmissible in a court of law. But hon. members opposite prefer to launch this tirade against existing legislation which has been passed under a succession of Prime Ministers since 1911. They prefer to besmirch South Africa still more and to make the task of the Minister of External Affairs still more difficult, and all that for absolutely no reason except perhaps to derive some meagre and doubtful political advantage from it. We are content that they do these foolish things from which they will derive more disadvantages than benefits.

I am sure the hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not attempt to follow him. I must say that I was rather surprised at the note on which the hon. member finished his speech. He is, I understand, an ex-professor of law at a university, and he ended his speech by virtually saying, like a little boy playing in the street: “You see, I will tell all the civil servants in Pretoria what naughty people you are in the United Party.”

Criminal people.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

That, coming from an ex-professor of law, is hardly to be expected. I think it would be fair to say in regard to the hon. member’s speech that the Scottish volk have a saying that says, “God hears a good opinion of ourselves.” Well, the hon. member may think that he has that good opinion but the source from which he got that good opinion is open to grave doubt in my opinion.

Sir, this Bill of which we are now reaching the final stages has, I think, by and large been generally accepted on both sides of the House as being a Bill to create an army or a corps of Bantu workers who from time to time will leave the released or scheduled areas or farms and come into the White urban areas for work. The term “workseeker” is no longer in this Bill but nevertheless it was an easy term to understand, so perhaps if I use it hon. members will not be too harsh with me or think that I am giving it the special legal meaning which was intended in the previous Bill. As far as I am concerned it was a Native who went out seeking work. It is true that that term no longer appears in this Bill because that Native no longer reaches our urban areas in pursuit of a job. The machine picks him up at the point of his departure, at his home; he gets his permit; he goes to the prescribed area if it is one of our towns—they are all prescribed areas now—and there, having entered the prescribed area, the machine picks him up again and he has to do certain work and except in the case of a Native who goes back within 12 months to the job he previously occupied, the whole of the destiny of that Native is in the hands of the officials at the labour centre. When he has finished that job or his contract is cancelled, he is, through the operation of the machine, once more sent back to his home or the areas from which he has come, i.e. a scheduled or release area, but if he is outside a prescribed area he comes back, and so the machine handles him the whole time. It is quite clear then that what this Bill is aiming at is to have employed Bantu in the White areas and that unemployed Bantu are not wanted in the White areas. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) nods his head so we can accept that that is the highest authority that we can have! Sir, how many of these Bantu are there? There has been no official calculation made so far as I know, but I know that at the time of the passing of the short Bill last year there was a suggestion that it might run up to about 9,000,000 folk, men, women and children, but in any case a figure of some 7,000,000 has been used here. I want to make the point at once that the rural areas, where farms are concerned, can be prescribed areas under this Bill; the Minister can prescribe them, and then the provisions of this Act will apply to those prescribed areas in so far as the farming communities are concerned, and all the provisions which are applicable to the prescribed areas are applicable to those areas, so when I say 7,000,000 I am probably correct. When we are dealing with 7,000,000 Bantu in a Bill of this kind which is laying down such simple but such very rigid principles, which have been attested to by the hon. member for Heilbron, that the employed Native is wanted in the White area but that the unemployed Native is not wanted in the White area—they are simple rigid principles which are easy to understand—do we actually believe that we can build some kind of either social edifice or legislative edifice which is going to have any substance or permanence at all in respect of the labour of 7,000,000 non-Whites working in the main for the Whites under these conditions and that they will be permanent without our having those 7,000,000 non-Whites agreeing in general terms with the main principles of this legislation? The hon. the Minister said—and he will correct me if I am wrong because I am relying on a newspaper report …

You are already wrong on one point.

Here I have a newspaper report of his speech which, as I understand, fairly correctly reflects what he said. He said—

The hon. the Deputy Minister nods his head; he is in agreement that that is a fair rendering of what he said. Sir, what right has he to say that the Government’s policy as contained in this Bill is understood and accepted by the masses of the Bantu because it has been put to them forthrightly and honestly? When was it put to them? When was this Bill put to the masses of the Bantu, as the hon. the Deputy Minister says. Has the Deputy Minister done anything to put it to them?

I have discussed it with many of them at many places and I could give their names.

I would like the Deputy Minister to give us the names of the people with whom he discussed it, and I would like him to tell us by what manner 7,000,000 Bantu in South Africa showed that they understood and appreciated this Bill. Sir, we only got this Bill the other day. When did he put it before the Bantu? He says he will give us the names of the people with whom he has consulted. When did he do that?

Not this Bill.

The hon. member says “not this Bill”. Sir, what are we discussing then? I do not intend to usurp the functions of the lawyers, but they have been here for the last two days dealing with the changes in this Bill from the one which was introduced in 1963. Sir, it cannot lie in the mouth of the hon. the Deputy Minister to say, as he did in introducing this Bill, that the Government’s policy is understood by the masses of the Bantu because “We put it to them forthrightly and honestly so that they are able to see the plan behind it and the implications of it for the Bantu as w*ell as the Whites.” How could he put this Bill before them? We only got it a week ago. You see, Sir, this kind of statement by the hon. the Deputy Minister is read by these folk and by all the Bantu throughout the length and breadth of South Africa who are going to use a very evil name to apply to the Deputy Minister for making a statement like that when they know that they were never consulted. Millions of Bantu in South Africa have not seen this Bill; they know nothing about it; it has not been explained to them, they do not understand the plan behind the Bill. What is the plan behind this Bill? The plan behind the Bill is the simple one attested to by the hon. member for Heilbron, and that is to have the employed Native in the White area and the unemployed Native out of the White area. That is the plan behind the Bill for 7,000,000 Bantu. How can we believe that we are going to build on those foundations anything of substance and permanence, if we are not going to get the Bantu behind us and get them to agree that this is in their interests? Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister has been to South West Africa trying to explain other matters to the non-Europeans there. He is quite prepared to go and explain the Odendaal Commission Report to the Bantu there, but with all due respect to what he said just now, he has not explained this Bill to a single gathering of the Bantu people.

I said that I explained our policy to the Bantu people, and I do so every time I meet them. I have done so many times and at many places but I will not give you a single name because you would then victimize those people. Hughes did so last year at Potchefstroom.

Sir, this is really quite incredible. He says on second thoughts that he is not prepared to give me the name of any Bantu because I will victimize them. I challenge him to say where I have ever victimized a Native. My difficulty is the other way; I have to save the Natives from being victimized by them. That is the real truth of the situation. Sir, if hon. members on the Government side think they can catch an hon. member on this side of the House—fair enough—then they are quick enough to shout out, “Where did you get that from; have you got his name; have you got a sworn statement”?

That is what Hughes did last year when I gave him names.

Sir, this is trivial. The Minister cannot hide behind a thing like that. I want him to put his hand on his heart and to say as a man of honour, “I give you my word of honour that I have put this Bill before the masses of the Bantu and have explained its implications and the plan behind it”.

He said “The principles of the policy”.

It might just as well be said that the White people of South Africa have accepted the principles of this Bill. But where have the White people accepted it? Do the farmers of South Africa know that they can live in the prescribed area here? Do they understand the principles of Government policy as contained in this Bill? Has the hon. the Deputy Minister consulted with and explained the implications of this Bill to the farmers of South Africa?

Of course I have explained it to them and they understand it.

It is not enough for the Minister to say he has explained it to them and that they understand it. Has he had discussions with the various farmers’ organizations and do they approve of this Bill? We want it on black and white that they understand it and that they accept it.

Sir, this Bill is simply the second leg of the Government’s apartheid policy. So far that apartheid policy has only had one leg, namely the Bantustans of the hon. the Prime Minister. But that leg is a bit woody below the ankle—or is it above the neck? So the hon. the Deputy Minister has seen fit to come to this House with a Bill of this nature and to ask Parliament to approve of it so that he can provide the hon. the Prime Minister with the second leg to his apartheid policy. Sir, what are we coming to?

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister realize the vast army of officials he will require to administer this legislation? Already there is a tremendous shortage of staff in the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. This Bill makes provision for Bantu officials to take over positions that were formerly occupied by White officials. Let me make it clear, Sir, we on this side of the House are not opposed to Bantu being placed in high and responsible positions in the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, as a matter of fact, we are all in favour of it. But where is the hon. the Deputy Minister going to get the necessary Bantu with the necessary experience and understanding to carry out the administration of this Bill? Anybody who has been inside a court of law will know what hostility and animosity there is between the Bantu officials and the Bantu prisoners they come in contact with. The Bantu official, Sir, is the very person who treats his fellow Bantu in the most unsympathetic way. You come across that sort of thing every day. If you put a Bantu in charge of any work where he has Bantu working under him, he seems to delight in exercising his authority and treating those Bantu in his charge in what one might almost describe as a ruthless and merciless manner. The people who will be sent to the aid centres, for example, will be people who should be treated with the greatest sympathy and understanding and I maintain, Sir, that they will not get that sympathy and understanding from those Bantu officials on the staff. It is not true to say, as some hon. members opposite are so often inclined to do, that Bantu are treated more sympathetically by Bantu than by Whites. Sir, I am not against Bantu being given better posts, but in whose hands are we putting the control of apartheid? The burden will be on the shoulders of the Bantu. And when the day comes when they realize that blood is thicker than water, it will mean trouble for South Africa, trouble with a capital T.

I now want to deal with this question of the prescribed areas. We do not know where those prescribed areas are going to be, Sir. Is it the intention of the hon. the Deputy Minister to declare rural areas prescribed areas?

I shall explain that in a moment.

It is a perfectly simple question.

Farms will not be declared prescribed areas although we have the power to do so to-day, and you know it.

I am thankful to the hon. the Deputy Minister for that statement. That is going down on the record.

I now want to deal with the Bantu who are to be endorsed out and the attitude of the Government that they are only temporary sojourners in our midst. Sir, this Bill lays down a rigid principle that only those Bantu who are needed in the White areas shall be allowed to remain here. The very existence and livelihood of about 7,000,000 Bantu are being affected by this Bill, Sir. What social or legal edifice could be built which had any substance unless those 7,000,000 Bantu agreed to this legislation? Mr. Speaker, the nature of this Bill is such that it will destroy the goodwill of those 7,000,000 Bantu and without that goodwill the White man cannot exist in South Africa. We are living in this country, we are building the future of our children here not because of laws but on the strength of goodwill and if this Bill succeeds it will destroy that goodwill and that will be the end of the White man in South Africa.

Hon. members opposite are so quick to compare the position of the Italian who goes and works in Germany with the position of the Bantu who comes from the Transkei, for example, to work in the White areas. But those two positions are not analogous, Sir. In the case of the Italian worker who goes to work in Germany, he is an Italian with Italian citizenship, who goes to work in a different country; he is not a German citizen, nor does he expect German citizenship to be conferred upon him when in Germany. But in the case of the Bantu who comes from the Transkei to work in these areas, he is a South African who merely goes from one part of his country to work in another part. It would be more correct to compare the position of the Bantu who comes to work in the White areas with the German who goes to work in another part of Germany. He remains in his own country; he does not go outside it. I maintain therefore that it is quite wrong for hon. members opposite to make that comparison.

The number that will be endorsed out can be anything between 10,000 to 20,000. How will they live in their so-called homelands? Already the chiefs in the Transkei and elsewhere are complaining bitterly about the Africans that are sent back there. We hear a great deal about the border industries but those industries cannot offer employment to all those Bantu. I doubt whether they ever will be able to do so. I warn the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Government, Sir, that if they persist with this policy of theirs and endorse thousands of Bantu back to their homelands, they will be building up a corps of bitter, disillusioned and frustrated people who will create all the trouble they can in their homelands. What more fertile ground for Communism can there be among such a herd of people with a grudge against the White man? If these people cause trouble in the towns and cities surely there is machinery to deal with them; why send them to go and make trouble among the Bantu who live peacefully in their homelands?

If this Bill succeeds and the Bantu who are endorsed out succeed in building up the homelands, which is the object the Minister has in mind, and they refuse to come back to the White areas to work here, you will have the biggest crisis this country has ever experienced in its history, Sir. What will happen to our industries, our mines, to commerce and to the farming industry if the Bantu were to refuse to come and work for the White man, if they say: “No thank you; I am happy in my homeland; I have my family with me; I have a job?” But supposing the Bill fails, Sir, then too it may also happen that the Bantu will refuse to leave their homelands to come and work in the White area. So whatever happens, it will spell disaster for South Africa.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) (Mr. Odell) said that this Bill would be welcomed by the farmers in his constituency. He referred to the mutilation of stock, fences that were cut down and so forth and so on. That may be, Sir, but I challenge the hon. member to resign his seat and to fight a by-election on this issue. I challenge him to do so. I also challenge the Nationalist Party to fight the forthcoming Provincial Council election at Ixopo on this issue. What right has the hon. the Deputy Minister got to say that the mass of the Bantu support this legislation; they have not been consulted.

I want to turn to Clause 79 which amends the Bantu Authorities Act. Is the hon. the Deputy Minister going to use the amendment to that Act against the Buthelezi tribe who has so far refused to accept the principle of Bantu Authorities?

No, we shall not use it for that purpose.

I thank the Minister for that. I shall not take the matter any further.

Mr. Speaker, I say this is a bad Bill and the country should not be hoodwinked by the Government. As my hon. Leader has said, we in Natal and members on this side are strongly opposed to this measure.

I want to say finally, that among the 7,000,00 Bantu we have a very great fund of goodwill, goodwill of the Whites towards the Bantu and the Bantu towards us. I know of no measure more destined and calculated to do away with that measure of goodwill than this piece of legislation. But without that goodwill and without the co-operation of a large section of the Bantu people, the White man will perish. He cannot expect to exist if there is such a cleavage that the Bantu are on one side and we altogether on the other side. Our existence depends on goodwill and therefore I regret this piece of legislation. The hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) referred to a clause which as far as I can see must be interpreted to mean that if I have an old man on my farm who has worked for me and worked for my father and my father’s father and who reaches old age and is perhaps over 90, then he will not be allowed to stay on the farm unless as a squatter I pay for him £1 in the first year, £3 in the second year and up to £16 a year, and finally I have to get rid of him. What moral grounds, what ordinary decency is there in a Bill like this. How must I explain to the Bantu that this Government which maintains that it has the interest of the Bantu at heart, says to such an old man, who may be over 90 and who has served a family for three generations, and who sits in his small pondokkie with a little piece of land to work for himself and free water, etc., that the time has come that he now must go? If I am not prepared to pay an amount up to £16 a year, he must go. How can you build up goodwill in that way? How can that be morally defended? By this kind of legislation you are going to destroy that fund of goodwill that exists, and that is why I am strongly opposed to this legislation because it will destroy the good relationship between White and non-White.

I shall not reply to what the hon. member for Natal (South Coast) (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) has said at once, but I have to make only this comment, that if he could have produced proof that he had led his party to success in Natal, and had not destroyed it, I would sooner have listened to his advice.

This has been a strange debate, one of the strangest we have ever had in this House. I listened most attentively to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. It had been announced that there would be a “total war” against this measure, a heated battle, and that evoked great interest, on this side of the House too, because we had hoped that at long last we would now have the position that one point of view would be matched with another point of view, and that one proposition would be opposed by another, and that arguments would be used which are worthy of an Opposition. Hence our disappointment that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the party opposite did not come here with points of view that were well-founded. What we have had from that side have been all but courageous points of view. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, like a modern Don Quixote charged imaginatory things on his staggering old horse and his followers faithfully followed in his footsteps like humble Sancho Panza. We have had nothing but wishful thinking from the whole Opposition. From their speeches we really had to infer that they had suddenly come into power overnight, that they had done away with the Transkei, that it was something of the past because, listening to their arguments, it seemed that the Transkei did not exist, and one gained the impression that their race federation had been firmly established and that the Bantu were scattered throughout the country and had received civic rights, and that the National Party had suddenly come into power later and now wished to take away recklessly by means of this Bill, all the rights that had been acquired. That was the wishful dreaming of the Opposition from beginning to end. It was not realistic. But surely it is useless to join issue with such a party on rights that have never existed and on things that have never occurred. They close their eyes to facts, such as the Transkei. But surely they cannot ignore the fact that the policy of South Africa is the policy of apartheid, and that we are now engaged on implementing it and that there can be no going back. Surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his followers should realize that, but they speak as if their race federation had been established firmly in South Africa. This fallacy was the basis of all the speeches of the Opposition.

When are we going to have the other Bantustans?

If the hon. member had not been asleep and if he had listened to the speeches of the Prime Minister, he would not have asked me such a foolish question. No wonder nothing came of the loud and terrifying trumpeting that caused the walls of Jericho to crumble. From the very beginning the Leader of the Opposition put the hot war in the “deep freeze”. It was particularly disappointing because the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had said, while the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration was speaking, “I am very sorry for you, my friend”. Well, if that is the best the Opposition can do, then we can just let them go on dreaming. But there were a few remarks that cannot be permitted to pass unrebuked. Other members have already referred to them, and I should like to add just a little more in that regard. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, as well as his followers, said here in the House that this measure opens the door wide to corruption. It makes corruption possible. I should like to ask him whether he is not ashamed of himself for making such utterances which cast such a stigma upon public servants. It has been said we have had enough of corruption. He mentions a couple of exceptions in order to label the whole public service, and particularly the officials of the Department of Bantu Administration with the same tag, and to besmirch and cast suspicion upon one and all. I should like to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that his utterances reveal extremely bad taste as well as irresponsibility. It was nothing less than blatant defamation of officials and I hope public servants will take note of that. As regards this side of the House we have the highest regard for public servants, and particularly for the officials of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, because they are carrying out a very difficult and exacting task loyally and faithfully, in spite of insults of this nature on the part of the Opposition.

What about Paarl and other places?

The Opposition charges us with undermining with this measure the goodwill and co-operation between Whites and non-Whites. But what can disturb good relations more than when the Bantu are being told in advance that the White man wants to exploit him? What will disturb good relations more than when you say that there is corruption among your public servants?

The possibility.

What is more calculated to make racial relations tense than when the White man, and in this case the Opposition, tells the Bantu that the White is going to deprive him of his rights—rights he has never had—and refuse to regard him as a human being and that the White man wants to make a slave labourer of him? What can disturb racial relations between the Whites more than utterances such as those we have had from the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay), whose speech consisted of vicious hatred and venom. He said he was making these attacks because he was so strongly opposed to this measure on principle but it was clear from the way he behaved that he is imbued with an unbounded hatred of the Nationalists. He is another of the few remaining imperialist anachronisms who do not fit into the changed circumstances. Where we are trying to grow together as one nation, the hon. member for Simonstown on Tuesday did not render a service to the nation. He was certainly no credit to his own language group.

It is clear that I got under your skin.

His skin is too thick.

Hon. members opposite realize that the United Party is on its last legs and the only medicine that may still have an effect is shock treatment. They first tried to bring about the downfall of the Government by trying to administer economic shocks. The hon. member for South Coast will recall how he and the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) and another hon. member, whose name I shall not mention in connection with this matter because of his illness, said at Dundee that South Africa would not be able to raise a loan of a single cent. He said he had secret information which enabled him to say that, and within six months businesses would have to close down. They wanted to administer an economic shock hoping to bring about the downfall of the Government. When they failed to do that, they hoped for a shock from outside that would shake this Government until it succumbed. When nothing came of that, they hoped for an internal shock as a result of labour unrest. That is what they would like to see. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition on Monday let the cat out of the bag when he intimated here the direction in which they were going, because he said that if there were to be a revolution, this side of the House would have to bear the blame for it. By means of one shock after another to bring about the downfall of the Government, because they know that with the policy they have they will never come into power.

The Opposition know that the honest aim of this legislation is on the one hand to remove idlers and agitators from the White area, but on the other hand it seeks to bring about sound labour arrangements in South Africa. That is what they wish to avoid at all costs, namely that there should be a sound policy of labour regulation in South Africa. They do not want a sound policy of labour regulation in South Africa, because they know that a happy and well-ordered labour force is one of the guarantees for the successful application and development of the policy of apartheid, which in turn will bring about the general destruction of the party opposite, for they are without a policy, they are bloodless and they are busy scavenging. In their speeches here they did nothing else but scratch in old refuse dumps searching for pieces of broken crockery and old rusty hoops, while their own party is dying because it is without a policy.

This legislation with its labour bureaux and service centres has, as far as the Bantu is concerned, a motive, purely and simply of assistance and service. The ignorant Bantu will in future no longer be like an unanchored float bobbing about in the whirlpool of the great cities. No, he will receive sympathetic guidance and assistance from the Department in every respect. He will gradually also get rid of those intimidating and revolutionary influences of the idlers and agitators who make so many of the innocent and law-abiding Bantu the victims of the law. I admit readily that the Bill is not perfect. Where have you ever seen a measure that is perfect from the beginning? But all the points of friction will in due course be ironed out until it becomes what it was intended to be, namely a measure to make the citizens of the Bantu homelands happy and contented labourers in the White area.

Now I come to the alternative of the Opposition. The Opposition does not wish to regulate Bantu labour. The sluices must be opened wide and the Bantu, the desirable as well as the undesirable, must be permitted to go wherever they wish throughout the Republic, and to offer their labour wherever they wish. Furthermore, civic rights, including the right of land ownership, must be awarded to the Bantu in the White area. Here I have to refer to some utterances now. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) has said that if they come into power, they will apply influx control. But we know them. Do you know what kind of control they will apply? They will either fall back upon their “voluntary apartheid”—how frequently have they not said that in the past?

Where do you get that from?

Does the hon. member not know about it?

May I ask the hon. member a question?

The hon. member knows I have very little time. Let the hon. member look at the Hansard report. I say they will either apply voluntary apartheid, or they will leave control exclusively in the hands of the municipalities and then there will arise like mushrooms in the large cities, particularly in the cities controlled by United Party city councils, numerous “Newlands” and “shanty towns”. They cannot deny that. If they get into power, and the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) becomes a member of the Cabinet, I do not believe he will go back on his word; then he will give the city councils the same advice he gave Margate, in his own constituency. To a question of Major T. J. Jenkins, he replied as follows in regard to the Indians …

When?

In 1946. Major Jenkins asked whether it would mean that the Indian who had passed Standard VI and was employed as a waiter would be permitted to live in Margate “notwithstanding that he was in occupation of premises covered by an anti-Asiatic clause”? The reply of the hon. member was as follows—

Then I have the right to say that they will leave it to the municipalities, and then we shall have the position we had before we came into power.

What is wrong with that?

No, I am merely saying it will happen if they come into power. They will not control. The United Party municipalities will be assured of the full support of the United Party Government, that every Bantu worker who chooses to do so will be permitted to bring his wife and his children with him from the homelands. The fact of the matter is that every speaker on that side pleaded that the family should not be broken up. But do you know what struck me? They are constantly pleading that the Bantu should not be separated even temporarily from his family while he is carrying out his duties, but I have never heard them make a single plea for the White man in a similar position. I should like to mention to the hon. member the relieving staff in the Public Service; they are separated from their families for long periods; they do it voluntarily. There is the staff of the veterinary services. When there is an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, they are in the field for many months without their families. They have not pleaded for those people yet.

Is that dealt with in the Bill?

I am referring to the principle. Some of the Public Service personnel have to be here for six months, and they do not bring their families with them. I do not hear the Opposition complaining about that. But they complain about the few Bantu who proceed to the cities for a few months to go and sell their labour there. They must now be permitted to bring with them their wives and their children, who must be off-loaded on to the shoulders of the White population. My time is short. I should just like to ask the hon. member for South Coast a question to which I hope he will reply. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) quoted here yesterday what the late Mr. Heaton Nicholls had said, namely—

Now I should like to ask the hon. member whether he agrees with that.

In 1935, yes.

Not to-day? Did the hon. member agree with that in 1935, but not to-day?

I agree with what he said in 1935 in the light of the facts of the time.

But not subsequently? But let me read to him what the hon. member himself said in 1946 as Administrator—

Do you not agree with me?

I agree with him, but now he is fighting this legislation which is bringing about that very thing.

I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and the young Turks on that side, the leftists, for having extinguished the fire of the hon. member for South Coast and for having taken him in tow. Where are the days when he as the self-assured, ebullient and loudly voluble sergeant-major used every platform in Natal to bark out his commands: “Resist! Resist!” and “Natalians, forward march!” Where are those days now? The hon. member for Houghton has emasculated him spiritually and politically. The fiery sergeant-major has now become the humble and servile Sancho Panza on his little ass, the only conservative remnant in the United Party. Whereas formerly nothing less than solid fare for a political meal would satisfy him, he is now quite contented with a little sour political clabbered milk he can beg from a shepherd.

I should like to warn the hon. member for Natal South Coast and the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) that they must refrain from toying with the feelings of the Bantu. The hon. member for Drakensberg only a short while ago said that whereas the Nationalists are now calling the kaffirs “Bantu”, she boldly calls them kaffirs, yet here she waxed so sentimental about those selfsame kaffirs that I thought she would have to borrow the large handkerchief of her bench-mate.

What about the White farmers who are selling their farms to the Natives in the district of Vryheid?

I shall challenge the hon. member, with great pleasure, to speak from the same platform with me on the same subject, particularly in the Vryheid area where they disseminated the poison. I hope he will accept the challenge.

Will you meet Senator Friend on the same platform.

With pleasure, but let the hon. member come along and bring with him as many helpers as he wishes. I challenge them to appear with me on the same platform. But I say they must be careful not to toy with the feelings of the Bantu. The hon. member knows the Bantu, and I despise the attitude adopted here by the hon. member for Drakensberg, and I should like to put it to the hon. member for Natal South Coast now, because unfortunately the hon. member for Drakensberg is not here. They are now opposed to any removal of the Bantu. Suddenly it has become immoral. What would his attitude be if it were decided that the three Bantu areas in the catchment area of the Tugela were to be removed? What would be his attitude then? Let him tell us what his attitude would be then, as leader of the United Party in Natal, if it were decided that they were to be removed there from the catchment area of the heart of Natal?

I shall tell you just now.

But now say only, “yes” or “no”. Surely that is a very simple question? The hon. member knows that the Tugela must be preserved for the White man and the Black man in Natal at all costs. He knows what its potential is, and he knows there are three Black areas in this catchment area, the heart of Natal. What will be his attitude if it were to be decided to remove them from that area?

Business interrupted on expiry of time indicated.

Mr. Speaker, this debate which is now concluding has in many respects revealed remarkable things. One of the most striking of those is the shortcomings it revealed. These are not shortcomings in the Bill, but shortcomings on the part of the Opposition. I particularly asked in my introductory speech that we should approach this matter with unprejudiced minds and not allow ourselves to be misled by journalistic lies. I regret to say that certain people were caught by that. I hope it was done through ignorance. I almost want to accept that. The shortcomings on the part of the Opposition have been very clearly revealed, and it was particularly in respect of two motives that I unfortunately have to take notice of in the arguments here, namely that they want to frighten the Bantu in regard to the administration of Bantu Affairs in South Africa by means of all the wild fantasies which were projected here. Secondly, they did so in the hope of bringing the Government into discredit as far as possible. I want to tell the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) that his intention was by means of his speech to create many opportunities for people to try to bring the Government into discredit, and he succeeded very well in that, but that is not a success of which one ought to boast. The hon. member for Durban (North) and some other hon. members have succeeded in providing as much bad material as possible for the use of those who have an insatiable appetite for bad material against South Africa. [Interjections.] The hon. member was still outside when I began my speech by saying that the shortcomings have nothing to do with the Bill, but apply to the speeches of the Opposition. Nowhere in this debate did I hear from any of the Opposition members who spoke a single request in regard to something which they would like to see improved in the Bill, with the solitary exception of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell), who immediately accepted my word when I explained to him these community authorities, and then he said that was a merit of this Bill. I have always known the hon. member to be a chivalrous politician and I hope he will remain so, however doughty he might be when he is fighting.

I want to thank the Government members heartily for having been much more constructive. I shall go into details in a moment, particularly in regard to Government speakers who have spoken to-day. The members on our side very thoroughly dealt with various aspects of the Bill. I am thinking of the hon. members for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) and Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel), who did very useful work as the chairman of the committee which dealt with the labour tenants, and practically all his recommendations are now being translated into legislation here. I want to thank him not only for what he said here, but for everything he has done in this regard.

But another characteristic of this debate is the wide gulf it has revealed between the Government and the Opposition in regard to Bantu affairs, even though that is nothing new. I think I shall come back to this again towards the end of my speech. The other day I mentioned certain yardsticks, and towards the end of my speech I want to apply one of those yardsticks once again. I just want to say this. The Opposition in this debate showed that the difference between them and the liberals of the Progressive Party is not as great as the hon. member of the Progressive Party thinks. That difference is merely a thin membrane between them. The United Party is busy associating themselves with the trend of thought of the liberals as expressed in this House by the Progressive Party through their one member, and by others belonging to the Liberal Party who are not in this House. You will remember, Sir, that in my introductory speech I referred to the conceptional requirements which must be used as one of the yardsticks. By that I very clearly meant that in the administration of Bantu affairs there should be a certain cohesive synthesis, and here we have the position that in regard to Bantu administration we can have no intermingling of conflicting concepts in that synthesis. The United Party will always lose the fight and remain an unimportant element in the political sphere as long as they try to do what they are trying to do with their race federation policy, and that is to try to reconcile absolutely irreconcilable things. That simply cannot be done.

You need not be concerned about that.

That hon. member has not been here so long yet. She should listen more than she speaks. The hon. members opposite think that they can grasp at a little bit here which is the United Party standpoint, and a little bit there which is the Liberal standpoint, and another bit which is the Progressive standpoint, and also a bit of our policy of separate development, and then they can mingle all that together to evolve a policy for Bantu administration. That is what I call the anomalies in conceptional requirements, and that cannot be done. Towards the end of my speech I shall come back again to the principles which are the basis of our policy and dilate on them. The Leader of the Opposition very clearly demonstrated this point of the intermingling of conceptions when he said here a year or so ago that in their race federation plan certain elements of separate development are also included. But one cannot opportunistically throw together a number of things which look nice in order to evolve a policy for the administration of Bantu affairs. It simply will not work, and that has again very clearly been brought to light in this debate. Langenhoven expressed it very succinctly when speaking about the mingling of languages by saying that one cannot plant carrots amongst the beet. The Opposition wants to evolve a Bantu policy by planting carrots amongst the beet, but it will not work. That is the philosophical basis which everybody in South Africa should consider thoroughly, and then they will clearly understand our policy and everything connected with it, which is the basis of this Bill.

I regret to have to mention in passing that unfortunately personalities were dragged into this debate. I am sorry that even the Leader of the Opposition, who always conducts himself very properly, also became personal and made certain comparisons, which were very derogatory to South Africa, belittling comparisons, and remarks which are derogatory to the self-respect of our Public Service, which should be kept out of the political arena. The Leader of the Opposition was a moderate example of that, but the others simply pushed in to embroider on it helter-skelter, like the hon. member for Durban (North) and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman), who is an ex-public servant. As an ex-Auditor-General he ought to know how little corruption there is in the Public Service. The Leader of the Opposition even went so far as to try to ridicule a little comparison I tried to draw when I referred to birthrights and said that there was no such thing as a birthright which keeps us bound to the places where we were born. I said that I was reminded of the little town in the Free State where I was born, but which I had left, but he and his lieutenants made great play of that. If the hon. member thinks that I despise my birthplace, I want to correct him. If there is a place which I love it is that small town next to the Valsrivier, Lindley. Only last year I went there and took a photograph of the house which my father had built and in which I grew up. I also mentioned the birthplace in the Karoo of the hon. member for Yeoville. But if the Opposition wants to use that type of argument to belittle me or the Government in regard to this Bill, then I say they are bankrupt.

Mr. Speaker, I shall first confine myself to the broad aspects of certain arguments advanced by speakers opposite, and later I shall return to the more individual points. Before doing so, I still just want to say this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Durban (North) who had so much to say about Russia and compared this Bill with the methods applied in Russia. Psychologically I can quite understand that they want to compare us with Russia. It is not only that they think that thereby they can bring us into discredit with certain people, but you should remember, Sir, that Russia is an old association that haunts them, because you will remember how they fought in a world war together with the communists. [Interjections.] Hon. members may shout as much as they like, but shouting has never been an argument. They are continually haunted by the ghost of Communism and they want to project their deeds on to us. We have never done anything else but fight against Communism. [Interjections.] Where was that hon. member at the time we fought in Korea? Was he still in his cradle? Our Government fought against Communism in Korea and hon. members cannot get away from that. The United Party was directly associated with Communism, but not us. Some of them served in the Army and they can now shout about it as much as they like. If they now have different views—and some of them now sit with us—we are grateful for the fact that they have changed their views, but I can understand that those hon. members are still concerned with that ghost, because they have built up that monster to such an extent that to-day they are trying to frighten us with it.

May I ask a question? In view of the attack the Deputy Minister has just made on us in regard to Communism, will he publish the figures reflecting the trade between his Government and Russia?

The hon. member ought to know that that question is irrelevant.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke about revolution and revolt, and a few of his lieutenants also did so. That is the sort of story we are accustomed to from the hon. member for South Coast, about marching and the shedding of blood. Last year he still said that Matanzima would perhaps not be alive in a short time. He likes to talk about blood and marching, and now the Opposition is also talking along those lines. But I leave that point. I think other hon. members have dealt with it sufficiently. I just want to tell the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) that his remarks in regard to slave labour are beneath the dignity even of a member of the Opposition. The hon. member ought to know that slave labour was abolished in this country many years ago and that it still exists only in the country with which he compares us, but he does not even have enough chivalry towards South Africa to know that he should not say such things. But one knows that hon. member as someone from whom one can expect these things.

I have already referred to the question of corruption which I am very sorry that the Leader of the Opposition ever raised. I want to say that the experience I have had personally for many years now is that our public servants are a group of men and women who can be reproached very little as far as corruption is concerned. That hon. member should not now say, “Hear, hear! ” he should deny it, because he said that corruption was rife amongst our officials. We are all human beings and we all have weaknesses, but I can give him the assurance that my experience is that our public servants are excellent. Therefore the Opposition need not talk so much about corruption. If only one of them had said it we could have said that he had struck a discordant note, but several of them did so.

There is another point I want to raise. Actually it is not worth while doing so, but I must do so for the sake of people who cannot defend themselves. That was again an insinuation in regard to our officials. I strongly want to reprimand the hon. member for Durban (North) for the very irresponsible statement he made in regard to the “hand-out” in connection with this memorandum dealing with the Bill. The hon. member ought to know that there is a fixed procedure according to which documents are tabled in this House and are published, and the hon. member had ample opportunity to determine how this thing happened. I want to tell him that the Department did not issue those documents. The hon. member surely knows what journalists are, because many of them were journalists themselves. What can one do about it if certain people can grasp matters faster than others or can discover certain matters more quickly than others? But there was no hand-out, and the hon. member could have ascertained that through the recognized channels.

I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether, if the only thing available was the White Paper, where does it say in the White Paper that the clauses in regard to Bantu women have been omitted, and also the clauses in regard to job reservation?

I remember that the hon. member read that bit out of a report. It is the words of the journalist who wrote the report. He can make his inferences, rightly or wrongly. He can seek and obtain information, whether it is right or wrong, but I think we can leave this matter aside now.

The first matter I want to deal with is the cancellation of contracts of employment, and there are quite a number of grounds on which it may be done. Various hon. members repeatedly pointed out that there is a long list of such grounds for cancellation, many of which were taken over from the existing legislation, together with some we are now adding. But the whole debate by hon. members opposite turned around just one point, and that is the public interest. I explained that point in my introductory speech, and it is also contained in the memorandum, but not a single hon. member opposite accepted that we have to do it in the public interest. The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) explained very clearly to-day that we are really referring to the public safety. That is what is meant, and only that. But I did tell the House that in my speech, and I cannot help it if hon. members were asleep. It is stated very clearly in my speech, and also in the memorandum. We said that we had only one object in connection with that provision, namely the national safety, and I said in my speech that we had already required that sort of provision, and I did not want to be more specific about it, but now I shall be more specific. I want to tell hon. members that during the last recess we actually needed a provision like that, because quite a large number of Bantu from foreign territories were legally allowed to register for employment here with certain large employers in the Transvaal—I will not give more details than that—and it was proved, chapter and verse, by the surnames and the Christian names and the membership numbers that those foreign Bantu were members of foreign political subversive organizations aimed against South Africa. We had their names, the positions they filled, the organizations to which they belonged, their numbers and everything. They were not only potential saboteurs, but actual saboteurs. [Interjections.] That hon. member says the the Minister of Justice did not do his duty. That is again another of those stupid remarks of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), and I will dispose of it immediately. The Minister of Justice cannot cancel a contract of employment. We had to go and negotiate individually with those employers in regard to those Bantu, and explain the position to them, and and thank heaven those employers were all so loyal to South Africa that we experienced no trouble in getting rid of those workers. But I am convinced that there are other employers who would not have co-operated so loyally, and that is why we ask for these powers. That is what I was insinuating when I said that the need for such a provision had already arisen. I want to give a further example, and I am going to read it, omitting the names, because last year in the debate I learnt that one cannot mention the name here of an official or a Bantu community supporting us, because then they are victimized. I want to read a letter which comes from an urban area controlled by a municipality consisting chiefly of U.P. supporters, if not wholly. This person writes—

He then mentions by name a certain Bantu and says he is—

It is those service contracts which we are aiming at by means of this provision. My member of Parliament opposite is now shaking his head, but I hope the hon. member does not consider that the service contracts of people such as those should be protected so that they can increase. It is this sort of thing that the provisions are aimed at. This provision was never intended or written into this Bill for all the sinister motives hon. members attach to it, viz. as a substitute for the labour quota in the Bill with which we are not continuing now. [Interjections.] The question is now asked why I did not say so, but surely hon. members know what was contained in last year’s Bill. Why should labour quotas then have been inserted if we want this provision for the same purpose?

I just want to add this. If this provision in regard to public interest then has the tremendous scope ascribed to it by hon. members opposite, why should we have mentioned all these other things like intoxicating liquor and all those other undesirable things on pages 80 to 84 as separate grounds for the cancellation of service contracts as the result of which a Bantu could be removed? Why should we have done that if we could use this thing for everything? Surely that is a foolish argument on the part of hon. members opposite. The few clarifying examples I have given here ought to make the House understand clearly that we do not have the sinister motives which hon. members opposite ascribe to us. I now firmly believe that the provisions of this Bill are very clear, and also its objects, and I firmly believe that if the court were to give a decision on that point in the case of someone who was just summarily removed from the Western Cape just because we have said that it is our policy gradually to remove the Bantu from this area, then I do not doubt for a moment that that case will be decided against us if we merely rely on our policy of getting rid of the Bantu here. I was firmly convinced that the wording of the Bill as it stands there is quite clear. But what causes me some concern in this regard is not the possible abuse of this provision, because I am convinced, as I have said, that it will not really be abused by us, but the fact that this provision may be misused by the Opposition and other people who want to foster incitement against the Government in regard to our Bantu administration, and that is what causes me some concern. I am afraid that this provision will often be used as a tremendous bogy held up to the Bantu in order to incite him against us, and I quite agree here with the appeal which was made by the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) and also by the hon. members for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) and Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) that we should devote special attention to the wording, and I shall do so.

You are being criticized by your own supporters.

There is no criticism in this regard from our own supporters, but I will not put a stick into the hands of inciters with which to beat people who do not deserve it. I am not going to give them an instrument with which to incite people, and therefore I shall devote attention to this matter—not to taking out this provision but to wording it in such a way that even the most malicious inciter cannot misrepresent it. That is my intention. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this will now be the end of this misrepresentation in regard to this provision dealing with public interest.

In regard to the question of cancelling service contracts, only one aspect was lightly touched upon by certain speakers opposite, and that was in regard to the superfluous Bantu. That Provision in Section 28 of the Urban Areas Act is an old one in terms of which, after the State President has issued a proclamation, it is possible to take a census and to draw up a list of the people who cannot obtain employment in that area, of those who are superfluous and who then have to be dealt with, and who can then be removed. We have retained that, but due to the fact that we have since acquired a much more elastic and reliable system of obtaining information, namely the labour bureau with its statistics, we have added the Labour Bureau’s statistics as an additional method for the drawing up of a list of those people who may be removed because they are superfluous. Therefore there is no new principle involved here. A more reasonable basis than the one which existed before is simply being added.

The next matter I want to mention is the question of aid centres. If there is another matter in regard to which unfortunately there was incitement, it is in regard to these aid centres. Here, as one of the hon. members said, we have a clause with noble objects; here we have an institution with excellent objects in mind for the Bantu and for the White man, but mainly for the Bantu. The hon. members for Krugersdorp and Standerton and quite a few others dealt with the matter in detail; I therefore do not want to do so again but I do want to remind the House that our object here, as I have stated very clearly, is that the aid centre should be a service provided for the Bantu who commits contraventions in connection with documentation and registration, etc., which generally we would regard as petty offences, but offences for which they may land in prison, and as the result of which the prisons statistics are unnecessarily inflated, because people who do not know what is involved think that these Bantu have committed a serious offence. These are offences which in most cases are not committed deliberately but through ignorance. It is perhaps a case where a man seeks work in the wrong place and in the wrong way from the wrong people under the wrong circumstances. By means of these aid centres we want to establish a place where those people can come into contact with the official in control of the centre, who can give them information in regard to these contraventions, and who will often be able to assist them so that they can remain in that area. It may be just a small thing which they have omitted to do. Perhaps it is a question of an identity book which is not at hand and which they cannot show immediately. I want to mention an example here. A good friend of mine living in Johannesburg last year encountered this difficulty: His Bantu servant was riding a bicycle and was involved in an accident with a motor car. He was present quite legally in the city; his documents were quite in order. In that accident he was injured fairly seriously. There was quite a large crowd of people, and in that accident his identity book was lost; and that is nothing peculiar, because if there is one thing which certain people like to steal it is an identity book. But the identity book of this man was lost. His employer then immediately, while that Bantu was still in hospital, applied for a new identity book, but due to pressure of work there was a little delay in our office and this Bantu landed in trouble because he no longer had an identity book. This person then immediately telephoned me in Pretoria; he gave me the number of the identity book and within a day we sent him a duplicate identity book. That is the sort of service I had to render in my office, and that is the sort of thing which can be done for such people by the officials in the aid centres. That is one example of the type of service which can be rendered to the Bantu by these aid centres.

And if he was not a friend of yours?

The hon. member is now making a very bad insinuation. The hon. member should not blame me now if as an example I mention the name of the hon. member for North-East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst) who was my political opponent. That hon. member recently approached me in regard to the pathetic case of a Bantu woman at Parys. I immediately took up the matter, and you can now ask that hon. member whether he ever heard anything more about it. The hon. member should bear in mind that in dealing with the administration of Bantu affairs it makes no difference to us whether we are dealing with a United Party supporter or with an enemy; every day that we deal with the affairs of the Bantu we view the problem from the angle of the Bantu concerned, and the matter is dealt with purely on its merits. If a member of the Opposition brings a matter to our notice, we deal with that matter on its merits, and not according to the merits of the party making the representations. [Interjections]. Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition still keep on talking about passes. We no longer have passes for the Bantu. They still continually talk about the pass laws. Surely hon. members know that in the place of passes we now have the identity book which is worth much more to the Bantu and which contains no stigma for him. But hon. members opposite refer to this identity book as a pass merely in order to discredit it. The identity book is a much sought after document for the Bantu to-day, as I proved a moment ago through the example I mentioned.

In this Bill, in the clauses dealing with aid centres, we nowhere talk about detention and arrest, because it is not our intention that the Bantu should be detained in an aid centre as in a prison. Section 27 of the Criminal Procedure Act was dealt with to-day very effectively by the hon. member for Standerton, and I cannot do it better than he did. I intended to do so, but he has saved me a lot of time by dealing with that section here. He clearly pointed out that the police—in terms of quite a different Act from this one—are able to arrest those people without warrants and to take them to a police station for interrogation and anything which might follow on that. We say that this type of person, instead of being taken to a police station, may also be taken to an aid centre. Why? Not to land them in further trouble, because the police stations are sufficient for that, but to assist them to get out of trouble. The hon. member for Standerton stated very clearly that if there are ten or twenty people in an aid centre to-day and one of them got there under this provision of the Criminal Procedure Act, it does not mean that the presence of that one person would make gaolbirds of the ten or twenty others. That is a misrepresentation—and curiously enough, it was made by someone who poses as an eminent lawyer. I will make sure that this matter will be very clear, particularly for the Bantu. These aid centres constitute something new we are introducing, and I would like them to learn to recognize these aid centres from practical experience as a sympathetic haven where they can receive assistance and by means of which they will be kept out of prison. I shall do my best to make a success of this matter, and if it is necessary to devote attention to the wording then I will devote attention to it. The object of the aid centres is that they should be places which open the way towards rehabilitation for people who want to work. The Bantu who are here probably came here originally with the intention of working, and perhaps as the result of circumstances they have deteriorated, and our intention is to make better people of them in terms of their labour potential, and therefore the aid centres must afford the opportunity for them to be removed. I just want to say that the fact that a court may be held does not stigmatize those aid centres. Is there a stigma attaching to a court? Is a court merely a place in which one appears under arrest? I have already attended a court—fortunately not as an accused person—but I did not see any people under arrest there and I myself was not under arrest. How many people who were arrested outside come into a court without being in custody? No, Sir, I do not think we should discredit the courts in this way. Far from a court having become notorious because it finds people guilty, it has become famous right throughout the world because it also finds people not guilty and reveals their honesty and innocence. Why is that aspect of the matter not emphasized?

The hon. member for Musgrave also did another ridiculous thing in his youthful impetuosity and in his attempt to depict all the provisions of this Bill in a bad light, when he said: “Just see how ridiculous the situation is; there the man sits in the aid centre and he appears before someone who is at the same time a police official and a judge”. But surely that applies to every court because every magistrate as a legal official has the right to arrest people. Is every magistrate now to be described as someone who is at the same time a judge and a policeman? The hon. member, however young he may be, and however politically immature he may be, really knows more about these things than I do because that is his profession and hon. members know that I am not a lawyer. The hon. member knows what the position is. Why then does he misrepresent it like this? I am glad that the hon. member now does not even make an interjection. I hope that he now regrets having made that remark.

He says he will tackle you in the Committee Stage.

Answer my argument.

Order!

I forgive that hon. member for now wanting to discuss a particular point. He can have three turns to discuss this clause in the Committee Stage. I said that I would discuss these matters generally, and that is quite sufficient. I said that we could discuss the details at a more suitable time.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) raised this same question of the aid centres and what she coupled with it, namely the endorsing out of people. I just want to tell her that she missed the ball completely when she tried to stigmatize the aid centres as being centres where people are endorsed out in the sense in which she spoke about endorsing out. The aid centre, as I have said, is there as a service to sort out these people, and the object of the aid centre will be to interview and to question and to give information to and to render assistance to many people who have problems in regard to their being endorsed out, and perhaps even to prevent their being endorsed out. That possibility exists, but the hon. member does not want to accept anything in this regard.

Another important matter in regard to which there was fantastic misapprehension here was the question of the prescribed areas. I replied to it partially this afternoon by way of interjection while the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) was speaking, and I am actually sorry that I then fell for his friendliness this afternoon and explained the position to him, because I can do so much more fully now than I could or should attempt to do by way of an interjection. Here also the Leader of the Opposition was conspicuous by the way in which he missed the ball. Mr. Speaker, I like the Leader of the Opposition very much, even though he perhaps will not believe me. I like him very much even though it is only because, like me, he has his birthday in December. But the hon. the Leader of the Opposition fills an important office and he should not allow himself to be taken in tow by back-benchers or even by the hon. member for Houghton. I think particularly of what he did the other day in the first reading debate. The Leader of the Opposition should not allow his supporters to misuse him in that way. He can get a backbencher to do that sort of dirty work; why should he do it?

I now come to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood), who also missed the ball completely, as also the hon. members for Zululand (Mr. Cadman), Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk), Port Elizabeth (South) and all hon. members opposite who spoke about the prescribed areas. Let us understand the position clearly. The hon. member for South Coast understands it; he need not even listen, but the other hon. members were quite wrong, particularly the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South). Released areas and scheduled areas of 1913 are outside the prescribed areas. Prescribed areas can possibly be in what we call White South Africa. Let us now see where these prescribed areas can be. Here I first want to explain that we came to light with these prescribed areas so as to unite various types of areas in terms of various Acts. The voters of the hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) and my voters, for example, discussed matters with us and we discovered that people, not only there but all over the whole country, cannot understand—and there are hon. members opposite who cannot understand—that for one purpose a Bantu falls under the city council and for another purpose he falls under the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. There are various things like the registration of service contracts, service levies and labour bureau regulations which have various areas which include those things geographically. We felt that this was very unwise and therefore we said: Let us unite these areas and let us have only one type of prescribed area, and that is where the great misapprehension lies. Let us first understand what the position is to-day. The position to-day in regard to the labour bureaux in the proclaimed areas, under the labour bureau regulations, is that a labour bureau can be proclaimed, if one wants to be so foolish as to do so, from the centre of a town stretching over all the farms to the centre of the next town, but that is not done. That can also be done to-day. A proclaimed area could to-day include the whole of the Pietermaritzburg district, if one wants to be so foolish as to do so, and if one wants to cause oneself all those tremendous difficulties of administration by including that whole area. That can be done to-day. I do not know why the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) and the Leader of the Opposition and others misunderstand this point so badly. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) of course started the argument. He saw all kinds of bogies and predicted that he would now have to get from the city the Bantu he needs on his farm, and the hon. member for Zululand made the pathetic allegation that the Bantu whom he wants to employ will have to walk past his house to the town and get approval in the town, and then come back again to work for him. Surely that is a ridiculous bit of misrepresentation. I always try not to make myself ridiculous in the eyes of other people, but it seems to me that hon. members of the Opposition do not mind making themselves ridiculous.

You are not so fortunate.

May I ask a question?

The hon. member may put a question to me when I pass on to the next point, if in the meantime the position has not become clearer to him. I say we unite the various types of areas, and as wrong as it would be to-day to include all the farm areas of the platteland in such a proclaimed area for purposes of the labour bureau regulations, just so unwise would it be to extend the prescribed areas which we introduce in this Act so far that they include the whole district. We will not do that. Why should we bring such a hornet’s nest about our ears? Our Department is not so stupid as to do such things, and there is nothing in this Act which says that it must improve all the farms on the platteland. We take the circumstances into consideration. I now want to say something with reference to the interjection I made this afternoon, and I should like the hon. member for South Coast to listen now. I told him clearly it was not, and never has been, the intention to include in these prescribed areas the ordinary farms on the platteland. We do not want to do that. But we know—and the hon. member must not use this against me now as a petty argument—that there are often farms which practically adjoin the towns, farms which are sub-divided into plots and on which there are dense concentrations of employers and employees. There are perhaps even isolated small places where there are great excavations and such things and where there are large concentrations of workers—places which in fact constitute farms and not towns in the ordinary sense of the word—and such places can be included; it is desirable that they be included, like a city. Therefore hon. members should not tell me that we are including absolutely no farms. There are farms to-day which are included. In my own constituency there are the farms at Princess, with several smallholdings, which are included. That is general knowledge. One finds it in many places. I said this afternoon by way of interjection—and it is contained in the Bill—that the prescribed areas will not necessarily include all the platteland farms, and we will never do it by way of proclamation. It ought to be quite clear now. The new prescribed areas will in most cases, as the normal thing, be situated around a local authority, whether it is a city or a town, and outside these new prescribed areas we will then find what we ordinarily call the rural farms, where the labour tenant system will remain applicable to a decreasing extent and where the labour control boards will function increasingly. The hon. member for Drakensberg must listen now. Last night while she spoke I wondered whether it was not “Drakenstein”.

That is not fair.

One can expect nothing better from him.

If the hon. member thinks that I implied something bad, then I withdraw it.

No, you need not withdraw it.

The hon. member for Drakensberg most certainly did not exercise proper care in reading this portion of the Bill dealing with the possibility of obtaining labour. If she had read it properly she would not have made these misrepresentations here. The farmers will still be able to get their labour in four ways in the future, just as they do to-day, and I want to make that perfectly clear to hon. members. As long as the labour tenant system still continues they can get their labourers under that system, and this will be followed up later on by the labour control board. They can also go to the district labour bureau or telephone the bureau and ask the bureau to send out labour to them. The office of the district labour bureau is usually the office of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. They can do so at the present moment. The farmers—and here I should like the hon. member for Zululand to listen—will still be able to get a recruiting licence to go and recruit labour in the Bantu homelands like Zululand, for example. That possibility is not being excluded. The fourth possibility is this—and I say this for the information of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District): The farmer will still be able to recruit the Bantu who calls at his farm and says, “I am leaving my previous employer on a neighbouring farm and I want to come and work here”. The farmer will still be able to employ him on the spot. But in the case of all four of these categories the district bureau must be informed so that the service contract can be noted and registered. The farmer cannot simply employ these people without a proper registration of the contract of service. I think that is a perfectly clear explanation. Hon. members opposite need not therefore try to frighten people by suggesting that rural farms will be included in the prescribed areas.

I come now to another point. The hon. member for Drakensberg and various other members wanted to know how the agricultural industry felt about this. That question was replied to clearly by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel), as chairman of the departmental committee which instituted the investigation. But that is not all; I take it that the hon. member for Drakensberg will believe the South African Agricultural Union, and this is what the S.A. Agricultural Union says in a letter dated 18 September 1963—

You will see, Mr. Speaker, that they want us to be stricter—

What they ask for here is being done in the cities.

What is wrong with that? That is quite correct?

There you have female logic, Sir! They go on to say that if a White person contravenes these rules, drastic action is taken against him in the towns—

May I put a question? Does that letter not deal with Whites who employ Bantu who have not been given permission to go and work for them?

The first letter was in connection with the labour tenant system as a whole and the labour bureau system as a whole. They say that steps should be taken against all those who contravene the law, particularly against the Whites. Mr. Speaker, I taught at school 20 years ago and to-day I find that I have to teach hon. members opposite.

The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) says that there is a possibility that certain areas will be closed for recruiting purposes. Surely that is perfectly clear, Mr. Speaker; it can also be done to-day. For labour recruiting purposes we reserve a certain area for farmers only, for example; similarly we reserve certain other areas for the mines. The mines cannot simply go to any area to recruit labour; certain areas are closed to them. In 1963 when the previous legislation was before Parliament the South African Agricultural Union wrote the following letter in connection with the labour tenant system, and here we have a perfect reply to the hon. member for Drakensberg—

We have now obviated disappointing them by making it possible for the Minister to abolish this system. They go on in this letter to ask that all labour tenant control boards be converted into Bantu labour control boards, and that is what we are doing. I think I have now quoted sufficient correspondence to prove that organized agriculture welcomes the breaking down of the labour tenant system and the conversion of the labour tenant control boards into labour control boards, as well as the accompanying bureau work, and that they would like to see it put into effect as soon as possible.

The hon. member for Zululand referred to the farm labour inspectors and wanted to know how they were going to carry out their inspection. He asked whether they were going to enter the farmer’s house, scratch about in his drawers, go through his documents and all that sort of thing. I am amazed to find that a lawyer talks such nonsense. The hon. member knows that powers are provided for to control these things by way of regulation. And that is what we are going to do. We are going to describe by way of regulation what procedure the inspectors have to follow in carrying out this type of inspection. The procedure to be followed by them will be prescribed in precise terms, just as in the case of all other inspectorates.

Can the hon. the Deputy Minister give us the assurance that the regulations will lay down that these inspectors can only inspect a farm with the permission of the owner?

That is quite a good suggestion. We shall make a note of it and when the regulations are drawn up all those aspects will be considered.

Reference has also been made to the term “work-seeker” which is now being substituted by the term “employee” in the definition clause. I think it must be clear now from what I have said in connection with the prescribed areas and the bureaux that although the term “work-seeker” is no longer defined, all Bantu may be “work-seekers” in the ordinary undefined sense of the word. Let us take the farms, first of all. A Bantu can go to a farm and look for work, and if the farmer wants to employ him he has to report that fact to the district labour bureau so that the Bantu’s contract of service can be properly registered. What is the position in the cities? There too a Bantu can walk about looking for work but he cannot be employed other than through the bureau. If therefore a Bantu seeks work as a gardener or as a chauffeur or in any other capacity, a duty will rest on the employer to say to him, “Look, I want to employ you but first of all we must report the matter to the labour bureau.” But the correct procedure, the procedure which we would like to be followed, is that the employer should make enquiries with the Bureau; that he should go to the labour bureau and say, “I should like to engage a gardener or a domestic servant, etc etc.” That is the correct way. But if the employee reports direct to the employer, then the latter must follow the correct procedure and report that fact to the labour bureau. If that Bantu qualifies to work in that area, why then should the bureau forbid him to work here? I think by this time hon. members have a very clear picture of the labour bureaux and I hope that that picture will sink into the minds of hon. members. I just want to emphasize again that the institution of labour bureaux is an absolute blessing to both employer and employee. These bureaux have now been in operation for something like 12 or 13 years. This is one of the very fine things which was started during the term of office of the present Prime Minister in his capacity as Minister of Native Affairs. At that time there was a chaotic situation in the cities and on the farms as well as in the towns with regard to the employment of Bantu. This is one of the spheres in which we inherited conditions of chaos from the United Party. These Bantu labour bureaux which have operated hitherto in certain areas by way of regulation and which can now come into being everywhere under this legislation are working so well that they are the envy to-day of other non-White employees in South Africa. Mr. Speaker, nothing is perfect. I do not say that the labour bureau system is perfect, but if we get less criticism and more assistance from the other side we shall be able to bring it nearer to perfection. It has meant a great deal to the Bantu. The question has been asked here of what economic value this system is to the Bantu. I say that the labour bureau system has been of economic value to the individual Bantu and to the Bantu as a community. It still is of economic value to them and it will be of more economic value to them as time goes on. I want to state here as a fact that the labour bureaux have played a much greater role than the propaganda made by individuals in stabilizing the wages of Bantu labourers and in obtaining higher wages for them. Why? Because these labour bureaux have regulated the labour demand and supply. We know the old economic principle that prices are determined by supply and demand. In the old days, with the tremendous influx of Bantu labour to the cities, employers were able, of course, to employ anybody and to pay the lowest possible wage. It was because this influx was regulated with the result that there was no redundant labour that the Bantu was able to sell his labour at a higher price. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) dealt with this point very effectively this afternoon, and I do not propose to enlarge upon it. Here we have one reason why the labour bureaux are of economic value. In addition to that the labour bureaux have, of course, introduced a system of selection. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) explained to us yesterday evening how the labour bureau works. It will pay hon. members on the other side to visit their municipal offices to see how a labour bureau works. The Bantu who call there are told, “Iscor wants so many workers; you do not have to work there on Saturdays; they pay so much. Who wants to go and work there?” Those Bantu who want to go and work there then stand up and they are sent to Iscor. Or they are told, “Such and such a coal-mining company is looking for so many workers.” They may all remain seated then because they refuse to carry coal. There is a process of selection therefore, which means that no Bantu is taken practically raw off the street and placed in employment for which he is not suitable. Apart from regulating the numbers in the White areas—a step which has had its repercussions as far as housing is concerned—these are all benefits which have accrued to the Bantu from the establishment of these bureaux.

These bureaux are, of course, of very great importance to the employer; they render a service which I honestly think is worth much more than the small levy of 20 cents per individual which we are now charging. The employer can simply pick up his telephone and say, “I should like to have five Bantu to come and work in my bakery” or “I want a chauffeur,” and he gets what he asks for. We have all had experience of this sort of thing. These labour bureaux are a very great boon in the cities, and hon. members on the other side must stop talking about them in such disparaging terms. The labour bureaux, through the benefits which they have brought about in stabilizing and canalizing Bantu labour and making labour available to our industries and employers on a proper basis, have rendered a service not only to both employer and employee but they have also benefited the economy of our country enormously. It is a stabilizing factor for the employer to know that his workers are registered, because then they know that they have to remain in their jobs.

I want to point out, in reply to the question which was asked yesterday evening by the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher), and also in reply to other hon. members who asked more or less the same question, that as far as labour bureaux are concerned this Bill also makes it possible to obtain exemption. Hon. members should look at (w) on page 21. The hon. member over there need not look at it; he has seen it already, but I know that the hon. member for Rosettenville has not yet seen it. There it is stated specifically that all sorts of groups and categories can obtain exemption. Exemption can even be given to a professional Bantu. As far as the mines are concerned, they are exempted at the present time. This is nothing new therefore. The mines are not controlled by the bureau system; they have their own recruiting system; internally it is done by the Native Recruiting Corporation, and if they want to recruit Bantu outside of the borders of the Republic, then it is done through the W.N.L.A. No, Mr. Speaker, hon. members should acquaint themselves with the facts before they come forward with all sorts of criticism.

That brings me to the question of differentiation as far as regulations are concerned, a matter on which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also had a great deal to say. I can say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that regulations can be made in various ways—regulations which are applicable to various classes of work and in various areas, regulations which are not to the detriment of anybody but which benefit him personally, for example, as a farmer. I hope he will follow the example of his brother in making use of mainly Coloured labour here in the Western Cape. But if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition needs Bantu labour on his farm, we shall see to it that it is possible for him to obtain such Bantu labour. He can even get Bantu labour by correspondence. All this goes to show how flexible this bureau system is. I do not want to do so, Mr. Speaker, but I could read out two quotations from the Act of 1949 and from the Act of 1957 to show that in practice it is possible to differentiate at the present time. I do not know why hon. members are pretending that what we are doing here is something evil. Whereas the existing laws talk about regulations for differentiating between provinces we now talk about differentiating between areas. After all, a province is also an area, and provincial boundaries, for obvious reasons, are not always good lines of demarcation from the labour point of view, because the circumstances are perhaps the same on both sides of the river and the boundary should not be the provincial boundary. Take Jankempdorp, for example, which is situated really in both the Cape Province and the Transvaal. In a case of that kind a provincial dividing line will certainly not be as good as a labour dividing line.

“Forced labour!” Sir, this point is so exaggerated that I do not even feel like talking about it. Nowhere in the existing legislation or in this Bill is it stated that the Bantu must take up employment with a certain employer. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and other members who raised this matter ought to know that it is laid down nowhere that a Bantu is obliged to go and work for a certain employer. [Interjections.] But the hon. member has read in the Press in the past few days what has been written and said against South Africa at the I.L.O., and she has now provided additional material for that article which appeared in our local newspapers this week.

The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) has asked whether a Bantu, who is allowed to be within a prescribed area for 72 hours (three days) will be able to seek work there freely. I have already replied to that question. I do not want to weary hon. members unnecessarily but I just want to say to the hon. member for Transkeian Territories that such a Bantu can seek work there. But it is something that we have always discouraged and that we shall continue to discourage in the future. If a Bantu comes to the hon. member’s home looking for work, the hon. member has to say to him: “We must first report your case to the Labour Bureau”. If that Bantu qualifies to work for the hon. member, then he can work for the hon. member for Transkeian Territories but if he does not qualify, the hon. member cannot employ him of course.

A great deal has also been said about migratory labour. It is not necessary for me to say much in this regard. I just want to disillusion the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) regarding Sasolburg. I was given the true facts this morning with regard to the position at the Sasolburg factory. The hon. member made an untrue statement here last night when he said that Sasol was mainly using the services of married Bantu. [Interjections.] Now the hon. member is retreating! The hon. member for Heilbron tried to help the hon. member. The hon. member for Pinetown suggested that the services of married Bantu were being used there on a large scale. What do the statistics show? They show that 1,894 single and 174 married Bantu are being employed at the Sasol factory.

It is 3 per cent on the mines.

Do not be so hasty; I am going to give the figures for the mines in a moment. The total figure for Sasol is 4,488 single and 443 married Bantu. I want to tell hon. members that they need not be concerned about the question of migratory labour in South Africa. As hon. members themselves know, the migratory labour system is an old institution in this country and we have a very fine example of migratory labour in the case of the mines. The policy of using migratory labour can be implemented far more easily in South Africa than in the other countries which hon. members quoted as examples because in South Africa the areas from which those workers come are closer to their employment. And we are making this even easier through our policy of bringing industries closer to the Bantu areas. I contend that the movement of Bantu migratory labourers in South Africa between their place of employment and their homes is still going to undergo phenomenal changes; that we shall be able to introduce more convenient forms of transport so that they will have better contact with their people in their homelands. It is for that reason that we have inserted the provision in this Bill that if a Bantu leaves his work to go back to his homeland for example and returns within a year, and his former employer cannot re-employ him because he has employed somebody else in the meantime, then we say that that Bantu need not return to his homeland or reserve. We find other work for him in the White area because he is the sort of worker we want here. He is the sort of worker who wants to visit his homeland and we want to assist him to do so. I want this evening to make an appeal to employers in general in South Africa to help their employees to visit their homelands as often as possible and, if necessary, at the employers’ expense. Just before Christmas my Bantu servant told me that she could not return to her people at Potgietersrust because she had to buy clothing for her children and she would therefore not have enough money for her train ticket. I gave her the money for the ticket and I said: “There is the money for your train ticket; buy your children’s clothing but go and visit your people for a while.” I know that many other people do the same thing. Our employers must adopt that attitude more and more in connection with this matter. I make an appeal to hon. members opposite who attach such great value to family ties to assist us in this matter and to advocate this course of action wherever they go.

I am not going to quote all the various clauses of the Bill—I must hurry on—but family ties are recognized in this Bill. When people have to be sent away we say that family ties must be considered; the wife and children must accompany the man and must not be separated from him. We make provision for accommodating these people. We are making adequate provision for the recognition of family ties, but I want to make this point clear: This principle cannot be extended. Let me give an example. At the moment there are about 400,000 single Bantu employed on the mines in South Africa. The majority of them come from territories outside South Africa. If those 400,000 male Bantu did not work on the mines on a single basis but on a family basis—remember, the current quotient is five persons per family—it would mean that in the White areas of South Africa there would be 2,000,000 Bantu on the mines, instead of the 400,000 we have there to-day. Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition want the Bantu population around the mines to number 400,000 or to number 2,000,000? I would like to know because as far as the question of the families of married workers is concerned, I can assure him that we all hold very strong views in this regard. Last year I insisted and I want to insist again that the Opposition tell us whether all these Bantu who are employed in the White areas should be there on a family basis. Do they or do they not agree? [Interjections.] Even the hon. member for Houghton qualifies her statements, Mr. Speaker. This is the type of political dishonesty that one has to contend with. We are frank with the Bantu; we explain the implications of this policy to him. We explain the whys and the wherefores of the situation to him so that he can understand it.

I come now to Clause 10 (1) (c) in regard to the rights of those born at a specific place or who have worked for ten years for one employer of for 15 years for a number of employers. Here too I want to make it quite clear that none of the rights of these people is being interfered with, except for the categories that I have mentioned. Those categories are the undesirables, the redundant Bantu, the work-shy and the idle Bantu. Those are the four groups. These are all people who can be removed, apart, of course, from those who can be removed in terms of the Natives Administration Act because they cause racial friction. I think I have made the position quite clear but I want to repeat it to-day so that there can be no doubt as to what we mean by “public interest”. I ask: Must we, whatever the circumstances may be, allow Bantu who are born here and who have been employed by an employer for some time—for example, those born here but who refuse to work—who are bad and who are lazy, to remain here? We can rehabilitate them at other places where we have rehabilitation centres; we can give them work at other places where they will be under the supervision of their families and guardians and fathers. Should we not try to teach them that it is honourable to work?

What about the aged?

I shall deal with them just now. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has asked why we have omitted a provision from this Bill which was contained in the Bill introduced last year. Last year the Bill contained provision to the effect that if Bantu who had been born here or who had been employed here for a number of years were placed on the list in terms of Section 28 of the Natives (Urban Areas) Act they would be the last to be removed. That provision is not contained in this Bill and the reason for it is obvious—bcause the Bill no longer contains the provision that they should be placed on a list. In other words, these people cannot be placed on the list and because they cannot be placed on the list, they cannot find themselves at the back of the queue. That is quite obvious. I want to go further and say that if anybody entered an urban area and placed people on a list with a view to having them removed on the ground that they are redundant, those people would have a strong case on which to take that city council to court. It was unnecessary therefore to raise that matter again.

I still have to reply to a few questions asked by a few individual members but I shall have to be very brief. I have already given the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) a reply in connection with the chiefs and I have also replied to the question of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition as to whether we are setting up these communal authorities because we have difficulty with the Authorities themselves. No, that has nothing to do with the matter. These are small and separate communities for whom we also want to set up some sort of authority. It has nothing to do with the other matter.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) raised the question of the Snyman Report and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also mentioned the Report in an effort to prove that the Snyman Report condemned conditions such as those prevailing at Paarl where there are large numbers of unmarried Bantu. I deny that that is true and I want to show that that is not what Mr. Justice Snyman said at all. The Snyman Report refers in paragraph 226 et seq. to the evidence of a certain Anna Pearce in which she gave an account of everything that she and certain other Bantu were doing. In paragraph 232 he says—

And in paragraph 233 we find what she said in the memorandum. But that is not what Mr. Justice Snyman said. Mr. Justice Snyman reported as follows on the memorandum of Lydia Kazi—

Then Mr. Justice Snyman goes on to give his opinion in this regard. This is what he has to say—

And he concludes by saying—

Mr. Justice Snyman rejects those arguments but now hon. members of the Opposition quote the Snyman Report in order to prove that single “Bantu at Paarl” were the cause of the riots. What misrepresentation!

The hon. member for King William’s Town has informed me that he is indisposed and cannot be here, but he asked a question and I would like to reply to it. He said that people in released areas complained that their farms were not being bought up quickly enough. I want hon. members to understand what the position is. We proclaim new released areas and if there is any land to be purchased, it does not mean that as soon as that area has been proclaimed to be a released area we will simultaneously buy up all the farms. They are bought up gradually. If there are individual farmers who for particular reasons, such as age or financial circumstances or an unwillingness to carry on farming, want to dispose of their land soon, they should make this fact known to us so that we can deal with their cases more quickly perhaps. But there is apparently a misunderstanding here in that people think that once an area has been declared to be a released area the farms in that area are purchased immediately.

The hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) must not be so childish. He said that I had been instrumental in driving a factory away from my constituency. I did not drive that factory away. That particular factory is in my municipal area but falls in the constituency of the hon. the Minister of Transport. It is a factory which makes super-concrete material and it tackled a building programme on its own initiative in the Rosslyn area where it gets the benefits connected with border industries. I myself was present and I made a speech at the opening of the Rosslyn factory township, and the representatives of that factory, as pioneers at the opening of the Rosslyn factory, referred in highly laudatory terms to the establishment of the factory there.

The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) asked what the position of the Transkei was as far as this Bill was concerned. I want this to be properly understood. If we have to send Bantu back to the Transkei, it is obvious that we shall have to negotiate with the Government of the Transkei. Secondly, the labour tenant system is not applicable there because it is Bantu land; and, thirdly, towns like Umtata which are White spots (as they are called) will be prescribed areas, although we also have the authority to exempt the whole of any town which is a White spot. The whole tendency in connection with Bantu labour in towns which are White spots is in complete conformity with the position of border industries and these are actually the places where we can allow complete freedom with regard to the employment of Bantu. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Transkeian Territories is now asking me a political question. I think he should rather put that question to me on a political platform.

I also want to mention the question of land ownership. You see, I am not trying to avoid any of the questions put to me by the hon. member.

Tell us about the question of consultation with the Transkei.

I said that that would have to take place. The Government there has not even started to function yet. It seems to me that the hon. member needs a calendar. The hon. member says that Whites can own property such as trading stations in the Transkei. Yes, but only on certain conditions. Some of them do not have ownership rights. All sorts of conditions are laid down to be able to get rid of them, and hon. members know that that is so. What is so strange about it? Does the hon. member not know that Bantu may also own land in the White area of South Africa if the State President gives his approval?

But that right was taken away.

No, it was not taken away. Where does the hon. member get that from? There are quite a few Whites who own land in the Bantu areas and who will gradually be removed from those areas, and there are also many Bantu who own land in the White areas, in the urban areas, or who own farms which are transferable from one Bantu to another. I deal with matters of this kind daily. But this is not something which should be extended; it should be eliminated more and more, just as the ownership of land by Whites in the Transkei should also be eliminated more and more. Having said that, I have replied to the question fully.

The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) asked me whether we would encourage city councils to strengthen their ties with the Bantu homelands by making money available for developmental purposes there. I say “yes”; there are city councils which have already done so. I refer to the town councils of Vanderbijlpark, Springs and Potchefstroom. They are making money available for development in the Bantu homelands, whether it be for the building of orphanages or for other purposes.

The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) asked me whether we are creating many employment opportunities there. That is a very important question. He asked what was being done in regard to the Bantu who returned to their homeland. We are doing everything in our power to create employment opportunities for them in their homelands and in the vicinity of their homelands, in the border areas. We are doing everything we possibly can in that regard.

The hon. member will perhaps be astonished to hear that the Civil Service of the Transkei, after the institution of self-government, now requires twice as many Bantu clerks and officials as they had for those services in the Transkei prior to the institution of self-government. Apart from the teachers they had about 900 civil servants before the institution of self-government, and the number has now had to be increased to 1,900.

The last question of the hon. member was this: What about the aged and what about the poor old servant who is 90 years of age and who has been living on the farm of the hon. member for South Coast for three or four generations? I want to tell the hon. member that under the existing legislation that person can continue to live there with the approval of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. If, as the hon. member said, he was a labour tenant or an ordinary servant who was no longer able to work, that Bantu can continue to live there with the approval of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. The other point which the hon. member made in connection with this case was entirely wrong, of course—it is not relevant at all—and that is his statement that we can remove that old Bantu from the farm in the so-called public interest. I have already replied adequately to this story as to what we can do under the cloak of “public interest”. That old Bantu can continue to stay there, but it is subject to the approval of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner. But I want to tell the hon. member that he must not expect that Bantu to be able to live under all circumstances. Let us assume that the hon. member for South Coast who is very sympathetic towards the Bantu leaves that farm and that his place is taken by somebody who is not so sympathetic towards this Bantu. We find many such cases where a farmer says, “I do not want this old Bantu to continue to live on my farm with his old wife; they can no longer work; they must go.” Must that old Bantu be entrenched there; must that farmer be compelled to keep him there? Is it not better for that old Bantu if we help him to be cared for elsewhere? But he can continue to live there with the approval of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner, and if the circumstances justify it then provision must be made for him elsewhere.

Is he a labour tenant at law?

He can be given consent to remain there if he is a squatter or if he was in full employment up to the time he became incapable of continuing to work.

*Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by repeating what I said at the beginning in connection with the one yardstick that we apply, and that is the parallelistic yardstick—the term which the hon. member for Drakensberg had such difficulty in pronouncing. The yardstick that we apply is that what happens to the Bantu in the White man’s homeland also happens to the White man in the Bantu’s homeland.

Question put: That the word “now” stand part of the motion,

Upon which the House divided:

AYES—79: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, H. T. van G.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; Diederichs, N.; Dönges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jurgens, J. C.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, A. I.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Martins, H. E.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller H.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Odell, H. G. O.; Otto, J. C.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; Vorster, B. J.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and D. J. Potgieter.

NOES—45: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bloomberg, A.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moore, P. A.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Question affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Second Time.