I move—

There are many people in our country who think that the success of a Minister of Finance or of a Minister of Transport should be judged solely according to the surplus or the deficit he announces in his Budget speech. If we listened to the Budget speech of the Minister of Transport in that spirit, we on this side of the House should congratulate him on the fact that he was able to announce a surplus of R20,000,000 for the past year, and we also do so wholeheartedly. We are glad for his sake and we are even gladder for the sake of South Africa that things are going so well with the S.A. Railways.

A good Minister.

Yes, I think that as far as the National Party is concerned they cannot get a better Minister than this one, but that is not saying much because the National Party has never been known for being able to find good Ministers in any capacity. But I grant that as far as the standard of the National Party is concerned we have a good Minister. But then I also have to say that in view of the operating results which the Minister could announce this year, and in view of what he expects next year, and in view of the amended figures for the past year, we are unable to feel so happy about his achievement. Last year we were told that he was expecting a surplus of some hundreds of thousands of rand; the final figures showed an actual surplus of R12,000,000. Now one wonders how accurate those figures to-day will be. Seeing that things are going so well with South Africa and with the Railways, we have to ask whether the hon. the Minister has done what the public and the railwaymen of South Africa could have expected him to do in the circumstances. He announced a tariff decrease which will result in cheaper petrol in the interior. To the constituencies of people like the hon. the Minister, the hon. the Prime Minister and myself, that will mean quite a lot, but to the voters in the constituencies of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Information it means nothing. It has been announced. But we could have expected that we would now hear, with reference to the Minister’s own statement of confidence last year, that something would be done, in the light of these tremendous surpluses, for the pensioners on the railways, particularly those who retired before 1953. The hon. the Minister will remember that he himself said he believed that the position of the railway pensioners should be equal to that of the pensioners of the State, but they are not on an equal basis, particularly those pensioners who retired before 1953. We can really not be blamed if we deplore the fact that the hon. the Minister of Transport has allowed this golden opportunity, and in some respects this God-given opportunity, to pass without remedying an injustice to the old railway pensioners.

But that is not all. The Minister tells us that last year and this year again he consulted a wide circle of authorities in regard to the future prospects of South Africa. Hitherto the information he has acquired has not been very accurate. His estimate was very wrong. I can only hope that for the coming years his authorities will be equally wrong in this respect. We are grateful for the fact that the Minister announced that after consultation with those authorities he expects the prosperity of South Africa to continue and increase, but then we can also ask whether the time has not arrived for us to reconsider the future policy of the S.A. Railways, the future role the Railways will have to play in the economy of South Africa, and whether this is not the opportune time, while we are expecting this period of expansion and of economic growth, to review the monopolistic role played by the S.A. Railways in the transport system of South Africa. But this is such an interesting matter that surely many hon. members on both sides of the House would like to devote attention to it, and in order to give them an opportunity to do so I move—

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned.

When the House adjourned last night, I had put a question to the hon. Minister in regard to this amount of R270,000 for the Coloured Development Corporation. I would like the hon. Minister to give us some explanation on this amount. It means apparently that the R500,000 already voted for the Coloured Development Corporation has either been used, or that there is a need for additional capital, as provided in Section 15 (2) of the Coloured Development Corporation Act which says—

I assume that in accordance with that subsection, the hon. Minister wants to increase the capital. I hope the hon. Minister will give us some further information, but I would like to say that there was a balance sheet laid on the Table of the House in connection with the Corporation, indicating that there was a loss of some R2,000.

In this Vote the hon. the Minister is asking us to approve of a Vote of R270,000. Now, Sir, the Coloured Development Corporation was established a year or two ago, and when the annual report was laid on the Table of the House, hon. members did not receive a copy of that report. In the case of the Bantu Development Corporation we received a copy of the report and we were able to study the figures and find what the income and expenditure was and what the balance sheet was, but in the case of the Coloured Development Corporation no such report was circulated among members. I had an opportunity to see the only copy that was laid on the Table, and it seems from that report that there was a loss on the period of working. If there was a loss, I think it is essential that we should have received copies of the report. Had the corporation been flourishing, I could have understood the Minister’s reasons. I do not know what the reason is, but I think this Committee deserves to have the fullest information. If the hon. Minister will now give us an account of the year’s working of the Coloured Development Corporation, it will assist us in assessing whether we should vote for this amount.

Would the hon. Minister be good enough to give details in regard to the R109,000 for “Saleable requisites”?

In Sub-Head 6 provision is made for the supply of books and other school material for the personal use of scholars. In the case of non-State schools at least 50 per cent of the book value of such articles must be recovered from the scholars, whilst the amount recoverable in the case of State schools varies from district to district. That was the arrangement applicable in the Cape Province at the time this education was taken over. The full value of the articles supplied in the case of State schools had to be accounted for, as well as the money received from the sales. This is a continuation of the service rendered by the Cape Province, and according to the aforementioned administration an amount of R1 67,000 will be required to cover expenditure during the period 1 January 1964 to 31 March 1964. No provision for this service was made in the main Estimates, but in view of the fact that a saving of R58,000 could be made under the other sub-heads of this Vote, with the approval of the Minister of Finance the anticipated expenditure of R167,000 was partially covered by it and only R109,000 is being asked for in the Additional Estimates.

As far as sub-head (8) is concerned, at the time of the submission of the draft Estimates, the Department had as yet not been advised whether the Corporation would require any additional funds during the current financial year and no provision was therefore included in the Estimates for this purpose. During August 1963, the Corporation, however, indicated that an amount of R270,000 would be required early in December, 1963, to cover commitments and anticipated applications up to 31 March 1964. The management explained that experience had to show to what extent deserving applications for assistance would be received, and it was therefore impossible to make an estimate of the Corporation’s further requirements with any degree of accuracy at an earlier stage. As the Corporation required the additional funds urgently, a special warrant was obtained from the State President for the amount of R270,000.

Let me just say that of course there is a loss, but I do not think this is the time to discuss it. There will be an opportunity to do so. But I just want to add that it has always been expected that in the beginning the Corporation would work at a loss. Nobody ever expected anything else at this stage.

I wonder whether we could have an assurance from the hon. the Minister that in future the annual accounts of the Coloured Development Corporation will be circulated to members.

Yes.

Does it mean that the R500,000 has already been dealt with?

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote Q.—“Bantu Education”, R30,001, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Estimates of Additional Expenditure from Revenue and Loan Accounts reported without amendment.

Estimates considered and adopted.

The Minister of Finance brought up a Bill to give effect to the Estimates adopted by the House.

I move as an unopposed motion—

Of course we cannot vote against this Bill, which we have not seen yet, but I take it that it is a simple, one-para-graph Bill to vote the total amount embodied in the Estimates we have been discussing. While we cannot oppose the second reading of this Bill, I think this is the appropriate occasion for us to express our views as to the way in which these Estimates have been presented to the House and to the Committee.

I ask myself what is the intention and the object of Additional Estimates. As I understand it—and I am sure the hon. the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—the object is to deal with cases where a State President’s warrant has had to be obtained to deal with urgent matters, or secondly, where matters which had been approved of and voted by the House and which have been proceeded with have resulted in the expenditure voted being exceeded for some reason, so that the extra expenditure has to be validated; or else it is to deal with exceptional cases where very urgent matters have arisen, where the Government has had to take action and comes to the House for approval for their actions. I always understood that this was the intention of Additional Estimates.

Let me say emphatically that the intention of Additional Estimates of Expenditure has not been to introduce, at the tail-end of the financial year, important new developments in regard to Government policy, which was the case in the present Estimates. I need only refer to one instance, the case of the Transkei roads. After much probing from this side of the House, we elicited from the responsible Minister that the Government had decided on a very important departure from the normal procedure of road building. They decided, for reasons which they considered adequate, to undertake a brand-new departure in connection with road construction. They decided that they could not trust the new Transkei Government to handle these important roads and therefore they embarked on this new policy. I am not discussing the policy, Sir, but the fact remains that all we saw in the Estimates was an innocent little figure of R175,000 for the building of national roads through the Transkei. I am perfectly certain that you, Sir, as an experienced parliamentarian and one who is a stickler for parliamentary procedure, will agree with me when I say that this is a thoroughly wrong way of introducing Government policy in this House for its consideration, and I want to take this opportunity to say so. We still do not know what it will cost. The hon. the Minister who did give an explanation was not in a position to give any idea of what the total expenditure would be. He could not even give an approximate figure, and he did not give full reasons as to why this important decision was taken. I am surprised at the hon. the Minister for Finance because I cannot help feeling that in allowing these Additional Estimates to be presented to the House in the way they were this Session, he has allowed himself to be misled from the path of strict Treasury and parliamentary rectitude. He must remember, if he will allow me to say so, that he is, apart from being the hon. member for Worcester, also the watchdog of Parliament and of the taxpayer, and a very heavy duty rests on him to make perfectly certain that the necessary methods and ways are followed in making sure that the House and the country have a clear picture and all the information to which they are entitled before the Government starts on expenditure. The Minister was kind enough the other day to refer to me in the House as his “dear old friend”. I do not know whether he wanted to get me expelled from the United Party or not. (Laughter.)

No provision is made for that in the Additional Estimates.

But I want to take the Minister up on that, and on the assumption that I am his dear old friend I want to say that I think the way he has handled the Additional Estimates this year rather reminds me of the story of the mayor who, when he was elected, said to his wife: “Now, my dear, you must remember that now I am the Mayor you have to be like Caesar’s wife; you must be all things to all men.” (Laughter.) The Minister, who one knows takes his job very seriously, in allowing these Estimates to be presented in this way, has rather yielded to his colleagues, I think, in allowing some of the items to appear on the Estimates. I hope that in future, if he remains the Minister of Finance, he will see to it that he acts more responsibly when the Additional Estimates are presented.

I could hardly hope that the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson), “my dear old friend”, would have remained in the ranks of Tuscany! I cannot expect him to cheer every time, but I think that I must seriously say I reject the imputation that the Treasury has been in any way unmindful of its duty as the watchdog of Parliament and that it has done anything of which it need be sorry.

The hon. member said that any new policy initiated during the recess could not appropriately be put into the Additional Estimates. That might have been true many years ago, but under present circumstances, in the age in which we live, it is impossible always to say that no new policy may be initiated between the presentation of the last general Estimates and in anticipation of the new general Estimates. The main object of Additional Estimates is to give Parliament the opportunity of expressing its opinion on any new policy we have initiated, and for that reason I reject the suggestion that I and my Department have in any way failed in our duty. The mere fact that we had this long discussion about this matter shows that parliamentary control has been achieved in a very high measure. Nobody has been refused the opportunity of discussing the matter. A full explanation was given. That is the policy, and the reasons for it were given. There are many other reasons which are obvious, too. After all, we are dealing with a part of the country in which there are White areas. There are White areas in the Transkei and there are White areas to the north of it, and the road has to go through the Transkei to East London, etc., and it is very necessary that it should be a national road. Apart from that, there are the strategic reasons. One does not need imagination to see how important the strategic reasons may be. In any case, as far as the Treasury is concerned, we do not take to heart at all the moral lesson which my dear old Tuscan friend has tried to teach us!

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Several amendments are proposed in this definition clause, alterations to which will have far-reaching effects on the other clauses of the Bill, because of the consequential results. In fact, that is the trouble with this whole Bill. It is something like a maze. Touch it here and there are effects at all sorts of other stages of the Bill. It affects all sorts of other things because the whole Bill is part of a pattern, fairly tightly linked together. I go so far as to say that these amendments in the definition clause indicate also a philosophy and an approach to this Bill which it is difficult to reconcile with the views of the Opposition in respect of how these matters should be handled. Our difficulty has been that we cannot bring into operation the sort of policy we would like to see applied to these people on the whole, by amending this Bill either in respect of these definitions or in respect of the majority of the other clauses. The gulf between us is too great. Here you have the foundation laid for the Bantu being regarded as an interchangeable labour unit. Here you have the foundation laid for the tightening up of control outside of the proclaimed areas, in the new prescribed areas. Here you have the foundation laid for the delegation of powers from the Secretary to all sorts of minor officials, despite the tremendous powers which may be exercised by these officials. It all forms part and parcel of a system which means that there is no possibility of a middle class of Bantu being created, and the rights to be exercised in these areas are to be even further limited, despite the fact that the rights in the reserves up to this stage are still illusory.

For those reasons we have decided to move no amendments in the Committee Stage in dealing either with this clause or with the Bill in general. I think the wisest course for us is to state our objections to the main features indicated in the various clauses, and where necessary to divide the House, but to make no attempt to alter this Bill which we regard as entirely irreconcilable with the attitude of the Opposition.

I think the amended definitions in Clause 1 will have the widest effects. If this Bill is in any way obnoxious to the official Opposition, it is clearly much more obnoxious to the party to which I belong, because we go well beyond the views of the official Opposition in so far as influx control and other laws relating to the Africans are concerned. However, I believe that at least something should be saved from the wreck wherever possible, and if one can at least get the hon. the Minister to alter certain definitions and some of the later clauses, such an attempt should be made, and I shall do so. [Interjection.] Sir, the hon. new member behind me asks me why I did not do it last year. I do not know what she is referring to. I moved amendments on every possible occasion at the time. I would point out to her that I gather that the Transkei Constitution Bill was obnoxious to the official Opposition and was against its whole policy, because on that occasion they moved that the Bill be read “this day six months,” but that did not stop the official Opposition from moving amendments to every clause in the Committee Stage. So the hon. member must not try to teach me parliamentary procedure. The point I am trying to make is that I have in fact attempted to move some amendments, not because this is less obnoxious to me than to the official Opposition, but because I believe that one should try every parliamentary means at one’s disposal in a Bill of this kind to try to save something of the situation. I shall therefore be moving amendments at the appropriate stages.

Clause put and agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, we on this side of the House would like to have from the hon. the Deputy Minister a little information in regard to this clause. We would like to know from him, firstly, why he is giving the courts the power, upon conviction for the offences referred to in Section 14 of the principal Act, or the discretion to cancel contract of employment which the Bantu labourer and his employer have entered into.

It is quite clear that it is left to the official holding the court to decide matters and to cancel contracts, and I take it that in the majority of cases it will be in the interest of the Bantu concerned that the contract should be cancelled.

Why does the hon. the Deputy Minister say “in most of the cases”? What other cases does he have in mind?

I cannot visualize all the cases.

The hon. the Minister is bringing this clause before the House. Surely he can explain what he means by it.

I have just done so.

No, the Minister said that in most cases it would be to the benefit of the Bantu, quite clearly implying that in some cases it will not be to the benefit of the Bantu. Perhaps the voluble hon. member in the corner here can tell us in what cases it will not be to the benefit of the Bantu.

The hon. member refers to me as the “eloquent member in the corner”, but I want to come to the clause. Those hon. members are the people who are always so terribly concerned that a discretion is not given to the courts, and here a large measure of discretion is given to the courts to do exactly what they wish. This is a measure of relief. My opinion is that that hon. member talks so much in this House because he never received sufficient brief to appear in the courts. If he had appeared in the courts, you would know that many cases come before the courts—and I have acted in many such cases—where the magistrate sees that it is not in the interest of either the employer or the employee that the contract should remain in existence, but he is nevertheless bound to allow it to continue, although in most cases it is in the interest of the Bantu that it should be cancelled. If the hon. member had had any experience, he would have known that there are many such cases, but to mention every one of them now is impossible. But it can also have the opposite effect, that it is in the interest of the employer, and one could quote as many examples of that. But the important point is that the discretion is being given back to the court to cancel the contract when it is not in the interest of the employer but is in the interest of the employee.

The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) has come from the ranks of the non-practising attorneys and has joined the ranks of the non-practising advocates, otherwise he would not make such remarks. But the hon. member of course, as usual, has got hold of the wrong end of the clause. Unfortunately this does not just give the court a discretion where it had no discretion before; it gives the court a new power which it did not have before, as I understand the position. Perhaps the Minister or the hon. member for Heilbron can correct me if I am wrong. The court never had this power before. The Minister says that in most cases it will be in the interests of the Bantu. I accept that it may be so, but I am asking in what cases will it not be in the interest of the Bantu. Surely the hon. the Minister can tell us that?

And I have answered you.

I should like to ask the Deputy Minister to explain what happens if this labourer is indebted to his employer. Assuming he is convicted of an offence and at that time he is indebted to his employer, what does it virtually mean? He is convicted and is returned to his employer. What is the objective of this clause? I think it is up to the Deputy Minister to explain what he has in mind. What is amazing about the whole procedure in so far as the attitude of hon. members opposite is concerned is that they seem to resent an explanation of what is intended by this or any other clause. Are we not supposed to oppose? The point is this. Here is a clause which introduces a new feature in that it gives the court a discretion to cancel a contract when a man is found guilty of a contravention of sub-sec. (1) of this particular section in the original Act. This discretion can only be exercised in the event of the accused not being indebted to his employer any longer. We would like to know what would happen if he continues to be indebted to his employers and he is convicted on more than one occasion of a contravention of that sub-section. What then would be the working possibilities of that particular labourer? What does the Department contemplate doing then? Is this discretion removed from the courts? Is there any other power in the Bill which would enable the contract to be cancelled and that particular labourer to be dealt with in some other manner? I think it is up to the Deputy Minister to explain that not only to the House but to the country.

As I have already explained, the intention of this clause is to help those Bantu who appear before the Court and to give the court the discretion to cancel that contract. I cannot visualize any instance where it will not be to the benefit of the Bantu. I hope that is an adequate reply to the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell).

In regard to the question put to me by the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) if the Bantu concerned is still indebted to his employer, then the court is at liberty to give an order in connection with the payment of that money to the employer; it is for the court to decide what to do. I have nothing more to say.

Sir, one is left here with a feeling that where a Bantu is convicted of certain offences under sub-section (1), offences which have to do with the master-servant relationship, the court has a discretion either to cancel the contract or not to cancel it. I think what interests us is what happens to the Bantu if this contract is cancelled. Is the position not that he is then referred to an aid centre? Is the position not that he might be endorsed out of the area and, if so, where is the advantage to the Bantu concerned? You see, Sir, the Deputy Minister no doubt thinks that he has a clause here which is to the advantage of the Bantu. Quite frankly I cannot see at the moment where it is to his advantage. The hon. gentleman has indicated, with some little irritation, that he has already explained this clause. I do not think he has explained it at all. It is clear that where the Bantu is still indebted to his employer the contract has to go on so that he can pay off the debt. What happens then? The employer probably has the right after that to terminate the contract in due course on due notice. But here we have the case where the Bantu is not indebted, where apparently the employer might have a right to terminate the contract because of a previous conviction of the Bantu who is his employee. The court is now going to terminate the contract. For what reason? Where is the advantage? I cannot see why this clause has been introduced. Quite frankly, it may be a minor matter but I think we should like to know what the hon. the Deputy Minister has in mind so that we can understand what the machinery is that is going to be applied.

May I point to this case: It so often happens that a Bantu is charged with deserting his employment. He is then found guilty; he serves his sentence and is then forced to go back to his employer. He feels that it is not in his interest to remain there longer, but his master holds him to his contract. Every time he is forced to go back to that employment. It is not in his interest that the contract should continue longer, and therefore this Bill now provides that in such a case the magistrate may cancel the contract. That is the type of case envisaged here.

I am astounded that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asks what will happen to this Bantu. If he looks at the clause he will see what happens to a Bantu who is found guilty. If the contract is cancelled and the Bantu has served his sentence and he no longer has any relation to the employer, there are other legal provisions applicable to this Bantu, but that is certainly not relevant to this clause.

Clause 4 put and the Committee divided:

I wish to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

Sir, this is a very important clause in this Bill. It cannot be considered in vacuo; it has to be considered from the point of view of the effect it is going to have on the existing rights of urbanized Africans, as it links up with various other succeeding clauses, particularly Clauses 12, 47, 48 and 61. It is, however, one of the cornerstones of this Bill, the basic purpose of which, according to the hon. the Deputy Minister, is in fact to revise the legal position under which a Bantu born in an urban area can remain there. I use the hon. the Minister’s own words. This clause is one of the cornerstones. He wishes to return to the old idea—the basic principle, as he puts it—that the Bantu’s presence in the White sector can be justified only by the need for his labour.

That is right.

Hon. members opposite agree with me. In other words, as long as an African is employed in the so-called White urban area of South Africa, he is allowed to remain there under certain conditions. The moment he is no longer employed he is in fact in danger of being endorsed out, and this can now in fact be extended not only to Africans who are in the area as migrant workers or who are working for a specific employer, but to Africans born in the urban area. The whole clause extends the operation of endorsement out not only to migratory workers or to unemployed Africans whose homes or roots are outside the urban area but also to Africans inside the urban area. As I have said earlier, the clause links up with subsequent clauses which enable such Africans who are now unemployed or who perhaps are arrested under any of the numerous pass laws, to be sent to aid centres and from the aid centres they can then be sent out either to farms or other places outside the prescribed areas where they then have to reside and take up employment. This clause in particular is one of the most important clauses in the Bill. The subsections which I propose to delete from the clause, sub-sections 6, 7, 8 and 9, are the subsections which extend the existing powers also to cover urbanized Africans. I see that the hon. the Minister has an amendment on the Order Paper on this particular clause. He proposes to change certain words which appear in sub-paragraph (vi) of paragraph (b) of sub-section (6) so as to narrow the operation of the clause down to Africans who, as he puts it, should no longer be in the area, not because it is no longer in the public interest (as the original wording is) but because public safety demands that they should not be there. Sir, I challenge the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell us why in fact, if that is his only intention, it is necessary to insert this in the Act at all, because he already has very wide powers of endorsing such Africans out of the urban areas, whether they were born in the urban areas or not. The White Paper refers specifically, of course, to foreign Africans and says that it makes it easier to get rid of foreign Africans who may be in the urban area and who might engage in subversive activities. Well, it is the first time that I have heard that the Government does not in any case have the power to eject people who are not citizens of this country, or to deport them for any reason that it may deem fit, naturally including subversive activities.

Sir, the explanation in the White Paper is fatuous. This does not apply to foreigners. The explanation which the hon. the Deputy Minister gave us at the second reading and which the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) gave us, that the words in fact are really supposed to imply Africans whom it is deemed not to be in the interest of public safety to have in the urban area, is, if I may say so, equally fatuous, because existing legislation gives the Minister full powers to eject any African whatsoever, including Africans born in the urban area if they are deemed to be there for reasons which do not conform with public safety. I want to ask the Deputy Minister what is the meaning of Section 29bis, which was inserted by Section 1 of Act 69 of 1956 if this is not the case, because the provision which was inserted in 1956 reads that if in the opinion of an urban local authority the presence of any Native in the area under its jurisdiction or in any proclaimed area in respect of which such urban local authority exercises any of its powers, etc., is detrimental to the maintenance of peace and order in any such area, the urban authority may order such a Native to depart from any such area. The powers are there anyway, not only as regards foreign Africans but as regards any Africans, including Africans born in the urban area. I frankly cannot accept this excuse and as far as I am concerned the change introduced in the clause by the Deputy Minister’s amendment is not going to make any difference whatsoever to my objections to this clause, and I am obviously going to vote against this clause. I am going to ask for a division and I am going to vote against the clause. But, furthermore, that is only on sub-section (6). Sub-sections (7), (8) and (9) which I asked should be deleted from this clause, make it clear that the whole operation of endorsement out of the urban area extends to Africans born in the urban area. Sub-section (9) of this clause specifically introduces into the ambit of this clause the Africans under Section 10 (1) (a), (b) and (c), who are the so-called exempted Africans. It is not only where a contract is cancelled in the public interest or in the interest of public safety, but a Bantu Commissioner or a labour officer may refuse any African the right to take up employment in an area. By virtue of the fact that a man is not normally employed in the area, or by virtue of the widely extended definition of “idle” where a man is refused permission to take up work—and this can mean any African, including the man living in the area—then he can in terms of later clauses be endorsed and sent out of the area or sent to an aid centre from which centre he can be sent to work in any area which the Bantu Commissioner deems fit. It is therefore tied up with all the later clauses which extend the powers of removal out of the urban area of an urban-born African or any other African who normally falls under the protection which was afforded to Africans, after many years of hard work and the setting of precedents, under Section 10 (1) (a), (b) and (c) of the existing urban areas legislation. I believe therefore that Clause 8 is one of the cornerstones of this legislation, and in spite of the Ministerial amendment, which he thinks will bring clarity to the situation, I do not believe it makes the slightest difference because he had those powers anyway, and apart from sub-section (6) which he proposes to amend, sub-sections (7), (8) and (9) also help to draw the urban-born African into the net of the migratory labourer, to put him on the same basis and give him the same status as the migratory labourer, and it certainly gives him the status of a temporary sojourner rather than a permanently urbanized person which, as the Deputy Minister himself has said, is in fact the major aim of this Bill. The man must continue to be employed, and if by any chance he loses his job, if he is refused permission to seek further work, he becomes in fact one of the great unemployed. The fact that an official can decide when a man is normally employed and when he is not normally employed, bearing in mind the fact that a labour bureau officer can refuse him permission even to seek work, convinces me that it is the Deputy Minister’s intention under this clause, read in conjunction with later clauses like Clauses 12 and 48 and 61, to draw urbanized Africans into his net and to allow him to send his labour pool around as he requires it in this country.

It is difficult to appreciate why the hon. member who has just sat down has only moved the omission of certain sub-sections of this clause. I cannot appreciate that the hon. member in fact approves of all the other parts of this clause, the deletion of which she has not moved. Sir, this illustrates the difficulty in which one finds oneself when one wants to move amendments to something which is anathema, which is so basically wrong, which is so inter-connected with other clauses, that no matter how one tries to improve it, one finds oneself in the end in the position that one has to vote against the clause even if the amendment is accepted.

Sir, this is without doubt one of the worst clauses in the Bill, and it ranges far and wide. It ranges into all sorts of realms, in these two new sub-sections which are created here, 21bis and 21ter. Not only does it set up a completely different set of labour bureaux, not only does it give the State control in all these matters, but in this clause, ranging far and wide as it does, the power is taken to interfere with the development of commerce and industry, with the homes of the urban Bantu so far as they have existed up to the present, and their permanency is also destroyed. This is the key clause to the operation of the scheme which is envisaged in this Bill. It is through this clause, through the labour bureaux, that everything that has to be achieved by this Bill, will be achieved. Section 21bis sets up this new system of labour bureaux, and it is something new, Sir. We have heard that this is just an extension of something else. Sir, let us make no mistake about it: We have never seen labour bureaux of this sort in this country before, especially with the sort of powers which are given here. What is provided for in Section 21bis, the first sub-section in this clause, is a system of labour bureaux controlled at the top, by Pretoria. You have your director in Pretoria, you have your regional, your district and your local labour bureaux. But, Sir, note too that in this clause power is taken by the Government to control every labour bureau and, if necessary to take away the powers of the bureaux run by the local authorities. Why is this being done? It seems very clear, looking at the contents of this clause and especially at the contents of the next sub-section, that there are other things provided for in this Bill. Where the ordinary set-up of labour bureaux as we have them at the moment deals with influx control, that setup can stay, but where the labour bureaux set-up in the first part of this clause are to deal with something quite unconnected with influx control, the Minister takes the power to take away from the local labour bureaux the power to deal with certain other aspects, and he puts those powers in the hands of people controlled positively and directly by him. Section 21ter in this clause provides for the powers and the functions of these labour bureaux. It provides that they can, for example, refer someone to whom work has been refused to an aid centre and then back again into this machine. But note, Sir, that in exercising the powers which are set out here in 21ter, the labour bureaux must obey the regulations which are made under another clause, and here again, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has said, it is connected with all the other clauses. They must obey those regulations.

Unfortunately in order to appreciate the significance of 21ter one has to look elsewhere in this Bill; one has to look at that clause which provides for those regulations. For example, if hon. members will look at page 19, they will see that amongst the regulations which must be obeyed are regulations as to the classes of employers to whom Bantu may be made available for employment. Sir, we spent a lot of time last week asking the Deputy Minister various questions. Here is the 64-dollar question and he has not yet answered it: To what class of employer is he going to refuse to give Bantu labour, and why? Then again, Sir, it is provided elsewhere in the Bill that different regulations may be made for different areas in respect of different classes of employers. What has this to do with influx control? Will the Minister explain to us how he is going to use these powers which the labour bureaux are going to have. Quite clearly where a local authority used the powers under the present law to control the influx of Bantu into the towns, it will be allowed to continue to use those powers, but where the labour bureaux are to be used to try to control the development of industry, he takes the power to take these powers out of the hands of these authorities and puts these powers into the hands of his own district and regional labour authorities. Why does the hon. the Deputy Minister want to do this? To whom does he want to do this and why?

This clause goes even further and in 21ter the page which contains some of the clauses which the hon. member for Houghton proposes to delete, the whole security of the urban African is removed. It is quite clear that the effect of that is to take away from the urban African any hope whatever of any permanency in the urban area, even those persons in the Section 10 (1) (a) to (c) category of the Urban Areas Act, those who were born in the urban areas, those who have been there for more than 15 years, who have worked for one employer for 10 years. This provides exactly what we have been talking about. It provides active and positive encouragement to Communism and to all the methods that are used by Communism. Once you state in your laws as a matter of policy that you are not going to have any permanency you take away from them that one factor that determines that permanency, i.e. a settled home life.

To that fact one must add that this Bill will encourage Communism and all that Communism brings in its train, and will encourage all the methods of Communism, one of which, I understand, is revolution. I want to call as witness the hon. the Deputy Minister’s colleague, the Minister of Housing, I want to quote from the Sunday Tribune of 1 March—

Sir, I want to ask this hon. Deputy Minister whether he has that clearly before his eyes? We have it clearly before our eyes, Sir. I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he agrees with what the Minister of Housing said. If he does agree can he explain why it is that he is doing all he can in this Bill to remove, not only family life, but the very foundations, the very aspirations, upon which any society, which is not a totalitarian society, is based. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat did precisely what he did in the second reading, namely, to pretend that we are dealing here with something new. He repeated the question: What has this matter to do with influx control? Does he not know that the whole basis of influx control is this very institution of labour bureaux? And the labour bureaux have already been established. They were established in terms of Chapter V of the regulations framed under the Act of 1911. One finds that recorded in the Government Gazette No. 6164 of 9 January 1959. It already exists, and now he asks why it is in this legislation. I shall tell him. The only reason why it is now being repeated in a statute is because administratively it is more elegant. (Laughter.) Just listen to how the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) is sneering. The position is that it is much better administratively to institute these labour bureaux in terms of a statute. By so doing the Minister satisfies the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman), who is continually reproaching us for doing everything by way of regulation. If the hon. member reads the clause thoroughly he will see that the Minister will by regulation prescribe the duties of the officials who will fill those posts. That is our pattern. We do it in that way because it is more elegant, and more efficient. [Interjection.] It is of great importance that one should live in the pattern to which one has become accustomed. This is the pattern in which we have lived ever since 1959.

Has it taken you 15 years to understand that?

It will take that hon. member 50 years and not 15 years to understand it. He need not concern himself about this matter at all; he should stick to the lathe which he knows so well.

Then the hon. member says that the whole security of the Bantu is being undermined by the provisions of sub-sec. (vi). It is against that clause that he has a grievance, viz. sub-sec. (6) (b) (vi).

Seven to nine.

That is even nicer. Do I understand that the hon. member wants the whole of the sub-section deleted, whereas the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) just wants sub-secs. (7) and (8) deleted? I have already said that they are moving further to the left than the Progressive Party.

What the hon. member for Houghton asked has nothing to do with us.

The hon. member says that all the security of the Bantu is being undermined because the service contracts of certain Bantu can be cancelled by the official concerned, in this case with the approval of the Secretary and the person in charge of that particular labour bureau. Let me ask the hon. member, and the whole of the United Party, this: Are they in favour of Bantu, or Africans, as the hon. member for Houghton calls them—I do not know whether she is talking about White or Black Africans; I am also an African—who endanger the safety of the State or the safety of the public or a section of the public, or are likely to do so, should stay here? That is what I want to know from the hon. member. I am interested in the peace and order and tranquillity of the whole State. To me that is much more important than the question as to whether someone who has committed an offence should be deprived of his livelihood. I think the whole of South Africa is concerned about that, and not about these few people. I am surprised that the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell), who ought to have as much appreciation of peace and good order as I have, suddenly appears here as someone prepared to be the spokesman for the agitator. Is that what the whole of the United Party think? That is what I should like to know. Do they want to keep those people here? Do they want to sacrifice the whole of the State and the safety of the public for the sake of the security of that family? When one governs a state, Sir, one must always weigh up various matters. One must say what is most essential. Governing a state is hard work.

May I put a question?

I have only ten minutes. The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) can make as many speeches as he likes. I say it is hard work to govern a state, and sometimes windows are broken and sometimes people must get hurt because they do not behave themselves inside the pattern. In this case that is so too. When one has a state like ours with different races which are on different levels of development, one must necessarily make all kinds of concessions, conciliations, adaptations and even compromises. One simply has to accept that. And if the hon. member does not want to accept it, I should like to know what steps he suggests if he feels that the safety of the State is in danger. What does he want, and what will he do? That is what I would like to know from him. As soon as he tries to arrest and imprison those people, the remedy he is applying is much worse than the disease, because in this case the Minister or the official concerned says: “This particular person with his particular propensities will now be removed from the community so that the community can live in peace and quiet”.

What do you do if he is White?

If he is White and he does that sort of thing, an official will not cancel his contract. There are other restraining factors for him; to sit in gaol in his case is much greater censure of his behaviour than in the case of the Bantu. Because that is so we treat him differently.

Is that so?

Of course we treat these people differently. Is it not the hon. member for Houghton’s grievance that we do not treat all people in the same way?

You are now shifting the agitator to the Bantu reserves.

No, what we do with him is this: If his contract is cancelled, he is perhaps referred to the aid centre if the police are not interested in him.

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

Sir, I respect your ruling, but I should like to refer to sub-sec. (7), which the hon. member for Houghton wants to have deleted, because it contains the answer to the hon. member for Yeoville. The reply is this: When his contract is cancelled, he is referred to such an aid centre. The official then deals with his case ad hoc. He says to him: What can we now do with you in the situation in which you are? He then deals with him, after having instituted a full investigation, “with due regard to the family ties or other obligations or commitments of such Bantu, require such Bantu and his dependants to leave such prescribed area within a period determined by him”. That appears on page 15. But he can go still further. He can find good work for him elsewhere where he cannot cause trouble. That is the whole point. Sir, the whole approach of the Opposition is that the hon. the Deputy Minister in particular, and the National Party and the Government in general, are wolves in sheep’s clothing. That is not the case at all. [Time limit.]

I should like to know from the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze), if it were so essential to have this amendment in this Bill in order to ensure the safety of the State, why was this clause not put into the Bill originally when it was presented to us the other day? Why was it necessary to wait for a second-reading debate to find the necessity for this? The fact of the matter is that we already have sufficient laws on the Statute Book to protect the security of the State against people who commit subversive acts. We know that is fully covered. The hon. the Deputy Minister has introduced this for other reasons which the hon. member who has just sat down knows well enough. It is no good his saying that if we vote against this clause we are not in favour of the safety of the State being maintained. That is a lot of nonsense and the hon. member knows it. It is equally nonsensical to say that it is necessary to incorporate regulations in a Statute in order to make the whole position more elegant. The hon. member knows well enough that the purpose of this particular clause is once and for all to take over completely the entire control of labour in the country and all the affairs concerning the Bantu population of South Africa. He also knows that one of the objectives is to deprive local authorities of all discretionary powers. We must bear in mind that over many years the question of the regulation of Bantu labour in this country has been in the hands of the local authorities under the Natives Urban Consolidation Act. We know that over that period a great deal of goodwill has been built up. We know that over that period sound public relations have been developed between the White population and the Bantu. In fact, Sir, local authorities have actually acted as a buffer state between the raw Bantu from the reserves and the more civilized areas. Those local authorities have guided and directed them into the proper labour channels. They have also over that period of time built up an established and stable Bantu community. Except for the unfortunate incident at Paarl—and we already know the reasons for that—those townships which have been built up by local authorities throughout the country have, in a sense, been models of communal development.

This particular clause, as has already been pointed out, is the crux of the entire Bill. This is the clause that disestablishes every vested right, every permanent link that remained between the Bantu people of South Africa outside the scheduled and released areas and the White man. This is the clause that regards every Bantu only from the viewpoint of being an employee. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) made that very clear when he spoke after the hon. the Deputy Minister in the second reading. He made it very clear; he removed all the frills; he brushed aside all the apologies of the Deputy Minister in regard to what was good for the Bantu and so forth. He said immediately that we must look at this particular Bill as one that was going to establish once and for all only one principle in regard to the Bantu in our midst and that was his position as an employee, as a worker, and nothing else.

The thing that disturbs me here is that although district and municipal labour bureaux are being established they will not have any power at all. Sir, if you look at sub-clause (5) of the new Clause 21ter you will find that it says—

We know that for some years now the Bantu Affairs Department has been concerned about the discretionary rights exercised by local authorities, rights which they in fact had no right to exercise by law. The Government was not prepared to allow the local authorities to enjoy the privilege of being the organization which was dealing reasonably and satisfactorily with the Bantu and his presence in the cities. It resented the possible loss of any patriarchal prestige which it had assumed unto itself with regard to everything concerning the affairs of South Africa. Admittedly the labour bureaux are to be established as agents, but they will be agents with a very restricted mandate.

Sir, we should get down to facts. The hon. Deputy Minister should not tell us for whose benefit it is. He should tell us clearly what is intended. He knows what is intended. Why should we paint a lily that does not really exist, a lily that has no value. We are afraid that this new system that is to come into existence may have a very deleterious effect on the whole of our labour potential in the country. Everyone knows the ordinary economic laws with regard to labour. Labour must have a settled place of habitation; labour must have recreational facilities; labour must have a sense of permanence; labour must have a sense of security with regard to its future. We know that. We apply that in every other form of labour legislation in this country. Yet here we are prepared to destroy a vast pool of labour which is virtually the backbone of South Africa’s industrial and economic life, a pool of labour which is the backbone of the whole of our affluence at the moment, a pool of labour which has provided the basis of our tremendous economic advance. We are prepared to destroy every sense of security with which that pool of labour is possessed. And that must lead to restlessness, Sir. It is not a question of whether you are concerned with the security of the State, or otherwise, as far as subversive activities are concerned. We are concerned here with a system which is going to destroy something that has been built up over very many years. Even the Government supporters boast of their patriarchal kindness to the Bantu on the farms; how they have joined their church services in the early days; how they have gradually led them to a new form of civilization. Yet, by one fell swoop, they want to destroy all the goodwill that has been built up and they make these people purely labour units. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Heilbron was the person who opened the debate by saying “this is going to establish a system for workers only”.

I did not say that.

Read the notes that were prepared for you. The point we must bear in mind, Sir, is that this clause—neither the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton nor that of the hon. the Deputy Minister makes it more acceptable—must go, the whole of it, because this is the crux of the Bill. This is the clause that establishes the system. We maintain that that system is bad and unhealthy. [Interjections.] I am not prepared to accept diversions from either side, Sir. We on this side of the House have a point of view and that point of view is sound.

I just want to draw attention to another unsavoury feature of this particular clause and it is this. I am now referring to the provision in Clause 5. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just spoken put words into my mouth which I never used. My standpoint, which I adhered to again to-day, is this: This legislation is a repetition of a system which has existed in South Africa for 50 years already.

You are whitewashing.

This is not whitewashing. That hon. member has never yet had the intelligence to read Afrikaans. My standpoint is that it existed in legislation passed by that side of the House over a period of years—not legislation passed by this side, but passed by that side of the House. And it is that legislation which is now being consolidated in one measure. That was and is still my standpoint. Now it does not behave him to say that this is evil legislation. It is legislation which they themselves supported. They must now tell us whether they stand by the legislation they passed in the past, or not? I challenge them to get up to-day and to say whether they still stand by it. Do they still stand by the Labour Regulation Act of 1911? If they do not stand by it they cannot stand by the regulations either. Those regulations were issued in terms of the 1911 Act. The regulations issued in terms of the 1911 Act are being written into this Bill verbatim, and that Act was passed by that side of the House. That is all. There are only three new provisions in Clauses 21bis and 21ter. If hon. members read these clauses and the regulations thoroughly—which of course they have riot done—they will see that there are only three new provisions. The others were simply taken over from existing regulations. The hon. member who has just spoken referred to the labour bureaux instituted under the Urban Areas Act. Sir, he is talking nonsense, because those labour bureaux were not established in terms of the Urban Areas Act. The labour bureaux which are to-day controlled by the municipalities were established in terms of the Labour Regulation Act of 1911. Let me read this regulation to you, Sir. It is the regulation issued in terms of the Labour Regulation Act of 1911—

The municipalities then had to control these labour bureaux. They were there as the agents of the Government, in terms of the Labour Regulation Act, to run those labour bureaux. It is not a right they were granted in terms of the Urban Areas Act, as the hon. member wanted to intimate. He spoke as if now in one fell swoop—to use his own words—we are now washing out everything that existed in the past and are introducing something completely new.

That is a new concept.

Now the hon. member says it is a new concept. It is not a new concept at all. It is still the same concept. He has not the courage of his convictions. At the moment he is trying to pose as a liberal because he cannot run away from the past. He must now tell us whether he still wants the laws passed by the United Party in the past, or not. Does the United Party want those laws, or do they not? If they do not want them, very well, then we know where we stand. Then they should not again go and say in the platteland that we are the “Kafferboeties”. They are now trying to be more progressive than the Progressive Party.

Mr. Chairman, I want to mention a few more examples. Take 21ter (b) (i), “that the contract of employment with such Bantu is not bona fide”. That describes the position as it is at the moment. If one looks at the memorandum, one will see that at page 5 it says the following—

1. (i) whenever the contract of service is not bona fide: a similar authority is contained in Section 23 (1) (a) of Act No. 25 of 1945;
2. (ii) when the Bantu concerned has not obtained permission to be or to take up employment in the area: a similar authority is contained in Section 23 (c) (i) and (ii) of Act No. 25 of 1945 and in regulation 4 (1) (a) of Government Notice No. 1032 of 1949;
3. (iii) when a Bantu is not released from a former service contract or labour tenant contract: a provision to the same effect is contained in Section 23 (1) (c) (ii) of Act No. 25 of 1945 and regulation 4 (1) (b) of Government Notice No. 1032 of 1949. So I can take every provision and prove that it already exists, except two, and they are contained in (6) and (7). There is nothing new in the other part of the clause. And to make it as clear as possible that it only refers to the safety of the State, the hon. the Minister has given notice of an amendment. That amendment stands on the Order Paper and it removes all possible doubt. Now the hon. member who spoke just before me asked why this power is being asked for because that power already exists. But that power does not exist. If a Bantu to-day has a legal contract in the White area and he is guilty of subversive activities, one has not the power, not under the 1945 Act, not in terms of the Labour Regulation Act of 1911, nor under any of the other Acts, to cancel that contract and to endorse it out. One cannot do anything about it.

May I put a question? I should like to know from the hon. member whether the Governor-General or the State President does not have the power in terms of the Native Administration Act of 1927, for example, to remove any Native from any area, and whether Act No. 69 of 1956 does not give local authorities the power to remove any Native?

Those Acts do not affect the position of an existing legal contract which has to be terminated. It does not affect an existing legal contract. That is the matter with which we are dealing here. This is a labour regulation. We are concerned with the labour contracts here. That is the matter which is affected by this legislation, and not the other extraneous matters which are dealt with by those Acts. Even though the State President has the right to remove him, the contract still exists. The State President cannot cancel that contract. He has not the power to cancel it.

You are not stating the law now.

In terms of those Acts, the State President cannot cancel the contract. He can send him away, but then he is still faced with that contract which exists. Then the other question arises: Will the employer not have the right to institute an action for damages against the Government on the ground that this contract cannot now be carried out because the Native is being removed? This is a labour regulation Bill; it is to regulate the labour, and nothing else. Those powers which the State President has he holds as the supreme chief of all the Bantu and nothing more.

Up to now, we have had four descriptions of this particular Bill from members Of the Government side. It started with the description given by the hon. Minister of Information in the course of his Press interview and radio talk last year, on the basis that this was a Bill to “liberalize” the laws governing the Bantu and the rights of Bantu.

What clause is that?

This particular clause. Then we were told by the hon. Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Development that this was a Bill designed to “streamline” the laws governing the movement and the rights of the Bantu. Furthermore, we were told this afternoon by the hon. member for Heilbron that this is a Bill to “consolidate” existing legislation governing the Bantu. And the last one we heard this afternoon was the description of the hon. member for Standerton that this was a Bill to confer a certain “elegance” on the Bantu population. Sir, one comes to the conclusion that this Bill should be called “a Bill for the streamlining and consolidation of Bantu liberation and elegance”, or something equally fatuous. But with all the elegance at his command, the hon. member for Standerton cannot get away from the facts of this Bill, and when he interjected when the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) was speaking, read 21bis (8), he should have told this House what bearing subsection (8) of 21bis has on 21ter—under discussion—and the argument advanced so far by three hon. members on this side of the House. If the hon. member can tell us what connection there is, I will sit down. Sir, he was just talking, and unfortunately you can talk as much as you like about something, but the printed word is still there, and there are certain provisions in this clause which are very serious indeed, for the Bantu population, so serious that all the names and even fancy names that can be given to it, will not alter a single printed word of the Bill. For example, I was told quite recently by a gentleman speaking on the radio, obviously a Government spokesman—I think his name was Karel van der Merwe—that the Bill is “consolidatory rather than restrictive”—except that the way he said “consolidatory”, it seemed as if it was meant to sound like “conciliatory”. All this “consolidatory” nonsense does not help us. The Bill is still before us, and I want to ask the hon. member for Standerton whether he has ever read the report of Mr. Justice Snyman, about which he, for one, had so much to say last year.

What about the Bill?

I am discussing the Bill. Mr, Justice Snyman may have had some foresight in the matter, because he appears to have foreseen this particular Clause 8 of this particular Bill. He says, for example, that—

What paragraph are you referring to?

Mr. Justice Snyman says that they need a sympathetic and patient administration, and furthermore he says that “the restrictions on the movement of the Bantu and the interference with his mode of living, however much they may be intended for his benefit, are not understood by the bulk of the Bantu people who are still under-developed and primitive”. If regard is had to that statement—and we should remember that this Bill is the result of mature consideration, that this is not just something that was devised only this month, and that it came after certain events about which it was necessary for a judicial commission to report, and about which the Government felt so strongly that—quite fortuitously—they were provided with an interim report on which certain very drastic and important legislation was brought to this House—it is natural to ask why all these recommendations and all these statements which were then regarded by members on the Government side, including the elegant and hon. member for Standerton, as being the written gospel, are now ignored? Does the hon. member not understand, for example, that when he places in the hands of an officer or an official of the labour bureau the powers and functions that are conferred in sub-section (8) of 21ter, that he is certainly not in a position to explain to the Bantu affected by this measure, that it is for his benefit, even if it is intended to be for his benefit?

If you had to do it, you would not be able to do so.

I only hope that in due course the hon. member for Standerton will be able to provide the 11,000,000 Bantu people of South Africa with his own elegant explanation as to why this legislation is to their benefit. But we on this side of the House cannot understand it. We cannot understand how a Bill which sets out specifically to remove certain rights and does so without any pretensions in regard to certain very clearly defined provisions, how that can be argued to be for the benefit of the Bantu. This is the point I would like the hon. member for Standerton to deal with later, because I take it he will come back into this debate. He dealt with our objections to this particular clause as if it could only affect those whom he called agitators and trouble-makers, and he said to us in effect: “Are those the people whom you want to keep in your urban areas, are those the people whom you want to protect?” That is what he asked us, as if the Bill did say specifically that as far as certain provisions are concerned, including the clause under discussion, only those people who have been proved to be agitators and trouble-makers and evil-doers will come within the ambit of this particular clause. Of course, there is no such definition, there are no such exclusions from this particular clause. Any and every Bantu in the urban areas can, and in all probability will, be affected by the provisions of this particular legislation.

Finally, I would like to say a word to the hon. member for Heilbron. He says, in effect: But this labour bureau is nothing new. Here is the Act of 1911.

The regulations under the Act of 1911.

Yes, the Native labour regulations. Sir, we did not suggest that those regulations were new, but I put it to the hon. member for Heilbron that in 1911, or subsequent to that particular Bill becoming an Act, there were no such conditions involved in and surrounding the regulation of Native labour as are included in this Bill.

Mention one.

Surely the hon. member will not say, in regard to the Act of 1911, that the residential right of a qualified Bantu was taken away! The hon. member knows the Act of 1911, and I ask him to show the Committee in due course how that particular Act or anything up to this date, had the same effect as this particular clause and other clauses of this Bill. He is trying to deal with this Bill completely in vacuo, as if we said that there was no such provision for the regulation of Native labour, and that now, in 1964, we come to light and object to it! Furthermore, I would put this to him: assuming it was well and good in 1911, it does not follow that it is necessary to adopt the same attitude to-day. There have been changes in this sphere, as in others, and if we say that we agree that there shall be influx control, we are still fully entitled to say that those local authorities who have administered influx control, even those whom the Minister calls the “Sap-geregeerde stadsrade” have done so according to their rights and in the interests of the community as a whole—and in the interest of the Bantu by-and-large—but this is not a reason for him to say that because there is influx control, he can now go beyond that position, and in effect take away the rights that were established over the years by Bantu who have given us absolutely no provocation of the kind which apparently has been given to the Government to come forward with this legislation. On that basis, I sincerely hope that the two last hon. members on that side, who have spoken on this particular clause …

Dr. COERTZE: I will speak again.

Yes, I hope the hon. member for Standerton will come back into the debate with another elegant argument, and that the hon. member for Heilbron will tell us how the Native labour regulations of 1911 are concerned with the taking away of these rights. [Time limit.]

Having risen, I should like first of all to move the amendment standing in my name on the agenda, as follows—

This replaces the existing wording of Clause 8, and the object of this has been explained in anticipation in my reply to the second-reading debate. The object is to remove all doubt here, so that what we are aiming at here may be clear to anybody, namely that a service contract may be cancelled, or that permission to enter into a contract may be refused for the reason that it endangers the safety of the State, or is detrimental to public order. That has been stated very clearly in the amendment as now drafted, and that is a partial answer to the question of the hon. member for Houghton already. I am moving this amendment to deprive malicious persons of an instrument they may abuse to incite the Bantu unnecessarily against our legislation and against the circumstances prevailing in our country, and secondly as I said in the second reading, even try to bring our country into discredit thereby. That is the most important reason why we are doing this The hon. member for Houghton, in the challenge she hurled at me, asked what the reasons were. That is the only and the most important reason. Then I should like to point out to the hon. member, as the hon. member for Heilbron has already done very clearly, that we are dealing here with the cancellation or refusal of service contracts. This clause does not deal with the removal of a person, how a person is to be removed and where he is to be removed to. That is dealt with under later provisions of the Bill. Here we are concerned with the cancellation of a service contract or the refusal to have a service contract entered into. That must be fully understood. In her excessive zeal the hon. member tried to propagate all the things she believes in, and she was in such a hurry that she anticipated the clauses of the Bill. We are not discussing the removal now, we are discussing the cancellation of the service contract or the refusal to permit a contract to be entered into. It has nothing to do with removal. Let me tell the hon. member this: She wishes to invoke Section 29bis of the Urban Areas Act. There the local authority is under an obligation to make the inquiries and to remove them on a wholly different basis from that of this measure in the later clauses. But here we are dealing with the service contract. The hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) tried to suggest that the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) had repudiated me, or that I had suppressed certain things which he had said in connection with labour as being the basis for the presence of Bantu in White areas. If the hon. member did not understand my words, I should like to say I deny that. In my speech I myself said that our whole basis of our measures rested on that. I have said that before and I shall say so again: The entire basis of the presence of the Bantu in the White area rests on the labour he performs. He comes here and we shall permit him to come here and we shall permit him to remain here, and we shall permit him to remain here under good conditions, as long as he comes here to work, and we shall try to improve his conditions of employment, and we do it in many ways. But now I ask the hon. member opposite—not the hon. member for Houghton—I am specifically asking the hon. member for Florida and the whole Opposition, to tell us chivalrously and candidly, and to tell the Bantu honestly: Do they as the Opposition, as the United Party, want the Bantu to be in the White part of South Africa for a purpose other than for their labour?

No.

The hon. member says “no” and he waves his arms and gestures with his hands, but we cannot blame certain people for that—I also do that, I like doing so. But let us be clear on this point. In my introductory speech I said that we should be honest and sincere on this point. We say very clearly to the Bantu in the whole of South Africa: You may be in the White areas in order to come and work there but not to vote for Parliament there; and if you are there to work, we shall see to it that you are protected, that you will be able to live properly, and we shall see to it that you will in all kinds of ways make such progress as you as worthy labourers are entitled to. In this Bill we say: If you misbehave as labourers, if you are unworthy labourers, you cannot remain here. And then we say how such a person is to be dealt with. We say that in a forthright manner. Now I ask the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) who is listening so intently to what I am saying, to tell us frankly: Do they want the Bantu to be here on the basis of his labour? I assume they will answer in the affirmative to that question. Then we come to point No. 2 and No. 3 and many other points. For what other additional reasons do the Opposition want the Bantu to be present in the White areas other than for their labour? For what other reasons? For political reasons or for what other reasons? They must not say only that we say it is for purposes of labour. We admit that is so, and the Bantu understand that we are saying that, because we tell the Bantu where he may be for reasons other than his labour. They understand that. But the Opposition must tell us for what other reasons than their labour they want the Bantu here. They owe us as well as the Bantu that answer.

The hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) referred to the labour bureaux here. It is not necessary to say much about that after what the hon. members for Stander-ton and Heilbron have said in that regard. But the hon. member referred to “a new concept” in this regard, and the hon. member for Florida also referred to a new idea. These labour bureaux are not a new concept. There are almost 400 of them in South Africa, established under the Labour Regulation Act, and the regulations have now merely been given the force of statutory legislation. There will probably be more than 400 coming into existence. We are still approving new ones under the old system of regulations daily. It is not a new system. I do not know why the hon. member has misrepresented the position so. There are not only the local labour bureaux, but there are the district labour bureaux and the central labour bureau too. The whole system we are submitting to hon. members in this Bill has been taken over wholly from the regulations. The hon. member asked me a question, and said I did not reply to him in the other debate. I did reply, and it is recorded that I said in what respects, for instance, we do not wish to apply the system of labour bureaux. I gave him the clearest example which is in operation already, and which we wish to keep in operation, and that is as regards the mines for example. The mines are not expected to recruit their labour through the local labour bureaux. I know the hon. member does not know a mine. But the hon. member for Florida, who has mines in his constituency, ought to give him the assurance that this is in fact so.

Why do you not say that in the Bill.

Why should we mention only the mines? There might perhaps be others too. Why should we make a new law every time for a new category we wish to allow to use the recruiting system of acquiring labour? No, the hon. member as a lawyer really ought to reveal a little more knowledge. The same applies to the differentiation of the regulations to which the hon. member again referred. I have replied to that, but I wish to repeat: It is in order to have the requisite elasticity, the requisite flexibility so that the regulations may be applied to the particular circumstances of the particular employers or the particular class of work or geographic conditions or whatever it may be, and there it will be done on the basis of the experience we have already gained. The hon. member for Florida made himself appear ridiculous when he said: “You remove the labour arrangements from the local authorities,” or words to that effect. The local authorities have not established such an intrinsic right that it necessarily has to be their prerogative. But where is it being taken away in this Bill? I do not know whether the hon. member is now trying to put us in bad odour with the local authorities in the same way that he tried to present us in a bad light with the Bantu. He will not succeed. I should like to say one thing only to the hon. member for Hospital, and I have already said that in my reply to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also and to the hon. member for Houghton who referred to the Snyman Report, that they should adhere strictly to the Snyman Report. The hon. member just quoted from a slip of paper. He cannot even give me the paragraph of the Snyman Report to which he has referred. I have read my copy of the report, but the hon. member might be holding the report upside down and reading it in the other language, but he should differentiate between what the Judge says and what has been said to him by other people. He should refer to what the Judge himself says in his report in regard to the necessity for influx control and how it is justified in the report. The hon. member should not look only at what the witnesses said, and the evidence quoted in the report, and then present it as the words of the Judge himself.

But those were his words.

But why does the hon. member then not quote the words from the report?

I do not have the report with me.

There we have it. He quotes from a slip of paper but he does not have the report.

The hon. Deputy Minister has put a question to me and I think it calls for a reply because of the principle embodied in this clause we are dealing with now, Clause 8. I think we should make it clear from this side of the House that in dealing with this matter, first and foremost we recognize the existence of Bantu people who were born in what are called the White areas. There they were born and that has been their home, that is where they have grown up, and they know no other home. Whether that is a great percentage or a small percentage makes no difference for the purpose. There is that group of people and we can say that it runs into many thousands and probably tens of thousands of Bantu. Therefore the basic concept on which this clause is based that Bantu come in from some unknown area outside of what are now called “prescribed areas”, that they come in from outside areas as strangers into a prescribed area and when they cease to have employment there, they are returned to the areas from which they came, is a false concept. It is basically wrong on the facts. So that when the hon. Deputy Minister puts a question to me, I must reply and say that quite clearly what this side of the House stands for is for our Bantu labour force to have a home life close to the place where it is employed, although naturally so far as residential separation and social separation are concerned, that naturally is our philosophy and our policy; but within proximity of the place of employment of the breadwinner, he should have his home life. That is basic to our approach.

We also want to give them a home.

What is the hon. Minister running away from now?

That is what I said.

That is just what the hon. Deputy Minister did not say and what the hon. member for Heilbron did not say. When I spoke the other day, I challenged the hon. member for Heilbron and said that the policy of this whole Bill was aimed at the Bantu in the White areas’ employment and when he ceases that employment, out! Is that so? He nodded his head and he is nodding his head now—not that that signifies very much. I challenged the hon. Minister and he gave his approval in the same way, and it is reflected in the Hansard report of my speech. The policy of the Government is based on the cardinal principle that a Native, a Muntu in a prescribed area is there so long as he is in employment. As soon as he ceases to be employed, he must get out to area X, wherever it may be.

He can go to other work.

The hon. Minister must not run away from it. Now he must have a dispute with the hon. member for Heilbron who has again nodded his head on that precise concept. The hon. Minister may disagree with the hon. member for Heilbron. But whatever it may be, Clause 8 in its details here provides that even those Bantu that I referred to, who are protected under Section 10 at the present time, lose their protection, because subject to an appeal to the Chief Native Affairs Commissioner, they themselves can be removed through the process set out in the Bill to some other area outside.

If they are idle or work-shy.

I am going to take the hon. Deputy Minister up on this. He says “If they are work-shy”.

Then they go back to their homelands.

What do you know about Native homelands anyway? The point is that this clause destroys the right of a Native born in those so-called White areas to remain there. If an official says to him “I am satisfied that you are work-shy” and he submits his minute to the Native Affairs Commissioner in terms of the Bill, then that man loses his right to remain there. And he is sent where? To any place X outside that area in which he has been. This is the point and the Minister keeps stressing it. He talks about the White areas. Where is there such a place in South Africa? Where is the White area in South Africa?

Don’t you know?

I do not know of a single place in respect of which the census does not show that it has more Bantu than Whites. In every municipal area throughout the whole of the Republic. Does the Chief Whip know of such an area?

Are you talking of Natal now? You are talking nonsense!

No wonder the hon. member for Brits (Mr. J. E. Potgieter) runs away now. I repeat that we in principle see no reason why White people who are doing their work with their hands and heads in South Africa should be treated any differently and should look at things any differently and want their homes in any different manner and to live with their wives and families in any different way to precisely that which the law-abiding Bantu wants.

Why don’t you have them in your Durban suburbs, why don’t they live there?

The residential and social separation under our policy is quite clear-cut. We are in favour of influx control, but we are not in favour of the Draconian steps being taken here to move Bantu out of an area where they were born and where they had their homes and families for no other reason than that they are no longer employed in that area. [Interjections.] It is no good hon. members shouting at me. Let them read their Bill and they will see that that is the provision in the Bill. The hon. member for Standerton is trying to make an interjection. I cannot pay any attention to him. He is such a bad lawyer. He has time after time been proved to be wrong. We had the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie) teaching him, a professor of law, the ABC of law in this House. The point is that however much the Government may appear to make this a measure for the protection of the Bantu, and all that kind of nonsense, the truth of the matter is that this is a political matter. It has got no other basis, it has no moral basis, no fundamental social basis, no economic basis, only a political basis. This is a purely political measure and the Minister and his people have got to try to put the best face on it and that is why the hon. member for Heilbron in regard to the essential basis of this Bill differs from the hon. Deputy Minister who is trying to get this Bill through the House.

Before I call upon the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg), I should like to point out that the principle of the establishment of labour bureaux clothed with certain functions and powers was approved at the second reading. I have permitted a very wide discussion, but I now wish to ask hon. members to confine themselves strictly to the clauses.

I am pleased you have given that ruling, Mr. Chairman. I only hope you will permit us to have clarity. The hon. the Minister has asked the hon. member for Durban (South Coast) a question, and I should like to have his attention for a moment so that we can conclude this debate.

Order! The hon. member must be careful now.

That is what I propose to do. The hon. member for Durban (South Coast) said the difference between him and the Minister was that the Minister and the Bill say that when a Bantu refuses to work, or does not have employment, then this is not his country, and he is then removed to a homeland.

Order! The hon. member may not proceed. He must respect my ruling.

It is a new point, Sir. Will you not permit me to put it?

No. The hon. member must discuss the clause.

Can you not permit me to get clarity from the hon. member for Durban (South Coast)?

No, the hon. member must respect my ruling.

We are arguing a matter here which will continue for a long time if we do not understand one another clearly. The Bill deals with labour regulation.

Order! The principle of labour regulation is contained in the establishment of labour bureaux. I have permitted hon. members to put their objections to that, and I have permitted other hon. members to speak in favour thereof, but the hon. member must now confine himself to the clause.

With great respect, you know I do not wish to circumvent your ruling, but an amendment has also been put to the clause.

The hon. member may refer to the amendment.

The object of the amendment is to reject the clause dealing with labour regulation, and now you will surely permit me to argue in favour of the retention of the clause.

Order! I have given my ruling and I request the hon. member to resume his seat.

I want to deal with a few of the questions put by the hon. the Minister in relation to the amendment I moved, and in particular to (6). A new principle is being introduced in this clause. The Minister says that the new sub-section (vi) has nothing whatever to do with the removal of Bantu, but only with the cancellation of a contract, and therefore the other examples I gave him such as the Native Labour Administration Act and Section 29bis of the Act of 1956 do not apply to this. I am no lawyer, but it seems to me very extraordinary that if someone has been removed by force majeure, either by death or by a removal order by the State President, or because a local authority has decided that in terms of Section 29bis the man’s presence is detrimental to peace, etc., how can a contract of service then obtain? I have read some mercantile law and I know that before a contract is binding there must be two parties to the contract. If the first party to the conract is removed, how does the contract still obtain? Surely by virue of the removal of such a person in terms of any of the Acts I have mentioned, the contract must fall away, so you do not require this in order to cancel the contract. The Minister wants to know for what reason do people want Africans in the urban areas. He says it is to work. I would like to give him just one little simple answer: Just for reasons of equity, for humanitarian reasons. It so happens that work is available in the urban areas, and Africans who are citizens of this country should enjoy the rights of mobility in their own country; and just as White men leave the rural areas to seek work in the urban areas as the result of industrialization, so should Black labour be able to do so.

The Minister asked about the Snyman Report and was interested to know exactly where in the Snyman Report there was any recommendation … [Interjections.] Sir, I wish you would keep the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) quiet. It is impossible to carry on in this way. I am answering the Minister’s question as to where in the Snyman Report a recommendation appeared which had to do with the rights of people to remain in the urban areas. I want to refer to paragraph 171 of the report, which states—

And these are the operative words—

Now, if that is not a direct recommendation that the Bantu people should not be considered as labour units, as a reservoir of labour from which the White man can draw at will and get rid of whenever he is finished with him, I want to know what words can make it more clear. In this report it also says that organizations like Poqo are most active in places like Langa, where endorsements out are applied strenuously, but in paragraph 171 which I have quoted it says that the White man must not consider that the African is simply there at his behest to serve his labour requirements. [Interjections.]

What principle are you discussing now?

Do not try to slip out of it by means of legal niceties. You asked a question and I am replying to it.

The other point I want to make on this clause is that the Minister said that Africans will be allowed here as long as they work.

On a point of order, you ruled the hon. member for Krugersdorp out of order because he discussed the principle. The hon. member for Houghton has now quoted from the Snyman Report in order to discuss the principle. I ask for your ruling on this.

I will only allow the hon. member for Houghton to state her case objectively.

I am trying to do so. If I remember correctly, your ruling was that the principle of labour bureaux had been accepted, and I am not arguing about labour bureaux at all.

Order! I find it difficult to hear the hon. member.

I am not surprised at all, Sir. I even find it difficult to hear myself. My amendment excludes Section 9, and sub-section (8) is specifically the section which drags in the urban-born Africans and those who are here under Section 10 (1) (b) and (c). Therefore I am talking to the principle of my amendment, and not the general principle which was accepted at the second reading. The Minister said that Bantu shall be here as long as their labour is required, and that includes the urban-born African. [Interjections.] Sir, we are all Africans. Some of us are White Africans, and some are Black Africans, but whenever I mention Africans here I mean Black Africans. [Interjections.]

I am also an African.

Yes, but it is a pity the same laws do not apply to the member that apply to the other Africans. Anyway, to get back to the clause, the Minister says that Africans are in this area only to provide labour. I want to point out that the Africans who are here are composed of millions of individuals. How does the Minister propose to apply this measure, which applies wholesale to everyone, and at the same time removes rights from each of those individuals? At which stage is a man considered to be unemployed, normally unemployed, normally idle, etc., in terms of this Bill? The definition is so wide. It says that any man who is refused permission by a municipal labour officer to take up employment in the prescribed area can be dealt with in terms of the Bill. A man comes along to the labour officer, who says: I refuse you permission, and by virtue of Section 8 urban-born Africans come into this as well. He is refused permission to seek work, and in terms of a later clause he is deemed to be idle or normally unemployed. So it is not only the people who are work-shy and undesirable that the hon. the Minister is after, or even those who create public violence or disturbance, because as I have pointed out the Minister has powers anyway to deal with them. But they are dealt with by virtue of the fact that a man is refused the right to seek work. [Time limit.]

As has been pointed out during this debate …

You are a “baster” communist.

On a point of order, can an hon. member over there call an hon. member over here a “baster” communist?

The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw the word “baster”.

No, the hon. member must withdraw it unconditionally.

I withdraw it.

As I was trying to say, and I am still trying to say, this clause is the key to the whole operation of this Bill, because it provides the most far-reaching powers for labour bureaux. The hon. members opposite, who have tried to make out a case that this clause goes no further than the existing position, are clearly misleading this House. It goes beyond the existing position in several important respects.

Firstly, it enables the labour bureaux and the officials who operate them to send out of the prescribed area all Bantu, including those who previously had rights in terms of Section 10. This brings me to another misleading contention made in this debate by hon. members opposite, and that is that this Bill is intended and does in fact only deal with Bantu who are idle, work-shy, undesirable or superfluous. That is not so, and hon. members know it. If the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) does not know that, perhaps he would look at page 13 of the Bill, sub-clause (6) (a), in terms of which a district or municipal labour officer is given power in addition to any other powers or functions which may be prescribed, to grant or refuse the permission required in terms of Section 10 (d). That is perfectly clear. It gives these people an unfettered discretion to deal with all Bantu. What follows under (b) does not fetter that discretion. It merely deals with the question of the cancellation of certain contracts of employment, but does not fetter the complete discretion given in (a) to grant or refuse permission generally. That is also made perfectly clear, from sub-sections (7), (8) and (9) of the same clause. In any event, I wish to make the point that the definitions of the words “idle” and “undesirable” and “superflous” have been made so wide, those words do not bear the meaning which one would normally give to them. And in any case, why does the Minister require power to deal with persons who indulge in subversive activities against the security of the State? The fact that he, as opposed to the Minister of Justice, requires those powers is nonsense. He has powers to remove anyone he likes at present. There is obviously another reason why the Deputy Minister and hon. members opposite have continually in this debate emphasized that this Bill deals only with those persons. When we come to the definitions of “idle” and “undesirable” Bantu, I shall give the reason which I suggest prompts the Government to ask for these powers. The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) suggested that no new powers are granted to labour bureaux in terms of this Bill.

Except in (5).

Once again, that is an illustration of the misleading statements made by hon. members opposite in regard to this Bill, and I can only think that either they are being made deliberately, or those hon. members do not know the Bill. And I hesitate to suggest that the hon. member for Standerton does not know the Bill, so perhaps the other reason may apply to him. The hon. member and other hon. members opposite know perfectly well that this Bill gives power to the labour bureaux and the officials who operate them to deal also with persons who are at present protected, i.e. the persons who have been born in the urban areas, who have been resident there for continuous periods of time, etc. So in that respect it gives powers beyond those which exist at present.

But in another respect it gives powers which do not exist at present, and that is that in terms of one of the clauses we will be dealing with, these persons are given powers to cancel contracts, not merely because the Bantu concerned acts against the security of the State. During the second reading debate it was suggested by Government speakers that the Bantu did not at present have any rights in the urban areas. They suggested that that applied even to those Bantu born in the urban areas and who have lived there for a long time, but that is not so. In terms of the amendment which they themselves introduced in 1952, the marginal note to that section reads: “Restriction of right of Natives to remain in certain areas.” So that clearly in 1952 the Government accepted that certain classes of Bantu had rights in the urban areas, and they conceded that fact. [Time limit.]

I should like to determine the contents of what we have been discussing here. As I see it, the first part of sub-section (8) of Section 21bis deals with the establishment of labour bureaux, which chiefly amounts to this, that the existing proclamation of 1959 is converted into legislation, and in 21ter the powers of the officials of the labour bureaux are dealt with; and that refers to Section 9 (h) which is the regulations clause and deals with the powers that may be conferred upon those officials; further, in Section 21ter the crux of the matter lies in the new grounds for the cancellation of contracts provided for there, and particularly the new grounds in (vi) and (vii) of sub-section (6); and then finally the crux of the matter is contained again in sub-sections (8) and (9) towards the end of the new Section 21bis affecting the position of the Bantu born and employed for a long period in the cities. In my opinion, this is the content of this clause, and I should like to make a few observations in connection with the rights of the Bantu born and employed for a long time in the cities who are affected by this proposed amendment of the law, and I should like to put the point of view of my party in regard to this matter.

The attitude of this party is that the Bantu born in the prescribed areas has a certain priority for employment in the prescribed areas, and for that reason this Bill provides that if their rights under a service contract are interfered with, there will be a right of appeal to the Chief Bantu Commissioner, which does not exist in respect of the other Bantu. The policy of this party is that they have no absolute right of residence or no absolute right of employment here, and that if these Bantu contravene the provisions of Section 21bis (6), we have the right to terminate their service contracts, with the result that it may subsequently lead to ejectment from the area. The point in issue in this debate is this: Is it right that, subject to a special appeal, there should be any circumstance at all in which the Bantu who is born in a prescribed area, or who has been employed there for ten or 15 years, should be denied the right of employment in that area? We say that the circumstances defined in sub-section (6) are such as to justify the termination of a contract. It is not really necessary to read them all again. What has not yet been said during this debate in so many words is that the hon. members reject this contention. As I understood the hon. member for South Coast, he advanced the general proposition that in respect of this section his party’s policy is that it should not be possible to terminate the right of a Bantu to remain in the prescribed area in which he was born.

I never said anything of the sort.

Then the hon. member-used language which he alone can interpret, and which he ought to interpret. The attack of the hon. member was also to the effect that in terms of this clause the sacred right of the Bantu who is born here may be affected, and he said that that was its evil object.

Will the hon. member allow me to explain what I said? I said that I objected to that man, protected under Section 10 (1) (a), (b) or (c), being treated in that manner, that is to say, that he can be dealt with in terms of the clause and evicted from that area merely because he was unemployed or, in the words of the Deputy Minister, because he was work-shy.

In this clause we are dealing with the few clearly defined grounds on which the Bantu born here may be removed, and that is the clause attacked as being the crux of the Bill. That is what the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) said. He attacks the policy of this party because of the contents of this clause. He concentrated upon this clause. The only construction we can place on that is that it is the United Party’s attitude—and that is the reason why they will vote against this clause—that for the reasons set forth here they are not prepared to permit the residential rights of the Bantu born here and of the Bantu who have been employed for ten to 15 years to be affected. In this connection I should like to submit that having regard to the fact that more and more Bantu are qualifying under the period of employment clause, that 60,000 Bantu are born in the urban areas per annum and share in this protection, then it would be irresponsible now to go along and reaffirm at this stage the protection that existed in the past and which applied to a few tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of Bantu, when it is quite apparent to us that in the future it is necessarily going to affect hundreds of thousands. I think that is a sufficient reason for the introduction of this amendment to the law, so that the service contracts of these persons may be terminated in certain limited circumstances—in my view too limited circumstances—so that the consequence may later be that they may lose their right of residence in the White areas. That is the substantial issue: Do you wish to entrench the right of the present tens and hundreds of thousands, and further entrench the rights of the unborn hundreds of thousands, as well as the employed Bantu, or do you concede the reasonableness that there are certain reasons such as e.g. the consideration of public security—to mention only the most elementary—for terminating those residential rights? That is the whole question we are faced with in this clause.

While I am on my feet and have a minute or two left, the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) said earlier in regard to sub-section (10) of 21ter (c)—if I may refer to it in this manner—that powers are now conferred upon the Minister to differentiate between areas and industries to the prejudice of certain other areas and industries. There are few definitions of and conferments of power that cannot be used unreasonably by a foolish Minister, but when all is said and done, every Minister must come and account for his actions here. But is it not obvious that in different prescribed areas different courses of action may be prescribed in respect of certain categories of employers employing Bantu or even in respect of certain industries. Let me mention a few examples of various categories of employers. One finds the one category of employer who uses completely unskilled, readily exchangeable labour, such as someone who operates a crusher or something of that nature in a prescribed area. Surely in respect of such a class of employer other directions may be given because it will not be necessary to make a deep analysis of the employability of the Bantu. Then there is another type of employer who wants more skilled labour in a manufacturing industry. They will have to get their labourers after certain tests have been conducted. Then there are employers who would prefer to have Bantu in their service who have their wives with them in the Bantu residential areas of the city; there are other employers who would prefer to have bachelor Bantu in their employ.

Women or men.

The hon. the Deputy Minister points out an obvious example of a differentiation between male and female workers. Sir, I am merely making the submission that on any reasonable construction of this sub-section, there are plenty of reasons to authorize the making of regulations to differentiate between areas and classes of employers. (Time limit.)

The hon. member for Kemp-ton Park has said something which entirely justifies the attitude of this side of the House. He has said in the clearest possible terms that he concedes that the powers granted in this clause can be abused. Sir, that is our very objection. Obviously they can be abused, and he says that officials do sometimes abuse powers. Sir, when powers are put in a statute and they have the very serious consequences of the powers contained in this clause, then we want those powers to be so circumscribed that there is very little possibility of any of those powers being abused.

Why don’t you move an amendment to make that impossible?

We say that that is the duty of the Minister. These powers are put in such wide terms that the hon. member has very fairly conceded that they can be abused. I am prepared to rest on that. It entirely justifies me and other hon. members on this side in taking up the attitude we have and in voting against this clause.

The difficulty that we on this side of the House have is that the hon. members opposite speak with two voices. Some members like the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) are prepared to put forward the Government’s policy in all its starkness and in a way which justifies the description which has been given by a leading Nationalist columnist who has described this policy as a revolutionary policy. It has been said that this Bantustan apartheid policy is a revolutionary policy.

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

Sir, I am making the point that they are speaking with two voices. Some hon. members on the other side, like the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman), take the line that this is “die herhaling van ’n sisteem wat vir 50 jaar bestaan het.” In other words he is trying to present this as a mere innocent continuation of the policy of influx control which this side of the House has been prepared to support. That is one of the difficulties that we have in dealing with the attitude adopted by hon. members opposite. It was shown more than adequately at the second reading that this goes very much further than influx control and is indeed the second leg of the Government’s main policy.

But speaking more directly on the clause under discussion, this particular clause is one which we attacked very strongly at the second reading. Indeed we singled it out for attack because we felt that it went very far to undermine the feeling of permanence …

Order! I have ruled that the hon. member cannot continue along those lines. The principle was adopted at the second reading.

Sir, I assure you that I am not going to touch upon the principle of labour bureaux or attack that principle at all. I should like to direct my attention particularly to sub-clause (6) (b) (vi) and (vii). We attacked this sub-clause particularly because it undermines the feeling of permanence of those living outside the Reserves. We did so because we felt, amongst other reasons, that it would have a most serious effect, with the passage of time, on relationships here, and indeed on the continued existence of this nation and this country as an orderly and prosperous and progressive country. For those reasons we opposed it extremely strongly. This sub-clause (6) (b) (vi), the original one, introduced a new and a very wide ground upon which Natives could be sent away from their places of work and residence. We say this because the original words were cast very widely. They spoke of cancelling contracts where it was in the public interest. The general approach on the Government side of the House to this question being what it is, one could presume that people might have their contracts cancelled simply because in terms of Government ideological policy it was desired to reduce the number of Bantu in the prescribed areas.

We are pleased that the complaints of this side of the House have been heeded in that regard, and the hon. the Deputy Minister has come forward with an amendment which does limit the classes of people who will fall under this sub-clause who might otherwise have had their contracts of service cancelled and who might have been despatched from the urban area.

Not on your complaints but because of your misrepresentations.

Sir, the words in this sub-clause as they stood originally were extremely wide and perfectly clear—“where it is not in the public interest.” Those words were found also in the 1963 Bill, and I have little doubt that the officers of the Deputy Minister’s Department knew full well what those words meant even if he himself did not. We are pleased that some amelioration has been introduced, but then one immediately comes up against the position which has already been mentioned, namely that under Section 29bis of the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1945, there already exist powers to remove Natives who are a threat to the maintenance of peace and order, and one should like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister what his answer is in that regard.

I have already explained the position to the House.

The answer which the Deputy Minister has given has not made the position any clearer. Sir, while the hon. the Deputy Minister has been kind enough to listen attentively I wonder if he would specifically answer the hon. member for Durban (North) who referred him to the words of the hon. the Minister of Community Development in regard to Communism and the effect of depriving people of their settled existence in advancing the cause of Communism. It is very strongly contended by this side that one is just stirring up trouble for the future by the measures contemplated in this Bill, and I sincerely hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will give us a clear answer on that point.

I do not intend to argue on this clause at great length but I do feel that it is germane to this discussion to give the hon. the Deputy Minister the benefit of certain facts which came to my notice yesterday and which help us in discussing this Clause. These are the facts as related to me: Builder A required 12 Bantu for his building. He was told that he had to submit an application and to deposit R27.50 for each Bantu. He duly submitted his application and duly sent his cheque some time in January this year. The Bantu whom he required for his work arrived about five weeks later at his place of work, and he then told the Bantu and the authorities that he did not need these Bantu any longer because they had come far too late. Builder B who was building just a few blocks away then said, “I need some Bantu; I will take them over,” but the authorities said, “Oh, no, these men must go back to the Transkei from whence they came; you must submit another application and again deposit R27.50 for each Bantu and we will then see that you get these people.” Sir, it seems to me that there is something wrong. Under this clause, as soon as these Bantu arrive from the Transkei and their services were no longer required by builder A they immediately became unemployed. They were not work-shy because they came here to work; they were not idle because they did not have time to be idle. They were immediately offered employment by another builder but apparently the authorities said, “No, you cannot have them.” Sir. I tell this story in order to show the abuse which can take place, because obviously this man would not have received a permit to import (if I may use that phrase) these 12 Bantu from the Transkei if there was sufficient labour available in the Cape area to meet his requirements. There must have been a scarcity of labour in Cape Town otherwise they would not have been brought here from the Transkei Sir, this is a serious matter to employers of labour.

Which clause is that?

Sir, I will help the hon. member. It is stated here in Section 21ter (6) (b) that a district or municipal labour officer may refuse to sanction the employment or the continued employment of any Bantu in the area of the labour bureau concerned and by notice in writing to the employer concerned cancel any contract of employment entered into with such Bantu. Apparently that power has been exercised already under some existing law, and I merely draw the attention of this Committee to these facts in order to show to what extent employers of labour can lose not only money but valuable time if the strict letter of the law is applied. I would like to hear from the Deputy Minister, if these facts are correct, whether in fact that does take place and whether a strict interpretation of the term “unemployed” will not lead to abuses to the detriment not only of the poor people who came from the Transkei to work here but also to the financial detriment of the employer. Sir, I may say that this employer did not even get his money back.

This clause only really makes sense if we accept the myth that the Bantu of South Africa are foreigners. It is only in that event that what this clause envisages makes any sense. We know, for instance, that in the United Kingdom if you are a foreigner you have to be hired through a labour bureau only; they can prescribe what type of work you have to do and, of course, they can deport you if they think you are idle or that you are doing something against the laws of the land. This clause, of course, goes much further and this Bill goes much further in dealing with the Bantu than any country ever seeks to do in dealing with foreigners. There is certainly no country, as far as I am aware, that precludes an alien who comes to work in that country from bringing his wife into the country if he can find housing for her and if he can support her, and certainly no civilized country as far as I know precludes a man, if he earns sufficient money and if he can pay for it, from buying property and from becoming a property owner in that country.

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

Sir, I am confining myself to the clause. As I say, what is the position of the Bantu? They are in fact not aliens in South Africa.

They were born here.

They were born here; some of them have lived here for 10 or 15 years or longer. Sir, scientific surveys done by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research have shown that the great bulk of the industrial workers are not migratory workers who have homes in foreign lands or in Bantu homelands. Those surveys show that a large percentage of them have broken all their family and tribal ties in the reserves. Hon. members on the other side who are farmers know that the same applies to their farm labour. They know that large numbers of their farm labourers have no connection with the reserves.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the clause. He can discuss labour bureaux and the powers and functions of labour bureaux.

Sir, this clause does deal with human beings and the labour bureaux deal with human beings. I am trying to show how unreal this legislation is.

Order! The principle of labour bureaux was adopted at the second reading and I am not going to allow the hon. member to discuss the principle.

Sir, the idea seems to have arisen that we on this side are against labour bureaux. Hon. members on the other side have said that repeatedly. We have never attacked the principle of labour bureaux. What we are attacking is what the labour bureaux established under this clause are going to do. What we are attacking is the powers which are being given to these labour bureaux and the repercussions that that will have on the country and on the economy of the country, because these labour bureaux will really be making aliens of people who are not aliens but South African citizens. In terms of this clause, however, they will be treated as aliens. What is the consequence if you treat the vast masses of your workers in the country as aliens when they are not aliens? Sir, can you expect any loyalty towards the State from them in the long run if you deny them all the rights …

Order! I cannot allow the hon. member to continue along those lines.

In terms of this clause certain categories of Natives who have had the right to remain in the urban areas can now be removed at will. What will the effect be on those people?

Not at will.

Well, at the Minister’s discretion or the discretion of certain officials.

Read the clause.

Hon. members on the other side want to pretend that with this Bill they are taking the existing legislation no further. Why pass this Bill at all then? Sir, hon. members on the other side always tell us that they are “kragdadig”, that they never change their minds and that they know exactly what they want. Surely we are entitled to look at the provisions of this clause as contained in last year’s Bill to see what their intentions are.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to this clause. I cannot allow him to attack the principle any longer. I have allowed a wide discussion, but I cannot allow the hon. member to continue along these lines.

On a point of order, is the hon. member not entitled to discuss the powers of these bureaux, which are referred to in the clause which says that any officer who manages a labour bureau shall perform such functions and exercise such powers as may be prescribed.

Order!

Sir, may I finish my submission to you? Is he not entitled to discuss the powers which are prescribed in this Bill?

The hon. member may discuss the powers, but he must not attack the principle which has already been adopted.

Sir, hon. members on the other side may think that I am wrong in my Opinion but am I out of order if I say that if the powers taken under this clause are exercised, South Africans can be turned into aliens?

Order!

But leaving that aside, what does this clause do to the industrial labour of the country? This clause removes the security that industrial labour has had up to the present moment to a very large extent. As I have said before, hon. members opposite are now trying to hide the intention underlying this clause as much as possible. They are now running away from what they openly proclaimed last year. What did they say last year? They said last year that the purpose of this clause was—

1. (i) The power to cancel contracts of service with Bantu if he is satisfied—
   1. (a)“That the employment is of a class (which may include employment in an industrial township or on land used for industrial purposes or any portion thereof) or that the work is to be performed in an area which the Minister is hereby authorized to determine by notice in the Gazette, as a class of employment or an area in which no Bantu or no further Bantu may enter into a contract of service or be in employment;”
   2. (b) “That such employment is or will be in excess of a maximum number which the Minister is hereby authorized to determine by notice in the Gazette of Bantu that may be employed in an area or in any particular class of employment (which may include employment in an industrial township or on land used for industrial purposes or any portion thereof, or on any stand or sub-division thereof situated in such township) or that such employment is or will be in excess of a proportion likewise determined by the Minister which Bantu labour in such area or class of employment has or will have to any other labour in such area.”

I say that in terms of this clause, read with proclamations that can be issued, that same purpose can be achieved, or does the Deputy Minister deny that? Does he deny that in terms of this clause, read together with proclamations that can be issued, he can do exactly the same thing?

You were quoting the wrong clause.

Does the Minister admit then that they have retracted from the attitude which they have adopted last year? Have they changed their whole policy as far as the Native work seeker is concerned?

On a point of order, is the hon. member in order in discussing in the Committee Stage a principle which was contained in legislation which is not at present under Consideration?

I had some difficulty in following the hon. member.

The Minister has said that we must be honest and frank in this debate. Has he now abandoned the policy which he adopted last year when he came to this House with a different Bill?

Order! The hon. member must discuss the clause which is now before the Committee.

I merely wish to point out the new aspects of this Bill. The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) referred to the general policy of the Act, and I should have liked to reply to that, but I am not permitted to reply to it. He reproached this side of the House for pretending that only existing legislation with slight amendments has been introduced here, whereas in fact there are far-reaching amendments. The only things that are new in these amendments—and I challenge any hon. member opposite to contradict me—are in the first place the two new grounds that are added for the cancellation of the service contracts of all Bantu …

On a point of order, Sir, are hon. members on that side of the House entitled to make so much noise that one cannot hear what is being said?

Order! Hon. members must not talk so loudly.

Two new grounds have been inserted for the cancellation of all service contracts, and they are the existence of a removal order and the discretionary decision of the manager of a labour bureau that it is desirable in the public interest to cancel the service contract. That is the first new thing that is introduced. Then there is, secondly, an appeal that did not exist before. In the third place, in sub-clauses (8) and (9) of 21 ter, a new principle is introduced where it is provided that all the grounds for the termination of service contracts—the four old ones and the two new ones, the whole six of them—are applicable to the Bantu born here and the Bantu who has been in employment for a long period. To my sincere regret, Mr. Chairman, I made a mistake just now when I said that sub-clause (10) (c) contains a new principle. In fact that is a principle which is already contained in Section 23 (1) of Act No. 25 of 1945. It is not a new principle. So the only really brand new principles contained in this Bill are the few I have just mentioned. That then again brings me to the conclusion that could have been put more properly on another occasion, namely that the Opposition are not opposed to this clause because of its provisions, but it is purely and simply an expression of a general disposition with which this opposition is imbued.

During his last speech, when the hon. the Deputy Minister replied to several speakers on this side of the House, he referred to my reference to the report of the Snyman Commission, as it is known. He went out of his way—on two occasions—to say to the Committee that whereas I purported to be quoting the Judge, the Commissioner, I was, in fact (he said) quoting the evidence given before the commission. He said that, and he now nods his head in assent. At the time—I think the hon. the Deputy Minister was looking at me—I held up this Press cutting, which certainly summarized, but which quoted in full, some of the ipsissima verba of the Commissioner. Then he said to me: “You have not even read the report; you have not even got the report, which proves what I say, that you are quoting evidence.” Therefore, Sir, I have sent for my marked copy of the Snyman Commission’s Report …

Order! Will the hon. member please discuss the clause.

I was discussing this clause when the hon. the Deputy Minister deliberately accused me of misleading the Committee by quoting the evidence given before that Commission, and by saying that those were statements made by the Commissioner. Am I not allowed to say to the Deputy Minister, that here it is on page 13, No. 160: “—They (the Bantu) are unadapted and unaccustomed to town life with its population concentrations and consequent need for control”? No. 161: “They resent the control of their movements under the Influx Control Regulations”? These are the words of the Judge. No. 162: “What the Bantu people needed in this to them strange urban setting was a sympathetic and patient administration—” I only made four quotations, Sir. Here is No. 167 on page 14 of the Commission’s Report, not my report or the Press report of the Commission’s Report: “The restrictions on the movement of the Bantu and the interference with his mode of living, however much they may be intended for his benefit, are not understood by the bulk of the Bantu people who are still under-developed and primitive.” Now, Sir, I would be very happy to sit down if the hon. the Deputy Minister will be man enough to apologize to me …

What do the words “which must necessarily” mean?

In which paragraph? I have read exactly what is printed here. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister again repeat his allegation that I am misquoting the Commissioner? Mr. Chairman, with great respect, he did this to me last year, and I went to see him in his office, as he will remember. Now, for the third time, this hon. Deputy Minister is going to be unlucky about this tactic. I should like to ask him again whether he will withdraw what he said—that I was misleading the House; that I was quoting evidence given before the Commission, and not the Commissioner? [Interjections.] I asked the hon. the Deputy Minister a question, Sir.

As I have said before, I have nothing to withdraw.

Right, Sir. Then I want to say this—that this is a level of political dishonesty to which even this Deputy Minister should not sink …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

Sir, I am very sorry; I cannot withdraw them. Am I not allowed to say …

Order! Then the hon. member must withdraw from the House for the remainder of the day’s sitting.

Yes, Sir.

Whereupon Mr. Gorshel withdrew. [Interjections.]

Good riddance!

I just want to ask. Sir, if I may whether ordinary courtesy could be observed by hon. members opposite when you order an hon. member, fair enough, to leave, the Chamber? Why have all those remarks of an objectionable character been made by hon. members opposite? They should observe ordinary decency.

Sir, we have heard the hon. member for Heilbron call this an “arbeidsreëling”. We have heard the hon. the Deputy Minister say that this clause only has to do with the refusal to allow an idle Native to remain in a certain area. But in the same breath in which the Deputy Minister described this clause as an instrument to arrange the working conditions, he put a hypothetical case to this side of the House. He asked us what other conditions we had in mind under which Black people could remain in the White areas, conditions other than those described in this clause. But he was taking away the attention of this House from the content of this clause, and he was forgetting his own second-reading speech in which he said various things. The contention on this side of the House has been that the content of this clause was making a ruthless proletariat of the people that are living in our cities …

Order! The hon. member must confine herself to the clause.

This will also apply to the farms now. I am going to quote what the hon. Deputy Minister said. He called a sentence that has been published in a newspaper “’n volslae onwaarheid en die grootste leuen van die jaar”, and he said that it was not true that it would remove the last remaining right to residential security enjoyed by South Africa’s vast population of urban Africans, and he said that this was totally untrue. Well we had the hon. member for Heilbron this afternoon who calls this particular clause “’n arbeidsreëling”. He said in his speech—

Mr. Chairman, the principle of labour bureaux has been accepted at the second reading, but if the powers under this clause are going to give effect to what the hon. member for Heilbron says, then surely we have every reason to analyse these powers and to see what they really mean. And, Mr. Chairman, I find that on page 15 it says—

If he is satisfied of certain things, and then we come to the amended phrase, which the hon. Minister has amended to say that it is not in the interest of public safety. Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) put another hypothetical question. He said that this side of the House wants to keep the people who were born in the urban areas or on the farms (for this now also includes labour tenants over which the labour bureaux will have authority), in the urban areas, and he asked whether the United Party wants to extend that to people now being born in the urban areas. He said that at the present moment this applies to people who have been here for ten years, or people who were born here, and then he said that there were going to be 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 of these people. Of course he was quite wrong in his figures. There are hundreds of thousands of these people. But then he said that within ten to 15 years this number would increase and he asks in all simplicity whether it is the intention of the United Party that these people should have the right to remain in these particular areas? Is not that letting the cat out of the bag? Is not that indicating to us really that this clause has more to it than the interpretation which the hon. Deputy Minister has given to it? Does it not indicate to us that this clause means to deal with a certain class of Native? And what is “in the public interest” or what is “the public safety”? This hon. Deputy Minister can decide that it is not in the interest of public safety …

You are making yourself ridiculous now.

It may not in the opinion of the Minister be in the interest of public safety to have 200,000 people at Langa, and he can send them out. Under this particular clause he can forbid them to seek work, he can declare them idle, he can use devious means to declare them idle, and he can then say that it is not in the interest of the safety of the public for these people to remain there and he can have them removed. And this is left in the hands of one person, it is left in the hands of a district labour officer, and if he is satisfied, then he can do this and that and the other thing. Other speakers have said that this takes away the powers from the municipalities and that the labour bureaux now come in the place of the powers of the municipalities over the Bantu. The hon. Minister said that this was not correct, but I find in (c) on page 15 it says—

If that is not taking away the powers of the municipalities I would like to know what is. And that is not the only one. On page 13, it says in line 35—

There you find that the powers are becoming wider and there is again reference to the municipal authorities. It says that whenever a notice is published in the Gazette declaring that an area shall be deemed to be a prescribed area, the local labour bureau in such an area shall cease to exist and the powers and functions exercised by it before, shall be exercised by the district labour bureau. Then the Minister and the hon. member for Heilbron tell us that the powers of the municipalities are not touched. But, as I said, I am afraid that the hon. member for Kempton Park let the cat out of the bag. This is not an innocent clause establishing only labour bureaux. This is a weapon in the hands of the Government to endorse anybody out whom they do not want to have in a certain area, under one pretext or another. [Time limit.]

Section 21ter reads that any officer who manages a labour bureau shall perform such functions and exercise such powers as may be prescribed. To get an idea of the type of power that can be prescribed, one has to look at Clause 9, which says that the type of powers which can be prescribed deal with the classes of Bantu which can be dealt with by such bureau, the classes of employers to whom any such Bantu may be made available by such labour bureau, and the manner in which and the conditions under which such Bantu are placed in employment. Reading the two together, it is quite clear that this Bill is not as inoffensive as the Minister pretends. He has not really run away but has only pretended to run away from the attitude he adopted last year when he inserted these powers specifically in 21ter, and took power to prescribe to industries what labour they should have—in other words, to treat labour as an interchangeable unit. If you treat your industrial labour in particular not as permanent labour but as temporary labour which can be removed at will through the machinery of the labour bureaux, what will happen to efficiency in industry? The only other State that took these powers was Russia in Stalin’s time, and even there they found that it led to inefficiency and they relaxed those powers. Everyone agrees that we have a great industrial future, and the bulk of our labour is Black labour, but if you treat that labour as temporary and interchangeable, like pawns you can push around on a chess board, how are we going to get the efficiency we require if we are to be competitive in the world markets? I say again that this treatment of labour will not lead to good industrial labour relations, as hon. members opposite wish to make out. It will not lead to a stable society. If you treat the bulk of the labour force for all time as non-citizens, in fact as aliens who have no rights at all, how can you expect them to do good work?

Order! That point has been made repeatedly.

Hon. members opposite will discover through hard experience what the communists in Russia have discovered, that you cannot treat labour like this and get efficiency and rapidly improving standards of living. Sooner or later they will have to relax these rules, and then it may be too late. Unless you treat your labour like human beings and not as pawns you can push around, you will not have efficient labour. The Minister says we must not look at the law; we must look at him; he will never do this type of thing. But he is taking these powers and he is asking us to judge this clause not on its wording but on his own intentions. But there are so many explanations as to what is intended that I am afraid no legal draftsman can put it into words.

Hon. members on the other side make one great mistake in respect of this clause. They look at this matter panoramically. They take a panoramic look at this clause and its effect and they imagine that the powers which are being given to the officials in the labour bureaux are going to be abused. That explains these wild flights of the imagination. But I want to point out that the agents constituting the staff of these labour bureaux will be bound by certain norms in the exercise of their duties, and I want to mention a few of those norms. In the first place they will be bound to recognize the fact that these labour bureaux fit into a definite pattern which exists in our society. They will not be able to exceed those powers. In exercising their duties they will be limited to these particular functions. This Bill entrusts certain functions and gives certain powers to the labour bureaux, and the powers which the agents of the labour bureaux will have will derive solely from that source. The clause provides what their functions are going to be and under which circumstances they will perform their functions. But the second point is that the officials in these labour bureaux will only be able to act when one thing happens—and that one thing is not when a Bantu claims certain rights; there is no such thing as “the rights of a Bantu” in the White area. The only rights he has are those which he acquires by performing certain duties. Those duties which he performs give him the right of sojourn here. The officials in these labour bureaux, in considering whether they are going to allow a Bantu to remain here, will have to give priority to the consideration as to whether that Bantu has carried out his duties as a worker, and not whether he has a supposed right which has been invented for him by members of the United Party. Mr. Speaker, the whole argument of hon. members on the other side is based on false premises. They invent laws which in fact do not exist and they base their whole argument on the assumption that the officials who are going to staff these labour bureaux are going to commit offences by taking away certain rights from the Bantu. My attitude is that the rights which the Bantu will have in the White area will be tied up inextricably with the performance of duties which they come here to fulfil. The Bantu labourer comes here to sell his labour, and that is the first consideration which will weigh with these officials. But there is a third principle which these agents in the labour bureaux will be bound to observe; they will have to accept the principle that in a regulated community certain freedoms necessarily have to be limited in order to be able to enjoy freedom. And when these agents in the labour bureaux proceed to apply certain restrictive regulations, they will always have to do so with the realization that a limitation of freedom of movement, of freedom of residence, is essential in order to fit into the pattern of the society of which that labourer and that labour bureau form part, that is to say, an orderly society in which one cannot allow unlimited freedom but in which one is obliged to limit certain freedoms in order to ensure that freedom which Opposition members so ardently desire and so ardently advocate. For these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I say that it will be virtually impossible for these labour bureaux, in carrying out their duties and in putting certain regulations into effect, to degenerate into the sort of bodies which the Opposition would like us to believe they will degenerate. I say that the Opposition’s objection to this clause and to these labour bureaux is based on false premises and on the fabrication of rights which in fact do not exist at all.

Order! I must now ask hon. members not to repeat arguments already advanced

I shall obey your ruling, Sir. It is all very well for the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) to talk about the duties which are prescribed for the persons in charge of the bureaux. He says that they are subject to certain norms and certain prescribed patterns. But, Sir, that is one of the difficulties. We do not know what those patterns are. They are not prescribed in this clause. In terms of the Bill they are to be prescribed by regulation, and the Deputy Minister has not made any effort at all to indicate to us what sort of regulations are going to be made, so we do not know where we stand. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that the powers which he was taking, to be used by the bureaux and which are going to be prescribed in relation to the restriction of employment of Bantu by certain particular industries in certain particular areas, related to the mines. Sir, if they relate to mines, why did the hon. the Deputy Minister not say so in the Bill?

I replied to that this afternoon.

Yes, I know that the Deputy Minister replied this afternoon but he replied very unsatisfactorily. The hon. the Deputy Minister cannot just say “I intend to deal with mines” and then take power to deal with every other commercial undertaking This is not the way that one passes legislation, not while we are here at any rate.

The mines already enjoy similar facilities under the regulations.

Since when is it a facility for a commercial undertaking to be told by the bureau on the instruction of the director, on the instruction of the Minister, that it is not allowed to have any Bantu labour at all? Good heavens, Sir, unless words have changed their meaning, this is not a facility that they are granted. This is a power which is being taken to close down an industry, if necessary. If the Deputy Minister does not understand that, then let me explain it to him. If you do not have Bantu labour you cannot undertake any industrial enterprise.

When business was suspended for the dinner adjournment, I was asking the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he would indicate what sort of businesses he had in mind that should be dealt with by these labour bureaux and whether he would give us an indication as to why these labour bureaux were in fact to stop some businesses in some areas from having labour and other businesses …

Order! That point has been put several times.

I only put it again, Sir, because the hon. the Deputy Minister has not replied to it.

The hon. member for Ventersdorp said that another object of this Bill was to make it clear that the Bantu had no rights in the White areas. He said they had no rights anyway and that the object of this Bill was only to confirm that and so there was nothing new in it. As I understand the law relating to the rights of any citizen of South Africa, he has rights to be where he wants to be and to do what he wants to do until the law prohibits him from being there and doing that. He has a right until the law takes it away from him. He can live anywhere he likes until the law says he cannot. He can do anything he likes until the law says he cannot. The hon. member says the Bantu in the so-called White areas have no rights at all. From where does this thought stem?

Duties.

Here we have it, Sir. The hon. member says they only have duties to perform.

That is not the correct interpretation.

Well, what did you say?

You read what I said.

The hon. member has just interjected “they only have duties”. Did the hon. member not say that? He says they only have duties. Sir, what does he think these people are? Does he think they are animals of burden?

What I meant was that no rights exist without duties.

No right exists without a duty. Then I want to ask the hon. member what the Bantu’s corresponding right is if he says they have no right without a duty? Where is their corresponding right if it is a duty they have in the White area? And where do they exercise their corresponding right?

The hon. member for Kempton Park said there were only three new matters in this clause. I want to remind the hon. member and the hon. Deputy Minister that the new sections proposed by this clause are 21bis and 21ter, which, hon. members will appreciate, are the terms used when additions are made to a clause. No sections are being amended; these are completely new sections being added to the existing Act.

Order! That has been pointed out before.

One of the things the hon. member for Kempton Park said was new, was a right of appeal. He said that was new and that it was good. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister in all sincerity: What is this right of appeal? All that it is, is that it is provided in the Bill that before a person who falls under Section 10 (1) (a), (b) and (c)—that is the permanent urban African—is removed from this area the decision cannot be implemented until and unless the Chief Bantu Commissioner has approved.

You do not trust him?

It is not that I do not trust him, Sir, but I say he is an official of the hon. Minister’s Department; he is not an official of the Department of Justice. He is an official of the Department of Native Affairs. Is that an appeal? An appeal to an official of the same Department which makes the initial arbitrary decision? In any event, I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister how he would describe that official’s functions? I would say that they were mostly administrative; more than 50 per cent administrative. He is not an independent judicial officer in the sense that he is a Judge, for example. In any event, this is not an appeal. I want to remind the hon. the Deputy Minister, before he talks about concessions in this regard, that there was a provision in the Bill he introduced last year that before Bantu were removed from an urban area (persons who fell under Section 10 (1) (a), (b) and (c) of the Urban Areas Act), they first had to be offered other employment.

If they were on the list.

Yes, Sir, I agree; if they were on the list. But that is not provided for here. It is just provided here that another official of the hon. the Minister’s Department has to approve. How can the hon. the Deputy Minister in all fairness call this an appeal to a judicial officer against the decision to remove these people?

I appreciate the difference that the hon. the Deputy Minister drew about there now being no list in this Bill and that this business of being the last to be removed has fallen away, because people cannot be the last on a list that does not exist. I appreciate that difference. But the clause as it stands still gives the right to a Bantu Commissioner, or a labour officer, to refuse the right to take up employment to anybody including those Africans born in the urban areas. I think the hon. Minister must admit that. That is an additional power which is given. This does not in fact obtain under the existing law. This is a new law which comes in under sub-section (8) of this clause. I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that, according to my information, his officials are jumping the gun; they are already endorsing out of the area people who formerly would have qualified because the labour bureaux officials are refusing permission to these people who would have qualified to take up employment. Two cases have been brought to my notice. The one case is that of a man who had spent ten years with the S.A.R. and thinking that he had qualified in terms of the existing law, he left the area and went to visit his so-called homeland. He returned to take up a new job but was not allowed to do so. He was endorsed out.

Correct.

Not correct at all. It is not correct in terms of the old law and if the Minister’s interpretation of this Bill is correct, not correct in terms of the new law, which is precisely why I say this new law is going to be used in the way we have put forward. It is going to be used to remove the existing rights of people. [Interjections.] If the hon. Minister doubts my word I shall give him chapter and verse tomorrow.

Who gave you that information?

I am not talking to that hon. member, Sir. He would not know what to do with the information, if I did give it to him anyway. I am talking to the hon. the Deputy Minister. The other case is that of a man who had been, not in one job for ten years, but who qualified under the other subsection of Section 10 (1), namely, that he had been continuously in the urban area for 15 years—in different jobs. He applied for a new job, but before he took it up he went out of the area on a visit and when he returned he was not allowed to take up a new job. He was declared redundant. Presumably there must have been some sort of a labour pool and he was refused permission to take up a job. So it is clear that the officials are interpreting the law in this way that people who did qualify will now no longer be allowed to remain and will be endorsed out. They will add enormously to this pool of labour, to which I, in any case, object to.

I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister, as is often the case, when officials know that any Bill which is brought forward is going to be passed—although certain amendments are accepted the principle is never voted against by hon. members on that side, many of whom do not know what they are voting for in any case; they do what they are told—they act according to it before it has been passed. The point is that already this law is being used in the way one feared it would be used. I want the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell me whether or not it is correct to say that in terms of Clause 8 (8) of this Bill any labour bureau official can refuse the right to any Bantu to take up employment? That is my major question to the hon. the Minister.

I wish to move the amendment standing in my name—

Paragraph (h) of this clause substitutes a new paragraph (o) in the original Act. It deals with the power to make regulations. It is under this new section that the hon. the Minister is giving powers to his officials to do piecemeal what he proposes to do in a wholesale fashion in the Bill that he was originally going to introduce in this House. Under the new regulations all sorts of conditions can apply to Africans coming into the urban areas or seeking to remain in the urban areas before they are allowed to take up work. Most of this amendment relates in fact to these regulations which are being issued to officials and I therefore want them deleted. There is also contained in this particular clause the right to make regulations governing the entry of women into the urban areas. You will remember, Sir, that many onerous restrictions were going to be laid on women in the previous Bill—on the women who wanted to come into the urban areas. That, we were told when the Minister introduced the Bill, has gone, and that is correct. But unfortunately here tucked away in this new Section (o), are the documents to be produced by female African women wishing to take up employment. All the old onerous restrictions can, therefore, be introduced by way of regulation instead of by way of a specific clause amending the original Act. I want to say in all fairness to the hon. the Deputy Minister that there is one improvement in this new Bill and that is that he has removed a clause which he intended to put in the original Bill and which took away the right of an African to return to the same job if he had left an urban area, provided that he came back within a year. At least, by some saving grace, the hon. the Minister has left them that right although he now adds, of course, that the Bantu Affairs Commissioner may object to the man returning. But it retains some vestige of a statutory right of an African who leaves an area to return, provided he does so within a year. But having given with one hand the hon. the Deputy Minister grabs away with the other hand. Although he allows an African to return to the same job unless the Bantu Affairs Commissioner objects, and provided he comes back within a year, he has now taken away, by virtue of the fact that Section 23 of the principal Act is deleted, the right which African women had as a statutory right, to visit their husbands in urban areas, provided those men have been in those areas in employment for at least two years and provided there was suitable accommodation.

The object of one of my amendments is to put back a statutory right which I say African women are now being deprived of in terms of a proviso which is to be inserted by paragraph (h)—

I want that proviso and that is one of the reasons for my amendment.

It may seem strange—perhaps I ought to explain this part of the amendment which I have moved in toto—why I am moving the deletion of paragraphs (s) and (t) which set up aid centres. I do not think the reason is difficult to find. I do not accept these aid centres as being the benevolent places the hon. the Deputy Minister tells us they are going to be. I do not like the powers that are going to be given to the officials in charge of these places; I do not like the wide category of persons who are going to be sent to these places; I do not like anything about it except, perhaps, its name, sand, as I have said, this is certainly a case where a rose by any other name smells just as sweet.

We agree to differ.

Yes, we agree to differ, as the hon. the Deputy Minister rightly says. Because these aid centres have these wide powers and because people can be deployed from them into any sort of occupation that the labour bureau officer in charge wishes and because these aid centres are in some way actually usurping the functions of a court of law, I am moving the deletion of paragraph (s).

Paragraph (t) deals with youth centres and I am moving that this be deleted as well. The hon. the Deputy Minister will not be surprised to hear that we have to agree to differ here as well. Because I do not believe that youths should fall under this sort of legislation. We have a Children’s Act which can deal with children; we have a Bantu Education Act which can also help in placing these youths in useful occupations or at least in school if they are unemployed youths in terms of the definition here. Since I am against compulsory detention, which is provided for in this clause, of Bantu youths because I believe that youths should be catered for in the urban areas, if they are unemployed, by the ordinary legislation which caters for unemployment in other races. I move the deletion of the section which applies to youth centres. Compulsory detention of Bantu at such centres does not smack to me of a benevolent measure at all. As I have said before, I do not like the whole tone or power of the prisoner’s friend as he is called in the explanatory memorandum and therefore I have moved the deletion of these sub-sections.

I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister may perhaps be persuaded to relent in respect of the African women and their statutory right to come into the urban areas for a short period only. Sir, they are not allowed in for long periods. But it is a right which they hold very dear indeed.

That is an existing right.

That existing right disappears later in the Bill. This clause lays down the regulations governing the entry of Bantu women. That is the point I am trying to make. The section which gave a statutory right, which these regulations could not take away, has now been removed.

Which section is that?

It is Section 23 (d). That is why I have to bring it in here. Because it is under these regulations that the Minister can re-insert this statutory right; that the regulations may do anything except prohibit, for instance, the entry of Bantu women into a urban area. I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that this is known among the Bantu people as a conception right. In fact, it is the only way in which the African woman, who wants to start a family, can visit her husband. It is actually recognized by Bantu Commissioners as having that particular reason. It is a normal right of women to have children. If they wish to have families, and their husbands are away from them, they are allowed to come in and stay with their husbands. That was recognized in our law as a statutory right of the African woman.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, I wish the hon. member would do his homework; he keeps interrupting. There are 103 members on that side. One would have thought there were enough of them to brief themselves on this Bill.

You are wrong.

No, I am not wrong. If I am wrong I presume the hon. the Deputy Minister will get up and tell me so. [Interjections.] No, I am not always right, but I would like people who are well briefed on this Bill to tell me where I am wrong and not simply idle members of Parliament and very often undesirable members of Parliament …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw, Sir. Must I withdraw “idle” too, Sir? I withdraw the word “undesirable”. If I am wrong I would like the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell me so. This amendment has been allowed so I presume that it is restoring a right which a latter section takes away. It is under these regulations that Bantu women may be allowed in. I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister not to take away this particular statutory right which, until now, the Bantu women have had and valued very highly indeed.

Mr. Chairman, when one examines the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) one finds in the first place that it is a shocking amendment. She represents herself as the mouthpiece of the Bantu. She wants to try to put the Bantu on the same footing as the White man. That is perfectly clear from this amendment of hers. Sir, if you look at the proviso you will find that it reads as follows—

She wants the wife or the dependants of the Bantu to be allowed to enter the urban areas. She wants the Bantu to be able to have his wife, his children, his uncle, his aunt, his grandfather, his grandmother etc. with him. With this proviso she wants to give the Bantu the opportunity to circumvent the law whereas we want to limit the entry of Bantu by applying influx control. The hon. member is doing something here in an underhand way. She says in her amendment “ … to enter and reside with such Bantu … ” Just imagine, Mr. Chairman! When one analyses this, one finds that what she wants is that a Bantu woman living in a White area should be allowed to bring in all these people to come and live with her. She may be living with private people. She may be living in one of the Bantu areas. But she can bring in all these people. How are you going to prevent it? You will not be able to forbid anybody to enter the urban area because according to this amendment they can all enter. And what will the result be? Every Bantu on the Rand, every Bantu in Langa and Nyanga will bring the whole of his family into the urban area. We know what the Bantu is like; he will bring in his wife, the sister of his wife, his uncle, his aunt—the whole lot. What will the position be in Houghton where residents have three to four Bantu servants? One Bantu is employed in the house, another in the garden and two as chauffeurs. They will all bring in their entire family, and what will happen then? They will then start living in with the Whites, and that is precisely what the National Party wants to try to obviate. Sir, it does not matter what the hon. member’s aims are in moving this amendment. The sting of it lies in this proviso. When we analyse it carefully we find that that is where the sting lies; that is what she really aims to do. She wants all those people to come and live here. I want to ask the hon. member whether I am right or wrong in arguing this way.

You are entirely wrong.

Why is the hon. member moving this amendment then? Surely that is the intention underlying the amendment. Surely she cannot tell me that I am wrong when I say that she wants to bring all these people into the urban area.

She wants South Africa to be black.

Precisely; that is what the hon. member wants. After all, the Progressive Party does not care. For all they care we can become black, and they want us to allow all those who want to enter the urban area to do so. There must be no limitation at all; they must be allowed to come in their thousands as long as they are wives or dependants, brothers, grandfathers, grandmothers or sisters. They must be allowed to live wherever they like and come in without hindrance. It does not matter whether they are squatters or whether they live on the premises of Whites or whether they live in a location; they can all enter, and these provisions give them the right to do so. I should like the hon. member to explain to us that that is not correct.

I am sure that if someone came from some other country and suddenly found himself in this House, and he listened to the hon. member who has just sat down, I believe that he would gain the impression that we are a race apart from the human race—the way the hon. member talks about the Bantu and their wives and their normal family relationships, as if they had some controlled family relationships, as if they were people in respect of whom he was about to ask, as I almost expected him to, whether the hon. Minister would not provide state brothels for these people.

On a point of order, is an hon. member here entitled to refer to an hon. member as the vanguard of the communists?

I said, Mr. Chairman, that he acted as a vanguard in league with the communists.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw that, Mr. Chairman.

This clause goes much further than even the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) has indicated, because this is the clause that gives the State President, that is to say the Minister, the right to make regulations to put this Bill into effect. He can make regulations, Sir, in relation to Bantu women and their entry into urban areas, into prescribed areas, he can make regulations in regard to the aid centres and he can make regulations in regard to a host of matters, all covered by the new principles contained in this Bill. This is one of the complaints which we have against it and which we voiced when we discussed the last clause that we do not know what is going to be done. It is bad enough having a Bill like this, one clause inter-connected with the other, with a mass of other legislation which one has to look at as well, but when on top of that the important aspects of the administration of this Bill are all to be done by regulation, then we are left even more in the dark than we were before.

Is your objection to the regulations?

There you have the hon. member for Standerton asking whether I am against the regulations. Let me say that I am suspicious of the regulations that are going to be made, and let me say that I do not have my suspicions without any just cause. Let me ask the hon. member for Standerton to look at that part of this clause which provides that the State President may provide now which documents Bantu women must have when they come into an urban area.

What is wrong with it?

I will tell you what is wrong with it. In the 1963 Bill it was provided in the body of the Bill itself for everyone to see that certain documents were to be carried by Bantu women. You know what they have done, Sir? They have left out the words “the form of” before the words “the documents to be produced by a female Bantu wishing to take up employment”. No one would notice that unless he looks through this Bill very closely, unless he was a lawyer and took that up. Does the hon. member wonder why we are suspicious of the sort of regulations that are going to be made under this? We do not even know yet at this stage what the root purpose of this particular Bill is.

You will never know.

We have come a long way since we had the rather spurious introduction of this Bill by the hon. Deputy Minister.

Why do you say that?

Because the hon. Deputy Minister when he introduced the Bill read a speech that must have been prepared for him as a reply to the debate, because he did nothing but defend all sorts of things which had not even been raised. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) made the speech the hon. Minister should have made. The hon. Minister is taking powers here too to make regulations in relation to the classes of Bantu, the aid centres and the manner and circumstances under which they will be run. That will be dealt with in detail. But that is one of the host of matters to be dealt with by regulation. He is also by regulation going to establish youth centres. That is also going to be dealt with and I am not going to deal with that myself at this stage. But all these matters should be in the body of the Bill. Surely we are entitled to know what sort of aid centres and what sort of youth centres there are going to be. Surely this House is entitled to know what they are going to be and entitled to debate it. Let me ask the hon. the Minister a question. He is always accusing us of misconstruing what he means. Sir, he is using the English language in the version that I have before me on page 17 to provide in sub-section (c) that regulations can be made for the treatment and disposal or return to their homes … of Bantu … and the placing in employment and the detention of such Bantu in such areas.

So what?

Does it not worry the hon. member that they may be detained?

The regulations that will be framed will be tabled in this House and I will be able to see them.

The hon. member would not know they were being tabled, and if he did know, he would not be worried. The hon. member is not worried as to the chaining of human beings like beasts of burden. He is hardly likely to be worried as to whether they are going to be detained. I want to ask the hon. Deputy Minister what is meant by this word? The word “detention” is being used here, detention in such areas. What does he mean by that. Does he mean that they will be detained in the sense that the hon. Minister of Justice detains people? Does he mean that they are going to be kept in those areas and not detained in that same sense? Does he mean that they are going to be imprisoned, does it mean that they are going to be locked up, or does it mean that they are going to be in a camp?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I think the hon. member should be ashamed of himself. He has not taken the trouble to see what he is going to vote for. He does not even know what he is going to vote for. What does that word “detention” mean? The hon. Minister must explain it. If the word means what it appears to mean in the Oxford English Dictionary then the hon. Minister has got something to explain. Obviously hon. members on the other side have not read the Bill. I might have thought that they would have read the White Paper, but then they would not have found any explanation of the word “detention”? They would not have found anything in it about the Bantu women and the documents they will have to carry. Why is this not in the White Paper? [Time limit.]

In dealing with Clause 9 the Opposition seem determined to make the same mistake which they made at the second reading. The hon. member for Simonstown, in dealing with this provision, which is a repetition of the provision contained in the old Botha Act, made the most scandalous observations which I have ever heard in this House. He says that the Bantu will be converted into “beasts of burden”, and the gravamen of his argument was that far-reaching regulation powers are being given here in connection with the administration of the entry of Bantu into the cities. But what did General Smuts lay down in his Act of 1945, in the Natives (Urban Areas) Act? He provided there that—

It then goes on to set out the proclamation powers. I refer to Section 23 of the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act of 1945. But as far as a Native woman is concerned sub-paragraph (d) gives discretionary powers to an official of the urban authority—not defined powers as in this case but absolute discretionary powers. The proclamation which could be promulgated under a United Party Minister and which would then be unassailable could “prohibit any female Native from entering the proclaimed area for the purpose of residing or obtaining employment therein after a date to be specified in any such proclamation, without a certificate of approval from an officer designated by the urban local authority”. There is nothing wrong with it when the United Party pass a law containing that provision; the City Council can appoint Mr. X as the designated officer, and if he refuses to give a certificate to the Native woman—let us leave aside the reasonableness or unreasonableness of his refusal—then the Native woman is not allowed to reside in that area.

That was also your policy.

We used that policy because it fitted in with our policy, but the reproach which hon. members opposite are now levelling against us is that we are giving proclamation powers accompanied by certain discretionary powers. I am simply saying that the United Party under General Smuts gave much more far-reaching discretionary powers in connection with the keeping out of Native women, and then hon. members opposite have the audacity to say that we are converting people into “beasts of burden” here; another hon. member compared it with the situation in Germany during the war and said that human beings could be disposed of under this provision. Sir, that is the spirit of their criticism; it is entirely in conflict with the realities of the situation and the facts. These are things which represent traditional South African policy; they have been done since 1911, and when the party on the other side was in power they did precisely what we are doing here. The only difference is that this provision has been drafted differently, but hon. members opposite now try to suggest that we are artificially creating a new, foreign order here in South Africa. That reproach is altogether unfair.

And as far as the entry of Native women is concerned, why are they so concerned, unless they want to create a permanent Bantu population in our White urban areas? These pleas in connection with the entry of Native women must be read in conjunction with the prior plea made by the United Party for the right of permanent residence for Natives born here. They are reversing the order now but what their argument amounts to is this: Bring the Native women into the urban areas without restriction and then give permanent residential rights to all those born in the urban areas. Is it their intention to shift the whole of the Native population to the urban areas during the lifetime of those of us who are no longer quite so young? After all, they know as well as we do that throughout Africa the urbanization of the Bantu is a problem; they know that the Natives are flocking to the towns because they are fascinated by city life. Is it not right and reasonable then to grant proclamation rights so as to be able to keep these people out of the urban areas? Sir, I can see that the hon. member for Houghton is becoming impatient. The hon. member must not be so over-concerned about Native women. I suppose she is one of those people who say that when women refer in a prayer to the Almighty they must refer to “She”.

Then I come to the attack on the aid centres. The point has been raised on various occasions that these regulation powers may be abused. I have said already and I say again that any regulation power granted under any Act of Parliament can be abused, but the regulation is subjected to censorship because it has to be laid on the Table in this House and it can be discussed and reviewed here. The mere fact that a regulation power is granted in respect of a particular institution is no adequate reason for condemning it, because our whole South African legislative and administrative tradition is that the objects of legislation are best promoted by way of regulation.

May I put a question to the hon. member? Has he read the whole of sub-paragraph (d)?

Yes, I have read it, although I have not read it out. I am aware of its contents. But I was dealing with (f). The hon. member is still two sub-sections behind me. I am dealing now with the centres for Bantu youth, and my submission in that connection is this: Whatever criticism one may put forward theoretically that regulation powers may lead to certain undesirable practices, is there any member in this House who does not agree that as far as the Bantu youth in our urban areas are concerned, who in many respects can justly be accused of licentiousness and lawlessness and of being undisciplined, there is a real need in South Africa to establish centres to which these people can be taken to be rehabilitated? The hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Oldfield) constantly puts forward pleas in connection with the youth and sociological matters, and all his pleas in this regard are to the effect that it is highly desirable that steps should be taken to establish institutions, where they can be rehabilitated, for the Bantu youth of South Africa who become wild and undisciplined in the urban areas.

Would you use the same sort of centres in the cases of Whites?

These aid centres represent a practical means to achieve that end. The hon. member himself will admit that. But I know what the hon. members’ objection is. Their objection is that these aid centres will be used by the National Party and not the United Party. If hon. members on the other side pause for a moment to think objectively they will agree that the use of these aid centres in South Africa whichever party may be in power, will be a blessing to the Bantu and that it will be a blessing to the whole of the South African community. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just sat down made mention of the word “disposal” which I used in my second reading speech in connection with this particular clause. I make no apology for using that word. I will use it again to-night. He may well refer to the particular incident he quoted where the word was used by Gen. Botha and included in legislation by the Government of the day. He may well refer to that. But that day was a day far removed from to-day in South Africa. Words have taken a different meaning compared to half a century ago. We had not had 15 years of Nationalist Government at that time, we had not had Hitler and his use of the word “disposal of human beings”, which has placed an altogether new construction on the meaning of that word.

What do you mean?

The hon. gentleman wants to know what I mean? I want to say that the word is well in keeping with the general spirit of the rest of the Bill before us, but it is not a type of word which this Parliament should approve of in dealing with the usage of human beings, in dealing with the usage of South African Citizens, whatever their colour might be. You don’t dispose of human beings, as this Bill intends to do. The clause itself makes it perfectly clear in the so-called misnamed “aid centres” that one of their objects is the disposal of the Bantu in such centres. The very name itself “aid centre” leaves one to wonder what it is in aid of. The main aid that we can see is to help the Government in its policy of getting rid of the Bantu from the urban areas, and into that context the word “disposal” may well fit. I repeat, I see no reason to retract my views in regard to that word. It is a word which fits in well with the Act before us. But it is a word which will increase the already bad odour that attaches to the name of South Africa overseas. If the Minister wants to do something to improve the Bill and wants to do something to protect the good name of this country, let him at least use terms and use words which will be more acceptable, even if the principle which underlies them remains quite unacceptable to us.

I wish to deal mainly with paragraph (t) of sub-section (1) on page 21 of the Bill which aims at the establishment of youth centres by regulation. Mr. Chairman, this type of institution is a new type of institution entirely, and I think a great deal more information is required by this Committee before such a step can be taken and before we can vote in favour of such centres. If we study the position in regard to the existing facilities we find that young persons in terms of the Children’s Act are adequately catered for under Act 33 of 1960, which includes the care of the Bantu people up to the age of 18 years and the manner in which they may be dealt with.

In terms of this paragraph this youth centre is for the reception of Bantu over the age of 15 years and under the age of 21 years who are ordered or directed thereto by a competent authority. I would like to know how the hon. Deputy Minister intends implementing the functioning of these youth centres in regard to admissions. In a later clause in the Bill aid centres are dealt with and admission to the aid centres, but as far as the youth centres are concerned, this is the only reference to these centres in the Bill. Now in terms of the Children’s Act persons under the age of 18 are protected and if declared in need of care on nine specific items, defined in the Act, they can be dealt with by being sent to various institutions as outlined in the Children’s Act of 1960. Nowhere in this Act is there any reference to a youth centre. So it is something entirely new in the way of institutions, and therefore I would like to know from the hon. Deputy Minister whether the Children’s Act will be ignored in regard to these persons who are under 18 years of age and enjoy the protection of this particular Act.

Persons over 18 years of age fall under the 1963 Act, that is to say the Retreats and Rehabilitation Centres Act.

The question of the admission of these persons and on what authority they will be admitted is a question which causes concern. We realize that in terms of this provision these persons can be compulsorily detained at these centres. There is no mention of the period for which they may be detained. Even in terms of the Children’s Act those youths who have committed an offence and are sent to a reformatory are in the position that they are committed there for a definite period. I would like to mention that a juvenile who has committed an offence and who is sent to a reformatory if he is under the age of 16 years, remains there until he attains the age of 18 years, and if he is over 16 years of age, but under 18, he remains there until he attains the age of 21 years, and if he is over 18 he can remain there until he is 23 years of age. It is specifically laid down for what period those persons may be detained. Here an institution is being established where compulsory detention can be applied and there is no indication as to how long these persons may remain at those youth centres. The manner to deal with these persons in terms of this Bill is to say that they will be placed in employment, and what is of concern to this side of the House, Mr. Chairman, is to what is to happen to a Bantu perhaps of the age of 15 years who is ordered to go to such a youth centre under compulsory detention when they are unable to find employment for that Bantu in the prescribed town. Will that Bantu then be endorsed out of that prescribed area and dealt with in some other manner? Because here a young person of 15 or 16 years of age with close family ties would then be placed in the position that if they are unable to place him in employment, he can be dealt with in terms of other sections of this Bill. So I think it is a very important factor to find out for what period of time these persons can be detained at this particular type of new institution that is being established.

As far as the training is concerned, so that the Bantu is prepared for future employment, surely that is adequately provided for, or should be adequately provided for in terms of Bantu Education and in terms of Vocational Training, and I think that with those provisions, with the increase of facilities for vocational training, it should not be necessary to establish another institution in which persons can be compulsorily detained. Therefore I hope that the Deputy Minister will give some indication as to how these youth centres are to function. We merely have this clause which provides for certain powers and regulations, without any detail as to how these persons are to be treated and how they are to be compulsorily detained, how they are to be admitted and how they are to be dealt with after they have spent a certain period of time at such a centre.

The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), if I understood him correctly, took the line that in fact this Bill now before us did not in any way diminish the rights of a Bantu woman to have her family life in a prescribed area with her husband, and as I understood him he cited Section 23 (d) of the Native Urban Areas Consolidation Act to prove his point and he read a certain passage from Section (23) (d). But I think that we can therefore take it that he undoubtedly, and those people on his side who cheered him when he was speaking, do in fact not wish there to be a diminution of this right of the Bantu women. But now I want to point out that in fact under Section 23 (d) there is a most important proviso which he has overlooked and as a result, I suggest, he and other members opposite were led astray, because the proviso to Section 23 (d) reads as follows—

Therefore it is quite plain that there is an appreciable diminution of this right to visit her husband, and since hon. members opposite clearly did not wish that to be the case by their cheering of the speech of the hon. member for Kempton Park, I take it now that they will be highly regretful that this new intrusion is being put on the Statute Book.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer to Clause 9 (c) of this Bill which substitutes a new sub-paragraph (g). What this sub-section does we are told by the White Paper is the following—

Therefore it is the belief of hon. members opposite that all these people are to be returned to their homelands. But now one immediately sees, on examining sub-section (c), that this is absolute make-believe again, because sub-paragraph (g) says—

In other words, hon. members opposite always say that the homelands are the scheduled and released areas, and we can see quite clearly here that that can bear no relation to their actual homes, as it clearly states “return to their homes or ” homelands’ ”. In other words, these people are going to be shifted, perhaps from where they have been born either somewhere into the country or possibly into what we would call the reserves and what hon. members opposite are pleased to call “homelands”, although in fact they bear no relation to where their actual homes are.

One must bear in mind that the population of South Africa as far as the Natives are concerned is approximately 3,500,000 in what we call the reserves and what they call the homelands, approximately 3,500,000 in the country districts of the so-called White South Africa and approximately 3,000,000 in the urban areas. So if only they would keep that before them, they won’t allow themselves to be carried away by this happy picture that is conjured up of their having all these homelands.

I would like to get on to another aspect of this clause. There is talk here of the treatment and disposal, or return to their homes or scheduled or released areas of these people. No provision is made in this Bill, and no provision has been announced in the speech by the hon. the State President as to what these people are going to do when they get there. There is no suggestion that there is anything big being created for them there. I ask hon. members opposite to put their hands on their hearts and to say if this is a proper thing to do when there is nothing for these people to do there but try and come back again.

Then there is this provision, to which the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) has already referred, in (g) that these people may not only be sent to the reserves when their homes may well be their birthplace in a town or in the country part of the so-called White area, but they may be detained there under the powers here given. I would like to ask the hon. Minister (and I hope that he has not delegated the power of replying to the hon. member for Kempton Park and that he himself will not get again during this debate)—I hope he will tell us whether the Transkeian Territory which has now been established by the Transkei Constitution Bill is still such an area as is referred to here. I would like to have that clear, because if in fact the Transkei is such an area, then we will presumably be sending people to the Transkei doubtless against the wish of the Transkeian Government; people who are quite surplus to their requirements and for whom there is no work. If, on the other hand, we will not be able to send them there without their consent, then I would like to ask the hon. Minister whether we have had consultations and have we got their consent; and how far has he progressed with these discussions, because this is a most important point. We are of course entirely against the creation of Bantustans, but it would be bad if there arose immediate difficulties when the thing has hardly started. Then I should like to ask him whether if in fact these released areas such as the Transkei are no longer scheduled or released areas, will the same position apply when we create our other Bantu states, and how does he then propose to enforce this provision; or does he suggest that when all the Bantu states have been created it will no longer be possible to operate under this power and send people out of the prescribed area, the so-called White area?

In respect of Clause 9 (c) the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) to my astonishment repeated his previous remarks. May I tell the Committee what the hon. member so strongly confirmed to-night? Previously he said the following in regard to this clause—

In the first place I just want to say that it is a gross and deliberate sowing of suspicion against contemporary South Africa to express this sentiment in connection with the wording of this legislation. But secondly, at the time the hon. member first spoke it was brought to his notice, and to-night he has admitted it, that this is the language used by General Louis Botha. I just want to say this. We on this side of the House perhaps differed bitterly from General Louis Botha in regard to his constitutional views and the imperial connections of South Africa, but we never differed from him in regard to his views on Native affairs as expressed in the Act he passed in 1911 which contains this wording which is now being attacked, and in regard to which we should very much like to take up the gauntlet against the present-day liberals. Never in the whole history of South Africa has a more gross and scandalous insult been uttered in respect of the work and the sentiments of General Louis Botha.

I now come to the hon. member for Pine-lands (Mr. Thompson), who has taken instructions from the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell). I refer to Section 23 of the Urban Areas Act passed by General Smuts to point out that at that time also wide discretionary powers were granted by proclamation. The preamble reads as follows. “May by the proclamation concerned or a later one instruct a local authority to exercise the same powers in respect of the whole area or a portion thereof”, and then it mentions (a), (b) and (c) and comes to (d) which I have already read out. The hon. members say that I did not read the whole clause, but I did read the whole of it, and there are two provisos. Let me now show the Committee how those hon. members are trying to misrepresent the position.

The first proviso is the one prohibiting the officials of the municipalities, who had absolute discretion, from issuing any certificates to certain Bantu women. They could not issue a certificate to a Bantu woman under 21 years of age without the approval of her guardian. The second proviso is as the hon. member read it out, but I have to draw attention to a certain aspect of it. The proviso provides that the official has to issue a certificate to the female Bantu who has satisfactorily proved that her husband or her father has worked in the area for at least two years. That is quite correct, but unfortunately for the hon. member for Durban (North) a further qualification was impliedly written into the Act. The official must issue the certificate—and this is what was implied—“for a limited period, and which could at any time, on a month’s notice, beginning on the first day of the succeeding month, be withdrawn by the official concerned.” [Interjection.] If hon. members will now keep quiet, I will summarize the contents of the clause in a few words. A discretion is granted and then it is said that in certain cases he must exercise that discretion in favour of the Bantu women, and in the third place this instruction that he must exercise the discretion in her favour is completely negatived by a further proviso, viz. that he can issue that certificate for a limited period; he can issue it for a week or for a fortnight. [Interjections.] We are not discussing visits now. This clause deals with a lengthy stay. I am not discussing the visiting provisions now. [Interjections.] I am discussing the provisions of sub-section (h) of the amendment, the new sub-section (o) which is being inserted, the regulations relating to access. My proposition was merely that an absolute discretion was granted to an unspecified official of the local authority, and in so far as the proviso stated that he had to issue certain certificates, that proviso is of no value at all.

Does the hon. member realize that in terms of Clause 58 of this Bill the whole thing falls away, including the prescribed rights the Bantu women have to enter for a short period?

We can discuss that under Clause 58. I am now discussing merely the point that an attack is being made here because we are taking powers to frame regulations in terms of which the access of a Bantu woman is left to the discretion of regulations, and I say that in terms of the Smuts Act the access of a Bantu woman was left to the whim of an unnamed municipal official, who was granted those powers by regulation. The hon. members came back with the reply that in terms of the Smuts Act there was a provision that they must allow all Bantu women to enter. Now because of this nonsensical counter-argument I have to waste the time of the Committee in order to prove that this provision in favour of the Bantu women was completely valueless because in terms of the proviso the official was entitled to issue the certificate for a limited period and to withdraw it at any time. Now therefore my original proposition remains standing that General Smuts by proclamation gave discretionary powers to an unspecified official for the admission or refusal to admit Bantu women into the urban areas for permanent residence.

What about the proviso?

The proviso only ensures a quite temporary access for the Bantu women. But I am not talking to that hon. member now; I am addressing the United Party, which launched an attack on the basis that powers to make regulations in regard to Bantu women are being taken here. We can discuss the withdrawal of the temporary visiting rights of the Bantu women under Clause 58. But here my reply is only that no new, different principle is being introduced in this Bill. It is an old United Party principle which they are repudiating to-day because they are no longer what they were at that time, because they have become pink.

I do not want to follow the last speaker. I want to deal on page 21 with the different regulations that may be made in respect of different areas. This clause deals with the areas from which men can be recruited, and it deals with their disposal—whatever the word “disposal” means; it means different things to the different parties in this House—it deals with their accommodation and their housing and the siting of their compounds and the siting of their married quarters; it deals with secretaries, hospitals, youth centres, and everything from the cradle to the grave. Finally, this clause says that different regulations may be made in respect of different areas and in respect of different classes of Bantu or of employers, or in respect of different classes of employment. If this section does not give the authority to the Minister to direct labour completely without any argument or objection, then no section ever did. It gives him complete powers on everything affecting their every-day life. Let us see what is happening in regard to the complete control of these Bantu. Let us see what the position is in regard to industry, and let us get back to the Minister’s own constituents. Yes, he will laugh on the other side of his face in due course when I have finished with him. What happened there? He did it under present authority. Now he is really tying up every loose end to make quite sure that there is no possible direction in which the poor Bantu, wriggling under a pin that he has had inserted into his body, can move. I am talking of the effect of this direction of labour; it is nothing else but taking authority to direct labour, and that is what the Minister has already done in his own constituency. He refused to allow a certain industry there to get more labour under his present powers. [Interjections.] The industry had to expand. There were Government contracts in the offing, and it was enticed—I cannot think of a better word—to open a branch away from his own constituency because of the existing powers to direct labour to where he wants it to go and to where he wants industry to go. He will hear more about this in due course. The effect on industry of these powers will be something which the Minister and the whole of that side of the House are not prepared to bend their minds to. They are so obsessed with this idea that they must have the Bantu under complete control. It is not direction; it is not paternalism. I called it slave labour the other day and I do not see any reason to change my mind about it. It gives him complete control of industry. It makes him the master of the destinies of industry in this country. He has used such powers already, and for anyone to suggest that a clause like this, which empowers different regulations to be made for different areas, etc ….

Order! That point has been made already.

I stick to my point that this clause gives him utter and complete control over the lives and souls of all the Bantu, and no man should have such power as is granted in terms of this clause. It gives him the power, I repeat, to direct labour to any particular area that he fancies. It gives him the right to direct labour to an area that might assist people who assist him. I would not dream of suggesting that he would do so, but it does give him that power, and absolute power always corrupts. This clause gives absolute power over the Bantu and their lives, and he cannot deny it.

I want to deal with the last speaker first, although it is really not worthwhile replying to him.

Order!

Sir, I have not yet finished my sentence. Allow me to do so and then you can tell me whether I may or may not say what I want to say. The arguments that he used are not worthwhile replying to, but nevertheless I shall reply to him. I am tired of his ignorance and I want to help him. On three occasions in this House he said that I was instrumental in driving an industry out of my constituency. He is wrong because, firstly, that industry was not in my constituency but in my municipal area and secondly. I had nothing whatsoever to do with the matter. I explained this in detail to the hon. member the other day but either he was not here or he was too stupid to understand me. I hope that he is in a more sober frame of mind this evening and that he will be able to understand better what I am about to say. [Interjections.] I want the hon. member to realize once and for all that the owners of that cement factory decided to make use of the advantages accorded to border industries of their own volition and because of this fact the factory was set up in the Rosslyn area. The owners of that factory were present when the factory township was opened and they boasted that they had moved to Rosslyn in order to expand the activities of the factory in that area. No labour was refused them where they were because their one factory is still there, at Roodepoort. But the hon. member persists in harping on that one note. The hon. member’s knowledge of the facts of this matter is so limited that one could say that he knows nothing about it at all.

The hon. member discussed only one clause and I am afraid that his knowledge in regard to this clause is even more limited than in regard to the previous matter. This clause does not give the Minister any additional powers at all; it does not give him a single additional power. All the powers in regard to regulations are contained in the provisions preceding subsection (2). [Interjections.] His stupidity is becoming even more monumental. In subsection (2) it is provided that we can differentiate in regard to the regulations that we make. We can make certain regulations for one group and certain other regulations for another group; we can make certain regulations for one area and different regulations for another area.

Then you agree with me.

I regret that the hon. member will not understand. No extra powers are given in terms of sub-section (2) with regard to the making of regulations, but all the regulations that may be made can be differentiated so that you can have a set of regulations for one area and another set for another area, and also different sets for different classes of employees. But it is not a question of more powers being granted.

Then you agree with me?

I am most decidedly not agreeing with such a stupid idea, because the hon. member is totally wrong. The hon. member should study these things, or ask his colleagues to explain the Bill to him. What is being achieved in this sub-section is something to the benefit of both the Bantu and the employers, because according to this we can make regulations to comply with the requirements and the conditions of different sets of employers and different groups of employees.

*I have explained this matter now three or four times and I shall not do so again because there is nothing at all that I can add to what I have already said. Even if the hon. member discusses this matter in regard to the factory another twenty times I shall just laugh at him on each occasion.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) made one big mistake and, I fear, the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) made the same mistake in regard to the provision to which the hon. member for Houghton referred—that Bantu women can be allowed into the urban area within a period of two years if their husbands are employed there and if there is accommodation for them there. But the mistake made by the hon. member—and I do not blame her for making the mistake because this is a matter to which one has to give very careful attention and with which one has to deal repeatedly before one is able to see the matter in its correct perspective—was that that position does not exist throughout the whole country.

That position does not exist automatically all over South Africa in terms of the existing law.

But it exists in Durban.

Why does it not exist?

That is just the crux of the matter. The position is that according to the law, areas must specifically be proclaimed by previously the Governor-General and now by the State President, in which those conditions can then be applicable. But the areas must be proclaimed specifically. They are not there automatically. It is not done automatically in an urban area or in a prescribed area or in what we usually call a proclaimed area. The areas must specifically be proclaimed. The hon. member for Durban (North) will agree with me there. When the proclamation is passed, the date must also be proclaimed. Now I want to tell that hon. member this. For all these years this has been on the statute book, but so far only two places, both in Natal, the one being Greytown and the other Durban, have asked for that proclamation and have got it. But all the other places in South Africa have not asked for it, and there it does not apply.

But in practice it applies.

No. Many people err in the same way as the hon. member is erring to-night in thinking that it is automatically applicable. [Interjections.] Mr Chairman, we cannot have two speeches at the same time. The hon. member must take my word for it that there are only two places where it applies, and I also have the dates and the numbers of the proclamations. For Greytown it is Proclamation No. 252 of 1934, and for Durban it is Proclamation No. 63 of 1936.

Those are the only two places where it applies. Many people think that it applies all over the country, but that is not so. It does not apply automatically; it can only apply if it is asked for and the area is proclaimed especially for that purpose. [Interjections.] The point is that it was not asked for in the other areas.

*The hon. member of course again discussed the aid centres and objected to the presence of a court system within these aid centres. I do not know why the hon. member wants to cast a reflection of this nature on the court system in an aid centre. The hon. member must get away from the idea that a court is something to which a stigma is attached. That is not so. A court is not simply a place where people are found guilty. I think that the courts are far more famous because of the thousands of people that they find not guilty than they are notorious because of the numbers of cases in which people have been found guilty, who should not have been found guilty at all. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Houghton will have another opportunity to speak. She should not interrupt me so often. Why is the fact that a court is held in the aid centre reflected in such a bad light? That person is in the aid centre in order to receive assistance and help, and if it is necessary for his case to come before a Bantu Affairs Commissioner in a court, then we will already have that atmosphere of sympathy which has been created by the previous cases and which it is our intention to have in that aid centre. That person will also realize that the court will deal with him as fairly as any other court will deal with him. But in his case it ought psychologically to be far better for him to accept having a court in the aid centre than to have to attend court in some other place which may perhaps hold psychological associations for him which are unfavourable to him.

Hon. members and particularly the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) also asked me about the youth centres. The youth centres is a new idea we have. I want to tell the hon. member that since 1958 we have been urging municipalities to establish places of this nature to which the Bantu between the ages of 15 and 20 years can be taken and where they can then be rehabilitated by means of social services. City councils can establish these youth centres within the ordinary urban Bantu residential areas. There are a few of them in operation but very few. In Johannesburg, for example, we have the Dube scheme. Perhaps the hon. member knows something about it. It is something of that nature that we have in mind. Similar efforts were also made in other places but these ideas were never implemented properly. We are including that provision in this Bill because we want to have it as part of the whole pattern of labour rehabilitation and the upliftment of young Bantu so that they can become better workers. We have all sorts of possibilities in mind but as yet they have not all been worked out in the finest detail. Neither is it desirable to work them out in this way because a youth centre of this nature is something that has to develop dynamically according to the requirements of the times. We can keep the inmates of those youth centres occupied by telling them about work, showing them films of work being done in factories and making them used to doing simple little jobs for which they may even be able to earn something. We can tell them about all sorts of things which will activate their mental processes in such a way that they will be prepared to work and will not simply want to lounge around idly and so get into trouble. It is not possible to determine all the specific activities of these youth centres in this Bill. It will not even be possible to do so in the first set of regulations that will be made in terms of this Bill. [Interjection.] The hon. member asks how long they will stay there. I shall answer his question. One has to consider the circumstances which prevail at the time and one has to allow the youth centre to develop accordingly. The hon. member asks how long these people will stay there. The hon. member must not see these youth centres as a kind of gaol to which these people will be sent for a period of a year or six months. Nothing of this nature is envisaged. A youth centre is a place to which these people will be taken. Some of them will have to stay there longer than others because they will not be so susceptible to good influences and others will remain there for a shorter period because they will be more responsive to the rehabilitation treatment that is given there. This is a completely flexible system. The hon. member must get away from the idea that these youth centres are places of detention or gaols or anything of that nature. The youth centre is something that is being set up to keep the young Bantu occupied. Even sport and music and similar past-times can be practised by them there. The intention is to do rehabilitation work and to try and improve their characters and ability to work.

The hon. member also asked what becomes of them once they leave the youth centre. Well, if a Bantu youth has been in a youth centre of that nature for a long time, opportunities may arise on the labour market and the labour bureaux may be able to find employment for him. These young Bantu will be able to show what they are capable of in a youth centre of this nature and will be able to find good employment far more easily, as happens in the other few centres that we have in our country, like the one at Boksburg, although that centre does not fall into the same group as a youth centre does. It has also happened that the responsible authorities have got to know well the young Bantu with whom they have come into contact daily and those Bantu have been given employment because they have learned how to be reliable and because they have shown an ability for work. So the hon. member must get away from the idea that this is something bad. I hope that he has not had this thought in mind; I know that the hon. member has very good motives in regard to young people, White as well as non-White.

I forgot to deal with one point raised by the hon. member for Houghton in connection with women. I have already referred to the mistake she made in connection with the period of two years. A decision can be taken in connection with the women who come to visit in the urban areas in terms of the existing Section 10 (1) (b), and the same discretion will be exercised. Reference is made to the documents that will be needed in this regard. The hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. S. F. Steyn) saved me a great deal of trouble by explaining the matter so clearly. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Houghton must be a little patient. She must give me a chance to have my say. As a woman she ought to know that a woman who moves around needs more protection than a man. Do hon. members know that the Bantu Authorities have asked that the women visiting the cities be given better protection? I have already referred to this matter but I want to do so again. A certain Bantu Authority in Natal took the following resolution, entirely of their own accord—

So they are worried about this matter. [Interjection.] Yes, I know that the hon. member does not agree.

There is not very much difference between a Bantu woman and a White woman.

It so happens that we do not make those arrangements for the hon. member but for the Bantu woman. It is not her Chief who has asked for this, but the Chiefs of the Bantu women. That is the difference. That is why I do not see why these women should not carry the proper documents. Indeed, I think is is very necessary that they carry documents along the lines of the documents that have always existed. Even the regulations made in regard to these matters will not be hidden away from members of this House. Those regulations will be tabled and will be referred to the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs. They can be discussed in this House and we can be criticized. I do not know therefore why hon. members are causing so much trouble.

The hon. member for Houghton made a remark to which I want to reply. I think she gave a correct summary of the particular provision and it seems to me that she has read this Bill. I also want to compliment her in that regard. The position is that a Bantu who has worked in an urban area and who then leaves that urban area and returns within a year may, under the set-up which still prevails to-day, only return to his previous employer. But this state of affairs is being changed in terms of this Bill and the hon. member ought to know it. What we are now doing is to make things easier for that Bantu. We now say that when that Bantu returns to his previous employer within a year and he finds that his employer has in the meantime employed another labourer, that Bantu may, with the assistance of the labour bureau and the Bantu Affairs Commissioner, be given other employments in that urban area. In other words, this is an improvement on the existing position.

I realize that.

The hon. member says she understands me on this point. By saying that she has paid me a compliment. I think that to-night I shall have difficulty in falling asleep!

In any case, I think that I have already replied to the hon. member for Durban (North) in connection with the question of documents. The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) and some others also discussed the detention regulations. These are provided for in Clause 9 (c) (g).

What does the word “detention” mean?

The hon. member wants to know what is meant by the word “detention”. As if he did not know! But let me explain it to him. The proposed insertion in the Act deals with regulations that have to be made in regard to Bantu who are sent back on medical grounds and those who are sent back as a result of the cancellation of their contracts. But who are the people who are being sent back as a result of the last-mentioned factor? This is where I experienced difficulty with the hon. member. He dragged in everything under the sun under the expression “public interest”. We know who these people are whose contracts are cancelled. They are the undesirables, the work-shy and the others. In short, these are the undesirable types. What objection can there be to detaining this type of Bantu in some or other way and what objection can there be to the way in which they are detained? It can be done in various ways. We now have a fifth type falling into this category—those who are rejected on medical grounds. Should these people who are rejected on medical grounds simply be turned loose? Is it not in his own as well as the public interest to detain such a person? I cannot say now how such a person will be detained. We shall be able to make ample provision for this in terms of the regulations in the best interests of all concerned. This is just another example of the way in which trouble is caused unnecessarily by the other side of the House.

You spoke about those whose contracts are lawfully terminated. But what about those whose contracts are terminated for other reasons? There may be a hundred and one different reasons for the cancellation of a contract. What about those people?

But if the contract of the Bantu is terminated by his employer, what can we do if there is no other work for that Bantu to do? After all, that Bantu’s contract has been terminated by his employer. Hon. members opposite spoke about forced labour. It appears to me now as though they want forced employment! If a Bantu’s contract is terminated and he is without work, how better can we act if we want to help him than by arranging these things by way of regulation?

I come now to the hon. member for Simons-town (Mr. Gay). I honestly thought that the hon. member would stop making remarks that were so unworthy of him. I would never have thought that the hon. member could have continued with an argument that was so unworthy of him. In any case, I want to leave him at that; I am not going to reply to his arguments.

He is a political spider.

The hon. member for Pinelands also asked me about the Transkei. I want to tell him that the Transkei is also included. Surely the hon. member does not expect us to negotiate with the Government of the Transkei in regard to a whole series of fictitious cases? When specific cases come to light, the necessary arrangement can be made. I also made this clear the other day during my reply to the second-reading debate. It is not clear to me why we should negotiate on the basis of fictitious cases. The fact is that this hon. member will be either pleased or sorry, depending upon what happens. If we say that we have already negotiated with the Government of the Transkei and that they want to have nothing to do with it, he will be terribly pleased. He wants us to negotiate but we must not do so with the purpose of winning agreement; he does not want us to succeed. If that happens, he will be only too pleased. That sort or vague hope will not help the hon. member at all. He need not be afraid that we will not ensure that the necessary understanding does exist.

I should like to deal with that section of the clause under discussion in terms of which the Government intends establishing aid centres, i.e. paragraph (i) (s). We on this side of the House are entirely opposed to the type of aid centre which is envisaged here. I can explain precisely why we are against it. Before doing so, however, I should like to say what type of institution we favour and the reasons therefor. In doing that, it will become apparent why it is that we oppose the type of aid centre envisaged under this Bill. At the present moment the position is that hundreds of thousands of Bantu are daily arrested, charged, convicted and sent to gaol for trivial offences, usually committed out of ignorance. It does not need a psychologist to tell us what a sense of injustice this situation must create in the Bantu and what a sense of grievance and even of hatred must be engendered against the White man. It is hardly surprising that there should be so many transgressions of the law by the law-abiding Bantu in view of the fact that they are being subjected to so many restrictions, control and conflicting legislation, so conflicting that even lawyers find them difficult to unravel—let alone the unfortunate Bantu.

Now, what will be the position once this Bill has become law? The position will be far worse than it is to-day—ten times worse I can say, because this Bill is placing on the Bantu many more forms of controls and thereby creating so many more opportunities for unwittingly transgressing the law. This sort of situation must be stopped for the sake of the good of the country. Unfortunately, this Government in its pigheadedness is doing just the reverse. The hon. member for Natal South Coast has explained our attitude in regard to influx control.

He has limited the liberal advance.

He has not “limited the liberal advance” but has merely stated our position as it has always been thereby trying to obviate any further misrepresentation. In any event, as I was saying, we believe that the type of institution required in a situation such as the present one, is an institution where the Bantu will be advised, helped and particularly be treated sympathetically and as human beings.

That is an aid centre.

I take it by that the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to indicate the type of institution the aid centre will be. But this is a most curious statement, curious because aid centres are being dealt with at great length in Clause 12, where various things are stated to restrict the Bantu in various ways, without, however, stating anywhere that the object of an aid centre is to provide a service to the Bantu or to help them. But if that is the object of the Government with the creation of these aid centres, why then is that not stated? It is surely a simple matter to have said so. Once again we find what we have time and again found in recent years, viz. that words do not for this Government bear their real meaning. They use words to mean what they want them to mean. If the aid centre which the Government proposes to establish is an aid centre within the proper meaning of that word, we shall have no objection to such an institution. A word like this should not have a variety of meanings, but should have its real and normal meaning. Unfortunately, when used by the Other Side, words do not bear their usual meaning. When one examines the type of institution proposed in this Bill, one cannot allow oneself to be misled by the terms used. One has to examine the substance thereof.

I now want to deal with other aspects of this Bill and particularly with the youth centres which are proposed in a subsequent clause. The hon. member for Umbilo dealt with these proposed youth centres very fully and although I do not want to go into any great detail, I should like to say that it is alarming to find the Deputy Minister dealing in such a light-hearted and casual way, as he did in his reply to the hon. member for Umbilo, with a matter dealing with such an important institution, an institution in which youths can be detained, as he put it, for virtually an indefinite period or until such time as the manager of such a centre decides that the youth has sufficiently reformed to be allowed to continue in employment …

I did not say “detained” in youth centres. You are distorting.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. Is the hon. the Deputy Minister entitled to say that the hon. member is “distorting” what he said

Did the hon. the Deputy Minister say that?

May I just explain, Mr. Chairman, that when I dealt with youth centres, I never used the word “detained”. So if that hon. member now says that I did use that word, then I say he is distorting. I did not use that word at all.

Order! Did the hon. the Deputy Minister use the word “deliberate”

No, Mr. Chairman.

Order! Then the hon. member may proceed.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. Is the hon. the Deputy Minister entitled to say that the hon. member is distorting?

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I am surprised at the attitude of the hon. the Deputy Minister. Does he now say that persons which may be dealt with at these youth centres cannot be compulsorily detained there?

I said I did not use the word “detain”.

Now you are distorting!

I do not intend allowing the hon. the Deputy Minister to get away with that. This very clause, with which we are dealing with now, says that youths can be compulsorily detained in youth centres. If the hon. the Deputy Minister will look at … [Time limit.]

I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Deputy Minister to Clause 9 (g) reading as follows—

1. (1) the disposal or distribution of the assets of deceased Bantu employees or of unclaimed moneys due or personal effects belonging to Bantu whose whereabouts are unknown.

Sir, I am surprised that the hon. the Deputy Minister has included a provision of this nature in this Bill, because he must know that there are many other Acts dealing with the disposal of unclaimed money. The hon. the Minister of Labour told us the other day that thousands of rands were waiting to be claimed by Bantu. Such moneys are paid into a special fund. Other moneys waiting to be claimed must be paid into the Guardians fund in the master’s office and have to remain there for a certain number of years. If not claimed at the end of that period, the money reverts to the State. Now, how can the hon. the Deputy Minister bring in this provision which cuts across all the laws dealing with unclaimed money. I should like an explanation from him in this connection especially in view of the fact that, as I have already said, there are many other laws dealing with unclaimed moneys. Nothing is stated here about the period for which the money should be retained. Under present law, this period of detention may be as long as 30 years. Furthermore, there is nothing here stipulating how the moneys can be claimed or in what way the person having control over the money, must dispose of it.

Why did you not read the explanatory memorandum?

If the hon. the Deputy Minister cannot explain this satisfactorily, I should like to move an amendment on the lines that the hon. the Deputy Minister can do this but “subject to any law relating to unclaimed moneys”. I fail to see how this provision can just cut across other laws relating to unclaimed moneys. As I see it, this provision may be ultra vires other Acts of Parliament dealing with the same matter. Furthermore, the provision itself is vague. There is nothing to say how and when the person having control of the moneys must dispose of it. Should it go to the State, or what? Some of the money may belong to Bantu already gone back to the Transkei or endorsed out. Will there, therefore, be an advertisement in the Transkei or other Bantu areas informing Bantu of the unclaimed amounts?

In any event, this paragraph as it stands is unfortunate and I think the hon. the Deputy Minister ought to keep it over for further consideration. If the Deputy Minister is prepared to do that, I am prepared to withhold my amendment at this stage.

The hon. member should have gone into the matter further. For example, he should have found out what is stated in the explanatory memorandum in this regard. The position is set out in detail in that memorandum. Act No. 15 of 1911 provides that the wages of these deceased Bantu must be paid over to the particular office of the Department. All we are doing here is to seek authority to enable us to regulate the position better by way of regulations. I think the hon. member has too little knowledge of the background to this matter, otherwise he would have understood it better.

It seems to me that an entirely new situation is creeping up on us in South Africa. This is clear especially from the clause we are dealing with and from the manner in which the Deputy Minister has been responding to the debate so far. To me the concept of law has always meant something that is watertight, something which can be taken to court and on which a clear interpretation can be placed by the magistrate or Judge. In other words, the law officer in charge of the case should be able to know exactly what the law means. Now, as far as this clause is concerned, we have found that the Deputy Minister on two occasions has said exactly the opposite of what is stated in the clause. Let me in this connection refer to paragraph (c) of the clause. Here it speaks quite clearly of Bantu—

Now, the Deputy Minister got up and said these Bantu were Bantu who did certain things and he named four classes such as the workless, the bad and medically unfit. But he remained absolutely quiet about those whose contracts of employment have otherwise been terminated or who have been ordered to such area. Mr. Chairman, this can cover anything under the sun. A Judge sitting in judgment on this would not know what it is all about. Even if he reads up what the Deputy Minister said about the matter, he will be none the wiser.

I find the same thing in connection with the paragraph dealing with youth centres. The Minister did not tell us in what way the workless and worthless was going to be converted at these centres. He did not tell us, for instance, whether or not this was going to be achieved by lectures. He talked about music, entertainment, sport and this of that nature. What type of centre are these youth centres going to be? Are they going to listen to records or to lectures and if so by whom are these lectures to be given? By the churches or by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration who every-time he speaks of the Transkei goes into orbit?

I explained the matter fully already.

I am sorry, but the Deputy Minister never told us a thing. But I do not want him to tell us; he should write it into the Bill. I want a Judge to know what is going on when he reads the clause. Here the Deputy Minister talks about the residence or compulsory detention of Bantu in youth centres. Where then is the benign attitude of the Minister?

Then there is paragraph (h) of this clause. It is a very lengthy paragraph and deals with all sorts of things. It regulates the seeking and taking up of Bantu and the movement of Bantu from areas which are not prescribed areas to prescribed areas or from one prescribed area to another; documents to be produced; the maintenance of records, including records of Bantu desiring to take up employment and of persons requiring the services of Bantu; etc. When reading the White Paper I find this—

Well, Mr. Chairman, if one reads this paragraph (h) and notices everything which shall be done, or has and should be done and then talks about simplication …! What has the poor Bantu or even the employer got to do? Does the employer in South Africa realize what is being done to him under this clause? Does he realize that the entire economy of South Africa is going to be placed, under this clause, in the hands of the Minister who replied so facetiously to our earnest criticisms of these various clauses. I am thinking not of the large employer in industry, but of the small employer—of the woman who employs a maid in her kitchen. Does she realize what is being done to her by this Bill? I am thinking of the ordinary farmer who needs Bantu labourers: of the farmer’s wife who needs a couple of maids to work in her kitchen. Do they realize what is being done? They are being régimentated from beginning to the end.

There is this question of detention. Never has the hon. the Deputy Minister told us where he is going to get that army of people that will be required to detain these people? Mr. Chairman, under this Government the laws are no longer what they used to be. They can no longer be interpreted as easily and as for the poor Bantu and the employer … I do not know what the future holds for him.

The Deputy Minister told me that I did not read the White Paper. But this White Paper only deals with unclaimed wages, etc. But what about the thousands of rand due to these Bantu under the Workmen’s Compensation Act which the Minister of Labour told us about? What about money a person who has been detained in an aid centre gets from an accident? What will happen to the money if that person should disappear into thin air? To whom does this unclaimed money go? I am not prepared to vote for any law which is so vague. The White Paper to which he has referred to deals only with deceased estates, wages unclaimed, and the like. But there are various other ways in which moneys due to Bantu can become unclaimed.