I move—

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Sir, after the full discussions that take place on the motion to go into Committee of Supply and after the subsequent discussions in committee when the Estimates are considered, it is not usual for a debate to ensue on a motion of this nature. But I rise to protest at the manner in which the hon. the Minister has financed certain items from Capital Account. I feel that I must protest on this occasion because certain aspects of the reply given to us by the Minister with regard to our objection to the manner in which those items were being financed, cannot be allowed to go without comment. The hon. the Minister indicated that he was not bound by any decisions of a Select Committee. He also indicated that the Auditor-General may also be wrong, and in this particular instance, referring to the Select Committee reports and the resolution adopted last session, the Minister felt that the Auditor-General was wrong in his contentions. I feel that these two statements cannot go unchallenged.

In order to put the matter in its proper perspective, I want to recapitulate briefly the position in regard to two particular items, the one being the financing from Loan Account of an item of R7,500,000 in round figures, which is a re-allocation, as indicated in the Estimates, from the Renewals Fund to the Loan Account. This particular item is for the purchase of 1,000 motor trucks. They first appeared on the Estimates in 1963. The price which the Administration considered would have to be paid for these trucks at that time was R5,000,000. The Minister indicated in his Budget proposals that he expected to meet that commitment by a first payment of some R1,000,000 from the Renewals Fund. Sir, these items subsequently appeared in the Estimates in 1964 and they appeared again in the Estimates of 1965 and in all three years it was indicated that the cost of this particular item would be met from the Renewals Fund; there was no other indication given to the House. Sir, I want to quote what the Auditor-General had to say in dealing with the reallocation of expenditure on the acquisition of rolling stock involving a departure from the method of financing sanctioned in the Estimates. He had this pertinent statement to make; he draws the attention of the committee to Section 5 of the Exchequer and Audit Act which stipulates that appropriations granted by Parliament for the services of the Administration for any financial year shall as far as possible be charged with all expenditure incurred in that financial year and, furthermore, that it was a fundamental principle of public financing that the course of each year’s expenditure should follow the approved Estimates. Sir, for three years this House has been left under the impression that this expenditure by the hon. the Minister was following the course of the approved Estimates, and that the commitment was being met out of the Renewals Fund. Now suddenly after three years we find a statement in the additional Estimates, even before the conclusion of the current financial year, that the Minister expects to meet this commitment out of Loan Account. Sir, one must ask one’s self why this sudden switch—I do not want to use the word “juggling”—but one asks one’s self why there was this manipulation of finance for the acquisition of rolling stock by the hon. the Minister’s Department. I pose that question because this is not an isolated case. It has been considered before by the Select Committee under very similar circumstances, and I now want to ask this pertinent question in view of the attitude adopted by the Minister: When the Select Committee has considered all the circumstances and weighed up the evidence of the General Manager, has weighed up the statements of the Auditor-General and then passes a resolution to say that it considers that the way in which things were done was unsatisfactory, that it did not conform to recognized procedure and that it did not conform to the Audit and Exchequer Act, does the Minister still consider that he has the right to set himself above the House and above the Select Committee which was set up as an investigating body to watch over the manner in which the Minister disposes of public moneys? Sir, the attitude of the Select Committee was quite clear. It was regarded by the Select Committee as an undesirable practice that the Renewals Fund should be used in the manner in which the Minister has obviously used it for three years, that is to say, as a means of temporarily financing his financial transactions as far as capital equipment is concerned. Then the Minister makes this other excuse: he says that the Renewals Fund has been depleted to such an extent in the rolling stock section that he has no alternative but to come along now and ask for the payment of this item from Loan Account. Sir, I took the trouble to look up the balance standing to the credit of the Renewals Fund. Admittedly the information at our disposal does not show the credit balance under each section of the Renewals Fund, but as far as I am aware, the balance standing to the credit of the Renewals Fund is something like R102,000,000. What I find more puzzling, in the light of the action proposed by the Minister in these initial Estimates, is the statement that he made in his Budget speech. In the course of his Budget speech the hon. the Minister had this to say—

He then gave details of the sections and he went on to say—

Sir, I ask the hon. the Minister why his attitude has now suddenly changed so drastically before the expiration of the financial year. For years this House has been left under the impression that this commitment was being met out of the Renewals Fund and that there was adequate money in the Renewals Fund for this purpose, and now it appears that there is justification for increasing the interest burden. Let me remind the House that it is not only an increased interest burden in respect of the R7,500,000 in respect of this particular item; it is considerably more if one takes into consideration the additional R9,000,000 which the Minister is asking us to appropriate for the stores stock account. Sir, one is left rather puzzled by this sort of manipulation of Railway finances. I want to ask the Minister whether this method is now being embarked upon for the purpose of disposing of the surplus, a surplus from which the Minister well knows the railwaymen of South Africa are going to ask for their fair share?

I wanted to put this on record in view of the attitude adopted by the Minister in his reply. We do so by way of protest. The Minister fully realizes that we cannot refuse to pass this because it is a commitment that has been incurred by the Administration but we want to record our protest at the attitude adopted by the Minister in his reply to the debate, his attitude in regard to Auditor-General’s action in commenting upon the practices embarked upon by the Railway Administration and the Minister’s attitude towards the work of the Railway Select Committee whose duty it is to look after the interests of the public as far as public finance is concerned.

The one issue that has arisen as a result of the debate yesterday and which I feel the hon. the Minister must clear up is in connection with the R30,000,000 which he is asking Parliament to pass in respect of Loan Funds. We did not deal with this globular sum to any extent but I did ask the Minister specifically whether he was satisfied that his Administration would be in a position to expend this amount during this financial year. The Minister’s definite reply to me was: “Definitely, I will be able to spend it and I will spend it by the end of this financial year.” Sir, I do not understand why it was that later on when we were dealing with the item of R9,000,000 for the stores stock account, the Minister in replying to the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) said that he was taking this R9,000,000 because he did not wish loan funds to go back to the Treasury as he would want to use this money for possible purchases during the next financial year; in other words, that he does not intend spending it by the end of this financial year. Sir, what is the position? I think we are entitled to know because this is an important issue as far as Loan Funds are concerned and from the point of view of parliamentary control over those Loan Funds once they have passed through this House. I think the Minister should give us a more definite statement as to what he has in mind in respect of the R30,000,000 from Loan Account of which he is now asking Parliament to approve.

I told the hon. member that the R30,000,000 would be spent. The credit balance in the working capital account is not exhausted every year; it is carried over, but the R30,000,000 that I am asking Parliament’s approval to spend, in other words, the capital funds to be utilized for the financing of capital works, will be spent, and part of that R30,000,000 is the R9,000,000 which is going into the working capital account. I said to the hon. member for Turffontein by way of interjection that he was completely off the rails with regard to the Select Committee’s criticisms, and I am now going to give him a detailed reply in regard to the matters raised by him.

The hon. member referred to the provision made in the Additional Estimates of Capital and Betterment expenditure against items 114 and 121 for re-allocation of the expenditure on certain items of rolling stock from the Renewals Fund to Loan Fund. In other words, instead of financing the cost of the wagons concerned from the Renewals Fund as has been provided in the Brown Book hitherto, it is proposed that the expenditure be charged to Loan Funds. That is the hon. member’s case; that is the one matter to which he raised objection. In the ordinary way new assets are financed from loan funds, but in the case of rolling stock and certain other equipment the Administration is permitted to utilize moneys from the Renewals Fund not only to effect replacements of rolling stock withdrawn from service but also to purchase additional rolling stock up to the amount of depreciation already accrued on assets still in service. The hon. member is aware that each year depreciation charges are brought to account against revenue. In the case of rolling stock it is on Head No. 8—Railways—and the resulting amount of money is credited to the Rolling Stock section of the Renewals Fund so as to be able to finance the replacement of assets withdrawn from service as well as the acquisition of additional items of rolling stock up to the amount of accrued depreciation.

The re-allocation of expenditure on rolling stock as between the Renewals Fund and Loan Funds, is no new procedure. It has been followed in different financial years over a long period of time.

When presenting the Second Additional Estimates for 1962-3 to the House on 21 February 1963—it is a pity the hon. member did not read that Budget speech of mine—I pointed out in connection with certain re-allocations then provided for (Hansard Col. 1690) …

That is quite right; that is in the Budget speech.

Allow me to finish this. I said on that occasion—

The reallocations now proposed are being made in accordance with this practice. It will be appreciated that rolling stock items are of such a nature that whether we build them in our workshops or acquire them by contract the delivery inevitably stretches over a lengthy period. When they are placed on contract, which itself means that quite a period of time is necessarily occupied in the preparation of specifications, invitation of tenders (which must leave the potential tenderers time in which to prepare and submit their bids) and adjudication of the tenders when received, we are in a somewhat better position. Only when the contract has been placed is it possible to gauge what the financial needs will be. Even then there is no certainty because the scheduled dates of delivery can be affected by delays in material coming to hand in the case of work done departmentally, or delayed deliveries from contractors for various reasons.

In addition to this the Department itself, because of a change in traffic demand, may decide that priority should be given to the earlier delivery of a particular type of truck in preference to an order for another type. In this regard a close liaison is maintained between the Department and contractors. These factors make it essential that the allocation of expenditure as between the Renewals Fund and Loan Fund be kept under review. If preference is given to items allocated initially, say, to Renewals Fund then the possibility of the rolling stock section of the Renewals Fund being overspent may arise, and corrective action is taken by reallocating the expenditure to Loan Funds.

Prior to 1948 the rolling stock section of the Renewals Fund was on several occasions substantially overdrawn, but it is now the policy of the Administration to avoid this and in view of the fluctuating factors, to which I have referred and which affect the financing arrangements, there is no alternative on occasions but to make reallocations.

In this regard we must also have regard to the amount of loan funds that Treasury can make available. Furthermore, in making such reallocations the aim is not only to adjust for the current year but also to take cognizance of the likely requirements in subsequent years. The new rolling stock programme has been a heavy one for several years and it would not be anticipating the budget to say that next year’s programme will be even heavier. Consequently, despite the fact that Parliament agreed to credit R6,000,000 of the 1963-4 surplus to the rolling stock section of the Renewals Fund the commitments as at present foreseen are such that a reallocation of the expenditure on Items 114 and 121 is required.

Item 121 of the Additional Estimates was approved by Parliament for the first time as Item 1063 in the 1964-5 Brown Book. It was then estimated that R60,000 would be spent from Renewals Fund. However, in view of the urgent need for the special type tank wagons their delivery is being expedited so that R224,000 is now estimated to be required. Consequently, it is now proposed that the expenditure be financed from Loan Funds.

As regards Item 114 for 1,000 F.Z. type grain bogie wagons, this was previously provided for as follows: The estimated total cost for 1962-3 in the Brown Book, and the cash provision (financed from Renewals) was R1,000,000; for 1963-4 the estimated total cost was R 5,000,000 and the cash provision (financed from Renewals) R200; in 1964-5 the estimated total cost was R7,587,000 and the cash provision (financed from Renewals) R7,401,480.

When the initial cash provision of R1,000,000 was made it was anticipated that tenders would be called in 1962 and that it would be possible to place the order in that year. Unfortunately, due to the acute shortage of technical staff the preparation of drawings and specifications required for incorporation in the tender documents suffered delay. Tenders could only be called for in February 1963 and the contract was placed in May 1963. The original delivery as scheduled in the contract provided for the wagons to be supplied over the period October 1964 to May 1965. This was why an amount of only R200 was allowed in the 1963-4 Brown Book to provide for any contingent expenditure.

The cash provision reflected in the 1964-5 Brown Book, as amended by the amount indicated against Item 114 of the Additional Estimates now under consideration, almost absorbed the estimated total cost of the item. The balance is being carried forward to meet late debits which experience shows are normally associated with such an item.

As regards the amount of R256,775 spent as at 31 March 1964 this represents expenditure by the Department on certain components which it manufactures itself and supplies to the contractors. The amount does not represent any completed vehicles put into service. The hon. member appears to be under the impression that the Controller and Auditor-General and the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours have objected to reallocations of this nature.

This, however, is not correct. What the hon. member is apparently referring to is the resolution taken last year by the Select Committee where the Department is criticized for the fact that, in the case of an item of rolling stock, after Parliament had given approval in the 1962-3 Additional Estimates of a reallocation of expenditure from Renewals Fund to Loan Funds, the Department had subsequently made an adjustment debiting part of the expenditure to the Renewals Fund. It is this subsequent adjustment which Audit and the Select Committee have criticized and the Committee deal with the matter in Resolution No. 3 of the 1964 Report. I find, however, that there was a precedent in 1947-8 for making an adjustment by redebiting part of the expenditure on a rolling stock item back to the Renewals Fund after Parliament had—also through the medium of Additional Estimates, but, of course, those of 1947-8—approved of the reallocation of expenditure on the item from Renewals Fund to Loan Funds.

The full facts of the case came to the notice of the Select Committee in 1949 as a result of the query by Audit as to whether the adjustment in the books transferring the expenditure to loan fund capital on the last day of February 1948 was correct in view of the fact that the Railways Additional Appropriation Act only came into force in March. The Select Committee at that time passed no adverse comment on any aspect of the matter. I may add that when the subsequent adjustment, involving an amount of R2,303,376 was passed in 1948 the rolling stock section of the Renewals Fund was already overspent to the extent of over R7,500,000. In the light of this case I feel that the Select Committee on Railways and Harbours may wish to have the opportunity of reviewing their resolution of 1964 and in the Administration’s reply to the Select Committee’s resolutions which was tabled on 15 February 1965 an indication has been given to this effect.

In conclusion, however, I think it should once again be made quite clear that the criticism of Audit and the Select Committee is not aimed at the fact that a reallocation was made from Renewals Fund to Loan Funds through the Additional Estimates but actually at the subsequent adjustment when some of the expenditure was reversed as a charge against the Renewals Fund again.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Last night just before we adjourned I was pointing out that the hon. members for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) and Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Hourquebie) had tried to debate a motion before this House not on its merits but in order to create a certain impression. The impression which they wanted to create was that the Nationalist Party in fact wants to be dishonest during elections and that the United Party is honest, and that this measure which the Government was introducing was intended to promote the aims, purposes and methods of the Nationalist Party while at the same time seeking to upset the methods of the United Party.

But, Mr. Speaker, this is something we must expect from these two people. In creating this impression, an additional accusation was by implication levelled against the hon. the Minister of Justice—that he is the willing instrument of the Government and of the Nationalist Party. This is the only conclusion that one can draw, bearing in mind the introductory words of the hon. member for Durban (Point). He wanted to amend the title of this Bill. He said that we ought to call it: “The evasion of the Electoral Laws Act”. He gave the impression that the hon. the Minister was masquerading here or acting as a sort of facade for the hon. the Minister of the Interior who is actually the villain of the piece. Sir, the creation of an impression of that nature is unworthy of hon. members on that side and it is also unworthy of this House because when we consider the facts, when we regard this matter objectively and we look at the Act which is to be amended, we are struck by this fact: That if the hon. the Minister really wanted to act in an underhand way, if he really wanted to be the villain of the piece without this fact being obvious, he could have made use of the provisions of the Act as it stands. Section 1 of Act 16 of 1963 states—

In other words, he has an absolute discretion in regard to the number of wards in a constituency—

and in terms of this section he also has the power—

just as he pleases. In terms of Section 2 as it stands at present, the hon. the Minister can appoint six justices of the peace in each of those wards. If there was any intention on his part to try to evade the provisions of this Act the hon. the Minister could have done so without the Opposition’s knowing it. But because he is an honest man and because this is an honest party he and we have come to this House and we say: “It is not possible to assist everyone who wants to vote in this way to get to the polls. This is contrary to what we thought would be the case and so it is extremely desirable that we should now take steps other than those which we envisaged last year”. The attitude adopted by hon. members opposite is that the hon. the Minister will of necessity appoint people who are rascals. I cannot understand why there is this approach to the matter. Let us differ from one another by all means but do not let us consider one another to be rogues. But that is the spirit with which the hon. members for Durban (Musgrave) and Durban (Point) are imbued and I make so bold as to say that the remarks which they have made, indeed their whole approach to this matter, simply stem from the hatred which they have for the Afrikaner.

Nonsense!

That is the only reason that I can offer for their action in this regard. Sir, I am sure you noticed how confused the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) was. It was really pathetic to see him trying to put his case and this was so simply because hatred is his counsellor, not sound judgment and good work. It was pathetic to see the poor man struggling with his words and stumbling through his argument.

But we are not all like you.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) has just come in. He has no idea of what I have said but he has just treated me to that remark. I am pleased that he is here; I should like to follow up some of his arguments. The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Van den Heever) said that if we do appoint justices of the peace, the political parties will have every opportunity to appoint a person to hold a watching brief for them or even to hold a watching brief themselves when those justices of the peace do their work. In the first place I want to draw the hon. member’s attention to the absent voter whom the presiding officer is unable to trace—that is to say, the voter who is visited by the justice of the peace whom the hon. the Minister of Justice has appointed. What happens in such a case? There are detailed provisions to cover a matter of this nature. I want to ask hon. members to look at Section 56sept (2) (c) of the principal Act. I am dealing now with the case in which a voter is unable to visit the polling officer or the presiding officer. In that case a presiding officer has to visit the voter. He has to be accompanied by a witness, and both of them have to be officials, that is to say, the justice of the peace and another official.

No, not a justice of the peace—an official.

They must be officials. We are now providing that an official can also be a justice of the peace.

No that is not the position.

They are appointed.

Very well, that greatly increases the scope of my argument; also lends far more truth to my argument. That absent voter who is to be visited must be visited by an official who is a presiding officer and by a witness who must also be an official, and when a ballot paper of this nature is issued, the presiding officer is compelled—I want to quote here from Section 56sept (1) (c)—

There is not the slightest opportunity for anyone to commit fraud as has been suggested by the hon. member for Durban (Point).

But that is not where the services of the justices of the peace are used.

No, wait a moment. I come now to the other case where the justices of the peace will be required to act as presiding officers. The hon. member for Durban (Point) entertained the House in this regard by quoting long passages from a speech made by the hon. the Minister of the Interior. When we discussed this matter last year it was common cause on both sides of the House that anyone has the right to be present when the services of a justice of the peace are made use of.

No.

The bad faith of the hon. member for Durban (Point) is transparently obvious from that interjection. He studied the speeches made by the hon. the Minister last year very well indeed.

But that is not in the Act.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) wants to make my speech for me; he wants to develop my argument and draw my conclusions to suit himself. I just want to tell him that I did not interrupt him while he was speaking; all I did was ask him a question. Let us consult this volume of Hansard. The hon. member for Durban (Point) had it with him just below his desk; he could have given this House the benefit of Hansard if he had not pleaded his case in bad faith—like a person who has a poor case. Speaking about justices of the peace this was what the hon. the Minister said (col. 5541)—

I would like the hon. member for Durban (Point) to listen to this.

But it is wrong.

Order! The hon. member for Durban (Point) has had every opportunity to make his speech and he must give the hon. member the opportunity to do the same.

I should like to quote further what was said by the hon. the Minister of the Interior in his reply to the debate on 4 May 1964—

The hon. member for Durban (Point) now says that there is no provision of this nature in the Act, but did any hon. member opposite object to the view taken by the hon. Minister of this matter at the time? Did they not accept the fact, just as we did, that such person is a public official, that such person performs a public function and that such person will set himself up in a public office? Do they not know that public offices are available to any member of the public? He cannot be thrown out unless he is guilty of vagrancy or something of that nature. If he is there for a lawful purpose, as indeed he is—in order to prevent fraud—will they be able to throw him out? The hon. member for Durban (Point) know this last night. If he did not know it then I am giving him more credit than is his due. But I want to tell him now that those justices of the peace are all public officials, as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) has already said. They will all fulfill a public function. They will all sit in a public office. Because this is so, any party which has a candidate or even any person who is interested can be present at that office. I think that with these few words I have disposed of the accusation that the officials who will be appointed in this way will of necessity be guilty of fraud.

If we look at the old laws establishing justices of the peace and we see the type of people with whom justices of the peace are associated, the people with whom they are equated, we will know what type of person the legislator had in mind and the type of person who ought to be appointed by the hon. the Minister of Justice. Who are they? They are equated with the Commissioner of Police, with the Inspector-General of the Defence Force, with any magistrate or assistant magistrate and with any officer of the police or of the Defence Force. It is that type of person with whom justices of the peace associate. Birds of a feather flock together, Mr. Speaker. People of equal calibre belong with one another. Thus, the hon. the Minister is also compelled to appoint people of a calibre similar to those mentioned in the old Justices of the Peace Act with whom they are identified. I want now to ask the hon. member for Durban (Point), the Opposition and the whole country: How on earth can one imply that the hon. the Minister will appoint people who are not honourable? If it is true that the hon. the Minister is the fly in the United Party ointment or, if you prefer it, Mr. Speaker, is the villain of the piece, do you not accept the fact that neither he nor the hon. the Minister of the Interior would be prepared to allow something to flourish with which the Opposition were not satisfied or which would put them (the Ministers) in a bad light when we had an election? It will be the easiest thing in the world for the Opposition to rectify that matter without polluting the atmosphere here. If the hon. member for Durban (Point) will look at Section 186 of the Electoral Consolidation Act he will see that it reads as follows:

This is important, Sir …

I want to put this to the hon. member for Durban (Point). The hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) is not here but he would in any case not understand it if I put it to him. That is why I want to put it to the hon. member for Durban (Point). The purpose of this Act is to allow elections to be held in such a way that the largest possible number of voters are able to cast their votes and so that those votes can be counted—so that the opinion of those voters as far as the Government of the country is concerned will also carry weight. That is the aim of this Act. If the hon. member for Durban (Point) objects to justices of the peace, he can ask the hon. the Minister of the Interior—there is still time for him to do so to-day—to issue a regulation setting out the obvious in writing in such regulation—that political parties have the right of admission to the public office where the justice of the peace does his work as a polling officer. That is what they can do.

Will you subscribe to it?

I shall not subscribe to it because I do not think it is necessary. I do not think that one should make regulations in order to train people. I believe that one has to make a law in order to arrange a certain matter. The Act makes provision whereby nothing in it shall be secret except the vote itself. One wants to treat all the parties as fairly as possible. That is why they are permitted to be present when ballot papers are applied for, when postal votes are issued and so forth. That is why the political party must be notified when a visit is made by a presiding officer. These are all reasons, but there is no reason why regulations should not be issued for the edification of the Opposition saying that they may be present when a justice of the peace does his work in an office which is a public place. They can make the regulation very simple so that the hon. members for Durban-(Musgrave) and Durban (Point) will also be able to understand it. They can say: It is hereby declared and stated that an office of a justice of the peace is a public office. If they do this, it will be easy. The hon. member for Durban (Point) can do it; the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) can do it; anyone who is still to speak on this subject can do it. There is still time to do it before the 24th. I am sure that the hon. the Minister of Justice and the hon. the Minister of the Interior will give very favourable consideration to this matter. I do not know whether they think it is necessary to issue a regulation for the edification of the Opposition.

The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) made a remark so shocking that I consider myself justified in treating his whole speech with the contempt that that remark deserves. I would remind the hon. member that not only are these two sections fellow countrymen but that approximately one in four, or possibly one in five, of the Afrikaans-speaking people are supporting this party. I would remind him that we, who are of the English-speaking brand, are very aware of the tremendous pressures that are placed upon our fellow countrymen to persuade them to support the party opposite and we admire immensely their fortitude in the face of such pressures in standing with us. I may add that we are very aware too of the great history that the Afrikaans-speaking people have had independently of English-speaking people as well as together.

Order! The hon. member must return to the Bill.

Sir, I am dealing with a very serious allegation. I trust that hon. members opposite will not support the hon. member for Standerton in that remark and I therefore proceed.

So far as the rest of his speech was concerned he was concerned to show that it was possible for each political party to have representatives in the offices of these J.P.s during office hours. Well, if a J.P. wants to do anything dishonest there are plenty of hours outside office hours within which he can do it. I say “if” he wishes to be dishonest.

What are you insinuating?

I am insinuating nothing. I said “if” he wished to be dishonest.

Government speakers have portrayed this Bill as something quite innocent and the hon. the Minister of Justice has said there was no need for more than a short debate. I can well understand his wishing to draw a veil over this Bill. But I suggest that such a veil would hide the sins of two Ministers, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of the Interior and that it is our duty to lift that veil to see their sins, for what they are, sins not perhaps of the grossest kind, but sins nonetheless to be brought home to them.

As for the hon. the Minister of the Interior he made a solemn assessment to this House and the country that in the measure which he piloted through the House last year he had provided enough presiding officers for absent voters without any significant use of justices of the peace. Now that assessment was wrong. He felt so strongly that he was right that he actually sought to gain the support of this side to allow justices of the peace to be the presiding officers of absent voters on the strength of an assurance that they would hardly be used. This was an error. I suggest it was incompetence. We are used to incompetence, but still it is another instance of it. But we would gladly forgive an error because errors are human. But we had no contriteness, we had no penitence at all, conveyed to this House by the hon. the Minister of Justice on behalf of the Minister of the Interior. We would at least have expected him to have said: Do tell them on my behalf that things did not work out quite that way; we are finding that our numbers are wrong; I am sorry to have indicated that position and very glad that the United Party was not misled by it into doing something which it would not have done otherwise, namely, to support the active employment of J.P.s as presiding officers for absent voters. It would have made it much easier to have forgiven the hon. the Minister of the Interior had he adopted that course.

As for the Minister of Justice his sins also have to be exposed. He has taken the attitude, fair enough, that he is quite blameless that, parodying the words of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) he is as pure as the white blank voting paper which the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) so fancies. I have a certain sympathy for the hon. Minister of Justice in this connection. The hon. the Minister of the Interior has put him in a nasty position. Either he has to bring this Bill and make J.P.s unlimited or if he does not do so he creates the position where there will be a serious danger that the postal voting system introduced by his colleague will break down in some areas. What does the hon. Minister of Justice do? He gives in; he allows himself to be talked into it. One trusts that it gave him considerable pain to do this but I must confess he attempted to hide any pain he may be feeling very effectively. I suggest it should have given him pain for two reasons. First, he should have had indigestion because he had to swallow the words he uttered in the Senate in which he indicated his view of the life of a justice of the peace. In the debate in 1963 he indicated that the life of a justice of the peace involved no arduous personal exertion. That can be found in the Senate Hansard. That was the attitude he took up. I think he will readily agree that what is required of these justices of the peace now is considerable exertion. They are to sit, apparently, from 9 in the morning to 6 at night in an office—a thing no J.P. has ever done in his life before; they are apparently to take themselves out by car to voters who are immobile …

You do not know a thing about the Act.

I am not so certain about that. Mr. Speaker. But in any event if I am wrong in that respect I stand corrected. But it is certainly a new hazard to J.P.s to have to keep such solid office hours as contemplated. I am still of the view, but I do speak subject to correction in view of what the hon. Minister says, that they are among the people who can be taken out to visit any immobile voter. I may be wrong; if I am I readily accept that. [Interjections.] The hon. Minister did not give me time to get that particular fact correct. I am told that I am in very good company, if I am wrong, because the hon. member for Standerton is under the same illusion as I.

It is quite clear that these J.P.s who will now be appointed will only be appointed where there is a considerable necessity, so presumably they will do a considerable amount of work. I say, therefore, that the hon. Minister of Justice has had to swallow his words in that respect.

My second charge against him, the main sin that he commits, is that he is debasing the office, the old venerable institution of Justices of the Peace. This has always been a most honourable office and one which was peculiarly in his safekeeping as is the office of a Judge and others. The Minister is lending himself to allow this venerated office to become embroiled in party politics. The hon. the Minister was very indignant when that suggestion was conveyed across the floor of the House yesterday evening, but I suggest this is indeed happening. We have already had evidence in this House that the election agent for the National Party candidate for Kimberley (North) has been appointed a justice of the peace. I would not be surprised if other appointments of that kind have occurred and will occur. What I say is this: Whereas the hon. the Minister may feel that in quieter times he could avoid this to some extent, he cannot get away from it wholly ever, and now at the particular juncture at which he is making the appointments he will certainly bring justices of the peace into party politics. What are those circumstances? They are that these appointments must be made virtually in two or three weeks’ time. I am quite certain, this office being what it is, these appointments have in the past happened in a most leisurely fashion and very few have been made. Now within a fortnight, or thereabouts, we are going to have people appointed wherever the postal vote position of the political parties is pressing in a particular area. Crash programme! I say that in that situation clearly the political parties will be the people who instigate individuals to apply to become justices of the peace. These venerable gentlemen are certainly not going to rush forward to seek office in this way. We have had signs that that is already happening, signs from various official sources. Indeed it is natural. I ask the hon. the Minister how many of the existing type of justices of the peace would have applied for this position had they realized, or if they now know, that they would have to be persons greatly concerned with presiding over absent votes? I believe virtually none would have. No one would have wanted the position on that basis. I suggest that that shows more clearly than anything how the Minister is lending himself to debasing this venerable office.

The hon. the Minister advanced, by way of excuse, that justices of the peace had been connected with postal votes in the past. Of course they have been. They are commissioners of oaths and they can therefore sign the necessary papers. But, Sir, the extent to which justices of the peace participated in the postal vote system in the past was negligible—absolutely insignificant. It was a rare occurrence. [Interjections.] Well, if the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) has had a different experience I can only say that it does not agree with mine and I have had an opportunity of observing these things over many elections, including four that I fought myself. I say the parties used in the main their own agents who were appointed under the Electoral Law for that very purpose. So I say it is no excuse whatsoever to say that this has always been the position. It has not been the position. Justices of the peace have been associated and are associated in our laws with maintaining law and order and, as the name infers, peace. What worse departure could you have, Sir, than to bring people, who should be concerned with stirring times, or perhaps a national emergency, where everybody should be standing shoulder to shoulder, into a position where they will be known by the stamp of being party political. So, Mr. Speaker, we deplore this Bill. We say it is not the innocent Bill it has been given out to be, very largely because of this aspect of debasement of this old office.

The speaker who has just sat down has accused the Minister of Justice of debasing and disgracing the office of justice of the peace. He used the word “debase”. The hon. member who has just spoken, the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) and other hon. members opposite who have already spoken, have debased and disgraced the public life of South Africa by having tried to gain a small measure of political advantage by completely misrepresenting a measure dealing with the appointment of certain public officials. Hon. members try to suggest to South Africa that this Government has dishonourably broken an understanding arrived at in connection with the postal vote legislation of last year and that this Government want to appoint justices of the peace in order to cast suspicion on the postal votes during the coming election. That is the suggestion that is made across the floor of this House. Hon. members want to create the impression that this Government is guilty of appointing justices of the peace, an act which will make the postal votes in the coming election suspect. When a party and the representatives of the people have reached the stage where they look to people with the worst judgment and the worst taste for a small measure of political benefit, by casting doubt on the public life of the entire country, then really, Mr. Speaker, they have debased themselves and they have disgraced themselves.

I want to deal, in the first place, with the question of whether it is justified to increase the number of justices of the peace. What are the facts? Throughout South Africa justices of the peace wards have remained unaltered over three/four decades. I do not want to say too much but it has become clear from the research I have done that those justices of the peace wards in which I was interested were determined prior to 1920. Since those justices of the peace wards have been demarcated there has been a tremendous development in the population. You have the position in many new districts to-day, districts like Klerksdorp and the vicinity, the far West Rand, Carlton-ville, in my area, for instance, that there is not a single justice of the peace in the ward covering the thickly populated area because those who were appointed in days of yore live outside the thickly populated areas. It has, therefore, in the first place become urgently necessary to rationalize justices of the peace appointments so that they will be available to perform their functions where necessary.

There is a second point. The hon. member for Standerton has dealt with it and I do not want to emphasize it again unnecessarily. Where does the mean assumption come from that the justices of the peace to be appointed in terms of existing qualifications will differ in quality from those appointed previously? Why come to an evil conclusion when certain magistrates, in my opinion, acted wisely by asking both parties to submit nominations? Had I been in the position of the hon. the Minister I would have been anxious to learn what the United Party leaders thought of the appointment of justices of the peace in a certain area and I would have been anxious to learn what the National Party leaders thought about the appointment of persons in a certain area because in the long run, although you are in the Opposition you should assume co-responsibility for the government of the country and you should also be prepared and capable of recommending responsible people for the office of justice of the peace as we are indeed capable of doing.

I now come to the misrepresentation that has been made. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) was under a misapprehension when the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) was not sure whether a justice of the peace could do the vote of immobile voters or not. The hon. member for Durban (Point) confirmed it; he said a justice of the peace could do it. This bigger category of postal votes is not in any way affected by justices of the peace. A justice of the peace cannot do the postal votes of immobile voters. The votes of immobile voters must be done by persons as laid down in Section 56sex—

Only where application is made.

No, Mr. Speaker. Let me read the section for the edification of the hon. member and in order to clarify this point. I shall read it in Afrikaans (English version)—

That is the so-called immobile voters—

… to vote as an absent voter, place a consecutive number on each application, and, if any such application is received by him not later than 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the second day before the polling day, in consultation with a magistrate appoint a polling officer and an official witness, both of whom shall be persons in the service of the State, to visit that applicant at the address specified and to enable him to vote, unless he is satisfied, after consultation with an authorized representative of every political party in the division in which such presiding officer’s office is situated, that such voter is not such an absent voter as is contemplated in the said section.

That means if he rejects the vote.

Only those under Section 56quat.

Yes, only those under Section 56quat. That is the immobile voter. [Interjections.] But, of course, Mr. Speaker, every political party will get those voters who qualify as immobile voters to make application under Section 56quat. And as far as they are concerned justices of the peace do not come into the picture and was the hon. member for Pinelands wrong and was he wrongly prompted by the hon. member for Durban (Point). The House is entitled to blame the hon. member for Durban (Point) for either not having done his homework …

You are entirely wrong.

Can you believe it, Sir, he is actually persisting with it. Have words lost their meaning? I do not think I should occupy the time of the House by reading it in English as well.

As cheap as you can be.

I may be cheap but I am not stupid and what is more I am not a “hanskakie” (pseudo Englishman) the United Party can buy cheaply.

The function of the justice of the peace is therefore coupled to the postal vote in respect of which we, as a political party, have to bring the postal voter to the presiding officer. Hon. members who are interested in postal votes know, in any case, what the implication is, namely, that two-thirds will be visited by persons who may not be justices of the peace but that one-third will be taken to a presiding officer, something which places a considerable burden on the political party. You have to take your car and go to the voter; you have to collect his postal vote application; if the application for a postal vote is approved you have to get into your car a second time and go to that voter, pick him up at his home or place of employment, and say to him: Come with me; you must now go and cast your vote. What are the facts in connection with the voter? Most of the voters who cast their vote in that way will be people who vote outside normal office hours and all categories of presiding officers, except the police, are people who observe normal office hours. It can therefore be expected that it will be difficult to find a presiding officer, except the police, before whom the voter can cast his vote if you fetch that voter after office hours to bring him to a presiding officer. It is extremely essential therefore that enough presiding officers are available after office hours to take votes. It is there where the justices of the peace come into the picture. When the Electoral Act was under discussion we talked about the far-flung areas. It is there where justices of the peace come into the picture but it can also happen that a justice of the peace has to be nominated as the presiding officer to whom the postal vote has to be sent and to whom you may bring the voter. I want to say frankly that I was shocked when I heard in this debate that there was a justice of the peace who had made his nest in the National Party offices at Kimberley (North). I trust the hon. member for Moor-reesburg (Mr. P. S. Marais) will, in another capacity, express his view as to the good taste of that because I am sure it was never the intention of any of the parties that a justice of the peace should choose his office so injudiciously. However, I say it is only right that a justice of the peace be found who is willing to keep his office open for a reasonable period after office hours so that we can bring the voters to him. It is desirable that there should be justices of the peace in the various wards of a fairly big constituency so that we can bring the people to them to vote. The hon. member for Standerton argued adequately that the office of a justice of the peace was a public place where the Opposition party could have their witnesses and conduct their inspection. The hon. member for Durban (Point) asked whether we would support the suggestion that a regulation be promulgated laying down specifically that the Opposition party, or rather the representatives of both candidates, can be present. I do not know what the attitude of the Minister of the Interior is in this regard but as far as I am concerned I would support the promulgation of such a regulation without any further ado in order to eliminate any doubt as to whether or not both parties may be present at the office of the justice of the peace concerned or at the polling office.

They have the right.

Yes, they undoubtedly have the right but if they do believe it we could perhaps say it here.

May I ask the hon. member whether the justice of the peace can also take the ballot paper to the voter?

No.

Why not?

Because an immobile voter is the only voter to whom a ballot paper may be taken. A justice of the peace who is a presiding officer and who has chosen a certain address as his office address is obliged to keep the ballot paper at that address and if he does not do so he is contravening the Electoral Act and he lays himself open to prosecution, in which case the danger exists that that vote will be declared invalid.

Prove that from the Act.

The hon. member asks me to quote the Act to prove a negative proposition. Surely he can take the trouble himself of reading the Act. The mere fact that Section 56quat makes provision for absent voters proves it. Surely the very essence which constitutes an absent voter is the fact that the polling officer goes to him. In the case of other postal votes the voters have to come to him. If the hon. member still shakes his head I cannot help him. We can submit the argument to him but the ability to understand it he should receive from above.

I just want to make one further small point. The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) made the somewhat ludicrous statement that the Minister would now have to swallow the words he uttered in the Other Place to the effect that the office of a justice of the peace was not an office which called for heavy physical exertion because a justice of the peace would now have to observe office hours from nine to six and visit voters to do their votes. I have already dealt with the argument of having to travel to the voters. But I also want to dispose of this misunderstanding about the nine to six office hours. There is no suggestion that a justice of the peace is obliged to observe office hours of a certain duration. If a justice of the peace is physically as exuberant as the hon. member for Durban (Point) he can even observe a 20-hour office day. If the hon. member for Durban (Point) were a justice of the peace and if postal votes were at stake, I am convinced his war instincts would get the better of him and he would quite easily remain on duty for 20 hours. But the ordinary justice of the peace, the sedate person, the person with a measure of wisdom, like the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) will probably do his four or five hour shift at a reasonable time, say, from 5 o’clock in the afternoon to 10 o’clock in the evening which is not too strenous but convenient to the political parties.

It is essential that we have this legislation to ease the position in those districts where the justices of the peace set-up has become obsolete and because of the fact that there are areas in many of our constituencies where there are no polling officers and it being undesirable to overload our police officers by requiring them to act as presiding officers to deal with the postal votes sent to them, and also because a reasonable need has arisen for the appointment of a number of additional justices of the peace. All the opposition on the part of the United Party to this measure is a deliberate political attempt to catch votes by attributing mala fides to the Government in the hope of reaping a small harvest. But the voters of South Africa are sufficiently intelligent to differentiate between those who prey here and those who want to govern the country for the benefit of all.

I think three lawyers have preceded me and enlarged on this subject. At one stage I thought I know the law concerned in this matter but apparently I do not. For example, I specifically asked the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) in which section the ordinary presiding officer is forbidden from taking the postal vote sent to him to the voter so that the voter can cast his vote in comfort in his lounge. I am still awaiting a reply; it is an important point. I trust the hon. the Minister will correct us because I think if the hon. member for Kempton Park is right there may be some merit in his argument in that regard. But it seems as though the hon. member is no longer quite sure. He made a second point. He says we should first ascertain whether the appointment of additional justices of the peace is justified. But when the Minister spoke he did not advance that argument. The hon. Minister was frank and said: Look, this is the object of the Bill. But the hon. member for Kempton Park wanted to make out a case in connection with additional appointments and he asked what was wrong with that, because there was a shortage of justices of the peace and the Minister wanted to wipe out that shortage. I now want to ask the hon. member why this serious shortage has now suddenly been discovered. Surely it looks a bit suspicious. Even if I did not have any doubt about the matter when it comes to the question of the electoral laws people are inclined to become suspicious very easily.

Only United Party supporters.

I ask why this serious shortage of justices of the peace has not been discovered earlier. I am satisfied with the explanation given by the Minister. He told me what the object of his Bill was. The House has this Bill before it in order to bring about a definite amendment to the electoral laws of South Africa.

The hon. member made another point which I thought was of an extremely personal nature, a matter of personal bitterness and it is not necessary for me to reply to it. I just want to tell the hon. member that when it comes to debasing public life I think he goes too far when he thinks the sole object of this side of the House is to debase public life in South Africa. I think we are all agreed in this House that one of the duties of this House ought to be to ensure that the public has the necessary esteem for our public life.

Let us view the matter objectively as we ought to do. We have dealt with the Electoral Act on a previous occasion and what did we find in this House? The Government said to the Opposition: Let us view this matter objectively, impartially, and for months on end members of both parties devoted themselves to the matter and last year they submitted a Bill to this House in which they had tried to state the matter objectively. Both sides of the House supported it.

Why is the Government trying so hard to obtain co-operation? The reason is obvious. There is only one reason, and that is that no matter how much good faith exists the electoral laws are laws which raise suspicion most easily in the minds of the people. The hon. the Minister said he wanted to remove that suspicion, that he wanted to avoid doubts and that in order to do so he was even prepared to depart from the recommendations of the commission and not even allow politicians to act as presiding officers. He said he was going to take the votes out of the hands of the political parties and place them in the hands of public servants who worked under a code. And like hon. members opposite I congratulated the Minister and told him he had taken a sound step. We thanked him. We told him we thought he had gone a little too far. He ought not to appoint justices of the peace because, in the words of the Minister himself, a justice of the peace like the station master, was somebody who could freely participate in politics in South Africa. The hon. the Minister appreciated the point but he had good reasons to do so. He said he wanted to retain the justice of the peace in view of the practical problems experienced in the far-flung areas of South Africa. The Opposition felt so strongly about the matter that we wanted to assist the Minister and we said to him: Can’t we allow justices of the peace to do that duty in the far-flung areas only but not in the cities where they are not necessary and that in the cities those duties should be performed by other presiding officers. The Minister rejected that suggestion. The two important factors which remained were these: State control over the postal vote, out of the hands of the political parties; the political parties to be nothing more than the watch-dogs and, secondly, the Opposition to be consulted in this matter which is of the utmost importance to South Africa. However, the hon. the Minister of Justice now comes along and makes a serious departure from this definite principle of state control. Nor did he consult the Opposition in the matter. We were not asked whether we agreed or whether we had another suggestion to make. The hon. the Minister, as it were, said unequivocally: I am appointing justices of the peace specially with a view to the coming election. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I would be the last person to say the people will be suspicious of him but the Electoral Act has once again been thrown back into the pool of suspicion in which it has always been because we are exactly where we were: the vote of the person who has to vote by post has been taken out of the hands of the state officials of South Africa. A large number of justices of the peace are going to be appointed …

Where do you get the “large number” from?

The word “unlimited” appears to me

Only where necessary. For the rest they will not be appointed.

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister could enlighten us as to where that will be necessary and how many he thinks will be appointed?

But I have told you.

I am quite satisfied to confine myself to the wording “unlimited number” and the hon. the Minister will decide how many are necessary. There is no limitation and what the hon. the Minister is saying does not detract from my argument that we are creating a position in which the hon. the Minister will find that his actions may create suspicion and that that suspicion will be directed at him via the Electoral Act of South Africa. It is a pity because had he consulted us on the matter I could easily have told him how to avoid that suspicion. I could easily have made a suggestion to him.

How?

I am convinced the Electoral Act can, without any drastic change, be amended in such a way that there will not be any suspicion. The hon. the Minister knows that the question of justices of the peace was the subject of fierce opposition in this House last year. It was not a matter on which there was agreement. There was agreement on the Electoral Act, except on this question and without even looking at the Opposition the Government comes along and says: I am now going to appoint justices of the peace; I know you do not want it but I am going to do so. That is going a little bit far and I want to plead with the hon. the Minister to-day to restore the Electoral Act to the position in which the Government wanted to place it last year, with the approval of both sides of the House—above suspicion—and to limit the chances of arousing suspicion in the minds of the public to the minimum. If we do not do that I foresee that all the work done by the Government’s commission last year to put the Electoral Act in order will be wasted. It is no good hon. members opposite and the hon. the Minister asking piously: Why do you cast suspicion on the justices of the peace? Nobody in this House who knows what politics are will tell me that the people outside will not be suspicious of this step. Who can say that? Anybody opposite who has taken part in politics will know what I am talking about, namely, that if a United Party Government had done anything like that it would have been condemned straight out.

That is a nasty insinuation.

There you have it again, Sir; assumed piousness by that hon. member. We know politics. We had such a struggle last year to keep the matter out of politics yet the hon. the Minister is to-day wrecking both principles of state control and consultation. Nothing remains of that and I can foresee that the Electoral Act will shortly fall back into the pool of suspicion in which it was in the past.

The hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) said that the hon. the Minister of the Interior stated during the debate last year that he wanted to retain justices of the peace because of the practical difficulties experienced in the distant parts of the platteland. That is true and it is correct. But does the hon. member for Maitland realize that other practical difficulties have arisen in the meantime, as the hon. the Minister of Justice quite correctly stated—for example, in the case of the Mayfair constituency? There is no magistrate in the May-fair constituency and there is no justice of the peace there. Who has to take charge of the postal votes in that constituency? That is why these people must be appointed. This is a practical difficulty which the hon. member for Maitland has apparently not considered. The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) said that the increase in the numbers of justices of the peace will reduce the status of a justice of the peace—it will lower their status. Why should the status of justices of the peace be lowered simply because they handle postal votes? Why should the handling of postal votes have to be a task which has the taint of dishonesty and dishonour? Justices of the peace also dealt with postal votes in the past. Why did it not lower their status?

You dragged politics into the matter.

Why should this legislation lower the status of a justice of the peace? What is the purpose of this Bill? It is simply to ensure that everyone in any constituency who has to vote by post will have the opportunity of casting his or her postal vote. As the hon. the Minister correctly stated, there is every reason to believe that public servants will not be able to do the work in connection with the handling of the postal votes. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) has summarily concluded that this Bill is a slap in the face for the public servants. But the hon. member conveniently forgets that hon. members opposite are continually talking about the shortage of manpower in the Public Service. It is obvious that the Opposition want two things to happen during the election. Firstly, they want the public servants to be overloaded with work during the period of three weeks in which postal votes are dealt with, so overloaded in fact that they will not be able to do the work of the Public Service, and that this will completely disrupt the Public Service. The hon. member for Durban (Point) will immediately make use of the opportunity to accuse the Government of being incompetent because the work of the Public Service is not being done properly. But in the second place, it is obvious that the Opposition do not care if people are disenfranchised. The Opposition do not care if voters are deprived of their vote simply as a result of the fact that there are insufficient presiding officers available to deal with all the postal votes. Of course one can understand this because the fewer votes that are cast in an election, the less crushing will be the defeat which the Opposition will suffer. And who will have to bear the blame if those people cannot vote? Not the Opposition; the Government will have to take the blame for it. Indeed, hon. members opposite, including the hon. member for Durban (Point), will be the first to accuse the Government of having neglected its duty which is to give the voters of South Africa the opportunity to cast their votes. As I understand this Bill, we do not want to give the Opposition that opportunity because we want to defeat the Opposition in a fair and just manner at the polls.

This Bill is necessary. I am convinced that the number of presiding officers we have at present to handle the postal votes is inadequate to do this work. This has not simply been my conviction since the hon. the Minister gave notice of this Bill but it is a conviction which I expressed last year during the debate on the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill in this House. This is what I said at the time (translation)—

Indeed, I am convinced that even with the assistance of more justices of the peace it will not be possible to deal with all the postal votes during the coming provincial elections. I believe that the provincial elections will prove that it is necessary for us to amend the Electoral Act in this connection. That is why it is so essential that justices of the peace should be appointed and that this legislation be placed on the Statute Book as soon as possible.

I come now to the main reason why the Opposition say that they oppose this Bill. They oppose it on the grounds of their suspicion that the justices of the peace who will be appointed will be active members of a political party. Assuming that their suspicion is correct, what is wrong with that. The Opposition members on the Postal Vote Commission of 1963 unanimously subscribed to the principle that members of political parties should also be able to act as presiding officers. Does the hon. member for Durban (Point) deny this?

That is a half-truth.

No, it is the whole truth. I can quote from that report—anyone can quote from it to prove that the hon. member for Durban (Point), the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) and the hon. member for Maitland subscribed to the principle that Senators, Members of Parliament and members of provincial councils should be able to act as presiding officers.

For a time, just as an experiment.

Oh no! I challenge the hon. member to tell us where a provision of that nature is to be found in the report. Which paragraph provides that it will only be for an experimental period?

Paragraph 144.

In any case, it does not change the principle at all.

The words “experimental period” do not appear there.

What is more, the members of the United Party who served on the Postal Vote Commission went even further and also subscribed to the principle that a candidate at an election could appoint 12 persons in a constituency, or recommend to the magistrate that 12 persons be appointed, as commissioners of oaths to handle postal votes. Will the hon. member for Durban (Point) deny that every candidate would have the opportunity of recommending the appointment of 12 persons to act as commissioners of oaths?

That is the story.

No, it is the full story. The hon. member says that it is stated in Paragraph 144 that this will only be for an experimental period. That paragraph contains no provision of that nature.

May I ask you a question?

No, I would have given the hon. member the opportunity to ask me a question but after his reference to Paragraph 144 which contains no provision in support of this allegation, I am not prepared to give him that opportunity.

You are afraid of the truth.

What now becomes of the pious statement of the hon. member for Durban (Point) that the United Party did not want postal votes to be handled by political parties? The hon. member for Durban (Point), the hon. member for Maitland and the hon. member for Yeoville even went so far as to reject the principle that only public servants should act as presiding officers. Will the hon. member deny this? He cannot. I want to quote to him what is stated in Paragraph 140 of the report of the Postal Vote Commission. It states (translation)—

And those three hon. members whom I have mentioned also signed this paragraph. But now, on the eve of an election, the hon. member for Durban (Point) comes along here with an extremely pious countenance and says that the United Party does not want postal votes to be handled by members of political parties and that they must only be handled by public servants.

Read Paragraph 144 (d).

The hon. member should read that paragraph himself. There is no provision of that nature in Paragraph 144. The United Party further opposes this Bill on the assumption that these justices of the peace who will be appointed will be active supporters of political parties and that if postal votes are handled by people who are actively concerned in politics, malpractices must of necessity arise. In other words, a member of a political party is a person who cannot touch a postal vote without being guilty of malpractices. It is this matter which has been greatly exaggerated over the past years—this question of malpractices.

If there is one matter of which I am heartily sick and tired, it is this continual talk of the malpractices which arise when postal votes are handled by political parties. What is the insinuation when we say this? If it is correct, we are implying to the public that all of us sitting in this House are dishonest; we are telling the country that they have chosen dishonest and dishonourable people as their representatives in this House. But this is not all we imply; we also tell the outside world that political parties in South Africa are so dishonest that they cannot be trusted with the handling of postal votes. I am sick and tired of this sort of accusation which is continually being hurled at politicians and political parties. It is, of course, true, just as it is true in any profession or calling or group of people, that there are those who are dishonest, but the exception does not prove the rule. I believe that even the hon. member for Durban (Point) is more honest than some people are inclined to think he is. [Laughter.]

But I reject with contempt the insinuation that politicians and political parties in South Africa are dishonest and dishonourable. No proof can be adduced in this regard. Nor did the hon. member for Durban (Point) prove the accusation which he made against political parties. Why could he not prove it? Because he was a member of the Postal Vote Commission of 1963. I must say that most of the members of that commission were most painstaking in their search for anything that could give rise to malpractices; they were very careful in searching for these things and did everything in their power to prove that malpractices do exist in connection with postal votes. But the hon. members know just as well as I do that that commission did not succeed in producing one shred of proof to indicate that there are malpractices and abuses in connection with postal votes.

That is quite untrue.

It is not untrue. I want to quote from Paragraph 54 on page 11. The commission says here (translation)—

This is in connection with malpractices and abuses—

Now the hon. member says that I am not speaking the truth when I say that the commission was unsuccessful in finding one shred of proof to indicate that malpractices do arise. The hon. member for Durban (Point) signed this paragraph, he had no objection to it.

That is a half-story.

How can it be a half-story? I am quoting from the report of the Commission. I cannot help it if the hon. member for Durban (Point) cannot read. [Interjections.] Most of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Commission also stated that the alleged extent to which irregularities take place in connection with postal votes is largely exaggerated. That is also what appears in the report and that has also been signed by that hon. member.

This brings me to the argument that there need be no fear that these justices of the peace who will be appointed will be guilty of malpractices. Apart from the fact that a justice of the peace occupies a particularly high position in the community, I am convinced that the hon. the Minister of Justice will appoint people to these posts whom he will know beyond all doubt to be honourable people with outstanding characters. The position under the previous regime was that commissioners of oaths were appointed to handle postal votes on a recommendation of the political parties concerned. The commission which investigated the whole matter found that malpractices and abuses did arise but only to a limited extent; indeed, that commission found that there was not one single shred of proof to indicate that these abuses did occur—this was simply something which people imagined took place. The commission also found that in most cases, in practically 95 per cent of cases, the postal votes of their own voters are handled by members of political parties; in other words, only a very small percentage of postal votes can actually be interfered with. If this was the position when commissioners of oaths were appointed by the Minister on the recommendation of political parties, how much more unlikely is it that malpractices will arise as a result of the appointment of justices of the peace by the Minister on the recommendation not of political parties but of the magistrate concerned? This means that even though a political party were to recommend such a person to the magistrate, the magistrate would have to inquire into that person’s background before he could recommend to the Minister that such person was a person of good character. I say that it is just not possible that the status of these justices of the peace will be lowered in this regard and that they will sink to the level indicated by the Opposition.

I think that it is necessary for this legislation to be placed on the Statute Book as soon as possible and I reject with the utmost contempt the accusation which the Opposition has once again leveled against us—that there are political motives behind the appointment of additional justices of the peace.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) that we wish to enter into elections on a fair basis. I do not want to discuss our honesty or our honour. We are not dishonest or dishonourable people. We are merely people conducting elections. Some of us are astute politicians; some of us are innocence abroad in this matter of postal votes. But last year when we had the Electoral Bill before us there seemed to be general agreement. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) and the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) agreed that we had arrived at a compromise and I am sure that every member of this House who has had experience of elections and knows what happens in the handling of postal votes was pleased.

We congratulated the members of that Select Committee and the Commission. The Minister of the Interior introduced his Bill and it was acclaimed as a fine compromise, something we could all subscribe to. Now the Minister of Justice has introduced this Bill. I do not want to suggest for a moment that the Minister has any ulterior motive. I merely say that it is unfortunate that this Bill has been introduced at this time. We are practically on the eve of a provincial election.

Should I have introduced it after the election?

I am coming to that. The Minister now feels that it is necessary to appoint some justices of the peace. People on this side say that there was agreement that there were sufficient justices of the peace and other officers to carry out this election. I want to make this suggestion to the Minister: that we use this provincial election as a period of experiment, to see whether the recommendations of the Commission, as entrenched in the Electoral Act, were good, and whether they gave us a good system. There is only one way to test it. We can test it through having an election, and we are going to have a provincial election. It is important, but not as important as a general election. May I suggest to the Minister that we go through with the provincial election, and in the light of the experience gained he can then decide whether it is necessary to appoint more justices of the peace. Should he find that it is, he can come to this House and explain what has happened. We shall also have gained experience, and we can then discuss the matter together. We are discussing here not how to play the game, but the rules of the game, and if we are discussing the rules of the game they should be discussed in a calm atmosphere, which could be provided after the election. I make this appeal to the Minister to postpone this second reading until after the provincial election, and then we can discuss the matter de novo. I make that suggestion in all modesty, because I was not associated with the work either of the Select Committee or of the Commission and I do not know the details of their discussions. But I listened to the debate last year very carefully and I have listened to this debate. I make that suggestion in all modesty.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) said that these new recommendations should be used on an experimental basis during the coming provincial elections. I want to make further appeal. Let us make use of these justices of the peace—who will be appointed if we amend the Act—by way of experiment to handle postal votes for the first time. If it appears that these justices of the peace who act as postal vote officers and presiding officers exceed their powers and are guilty of those offences of which they are accused in advance by speakers on the Opposition side, then we will come back here next year and tell the hon. the Minister that it has not appeared to be a success and ask him to amend the Act again so as to dispense with the services of these people. We may even be able to prosecute in certain cases. But I am quite sure that the Opposition will not agree to our making this experiment.

The hon. the Minister has introduced a very brief Bill into this House in which he asks for only one amendment to the Justices of the Peace and Commissioners of Oaths Act. Because the number of justices of the peace is limited to six per ward, he is asking for the power to be able to appoint more than six per ward. Forgetting for a moment that we are on the eve of an election, we must realize that the population of South Africa has probably doubled since these wards were established and the justices of the peace appointed there. Because of the many duties which have to be performed by our magistrates’ courts I think that the hon. the Minister is entitled to ask this House to amend the Act in order to give him the opportunity, if he finds it necessary to do so and if there are places in which he finds it necessary to do so, to appoint more justices of the peace according to circumstances. That is all that the hon. the Minister has asked.

But what did we find? Hon. members of the United Party stood up and summarily and without any reservations tried to make the electorate suspicious of these people who will probably be appointed. We are becoming rather tired of continually hearing the story that a person who is actively engaged in politics should be suspect. That is a reflection upon members of this House, all the hon. members sitting here, including the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) who is unfortunately not here now; I take it that he has been called away …

No, he is sitting there. His Leader called him.

I include him when I say that there is no stigma attached to him because he is a member of this House and because he is very active in politics and because he assists in handling postal votes. No, I think we ought to congratulate the hon. member for Durban (Point). I have here the results of the Referendum which was held in 1960. I want to mention a constituency in which elections are never held; it is an unopposed constituency in which there are no branch organizations and there is no branch machinery which has continually to be kept in gear and which operates smoothly. I want to mention the constituency of Durban (Berea), in which the hon. member for Durban (Point) is very active and where he has helped in regard to postal votes. Hon. members will not believe me when I say that 98.8 per cent of the people in that constituency voted for a Republic. The hon. member deserves to be congratulated for having succeeded in obtaining such a high percentage poll in an urban constituency in which people are never in one place for very long. But nobody suspects the hon. member if he helps there in connection with postal votes. Perhaps he is suffering from a guilty conscience. From what those hon. members have said in their speeches, one can only tell them not to judge others by themselves. I can speak for the Nationalist Party. Our political organization has a very proud record as far as the handling of postal votes is concerned. That is why I can say with every justification that whatever the political convictions may be of the justices of the peace whom the hon. the Minister intends to appoint, if they are members of the National Party he need not be concerned about their conduct. Their integrity will be beyond reproach so he need not be concerned in this regard.

I want to thank the hon. the Minister for his intention to amend this Act. I want to tell him that more justices of the peace are urgently required in that part of the Republic which I know well, men who will have specific instructions to be of assistance during the election in regard to the casting of postal votes. In a democratic country like South Africa we want to give every citizen the opportunity to cast his or her vote. That is a voter’s democratic right no matter what his or her political convictions may be. I have no fault to find with the provisions of the Electoral Laws Amendment Act which was passed here last year but I am convinced that under the provisions of that amending Act and without the appointment of additional justices of the peace to help them, the public servants in many parts of the Republic will not be able to allow justice to be done to these voters by enabling them to cast their votes. That will be physically impossible. It is because of this fact that the Opposition has worked itself into an almost ungovernable rage. They do not have the machinery with which to handle postal votes: they do not have the material to handle postal votes. But hon. members of the Opposition know very well who the voters are who have of necessity to vote by post. It is those voters who are less fortunate than the man who can vote in his own time whom we want to give the opportunity to vote by means of postal votes. That is why I say that it is the duty and the responsibility and the task of this House to set up machinery to enable these people to cast their votes. It is clear to those of us who have handled postal votes in the past, who know that more than 10 per cent of the votes that are cast are the votes of absent voters and that the percentage may possibly increase, that it will be absolutely impossible for the existing number of public servants who are now authorized to handle postal votes to assist all these people to cast their votes. I accuse the Opposition of wanting to deprive these people of their democratic right to vote. That is the aim of the hon. member for Durban (Point). He wants to make it impossible for those less fortunate people to vote.

Nonsense!

Will he be satisfied if all the justices of the peace are United Party supporters?

Why does the hon. member not want to give. us the opportunity to ensure that honourable people are appointed to see to it that these votes are cast? It does not make the slightest difference as far as I am concerned what the political affiliations of these justices of the peace are. I believe that the justices of the peace who will be appointed by the Minister will be people of unimpeachable character. I do not expect a justice of the peace who is to be appointed to ask a person to which political party he belongs before he assists that person to vote by post; I know that this will not happen and I know that we in South Africa have sufficient people who comply with those qualifications whom we can appoint as justices of the peace. Because of the attitude of the Opposition to this measure I cannot assume that they do not want to give people the opportunity to vote. That is the only conclusion that we can draw and that is what every man in the street will conclude because of their opposition to this measure. No case has been made out as to why the Act should not be amended and as to why more justices of the peace should not be appointed. Under a Nationalist Government we will establish machinery to enable every absent voter to cast his vote. Even if we have a number of prosecutions at a later stage because these justices of the peace have not done their duty, to my way of thinking it should still be tried by way of experiment.

In conclusion I want to make this appeal—that we must be very careful in what we say not to cast reflections upon these people who have still to be appointed. The people to be appointed will not meddle with postal votes; they will not be rascals. We have any number of honourable people to do this work. We have sufficient confidence in the hon. the Minister and in the officials who will make their recommendations to the Minister to believe that these justices of the peace who will be appointed will be worthy of the name justices of the peace.

I will not detain the House very long. I just want to say a few words because I think such a lot of unnecessary heat has been engendered about this Bill. We had the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg) waxing indignant because the suggestion was made that hon. members of this House or people taking part in politics should ever have tampered with postal votes. The hon. member who has just sat down was indignant because he thought it was an onslaught on the less privileged voter who could not get himself to the polls, although why this is aimed specifically at the less privileged people than at the people who are away on holiday, who are perhaps more privileged, I do not understand.

I was talking about the people who work.

I put it to the hon. member that the idea of a postal vote is not necessarily to make it easier for a person to vote. It is just to see that he gets the same rights as the person who goes to the polling booth on the day of the election. But I do not know why we should all get so indignant over the aspersions that have been cast, because after all the whole object of the Commission of Inquiry was to try to lessen the difficulties which had been encountered in the past through the operation of the existing postal vote system; and secondly, to inquire into the allegations of malpractice. The very first paragraph of the Commission’s report says, in the very first line—

The Minister himself, in appointing the Commission, stated that he wanted to make sure that we could so improve the postal vote system that the abuses which had been taking place in the past could to a large extent be eliminated. Therefore I do not think anybody should take it personally. These were general allegations made about every party and every political body handling postal votes. Although it is true, as the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) said, that the Commission was unable to establish the extent of malpractices, in fact the Commission made it quite clear why it was unable to establish it. It mentioned that under present circumstances it was quite impossible for returning officers to furnish tangible proof that corrupt practices take place, and they told us why. They said this is prevented by the strict statutory provisions regarding the immediate disposal of election documents after the counting, partly to ensure the principle of secrecy. But nevertheless the Commission went on to say that written comments had been received from 41 returning officers and magistrates, and four of the Government’s most experienced electoral officers gave oral evidence, and that it was evident to them that without exception these officials were convinced that malpractices and abuses occurred. The Commission went on to say that the evidence of these officials was based on surmise, but the conclusions of the electoral officers and returning officers are logical and well reasoned, and a critical analysis of the system as it operates in practice clearly showed that malpractices and abuses were possible, notwithstanding the strict legal precautionary measures. That is contained in para-95 of the report. So the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) was quite wrong when he said that the Commission had not established malpractices. It had not established the extent, and it told why it could not. But I understand the hon. member was himself a member of the Commission, so it is my pleasure to offer him the other half which he said was missing from the statement that had been previously made in this House.

The other half was supplied by the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw).

Between these two halves we should be able to have a very constructive whole anyway. The main difficulty that the Commission was trying to obviate was the difficulty of including secrecy, firstly, and secondly, and most important of all, to ensure that the ballot, the actual vote, was not out of the hands of the returning officer for any lengthy period. That was the main difficulty. All the arguments about members of political parties being able to send their representatives to be present when the voter actually votes, either in front of a presiding officer or of a polling officer, who is a State servant, together with a witness who is a State servant and not necessarily a justice of the peace … [Interjections.] I understood the hon. member to say that; the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) and the hon. member for Mus-grave (Mr. Hourquebie) certainly said so last night. They are quite wrong. Under no circumstances, as I read the Act, can a justice of the peace be sent to visit what I call the immobile voter, the voter who because he is sick or for other reasons cannot get himself either to the polling booth or to a presiding officer. [Interjections.] I am quite right; I have the hon. member on my left agreeing with me. The polling officer, who is the man appointed by the presiding officer, must be a State official, as must the witness who accompanies him, so that does not enter into this whole question, but what does enter into the whole question is still the whole idea behind the inquiry and that is to prevent the ballot itself from being taken possession of, if I may put it that way, by anybody other than the returning officer himself; in other words, the interval from the time when the voter actually votes and the time when that ballot is actually put into the box of a returning officer, must be cut to the minimum period. Unfortunately last year’s Amending Act did not in any way cut down this interval. What it did, of course, was to see to it that the political parties do not have possession of that ballot in the intervening interval, and instead it mentioned a whole lot of presiding officers who would be appointed for postal votes. They were inter alia returning officers, electoral officers, magistrates, additional magistrates, assistant magistrates, Bantu commissioners, station masters, policemen above the rank of sergeant, justices of the peace and so on; these were the people who were now going to be responsible for the physical handling of the ballot of the absentee voter from the time that the voter made his cross until the time it gets back into the hands of the returning officer of the constituency concerned. Sir, as I see it, the great difficulty that has arisen is that, of course, none of these people is going to be a full-time presiding officer; that is the trouble. If one looks at the list of presiding officers who have been appointed, one sees that they are the busiest people in the kingdom, so to speak. I use the word “kingdom” metaphorically; they are the busiest people in the Republic. I hasten to add that in case I should be accused of throwing some racialism into this debate or of being a “boere-hater”. Sir, magistrates who are very busy people, and Bantu commissioners, of all people who are so busy and who, apart from anything else, handle thousands of applications for exemption from the absurd Urban Areas Act, are not going to have the time to do this. I agreed with the Opposition’s original objection to having anybody outside of State officials handling postal votes. I think we have improved the position in that the political parties will not be handling them. I prefer State officials to handle them. I do not think justices of the peace can in any way be regarded as State officials. I am glad that the Opposition objected originally because otherwise I would have found very little logic in their objection to the additional appointments now, because equally the existing justices of the peace should come under the same strictures, presumably, as the new appointees, because I do not believe that the hon. the Minister of Justice is going to make political appointments in this regard. I will give him credit for that. But I am just as perturbed about the existing J.P.s If you look at the Johannesburg list you will see that among the J.P.s there, one is a United Party senator and one is a Nationalist Party city councillor. I, who belong to neither of those two parties, could equally have strictures about those justices of the peace operating as postal vote agents. I understand that State officials are not allowed to belong to political parties. Am I correct in that statement?

They are only allowed to do so if they are Nats!

As I was saying, I have understood that State officials could not belong to a political party but that teachers were exempted from this provision. Are State officials allowed officially to belong, as members, to political parties?

Temporary officials are allowed.

I want to know if public servants are actually allowed to be card-carrying members of political parties?

Not that I know of.

Not as far as I know either, so from that point of view they are “apolitical”, although I have yet to meet the person in South Africa who is apolitical. Everybody, whatever his profession, is a political animal and has political affiliations. But nevertheless it is an improvement that State officials rather than the agents of political parties will be doing the difficult handling of ballots; but we have not yet cut down entirely on the dangers of having an interval existing between the date on which the person signs the ballot and the time when signed ballot finds its way into the hands of the returning officer. I want to ask the hon. Minister whether he does not think that a lot of this suspicion, ill-founded though it may be, could be averted if in fact every presiding officer—this may sound an extravagant proposal but I think it might be worth it—were supplied with a sealed box into which the voter himself would immediately put his ballots. Could this not be done? Could the magistrates, the police stations, the justices of the peace be supplied with sealed boxes into which the voters themselves can put their ballot papers?

You must make that suggestion to my colleague.

Well, I would like to make that suggestion to the hon. the Minister; it could be done by regulation; there is no difficulty about this. I think it would obviate a lot of suspicion because people are entitled to be present from both political parties when the vote is cast, either in front of the presiding officer or in front of the polling officer, in the case of an immobile voter. This is really where presumably all the dishonesty is taking place.

You could seal the envelope.

Intimidation can be prevented …

You can seal the envelope.

Sir, envelopes can be opened; I have seen that in some of the post that I get.

By whom? How?

I do not know who opens them. Sir, the hon. member must not come along with this halo of innocence! The commission examined this in fact and they recommended that better types of glue should be used on envelopes so that they do not come open at the first attempt to prise them open.

What about sealing wax?

I believe the commission recommended that people should sign their signatures across the back of envelopes because this would make it more difficult for the envelopes to be opened. The main thing, Sir, is to cut down to nil, if possible, or to a second, the interval from the time the voter casts his vote until the ballot is dropped in a sealed box. [Interjection.] Sir, an election is a serious business. An election gives an opportunity to the voters of South Africa to exercise their democratic right to put into power a Government that is going to look after their interests—God help them—for the next five years, and therefore I do not think, since we are so extravagant in everything else that we do in this country, it unreasonable to ask that at least the voter should be sure that his ballot will go straight into a sealed box; it is not impossible.

They must post it the same day.

I am not saying that State officials are going to do this, and I am not saying that justices of the peace are going to do this, but the whole object of the commission’s inquiry was to cut down malpractices. As all of us know, this has not in fact been done by the amending Act. The hon. the Minister now comes along with what would at first appear to be a perfectly innocent Bill because he knows that his officials are not going to be able to cope with this ludicrous system that we have …

I know nothing of the kind.

Well, I can assure the hon. the Minister that it is going to be chaotic because if thousands of ballots come in as has happened in the past, then your busy Bantu commissioners and magistrates are not going to be able to cope.

If they cannot cope I will appoint additional people.

Unfortunately, as I say, this is what leads to all this suspicion. But even with the existing State officials, I think it would be very good for the outside public if this simple elementary step were taken; there can be no objection to it: it is not impractical; we could turn out little sealed boxes within a few days. I do not share the dark suspicions that future appointees are going to be political appointments per se. I do not like the idea of anybody outside of the most limited number of people being used for this postal vote system which, whatever anybody might say, whatever protestations of innocence are made on both sides of the House, undoubtedly lends itself to many abuses. I would like to put these ideas to the hon. the Minister.

We are dealing here with a Bill to amend a measure which was the result of a very large measure of agreement after a period of study which extended over two sessions of Parliament. In the interim there was a commission which went into this matter exhaustively. Hon. members will remember that when that Bill came to this House there was a very wide measure of agreement between the parties. There was disagreement as to the use of justices of the peace. The aim of the Opposition had been to seek to have a system in which the persons who were taking ballot papers were not in a position where it could even be suggested that there might be some abuse. Sir, some hon. members have spoken in terms which would make one believe that there has been no abuse in the past.

Very little.

The hon. member says that there has been very little. I am glad to hear that statement. The hon. member must have been a little more fortunate than I have been at elections. I can say that in at least one election in which I took part there was a great deal of abuse—not on my side. There was a great deal of abuse on the part of certain persons. I am not suggesting that it was on the part of my opponent, but I can say that from an examination of the ballot papers it was perfectly obvious that if it had been necessary, an application to court would have ruled out substantial numbers of ballot papers because quite clearly the signatures on the applications and the final documents were so different that it was obvious that they were not signed by the same person. In each of those elections that I fought there was a claim on the part of my opponent that certain ballot papers should be disregarded on that very ground. I believe that in the overwhelming majority of elections this objection is taken by the one side or the other. Sir, the whole aim and object of the commission was to seek to find a system which would be free from abuse. This side of the House regretted very much that justices of the peace were included as authorized attesting officers. It had been hoped that it would be possible to confine the presiding officers for postal votes to permanent officials so that there could be a complete elimination of abuse, as I am certain there would have been. Sir, the appointment of this commission was due to the fact that there was wide dissatisfaction on the part of both sides of this House with the present system. After long and careful study a measure was arrived at in regard to which there was a great measure of agreement, the major, remaining point of difference being this question of the use of commissioners of oaths. Sir, hon. members who were in this House and heard the arguments of the Minister in charge of the Bill at that time, will remember that he justified the use of justices of the peace; it was justified by more than one member on the ground that it involved a relatively small number. It was understood by everybody at that time that a very limited number of justices of the peace would be appointed. What I regret so much is the fact that a measure arrived at after such careful study is now being cast aside, without having been thoroughly tested by introducing a completely new situation where large numbers of justices of the peace could be appointed. We believe that that is unnecessary. We have made it perfectly clear and we stand by that. We say that where legislation has been passed after a long period of study, as is the case here, then the least we can do is to let it be tried out efficiently before we start making changes. If it was intended last year to appoint additional justices of the peace and to amend the law that we should have been told about it. There was no suggestion of that last year, however, and I say it is wrong to introduce this measure now on the eve of a provincial election.

We all agree that the postal vote system is a necessary one. I doubt whether we have the ideal answer at the present time; I doubt it very much indeed and I do not think there is any member in this House who will be prepared to say that he believes that we have arrived at an ideal system, but certainly the system that we have has this merit that it is very largely the result of agreement between the parties, with this one exception that I have mentioned. Objection was taken by this side of the House to the appointment of justices of the peace on principle. Sir, there has been no denial from any hon. member opposite that the amendment proposed in this measure is entirely in conflict with the spirit of the discussions which led to the passing of last year’s Bill and in conflict with the spirit in which that measure was passed here.

Are you alleging that it is in conflict with the spirit of the Select Committee’s report?

It is in conflict with the whole spirit in which the Bill was passed in this House last year.

But is it in conflict with the spirit of the Select Committee’s report?

I say that the expansion of the numbers is entirely in conflict with the view that this side of the House took on this matter at the time of the passing of the measure last year. What intentions the Government has in that regard I do not know.

I am talking about the Select Committee’s report.

I am not dealing with the Select Committee’s report. I am dealing with the spirit in which that measure was discussed in this House. There was no breath of suggestion from the Government side that before the measure had been tested out in practice further legislation would be brought before this House, legislation which introduces vital changes in our postal vote system.

Sir, the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) says that the Opposition suggests that all J.P.s are scoundrels. That was an entirely unwarranted reflection on this side. No such suggestion was made by any speaker on this side and I fling that back at the hon. member. I am sure, however, that the Minister will agree that no human beings are angels, to whichever category they may belong. I think all of us realize that whatever steps are taken it is almost impossible to eliminate entirely the possibility of abuse. Abuse could only be eliminated by a system which would be so hidebound that it would be quite ineffective and would take away from persons the right which every democratic person has and that is to vote if he wishes to do so.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) says that it is clear that the present Act is inadequate to enable voters to vote. Why, if that is so, did he and other hon. members on that side not persuade their Minister last year that that was the position? In that case some other provision should have been included in the Bill. When last year’s Bill was passed I know of no suggestion which was made that legislation such as this measure which is now before us would later be brought before this House.

Sir, it has been said—I think it was said in error; I am not suggesting that it was said deliberately—that justices of the peace must keep regular office hours. There is nothing either in the law or in the regulations requiring a justice of the peace to keep regular office hours, and I am sure the hon. the Minister will agree with me that that is the case and that the statement made by one of his members in that regard is wrong. There is nothing to prevent a justice of the peace from accompanying an agent of one of the parties to outside areas to take postal votes. Sir, it is when you have a system of that sort that you get away from what the Opposition had hoped to see, namely a system where only officials who would be impartial, would be in charge of the taking of postal votes.

Sir, the abuses which the present law were designed to eliminate could be perpetrated just as easily under the new law if this Bill is passed into law. I am not suggesting for a moment that the hon. the Minister will be careless in the appointment of justices of the peace, but it is quite impossible when making appointments, especially in the present circumstances, when it will be done under pressure because there will be pressure from both sides of the House for particular appointments to be made, it will be quite impossible to make the appointments which apparently are contemplated and in each case to make a thorough examination of the suitability of the person concerned, which should be a prerequisite to the appointment of any justice of the peace. Sir, the position is that the Provincial election will take place in a little over a month from now. It means that new appointments will have to be made and they will have to be made in a hurry. The Opposition will be free to make recommendations to the hon. the Minister and I am sure that he will consider them as seriously as he would consider recommendations coming from the other side. But even there it is clear that members of all he parties will be in this position that in the hurry to have appointments made it will not be possible to have a thorough examination of the suitability of the person, either on the part of those who recommend the appointment or on the part of the Department of Justice, an examination which should be an essential prerequisite to the appointment of any justice of the peace. I am sure the hon. the Minister will agree that in the ordinary course he would not appoint a justice of the peace except after the most thorough inquiry into the suitability of the person concerned.

I will not appoint them like the United Party did when they were in power.

It is no good the hon. the Minister saying that. We are concerned with the present position. I am not going into the past, even if the hon. the Minister wishes to do so. I say it is not fair to the country and to this side of the House, nor is it fair to the persons who will be appointed to appoint them in the heat of an election campaign which is to be set in full motion in three provinces very soon and has already been set in motion in the fourth province. Sir, that is not the way in which legislation ought to be passed. The hon. the Minister has always been most reasonable in his attitude towards the time that should be allowed for the examination of legislation. Here is a measure which of necessity must be rushed through. True, we have had a full opportunity to debate this measure and I give the Minister full credit for that, but obviously the implementation of this Bill will of necessity have to be rushed if the persons to be appointed are to be used in the coming election campaign.

Did I say anything at all to make you rush?

No, I am not suggesting that the Minister is rushing us. I said that the Minister had given us adequate time to discuss this Bill. But I say that this Bill will have to be implemented in rushed circumstances; there will not be an adequate opportunity for inquiry into the suitability of appointees. I have no doubt that by the time the election comes we will find allegations of this sort which have been made, for example, about commissioners of oaths who, as both sides agreed last year, should no longer be used as polling officers. You see, Sir, justices of the peace will be in the same position as commissioners of oaths ex officio. There are many honourable commissioners of oaths, but I do believe—I am prepared to concede that it has happened on both sides in previous elections—that some utterly unsuitable persons became commissioners of oaths as the result of recommendations from one side or the other. Here, Sir, very much the same situation will apply, subject only to this that the Minister would have control, but in the time at his disposal he will not be able to cause adequate inquiries to be made and I am sure that experience will show that at least some unsuitable persons will be appointed.

Sir, what amazes me is this: Here we are dealing with a measure which was passed only last year. If Government members had had any doubts as to the adequacy of the number of persons competent to deal with postal votes, they should have raised that last year and not at this stage so close to the coming provincial elections. They have immense experience and they have been very effective in getting the maximum number of voters to the polls. Nobody can teach the Nationalist Party anything about fighting elections; we know that from experience, and yet no single member of this House considered last year that there was any possibility of a measure of this sort being brought before the House before the measure passed last year has been properly tested.

That is nonsense.

Nobody can deny that that is the position. That is one of the reasons why we feel so strongly that this Bill should not be placed upon the Statute Book. We have done everything possible to persuade the Minister that he should not proceed with this Bill. We believe that it is utterly wrong that the measure passed last year should now be implemented in a way that differs from what was contemplated by both sides of the House last year, particularly since that measure has not been tested. To bring forward a measure such as this on the eve of an election is not the way to create confidence in our electoral machinery in this country and I do hope that even at this late moment the hon. the Minister will realize that he is doing a disservice to existing justices of the peace and that he will possibly be doing a disservice to some of the new ones who may be appointed. I hope that he will think very deeply before he insists on the passing of this Bill. I believe that the provincial elections can be fought under the present procedure; the Select Committee certainly thought so and every member in this House thought so last year. No evidence has been adduced to show that the provisions of the existing law are inadequate for the purpose of taking postal votes right throughout the country.

As soon as the Opposition finds itself in difficulty, the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) is called upon to distract attention with a pious speech from what has actually happened, and that is precisely what the hon. member for Germiston (District) has now tried to do. But what is the position here? Let me say immediately that I made two mistakes. Firstly, I made the mistake of believing that the Opposition would take my hint not to put themselves in a quandary further. Secondly, I made the mistake of assuming that the Opposition knows the Electoral Act and that they know what is the position of justices of the peace. I was wrong in both cases.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) got up and made a speech obviously with one object only—and I am going to use very plain language with your leave, Sir—namely, to create a stink in regard to this Bill. But let me give the hon. member for Durban (Point) credit for having tried with finesse to raise that stink. I grant him that, but I want to give the hon. member this advice. When the next time he has instructions to do that he should in heaven’s name not get the two advocates on that side of the House to support him. He should do it alone. He is capable of doing it alone; he can do it alone very neatly. Those two other hon. members, the hon. members for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie) and Pinelands (Mr. Thompson), just embarrass him. While I am talking about the hon. member for Musgrave, I want to say that I do not intend replying to the arguments he advanced. I do not think courtesy demands that I should do so. I have watched with interest the career of that hon. member in this House right from the beginning. I thought that the way he acted the first few times he spoke was just accidental; I now realize that I was wrong in that regard.

The speech of the hon. member for Durban (Point) was aimed at sowing suspicion in a very neat and adroit manner, for which I have already given him credit, in respect of this Bill, and to ascribe motives which do not exist. Unfortunately his advocates left him in the lurch. They simply stated what they thought the motives were. Now I must say this very clearly about the United Party, or at least about the hon. member for Durban (Point), and particularly his two advocates, that they have revealed a surprising knowledge of the irregularities perpetrated under the Electoral Act. It would have given me greater enjoyment if they had revealed the same knowledge about the Act itself.

What gives rise to the difficulties raised by the Opposition? The difficulties of the Opposition emanate from the fact that in the first place they decided to oppose this Bill because they had received false advice. The Architopel who gave them this bad advice I will not mention now. They know who he is. The bad advice they received was that this Government appoints only its own supporters as justices of the peace. That reproach has been hurled at me before. I proved, chapter and verse, that it was not so. If there is any hon. member opposite who has the vaguest suspicion that this is not the case, he should now have the courage to tell me so. I proved that it was absolutely false to make this accusation against the Government. I proved it by reference to appointments made in the Transvaal about which I have personal knowledge, and I proved it by reference to appointments here in Cape Town, namely the Mayor of Cape Town, the former Mayor and the future Mayor of Cape Town. This Government does not appoint people as justices of the peace because they belong to one or another political party. It appoints people because they are decent and honourable people, because we set out from the standpoint that they are not people who will abuse their position. Therefore I, just like my predecessors, appointed people as justices of the peace from all political parties. As far as I am concerned, I am prepared to cast a postal vote in front of any of those people. What do we gain by throwing suspicion on the people who are or may be appointed as being thieves and scoundrels, as was rightly said by the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze)? What do we gain by throwing suspicion on the people who are justices of the peace at the moment? Nothing at all.

The hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson) put it very clearly. He spoke about what a justice of the peace can do “if he wishes to be dishonest”. He spoke about the lowering of the office of a justice of the peace.

If he wishes to be dishonest. I did not insinuate that he was dishonest.

That is precisely what I am saying. He spoke about lowering the office of justice of the peace. He insinuated that we now wanted to drag the justices of the peace into politics. This Government, and both my predecessors, particularly took justices of the peace out of politics. I want to tell the hon. member for Pinelands what the position was in regard to justices of the peace during the United Party days. I refer to Hansard of 5 May 1947. Hon. members opposite have been looking for this; I wanted to spare them this. I want to tell them what the post of justice of the peace was like under the United Party’s regime and under its then Minister of Justice. I refer to Hansard, Col. 4012 (Afrikaans). The vote of the then Minister of Justice was under discussion and he was then questioned in regard to his appointment of justices of the peace. This is what he said—

This was as the result of his refusing to appoint a certain Nationalist—

That was in 1947, and then he continues—

And members of the Communist Party?

There were perhaps also members of the Communist Party, but I was guided mainly by the consideration that they have supported the Government in past years. I make no apology for that.

That is how they dragged this post into politics. Perhaps I should not blame the hon. member for Pinelands because he is not yet dry behind his political ears in so far as this is concerned. Now he is the one who talks about dragging justices of the peace into politics! That was how the United Party, when they were in power, shamelessly appointed even communists just because on a previous occasion they had supported the Government. But not a Nationalist. He refused to appoint such a person. I have proved chapter and verse that it was this Government and my predecessors and I who have again restored the status and the honour to that post which it deserves.

What about Kimberley (North)?

I shall come to it. In spite of the fact that it was we who restored the status and honour of that post, hon. members come along and cast these suspicions and make these insinuations. They do not have the courage, as the hon. member for Pinelands has demonstrated very clearly, to say frankly what their objections are. No, Sir, they camouflage it; they just sow suspicion and doubt in respect of the matter. I say that was the origin of their problem. They believe—and I know who gave them the advice—that we are still doing what they did in their time. It was because they were misled by that that they had to adopt this standpoint here. That is the reason why the hon. member for Durban (Point) and his advocates adopted this standpoint here, and now the pious member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) and the pious member for Germiston (District) must try to get them out of their difficulty.

Hon. members who spoke on this side, the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever), the hon. member for Standerton, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) (Mr. van Rensburg), the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Mr. G. P. van den Berg) stated the matter quite correctly, not only in so far as the general argument is concerned but also from the angle of the Commission. The hon. member for Germiston (District) was so keen on referring to the Commission. The whole basis of the argument of the hon. member for Durban (Point) was that we have now made a mess in the past, that dishonest things have been done by private individuals who handled the postal votes. Did I understand the hon. member correctly? Correct.

We must not allow these dishonest actions to be repeated because it was those private individuals and they alone who were responsible for it. That is now the pious argument. May I ask the hon. member for Durban (Point) since when this has been his standpoint, because it was not his standpoint when he signed the commission’s report.

It was.

No. He says it was, but surely that is not so. What did the hon. member, together with others, recommend in this regard in that same paragraph 144 which he mentioned? Who were to be allowed to handle postal votes according to the hon. member’s recommendation?

Only for inside votes.

No, Sir. It was Senators, members of Parliament, members of the Provincial Councils, who were not themselves candidates in the election concerned, and not more than 12 persons nominated by every candidate and appointed as such by the electoral officer. And the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) now talks about a number of people. Does the hon. member for Maitland realize what would have happened if my colleague, the Minister of the Interior, had accepted this recommendation of his and of the hon. member for Durban (Point)? In the constituencies in Natal where there are Progressive Party, United Party and National Party candidates, not only a number of people would have had to be appointed, but 36.

Please read sub-sec. (3).

I shall read it (translation)—

Read (3); that is (2).

I shall read (3) (translation)—

Only they can handle local postal votes, but the other 12 mentioned by the hon. member …

Read further.

I shall—

In other words, the argument of the hon. member now is that one can be as dishonest as one likes with local votes as long as the outside votes are just all right? Now the hon. member says it applies only to local votes. Let me tell the hon. member that I myself have not been in politics only since yesterday. If there is dishonesty in regard to postal votes, is it not particularly in regard to the local votes that it is done?

We were halfway towards a solution.

No, we were not half-way towards a solution: we wanted 36! The hon. member for Durban (Point), inter alia, wanted to make quite sure that as far as local votes are concerned, the important postal votes, the decisive postal votes, 12 of these people would be appointed, people whom he appoints, people over whom I have no authority, people over whom my magistrate has no authority; they can just be any people, and I would have had to accept them if his recommendation had been approved. There had to be 12 nominated by the candidate—not even nominated by the political party; 12 nominees of the candidate. He just catches them in the veld and brings them in and I must appoint them! Throw a guava pip into the bush and if someone bites you bring him in and he must be appointed! That is now the pious argument of that hon. member, that hon. member who wants to cast suspicion on honourable people, the justices of the peace, who vilifies them in advance, who now already makes them suspect, who insinuates that these people are not honourable and that they will be guilty of irregularities. I heartily hope that all the justices of the peace, no matter to which party they belong, will take notice of this vilification on the part of the Opposition.

Clever debating!

No, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member has been looking for this. But I go further. Hon. members have made great play of the point that my colleague, the Minister of the Interior, gave a promise which he is not fulfilling now or which he is now trying to evade. What is the promise he made? My colleague made a promise. He pleaded with hon. members. Perhaps it was as the result of what was said by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) that the hon. member for Germiston (District) rose and said that nobody had any doubts about it. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) expressed his doubts in this House. If the hon. member for Germiston (District) would just take the trouble to read Hansard he would find it there. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) stated very clearly that he believed our officials would sometimes land in trouble because they would not have sufficient time to deal with postal votes. The hon. member said so very clearly.

But the Minister rejected that.

No, it was as the result of the argument of the Opposition that J.P.s should be eliminated. Suddenly in the report. They are members of the United Party, prominent members of the United Party. Then they were in favour of candidates, not the Minister or the magistrate or anybody else, being able to appoint officials—12 of them.

If the system of having officials is tested.

Nothing is said here about testing. I do not know what went on in the hon. member’s mind. I have never been able to discover that in all the time he and I have sat in this House together. The hon. member’s standpoint then was not that the Minister or the magistrate should appoint these people—just the candidates. They should be able to appoint these people. That shows how little he then thought of irregularities, or so little did he then believe that irregularities could take place, because that was his considered standpoint. When they suddenly came into this House and could not get these 12 people appointed, they just wanted to throw the baby out with the bath water; then they simply wanted to throw out the justices of the peace as well. The Minister correctly refused. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (East) put it very clearly. The Minister then said: You are now voicing these doubts; let us give it a chance; if you tell me after the Provincial Council elections that these J.P.s do not do their work properly, then I will change it. That promise still stands. This Bill does not mean that the undertaking given by the Minister is not being adhered to. This Bill does not mean that it will not be done if the Minister is convinced that it was wrong to do so.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? When the Minister says that, does it mean that the hon. the Minister of the Interior said nothing about this increased number for which provision is being made in this Bill, although he know that it might happen?

No, Sir. Surely I made that very clear in introducing the Bill. I also said it on another occasion. It is quite clear that in terms of this Bill J.P.s may assist in the casting of postal votes. The hon. member for Standerton has made that very clear. He could have done so in quite a different manner. But do you know, Sir, what the United Party has already reproached me for? They say that if I had merely done it without referring to the election they would not have opposed it. In other words, I am now being penalized for having been honest. That is the type of argument one gets. After this Bill was introduced we reviewed the position. It will be chiefly the officials of the Department of Justice who will have to handle postal votes. If those officials, due to lack of time, cannot do so, whom will hon. members reproach? They will reproach the Department of Justice; they will reproach me as the Minister. They will say: You should have made a survey beforehand and taken precautions. That is all I am doing with this Bill; I am taking precautions. I am not saying that I will appoint these people. Where the hon. member for Maitland gets hold of this idea of a whole number I do not know. I did not say I was going to appoint people, nor did I say how many I would appoint. I take the power to appoint people to eliminate a bottleneck if such a bottleneck should arise. Will the hon. member for Germiston (District) now tell me it is wrong to do so? Will he tell me it is wrong to take precautions in case we encounter difficulties somewhere? It is my officials who will have to do the work. I must protect them against the reproaches which those hon. members will hurl at them. And heaven knows it does not take much to cause them to hurl reproaches at officials of the Department of Justice. They do so just as often as they can.

Do hon. members realize that it takes at least five minutes to deal with one postal vote? And then one has to work very fast. I think that after having complied with all the formalities it will probably have taken ten minutes. I think the hon. member will agree that it will be ten minutes. If it takes ten minutes for an official to handle one postal vote, then he can handle six in an hour. If he works eight hours a day just handling postal votes, he can do 48. Then one finds constituencies where there are 1,500 or 1,600 or up to 2,000 postal votes. What if this were to happen?

Let us go further. I say I made a mistake by perhaps not giving enough information. I assumed that hon. members know it; I shall never again make that mistake. Hon. members surely know that, in terms of the Electoral Act, the J.P.s who are there may refuse to handle postal votes. There is no obligation on a J.P. to handle a postal vote. He may say: I do not want to have anything to do with postal votes; I do not want that burden on my shoulders. Now, I have six in every area. Many of these people are old. Many of them are away on holiday. Many are absent. I do not know whether out of the potential six in an area there will be three who are available to handle postal votes, and those three might still refuse to do so, because there is no obligation on them to do so. They are not public servants who can be compelled to do something. If there is nobody to handle postal votes and my officials cannot cope, who will do it then? Father Christmas and the angels?

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether a magistrate or any of the officials in that group are not entitled to appoint any person who is necessary in such a case, as long as he does the work under supervision?

He can appoint people falling in that category. That is exactly my point.

No, he can appoint any person.

The hon. member may take it from me that he is wrong. What will now happen in practice? I shall tell the hon. member what will happen in practice. If the magistrate finds that he cannot cope with the work he will tell the Department: I cannot cope; I cannot handle all the postal votes lying in my office. Then J.P.s will probably be appointed, those who are available, to handle postal votes in that office under the supervision of the magistrate. Even if the hon. member were right, the argument still remains that there may be places where one simply has to call on the J.P., and if one does not have him, who will do the work? Let me take the argument further in order to clear the atmosphere which hon. members have tried to sully. The hon. member knows from experience of past elections that probably not 1 per cent of postal votes are handled by officials. I think it is fair to say that more than 90 per cent are handled by the various political parties. Now suddenly we come along with a new set-up where all the postal votes, with the exception of those done by the justices of the peace, must be handled by officials. We are faced with the problem that we find ourselves in a completely new situation. We do not know how many postal votes there will be. I have told hon. members how long it takes to deal with one postal vote. Supposing the officials cannot cope and we have taken no precautions, what will happen?

Provision is made for that in Section 1 of the Electoral Act.

No, Sir. That does not contain such a provision. The hon. member would have been the first to say that we had made a mistake and that we had not foreseen what the problem would be [Interjections.] It is strange, but the hon. member never used that as an argument. Now suddenly he comes along with that argument. I say there is no obligation on J.P.s to handle postal votes. Seeing that Parliament has decided that a J.P. may do it, if they should not be available I feel it is my duty towards the voters to appoint additional J.P.s who will do that work.

Hon. members have now quite unnecessarily sown suspicion against the justices of the peace, because if only they thought for a moment—and that applies to the hon. member for Germiston (District) also—they will realize what the position is. From the very day of the announcement postal votes are collected. On the application form for a postal vote one must say to what person that vote must go. By the time this legislation is passed, probably 75 per cent of the applications for postal votes, if not more, will already have come in. Does the hon. member for Durban (Point) realize that? Does he realize that most of the postal votes come in now already and that the names of recognized J.P.s have already been inserted, or whatever other official must handle them? In other words, even though these J.P.s are appointed, hon. members must surely have known that it is in any case too late, if one wished to commit fraud through them, to fill in their names, because they have not even been appointed yet; the legislation is not even on the Statute Book yet. But in the meantime the applications must be sent in. Do hon. members now realize how unnecessary all this fuss was and how unnecessarily they sowed suspicion in this regard?

In this regard the hon. member hurled the reproach at me that a J.P. at Kimberley had received postal votes c/o the National Party Office. But surely this has nothing to do with this Bill. Why should suspicion be sown in regard to this Bill in connection with something which did not take place in terms of this Bill? If that happened—I do not know whether it is so or not—it happened in terms of the Electoral Act which the hon. member now lauds so much, and in terms of the agreement in regard to which the hon. member for Germiston-District waxed lyrical—that holy agreement we arrived at here! Surely then it happened in terms of that Act and not in terms of this Bill. Why do they mention it?

You now want to appoint more.

No, Sir. The hon. member is just talking wildly. He says a magistrate said that they could submit the names of people whom he would appoint as J.P.s, and that they said they did not want those people; they could do without them. But oddly enough, when the hon. member signed these recommendations he wanted 12 people whom his candidate could nominate. Now he does not want a J.P. I wonder why? [Interjections.] It is precisely the same.

I now go further. Why sow suspicion, and on the other hand say the magistrates approach the United Party in regard to J.P.s? If that is so—I accept from the hon. member’s argument that it is so—what better proof of good faith could there be? Would the hon. member’s Government have done it if they were in power? I wish he would consider that.

The hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) asked me whether the circulars had already been sent to magistrates, and I gave him a circular. The United Party is in possession of it. I especially referred to the article in the code in which it is provided that when recommendations are made in regard to justices of the peace they must not state what the man’s political convictions are, because I do not want to be reproached to-morrow or the next day with what the United Party still has on their conscience to-day, namely that they simply did not appoint people who thought differently from them politically. The hon. member knows that this is provided in the code and in the circular sent to magistrates. Now the hon. members say we are creating a new loophole. Sir, let us be honest. If there were abuses in regard to postal votes, and I know that there were many rumours and much gossip about it; some people went about bragging about how much they know about dishonest practices and how they had participated in that; I do not give much credence to these things. You know about the Gammat who joined the Oxford Group and when he had to confess he told about how terribly bad he had been. Then the other Gammat said to him: “But Gammat, you are not confessing; you are bragging”. I have the idea, in the case of many people who boast about the things they have done in regard to postal votes, that those are not confessions but merely bragging. If there were rumours in regard to postal votes and if there were doubts about the system—and I do not wish to be so pious as to say that there could not have been doubts—then it was about two things; then it was in regard to this matter of the votes going to the political party’s office and maybe lying there for weeks and weeks without anyone knowing who was in that office. That is what gave rise to the doubts, but surely that has been eliminated now. Now what is the function of a justice of the peace? Simply to take the oath of a person who appears before him. That is his function. Now what loopholes do we create now? No, Sir, the trouble is that my hon. friends opposite received the wrong advice right from the start, and they tried to make a wide turn but unfortunately they did not manage it and as the result they landed in further difficulties. All that we want to do in terms of this Bill, and I want to emphasize it again by repeating it— I do not know whether I will make use of these powers to appoint people; the hon. member for Pinelands asked me how many people I would appoint and when. Sir, if and when representations are made to me, through the proper election channels, that there are bottle-necks, that the task cannot be carried out. then I will appoint these people to assist. If there are areas where people are in danger of being disfranchised as the result of the fact that there are not sufficient J.P.s available, I shall appoint J.P.s for those areas. I shall appoint honourable people as far as possible. And when I appoint them I almost feel inclined to apologize to them in advance for the insinuations made against their good name and their honour by members opposite.

Motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—77: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, S. P.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Dönges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Henning, J. M.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder. C. P.; Muller. S. L.; Nel. M. D. C. de W.; Niemand, F. J.; Odell, H. G. O.; Otto, J. C.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser. P. C.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nie-kerk. M. C.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Webster, A.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: P. S. van der Merwe and M. J. de la R. Venter.

Nofs—44: Basson, J. D. du P.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Miller. H.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren. C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: N. G. Eaton and A. Hopewell.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

The respective Law Societies have given ample proof in the past that they are prepared at all times to keep their house in order and. so far as it has been within their power to do, they have always taken vigorous and active steps against offending members of the profession. As you know, however, Sir, the Law Societies derive their powers to discipline members of their profession mainly from the number of private Acts which constitute their Acts of incorporation. These Acts not only differ from one another in certain important respects, but in some respects they are entirely inadequate. The Law Societies are therefore seriously handicapped in certain respects. It is essential therefore that the powers which are granted to them by law be extended and adapted to enable them to act with maximum efficiency.

The obvious way would appear to be to amend the relevant private Acts with a view to granting the necessary relief. As everybody knows, however, the introduction of a private Bill, let alone four private Bills, is an expensive undertaking. The Law Societies are definitely not in a position to do so.

It so happens, however, that the matters in regard to which the Law Societies require legislation are such that they can be regarded as being in the national interest in view of the fact that the tightening up of control over the profession, a course which the Law Societies themselves consider to be essential, will necessarily benefit the general public.

I want to emphasize that I am not coming forward here with rules in order to dictate to the Law Societies but that the provisions contained in this Bill have been incorporated at the request of the Law Societies.

It is on these grounds then that leave has been obtained for the introduction of this Bill in terms of which it is proposed, amongst other things, to bring about certain amendments to the private Acts of the Law Societies in order to provide the necessary relief.

Although I have said that the Acts governing the Law Societies are private Acts, I just want to say here that if the Law Societies ever feel that the time has come when they no longer wish to be governed by a private Act but that they want a public Act to regulate their affairs, then as far as I am concerned I will very gladly co-operate with them to bring that about. The initiative will have to come from them, of course. I extend that invitation to them in case they should ever consider this to be necessary. As hon. members will observe, the Incorporated Law Society Ordinance of the Orange Free State which, by the way, is only available in English, is being amended in Clauses 17 and 19—

1. (a) to grant the power to the Law Society to exercise control also over the conduct of articled clerks;
2. (b) to bring the power of the Law Society to prescribe a tariff of fees in certain cases into line with that of the other Law Societies;
3. (c) to limit the Law Society’s power to impose fines not exceeding R200, as in the case of the other Law Societies;
4. (d) to grant the power to the Law Society to prescribe the procedure to be followed at an inquiry into unworthy, unprofessional or disgraceful conduct on the part of an attorney, etc;
5. (e) to grant the power to the Law Society to regulate service under articles of clerkship and to prescribe the circumstances under which articles of clerkship may be cancelled;
6. (f) specifically to grant the power to the Council of the Law Society to investigate unworthy, unprofessional or disgraceful conduct on the part of an attorney or articled clerk, etc., and to impose upon him a prescribed fine in the event of his conviction;
7. (g) to prescribe the manner in which any such fine is payable and recoverable; and
8. (h) specifically to reserve the court’s right to remove an attorney from the roll or to suspend him from practice.

Clause 18 removes the obligation which rests upon the Law Society to report professional misconduct on the part of an attorney to the court in view of the fact that the Law Society is now being granted the power, as in the case of the other societies, to take steps itself against such an attorney in certain cases.

The amendments contained in Clauses 21, 22, 25, 26, 27 and 28 embrace the same principles as those which are now being introduced by Clauses 17 and 19 into the Incorporated Law Society Ordinance of the Orange Free State. The power to impose fines or to prescribe a tariff of fees, however, is now being granted for the first time to the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope.

The amendment contained in Clause 23 is being brought about to safeguard the Secretary of the Transvaal Law Society, as in the case of the other Law Societies, against actions for damages.

The amendments in Clauses 16, 20 and 24, which only contain definitions, are simply being brought about for reasons of efficiency.

The period of two years after the completion of his articles within which an aspirant attorney has to apply to be admitted as an attorney appears to be too short and is now being extended to three years in Clause 2. This amendment necessitates a similar amendment to sub-sections (3) and (5) of Section 19 of the Attorneys, Notaries and Conveyancers Admission Act, 1934. Clause 7 effects the necessary amendment. It also appears that certain Divisions of the Supreme Court interpret Section 19(3) as meaning that the Court may extend the period referred to in that section even if the application in question is made after the expiry of the relevant period while other Divisions require the application to be made within the period concerned. The uncertainty which exists in this connection is now being removed by providing specifically in Clause 7(c) that the Court may not hear the application if it is made after the expiry of the period in question.

Section 13 provides, inter alia, that any person who wishes to enter into articles of clerkship must submit a certificate to the satisfaction of the Law Society to certify that he is a fit and proper person. There is some uncertainty as to whether the Law Societies may dispute the merits of such a certificate. The clause now provides therefore that the clerk must prove that he is a suitable person.

In terms of Sections 15 and 17 articles of clerkship and the documents relating to a cession of articles must be lodged with the Registrar of the Court of the Province in which the service under articles is to be performed. Since the establishment of the Eastern Cape Division of the Supreme Court on 28 January 1957, some doubt has arisen, however, as to the Registrar to whom the articles or documents have to be submitted in those cases where the service under articles is performed within the area of jurisdiction of the latter Division. It has also come to light that articled clerks leave the employ of their principals after some months to assume duty with another attorney and then only arrange for the cession of their articles. According to the existing legal provisions a duplicate of the cession has to be lodged with the relevant Law Society within one month after the date of the cession. In view of the fact that the cession may be entered into, in terms of the existing provisions, long after the clerk has left the service of the cedent, the break in his service under articles is condoned in this way, as it were, and the intention of the Act is thus circumvented. Suitable arrangements are now being made to ensure that cession documents are lodged within one month after the date on which the clerk leaves the service of the cedent. Clauses 4, 5 and 6 contain amendments which eliminate the problems experienced in connection with the lodging of articles and cession documents with the Registrar and with the Law Societies. In terms of Clause 29, however, the provisions of Clauses 4 and 6 are being introduced with retrospective effect to the date of the establishment of the Eastern Cape Division so as to validate articles and cession documents lodged with the Registrar of that division since that date. The retrospective nature of the revelant provision, however, will detrimentally affect persons who lodged articles and documents with the Registrar of the Provincial Division of the Cape of Good Hope during the period in question in terms of the legal provisions which are now being replaced. Provision is therefore also being made in the latter clause to validate the lodging of such documents and the regularity of service performed in terms of such documents.

A peculiar position has arisen in terms of which an articled clerk, who has complied with all the requirements for a degree in a faculty other than a law faculty, that is to say, without any legal qualifications, may appear in certain courts on behalf of his principal, whereas all other articled clerks are precluded from appearing on behalf of their principals unless they are in possession of legal qualifications. It was never the intention, of course, that unqualified persons should be allowed to appear in our courts on behalf of others. This oversight is now being rectified in Clause 8 at the request of the Law Societies.

It appears that Sections 23 and 24 of the Act prevent an attorney, whose name had previously been removed from the roll and who was subsequently re-admitted, from ever being admitted as a notary or conveyancer. That was obviously never the intention of the law-giver because it is completely absurd that an attorney who was removed from the roll should be prevented from being admitted as a notary or a conveyancer whereas he can be re-admitted as an attorney. There appears to be no good reason why different yardsticks should apply in admitting persons to these respective professions from the point of view of the general suitability of the person in question. What the law-giver obviously had in mind was that no attorney, in respect of whom there is still an order in force to the effect that his name be removed from the roll or that he be suspended from practice, must be admitted as a notary or conveyancer. This matter is now being rectified in Clauses 9 and 10.

Section 28 of the Act provides that the secretary of the Law Society must be given notice of any application for admission while Section 29 provides for the payment of certain fees to the Law Society in respect of such admission. The court has ruled, however, that these provisions do not apply to an application for re-admission. It is necessary that the same procedure should apply to an application for re-admission as to an application for admission. As far as these matters are concerned, the position is now being rectified therefore in Clauses 11 and 13.

With the establishment of the Eastern Cape Division of the Supreme Court it was apparently overlooked that this division would be competent in the future to admit attorneys or to remove them from the roll or to suspend them from practice. It now appears, however, that attorneys who practise in the area of jurisdiction of the division referred to and who were admitted by the Provincial Division of the Cape of Good Hope and whose names do not appear on the roll of the Eastern Cape Division, have been removed from the roll by the latter division. It is argued that these removals from the roll are invalid because the Eastern Cape Division has no jurisdiction to remove from the roll attorneys whose names do not appear on the roll of that division. The position in this regard is being rectified in Clause 12 and the amendment is being introduced with retrospective effect, with effect from 28 June 1957 (the date on which the Eastern Cape Division was established) so as to validate actions performed in that connection since that date.

The provision of Section 32bis of the Act which lays down which actions may not be performed by a person who is not an attorney, are now being repealed in view of the fact that these matters will be regulated in the future by regulation in terms of Section 30 (1) (h).

In view of the fact that the respective Law Societies have to be granted the opportunity to adapt their statutes to the amendments which are being brought about in this Bill to their private Acts, the provisions of this Bill cannot be put into operation by promulgation. I should like on this occasion to record my personal thanks and appreciation for the very fine spirit which exists at the moment between the Law Societies and the Department of Justice. The negotiations and consultations which take place between the two parties with regard to their respective interests are conducted in a pleasant atmosphere, and one is grateful for the fact that one can come forward in this spirit with a piece of legislation such as this, on behalf of the Law Societies, and ask the House to give its blessing to these provisions for which the Law Societies themselves have asked and which, but for the fact that they are in the public interest, the Law Societies would have had to bring before this House at their own expense.

We on this side support this Bill. It is an important piece of legislation. It is bringing the rules of the various law societies into line, and it is of course high time that in respect of matters such as these the powers of the law societies should be exactly the same right throughout the Republic. We are glad that the necessary provisions are included in this Bill to bring the constitutions of the various law societies very closely into line, which one hopes will in due course lead to a new piece of legislation which will take the place of the innumerable pieces of legislation I which together form the constitution of the four law societies. Sir, we have to do with an Act of the Union Parliament of 1934, an Act of 1903 in the Orange Free State, an Act of 1905 in the Transvaal and an Act of 1907 in Natal, and 1916 in the Cape. Those pieces of legislation, as the Minister indicated, are not easily available everywhere, and there have of course been innumerable amendments by legislation of Parliament over a very long period. Therefore it would be a very good thing if these could all be brought into line.

I think this Bill contains very important provisions from the point of view of the public. The provision that disciplinary action can be taken against an articled clerk is a very proper one. Obviously if an articled clerk is guilty of some serious misdemeanour, the court has a discretion not to admit him, but surely it is better that instead of waiting for his articles to run out. the court should deal with the matter immediately. It is very important that the disciplinary power of all the societies should be adequate and should be similar in all provinces, and that also is achieved in this Bill. I do not think that after the Minister’s full review it is necessary to deal with the various clauses of the Bill in detail. We have taken the trouble to ascertain that there has been very full discussion indeed between all the law societies, quite apart from the discussions with the council of all the law societies. In addition, there has been ample opportunity for the societies to make recommendations in respect of necessary amendments. and so far as I am aware there is not any provision in this Bill which has not been very carefully examined by all the societies and which is not entirely acceptable to them. We on this side support the measure, and we hope that having got thus far. the various law societies will take the initiative in bringing about as soon as possible one piece of legislation which will deal fully and exhaustively with all the provisions which are now spread through a whole series of pieces of legislation, some of which are over 60 years old and are not readily available. We therefore support the measure.

I thank the hon. member for his support of this Bill. The hon. member is a practising attorney, and all practitioners will welcome this Bill, just as the hon. member does. I readily agree with the hon. member as far as consolidation is concerned. I also referred to this question of consolidation in my second reading speech. The fact that no consolidation measure has vet been introduced is due to the fact that on the one hand we are dealing with a public measure and on the other with private acts and ordinances. That is why I held out the prospect that if the Law Societies so desire, the Acts governing attorneys can be consolidated in a public Act. as has been done in the case of the laws governing accountants and auditors. As far as I am concerned I shall raise no objection to it. I will discuss this matter with the Law Societies, and if that is their desire—and according to the hon. member’s argument it looks as though they would welcome it—I will certainly give effect to it. Where we have numerous laws passed in different years, all contained in different volumes, we do our best to summarize them in one measure. Personally I am not in a hurry with this Bill but it is a matter of importance to the various Law Societies to have this Bill placed on the Statute Book as soon as possible to enable them to frame their regulations and to bring their affairs in order, and I shall be grateful therefore if the Bill’s passage through this House can be expedited as much as possible. The hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) has said that there is not a single clause with which one cannot agree wholeheartedly, and it may perhaps be possible for us to pass this Bill in all its stages to-day, if that is the wish of hon. members on the other side.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

House in Committee:

Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned last week I said that we on this side of the House welcomed the Bill and would support it. Pollution has been with man since man came on to the earth. It is said, and I think quite rightly, that where a man lives pollution exists, and wherever development through man’s ingenuity takes place we find a concentration of people, especially in residential areas and a concentration of industry and commerce, and we find the heavier use of communication lines, of highways and byways, and with all this activity we find a growing increase of the waste products of man himself and of his work.

In the earliest times we found pollution by the cave-dwellers when they left their broken flints, calabashes, gourds and piles of bones, and their utensils, which were left behind in caves. Sometimes, in these very same caves that they lived in. we find our present-day people polluting those places; but instead of gourds we find Coca-Cola bottles, plastic bags, beer cans and the bones of chickens and sheep. Along the line of progress from the earliest times to the present times, fire and heat were discovered, and then the air started to become polluted. I would say that of all the various forms of pollution that take place and the various forms that waste products appear in, the most complex and the most difficult to deal with are those substances which pollute the air.

I think at this stage it would be good to define what air pollution is. I have written down here a definition which I would say would be acceptable to most people, namely that air pollution is an excessive concentration of foreign matter in the air which may adversely affect the wellbeing of persons and cause damage to animals and plant life and property. Now, we were built to withstand a certain degree of air pollution. In our own bodies we have a complex system of filters and cleansing processes which are meant to deal with the normal, every-day pollution that takes place in the air. In our respiratory tracts which go from the nose right into the lungs we have special linings made up of special cells which tend to filter impurities; in our nasal passages we have little hairs which filter impurities. In the winter, especially here in Cape Town, when we go out and blow our noses to clean our air passages, on our handkerchiefs we blow out impurities which have been filtered off by our nasal passages. In normal circumstances we can withstand this pollution that goes on, but when this pollution becomes abnormal the trouble starts. Sir, every day, day and night, we breathe approximately 16 times to the minute, and if you start multiplying that by the hours of the day, we breathe about 22,000 times a day. Every time we take a breath some of the foreign bodies from the atmosphere go into our air passages. If the air was always clean we would not have to bother about coming here with a Bill to prevent air pollution. But as I said earlier, with the growth of industry and commerce and with the growth of population, we get the air polluted either by the effects of the waste products of industry or by those people who are going to the industries, particularly those who travel by motor vehicles of some kind, either in the buses or on their own motor bicycles or in motor cars. Those fumes, which are given off and are put into the atmosphere plus the smoke which belches out of the trains, and the ships along our coast and out of factory chimneys and out of the fireside fires and the stoves in homes and out of the braziers, pollute the air. There is a great increase in the number of waste products which go into the atmosphere.

Plus the cigarettes that are smoked.

We will deal with that later. The great danger to-day to man is whether or not these waste products cause through their constant presence in the air the constant irritation of the respiratory passages, and the question is whether these various products cause cancer of the lungs or cancer of any part of the air passages. I said that we breathe 22,000 times a day, for 365 days a year. The average time that it would take for cancer to develop, according to the records, is 50 years; 50 years seems to be the age when cancer is most prevalent in the air passages. That means that we have subjected our respiratory passages to irritants on about 400,000,000 occasions during those 50 years. It is quite clear that if we do not do something about cleaning up the air and keeping it clean, the people who live in polluted areas stand a chance of getting cancer in some part of their respiratory passages. The hon. member for Pretoria (East) mentioned the fact that smoking cigarettes and pipes may also cause cancer. I would say that it is a contributory cause, but we will hear more about that later from one of our other members who has made a special study of it. But the point we have to remember is that it is too early in my opinion, to blame one or other cause alone, and that the time has now come for us to try to separate in the atmosphere what is the greatest cause of respiratory irritation. So we have to know what is present in the atmosphere, and those noxious substances, plus the smoking which may be a contributory cause, but not always—it is quite clear that people get cancer of the lungs who have never smoked in their lives, and I would rather side with the Minister and say that the greatest cause of cancer is air pollution, but I do not want to get involved in an argument about it because I am not certain myself. Even those people who have spent years of research on the matter are not certain either; it is just an opinion that is expressed. I would say that if we bear in mind the effects of air pollution, this must be our cardinal outlook: Industry must be made to realize now that man’s health must not be endangered by its progress. We cannot stop industry and therefore it is our duty to find ways and means of keeping the air clean and allowing industry to carry on.

The industrialist who wants to install a plant must be made fully aware of the dangers, if any, that his products, through the process of their manufacture, may cause to those people who are living in the surrounding areas. I think that is best illustrated by the case of those people who work in the asbestos mines. Now we have heard in this House about what happens to people who work with asbestos. We need asbestos; we need asbestos products, but we have to make sure that the people who work in and around the asbestos mines, or manufacture asbestos products, are prevented from getting cancer. That is the job of the industrial research worker. He has to find ways and means of preventing that irritant from entering the workers’ lungs. Perhaps one of our speakers on this side will go into that question a little more fully. I am mentioning it now to give an example of what may happen if we allow industry to progress without any restrictions and without any investigation as to its possible effects.

Now, in this Republic we have extensive and virile mining and industrial complexes. We are only a few years old as far as industry is concerned. We are only on the fringe of development. We all admit that our potential is enormous, but if we are not careful we are going to make this a very unhealthy area to live in as the result of our industrial development. That is why we on this side, and I am sure also hon. members opposite, feel that the time has now come to pass legislation of this sort. It is a restriction. What pleased me as a member of the Select Committee was the willingness with which industrialists are ready to co-operate in combating a condition which may cause heavy pollution of our atmosphere, to such an extent that man’s health will be in danger.

Now we in South Africa are blessed with two very important gifts from nature. We have the winds and the rains. With those two elements we were able to combat, until recently, any harmful effects of air pollution. The rains would come down and clean the atmosphere, and the winds would blow away into the seas the polluted air. In the hottest and driest parts of our country nature provided us with air vents in the form of mild cyclones and whirlwinds. Other things happened through it, but the air in those areas was clean of pollution. It so happens that in some areas of our country, irrespective of the winds and the rain, we have such a conformation of the land that it leads to heavy pollution. That especially takes place in an area like Durban. There, like in Los Angeles, we find valleys where the polluted air cannot escape. In those areas especially, we must see that everything possible is done to prevent industry from polluting the atmosphere. When we visited Durban we were struck by one particular thing, the long period that heavy smoke remained in the atmosphere, smoke which came out of coal-burning locomotives and from ships in the docks. It remained like a pall over the town. We have to make sure at this stage, immediately, that every conceivable method is used to prevent further pollution of the type that is taking place in Durban. If we do not do that, I am afraid that in Durban particularly, and perhaps in Pretoria, we might be met with a set of circumstances which took place in Los Angeles some years ago, and that took place in London a few years ago, when pollution became so bad that it, together with moisture, caused the smog conditions that occurred in 1945 and in 1955 in those towns. The smog condition there was not only a nuisance to the housewife but it became a terrible death-dealing disease, people died as a result of it. As hon. members know, many deaths took place; it gave rise to serious illness. Acute attacks of bronchitis, by the thousands, had to be dealt with in the various hospitals, in the affected areas. Sir, that makes me feel that the time has come when the research work should be conducted continuously. It is no good putting a research worker into an area after the damage has been done. They should work continuously throughout the country, especially in those areas which are badly affected by smog or pollution of some sort. They will then be on the spot during any period of difficulty when there is an accumulation of harmful products, and they will be able to see what the effects of these conditions are. It is an expensive business to keep these research workers on the job all the time, but this land of ours is very precious to us and whatever we spend on that type of research will yield rich rewards for us.

At this stage I want to say a few words about the co-operation of the mining industry in combating that terrible problem that we have on the Reef, the dust problem. I live in an area on the Reef which used to be plagued by dust storms, especially in the month of August. I can tell this House that it was so bad when the dust came off the City Deep and Robinson Deep mine dumps you could not drive a car safely through some of the streets, they were so heavily laden with dust off the dumps. I was perturbed at that time because the Johannesburg City Council were contemplating building a market near one of the offending dumps. I pleaded with the city council at that time not to go forward with this market because of the pollution that was taking place through this dust coming off the dumps. The Chamber of Mines apparently took it upon themselves with their engineers to investigate the possibility of covering the dumps; they conducted experiments and I must give them full marks for the very valuable work that they have done during the past few years. To-day the mine dumps from the one end of the Reef to the other end of the Reef are being covered by grass which is growing nicely. I am sure it must have cost the Chamber of Mines hundreds of thousands of rand, but one dump after another is being completely covered with grass. What was a nuisance before is now becoming a thing of beauty. It is quite a pleasure to see the green mounds which have arisen on the Reef in place of the dirty unpleasant mine dumps that were there previously. To-day there is far less danger of pollution from the mine dumps. If we can do this sort of thing and continue to do it I think there is no danger of any serious pollution taking place here.

It is quite amazing to see the various forms that pollution takes, the various forms and the various irritations that arise from it. You find the housewife, for instance, annoyed and grumbling because on Monday, an hour after she has hung her washing on the line, she finds that it is dirty and dusty; that what was snow-white has become a dirty grey. You find the little boy going to school with irritation in his eyes leading to conjunctivitis; you find people suffering from hay-fever and sneezing and coughing. On foggy days you find that motor cars, buses and trains are held up because they cannot get through the thick smog. You find the aeroplane pilots unable to take off or land because of the fog and the smog, two different things.

Then, Sir, we come to the most disastrous of all, the conditions which arose in Japan after Hiroshima, where radio-active elements remained suspended in the air and it became a danger to go within hundreds of miles of the centre where the bomb blast took place. Here we have the two extremes of air pollution, at the one end a housewife who grumbles about her washing and at the other end the person maimed and crippled through pollution of a much more serious form. Sir, I say that all these forms of pollution should be dealt with vigorously. We must make sure that a cattle farmer does not find that his cattle are being affected by a disease called fluorosis which attacks cattle and which is caused by too much fluorine in the atmosphere; cattle suffer and eventually die by the hundred as a result of this. I do not want to go into the details but this could be a serious thing in our country and we must make sure that we do not have that sort of thing here. We must make sure of the elements in the atmosphere which come about through coal-burning and oil-burning and whether it is not an accumulation of sulphur dioxide which is one of the causes of lung cancer; whether soot which accumulates in the atmosphere is not a greater cause of skin cancer than the sun’s rays. Farmers especially expose themselves to the sun and develop a weakness of the skin. They then leave the land and come and live in the towns. I have found—it may be just a coincidence—that many people who come from the country and have had areas of their skin burnt by the sun develop, on those burnt areas, pre-cancerous states. Fortunately it can be cured but it is something we have to go into. We must set up research teams now—I am sure the Minister has that in mind in his plan of campaign—which particularly will look after pollution when it comes to radioactive elements in the atmosphere. We have to discover what the sources are of these elements. We have to know how many of these elements are released in the atmosphere. We have to know where the areas of dispersion are. And we have to know what the fate of these substances is in the end. Radio-activity is increasing. The day of the splitting of the atom is no more the day of mystery. It is an every-day occurrence. The radio-active materials we are using from day to day are becoming more and more common. Their side-effects have got to be studied by our research workers. This is the sort of thing which is going to cost the community a great deal of money. They cannot do it themselves. They have to have the chemists and physicists, engineers, the town-planners, the meteorological experts, and the doctors. All these people have to work together in a team. If they don’t get together and do something now under the guidance of our Minister we are missing a golden opportunity of getting in on the ground floor. I sincerely hope that this Bill which we have before us today will be just the beginning of a grand piece of legislation that will help to keep the atmosphere of South Africa clean.

Mr. Speaker, a Government which does not look after the health of its people does not warrant the name of Government. Without health life means nothing. I remember a little poem from my childhood days. I cannot even remember the name of the poem nor do I remember the name of the poet but the lines which have remained with me read as follows—

• Gesondheid is the grootste skat
• Van al wat God ons skenk
• Want sonder dit is weinig werd
• Al wat ons hart bedenk.

That is an important truism in life. You must have experienced it yourself in order to appreciate it. Another important truism of life in this connection is conveyed succinctly in the English words “prevention is better than cure”. I think that particularly our medical colleagues, who sit here will agree that prevention is not only better but is also easier and cheaper than cure. It makes no difference what you spend on your health, one thing is certain and that is that it is only when you have lost it that you realize what it has meant to you. It sometimes happens that you spend hundreds and thousands of pounds in order to regain your health without any success. Sometimes all the money in the world cannot save you. Once you have lost your health you can often not buy it back with all the money in the world.

I rise, in the first instance, to thank the hon. the Minister for having come forward with this measure, this measure which is aimed at protecting the health of our people from the danger of atmospheric pollution which, as the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) has just indicated, affects our respiratory system. I associate myself wholeheartedly with his remarks. I thank the hon. the Minister for having come forward with this preventive measure.

I rise, in the second place, as a representative of the Witwatersrand and I am grateful to the Minister for not only limiting it to those atmospheric polluters like smoke and gas and so forth, but for having included dust as well and for also taking steps against dust as an atmospheric polluter. I am sure I speak not only on behalf of all the people on the Witwatersrand but also on behalf of everybody living in those other places where the atmosphere is polluted by dust from the mine dumps and silt dams which have come into existence in the process of producing gold. Not only does it affect the health of the people there but, as the hon. member for Rosettenville has said, the day the wind blows in August the dust hangs like a thick cloud of smoke over the Witwatersrand. The streets and stoeps are white with dust; there is a thick layer of dust on the floors of our homes. And that position still obtains. That is still the position in Boksburg. That dust finds its way into our homes under the doors. That means that the housewife has to use the broom not once but quite a number of times every day to get rid of the dust. Apart, therefore, from the fact that it affects our health it is also a big nuisance and I am grateful that the Minister has also decided to take steps to prevent dust because the draft Bill we as a Select Committee originally had before us did not say a word about dust. We as a Select Committee, subsequently as a commission of inquiry, then felt that dust should be included and we are grateful to the Minister for having accepted our recommendations in this connection and that steps can now be taken to prevent dust in those places where it is such a nuisance and also to eliminate further the danger it constitutes to our health. I just want to express my sincere gratitude to the hon. the Minister. Had dust not been included it would have made a farce and a mockery of the whole Bill.

Mr. Speaker, may I say that we are very pleased to see the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. G. L. H. van Niekerk) restored to health and able to make an interesting contribution to this debate. We share his welcome of this Bill and we are also glad to hear his concern with the question of dust from the mine dumps on the Witwatersrand which was also referred to by the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher), and we hope that the measures which the mining industry are taking to grass over these dumps will reduce the dust hazard that still exists to a certain extent on the Witwatersrand to-day.

I would like together with my colleagues on this side of the House to support this Bill. It is a Bill of common interest to both sides of this House, it is a Bill long overdue. The first Bill came to our attention in 1961, and I welcome this Bill especially because it shows improvements on the 1961 measure in that it now includes dust control and also control of fumes emitted by motor-vehicles which was not included in the 1961 Bill.

I feel there is one small criticism I would like to make at the beginning regarding the Title of the Bill. I feel perhaps that it is not a happily selected title. The Bill is called the Atmospheric Pollution Bill and it is to combat air pollution and to endeavour to purify the air. My one regret is that this constructive Bill has not been called the Clean Air Bill, because the words “clean air” convey very clearly to the outside public the urgency of this Bill and the object of the Bill. After all, even the U.S.A. Act is called the Anti-Smog Act, which is a constructive rather than a negative title.

But, Sir, this Bill is based on methods used in the British Clean Air Act, the British Alkali Act and also the American legislation, the Anti-Smog Act. These measures to counter air pollution come forward in this Bill and they are of equal interest to both sides of this House. South Africa is already an important industrial nation and, as the hon. member for Rosettenville has said, the growth of industry that we can foresee that will come in the future requires the immediate introduction of control of air pollution in order to stop existing abuses that may exist to-day as well as to provide protection for the future. It is well known that the problems of air pollution have reached very serious proportions in industrial nations, such as the U.S.A., the United Kingdom and Western European nations, and we know very well damage that is caused by the yellow smog of London, by the so-called black areas in Britain, by the choking smog of Los Angeles and also by the very heavily industrialized areas of the Ruhr in Western Germany. We in South Africa are fortunate with our weather because this does not contribute to conditions which lead to air pollution on the same scale as some countries like Britain and the U.S.A. The seriousness of air pollution is well recognized in these countries and last year Prof. Tonbridge, who was the professor of Medicine at Leeds University, said at Oxford concerning air pollution in Britain that “air pollution will cripple children”. He said that “hundreds of thousands of children, particularly in the north of England, were being exposed to air pollution which would cripple a third of them before they were 50”. That is the extent air pollution has already reached overseas. But perhaps it is not generally recognized that here in South Africa air pollution in industrial centres in South Africa, not only Durban and Pretoria, but also Johannesburg and East London, is comparable with that of English cities as proved by the research that has already been done on it by the C.S.I.R. Air Pollution Research Unit. During the last few years a great deal of research propaganda has been focused on the ill-effects of smoking. The hon. Minister himself referred to this and I do not want to create any controversy concerning this matter, but I wish to give some figures that have not been mentioned. To demonstrate the possible dangers of the combination of smoking with air pollution, an intensive survey was made by Dr. Geoffrey Dean both overseas and in the five major cities of the Republic of South Africa, and he found that there were 19 deaths per 100,000 in the five main cities of the Republic in the case of non-smokers as against eight deaths per 100,000 in rural areas. Amongst those smoking 25 to 50 cigarettes a day the death rate was 100 per 100,000 in the cities, and 51 per 100,000 in the rural areas. The death rate amongst those smoking more than 50 cigarettes a day increased to 180 per 100,000 in the urban areas and 135 per 100,000 in the rural areas. These figures indicate that both cigarette smoking and air pollution are causes of lung cancer. I will not go into the proportions now. This is confirmed by corresponding urban figures also in the U.S.A. and Britain. But quite apart from deaths caused by lung cancer, the adverse effects of air pollution on human health and comfort is a very well-known fact, and it now requires very close attention seeing that we have this Bill before us.

This Bill deals with four main portions, the control of noxious or offensive gases, atmospheric pollution by smoke, dust control and air pollution by the fumes emitted by motor vehicles. It also gives very wide powers indeed to the Chief Air Pollution control officer and his staff and the National Air Pollution Advisory Committee, its Appeal Board and the Minister himself. The Bill lists the noxious or offensive gases. May I say here that I feel this list is not entirely complete and I intend moving an amendment in the Committee Stage to insert the chemical cobalt. The second schedule deals with the darkness of smog. It refers also to the nuisance to persons residing in the vicinity of the causes of heavy dust, and it proposes also the control of the fumes emitted by motor vehicles.

Now, dealing with the first point, noxious or offensive gases, apart from the fact that I feel that this list may not yet be complete, the effect of these gases depends on their concentration. It is very difficult to specify the concentration. It varies from time to time, depending on the activity of the source and many meteorological factors such as the direction and velocity of the wind, the topography of the ground and also the convection air currents. One would perhaps like to see a little more specific mention made of this in the Bill, too. The noxious or offensive effects vary with the duration of the pollution in an area. It can also vary according to the concentration of the fumes in that area, so that this fact alone demonstrates the complexity of the problem this Bill seeks to overcome. The noxious and offensive nature of these gases also affects people’s health, and it affects them differently in the different age groups. Those suffering from bronchial and other allergies, and also people suffering from chest complaints, are affected in a different way. Depending on the age group and the amount of noxious gas present, some people are affected more easily than others. Smog and dust also have the same effects. Up to this stage I have spoken only of the adverse effect of air pollution as it affects the health and comfort of human beings, but there are other important issues, and I am not sure that this Bill provides sufficient protection in such cases. I therefore want to draw the Minister’s attention to the dangers of damage that can be caused by air pollution to agricultural crops and possibly also to domestic animals and to property.

Some agricultural crops are very sensitive to certain elements in the air, and such crops can very easily be poisoned by fall-out of particles of such elements or their compounds caused by big industrial plants. Even mere traces of such elements in the air may poison the soil for certain plants and the fall-out of these compounds may collect on the leaves of the plants and can cause damage to trees. The poisoning of the soil in this manner may be a very slow, continuous process, but it can gradually lead to the degeneration of crops as the harmful trace elements slowly accumulate year after year. The seriousness of the danger is very much enhanced by the fact that the fall-out on the ground and on the crops can extend over very great distances. It can extend over large areas, and not only in the immediate vicinity of that industrial plant. A certain part of the Bill refers to dust nuisance caused to people living in the vicinity of the origin of the dust, which can be caused by power stations, metallurgical plants and big industrial plants which are provided with very high chimney-stacks and they also have forced draught. In such cases the particles rise high into the air and gradually fall out of the air at a great distance away from the plant. They can leave a relatively unpolluted area in the vicinity of the industrial plant, but far away these elements can fall on soil and agricultural crops, depending on the direction of the wind and the topography of the land. But sometimes it can happen that the particles of the fallout can be deposited far away and the poor unsuspecting farmer whose farm may lie many miles away from the source of contamination may not know where the source is. I am illustrating some of the difficulties which will be encountered by those administering this Bill. Now we know that trace elements often play a very important part in the wellbeing of crops and domestic animals. We know that a little cobalt is good for sheep, whereas a great deal of it is poisonous. Therefore, as cobalt is associated with the processing of copper, I am going to suggest the insertion of the word “cobalt” in that definition section of the Bill.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23 and debate adjourned.