I move—

The Union of South Africa has not escaped the very serious collapse in the world prices for agricultural products, nor has it been left untouched by the vicissitudes of the diamond market—an article which has always played a very important part in our national economy. The budgets of a large number of our population have been considerably and very materially affected for a large part of the year, and likewise, our own finances. In spite of these adverse factors, the results that have been obtained for the year now drawing to a close are not unsatisfactory. The fates have again not been too unkind to us, otherwise I might well have had a much more sombre tale to tell.

seconded the motion.

On the motion of the Minister of Railways and Harbours, the debate was adjourned; to be resumed to-morrow.

I move—

I think I had better explain, for the information of those hon. members who have not followed it, the reasons and the urgency for this matter. As hon. members are aware, a judgment was given by the Appellate Court last Wednesday in the matter of the “Social and Industrial Review” being a newspaper within the meaning of the Act. The Act, as hon. members know, prescribes the publication of the recommendations in the “Gazette,” and also in the newspapers circulating in the district. To publish these in extenso in the ordinary daily press will cost something like £10,000 more than we actually expend per annum, and we were advised that publication in the “Social and Industrial Review” was legally complying with the terms of the law.

Who advised you?

We were well advised. If we sinned we sinned in excellent company, because this very point has arisen in two cases in both of which the decision of the supreme court has been against the appellant in the magistrate’s court. These two cases came on in June and July last year. We proceeded with this mode of publication until last Wednesday, when we found that the highest court in the land laid down that publication in the “Social and Industrial Review” did not constitute publication within the meaning of the Act. The position was this, that from last week, I think, all except one or two of the minor determinations practically ceased to exist, and ft has created a position which, if allowed to continue, would upset all the progress made in the way of wage regulation. It would be creating a great hardship in the case of that large majority of employers who have observed these determinations, and came into line and made a success of them as against those who flouted the law and avoided these determinations. It was clear if we left it indefinitely until the amending Acts were passed, and we gazetted all these determinations over again, it would create a very considerable state of chaos in industries, and in the wage regulations that have been recognized. It has been represented to me that by validating the Act we may be rendering people liable to prosecution for disobeying what the Appellate Court has decided is not law. Under the Bill no criminal or civil responsibility will attach to violations of these wage determinations before March 25.

I am sorry the Minister did not give us a fuller explanation of this matter, more especially as regards the position of those unfortunate firms who loyally obeyed the determination and gave increased wages; they have been placed in a most unfortunate position in regard to their competitors, who, because they paid a lower rate of wages, were able to undersell them. This unfortunate position has arisen owing to the efforts of the Labour department, and I do not see how it is to be remedied. This is a very sad commentary on the administration of the department.

On a legal point.

The public do not split hairs as to causes, but see only the results. The Labour department advertised certain determinations in the “Social and Industrial Review,” and the department says that it was advised that this periodical was a newspaper.

Four judges of the supreme court said the department was perfectly correct, but four other judges said they were not correct.

Nevertheless, the position ought never to have arisen, and I think I am quite justified in saying that the circumstances constitute a reflection on the Labour department. What about the employees who have been underpaid? Is there any available machinery to remedy their plight? The Minister shakes his head.

Unless you want to move an amendment.

That is not my business —the Minister can get himself out of his own trouble.

The Minister of Labour made a very frivolous remark when he said that the Labour Department actions had been ruled illegal only on a technical point. The last people to raise the objections that it was a technical point are the Labour members who decided that technically the Social Review was a newspaper. I do not suppose that anyone contemplated at the time of the Act that these wage determinations which the framers of the provision of legislation intended should be given the widest publicity, should be tucked away in a special departmental paper which is not read by 1 per cent. of the people. The judges who supported the Labour Department point of view decided that from a purely technical point of view the Social and Industrial Review fell within the definition of a newspaper, but the Minister cannot defend himself in the eyes of the ordinary man on the technical point taken by him.

All these people were perfectly aware of these wage determinations.

Another thing is that I hope that the Minister is not going to act any further on the idea that the Review is a newspaper. Possibly this ought to be made quite clear to him in the Bill.

When I listened to the remarks made by the Minister, one who was not acquainted with the history of the matter would have thought a trifling error had occurred in connection with his department, something wholly unexpected, and that he had come to the House to validate the error likely to cause the chaos and dislocation of which he spoke. This occasion should not be allowed to go by without bringing back to the attention of the Minister the innumerable occasions on which it was pointed out that if there was one thing the Labour Department was responsible for, it was not to have recognized the responsibility of its position. I do not know how many of these determinations have been set aside. I think, of the 19 or 20 which were promulgated, at least eight or ten had been previously declared invalid. In the baking and the sweet-making industry, there had been three cases where, because of the refusal of the Minister to face his responsibilities and heed the warnings addressed to him, these determinations were set aside. Now the Minister comes to the House and points to the state of chaos which will result if the House does not assist him in his difficulty. He asks both sides to help him to effect a cure. How many times have I not heard the word “chaos” about the Labour Department? Employers and employees had no idea where they stood. Some of them were obeying the award and some have not done so. The Minister and his department failed to observe the law and are guilty of a breach of its proper administration, while we have the Minister talking of those who have flouted the law when they have been observing their legal rights. In fact, he has been criticizing the judgment of the highest courts in the land. That may be logic in the Department of Labour—I believe it is—but that is one of the reasons why we have had this continuous struggle and muddle—chaos at Doornkop and at Caledon, and now in the central office of the department at Pretoria.

Has that anything to do with this Bill?

If the Minister of Justice is patient he will, no doubt, hear about it. After all, he is a colleague of the Minister of Labour, and he might profitably listen quietly to some of the remarks made from this side. I want to refer to some of the methods employed by the Social and Industrial Review, which might be described as a social pillory, if you consider some of its methods. One of the first features of its administration was to introduce an “agony” or a “pillory” column—prosecutions under industrial legislation under its administration, with the object, I suppose, of exposing to contempt and ridicule those whose names appeared in that column, and in that way appealing to the feelings of those who were supposed to be in sympathy with the department. It appears that in every reference made to persons who have been supposed to be guilty of an infringement of the wage determinations, the department has been acting unfairly and irregularly through its incompetence.

The hon. member must confine his remarks to the Bill before the House.

I want to show how far this publication can be regarded as a newspaper, and I intend to show it is a pillory.

I will allow a reference to be made, but not a discussion of the whole case.

You may forgive me if I state I do not quite follow your ruling. I thought the Bill was intended for determining that the Social and Industrial Review should be regarded as a newspaper, and I endeavoured to show to what uses this publication has been put from time to time, and dealing with some of the consequences; we have here in this pillory the inclusion of the names of many persons as part of the policy of intimidation on the part of the department—persons whose names should never have appeared there. I think you will see that what I have said is strictly germane to the purposes of the Bill. The department knew perfectly well that, strictly speaking, this could not be called a newspaper, because it made alterations; there was a new cover, and they began what were called “news items,” in a further attempt to holster it up as a newspaper within the meaning of the section. One of the judges—a well-known judge—threw out the suggestion that it was not a newspaper, and the department might have taken the hint, but took no notice of it: a few foolish “news paragraphs” were put in in an endeavour to create the view that it was a newspaper. It shows the thin ice on which the department was prepared to skate. After failing to take the hint, and after this House pointed out how serious it was to have wage determinations set aside, we have the Minister coming forward and acknowledging that this state of chaos has arisen. I can quite understand that those who were short paid would never have had that loss if the Act had been properly administered. Does the Minister intend to continue this system? What object is there in inserting these notices in his publication, except the intimidation of persons from going to court to endeavour to assert their legal rights? I think the House has got to assist the Minister. Let us do our very best to rectify the errors that have been made, but I should like an assurance from the Minister that this sort of reckless, slap dash method that has prevailed in his department will cease, and that if he has not obtained legal advice, he may even take advice from his colleague on his right.

made an interruption.

I have no doubt that the hon. gentleman exudes law, and I do hope that having that surplus of legal knowledge, he may pass some of it on to his colleague. Whether he does or not, I ask the Minister to give the House some assurance that some care will be taken to avoid a repetition of this state of chaos. It has been stated before in this House, and I would like to state it again, because one can see quite plainly that other determinations are going to be set aside. Therefore, may I ask the Minister to tell us whether, in future, he expects to have any repetition of this constant setting aside of these determinations, and what steps he is taking to prevent a recurrence of what has already taken place. Does he realize the tremendous dislocation that has taken place in industry through the failure of his department? I would like to ask the Minister to regard this matter as serious. To look at him, one would think it was a very trifling matter indeed, but, fortunately, we are able to speak, not to the Minister, but to those outside the House, who have to bear the financial consequences of this trifling with the industry of the country. The Labour Department has shown sheer, continual and perpetual incompetence in administering a very simple Act of Parliament, and this has resulted in a state of chaos which was frequently predicted on this side of the House. I ask the Minister to give us an assurance that the department will take simple, commonsense measures to administer this Act in a proper way.

I am very anxious to know what is going to be the result of the introduction of this Bill. Here is a Bill which relieves those who have been underpaid. Are we going to pass a Bill which will be in conflict with the judgments of the courts? What about those who have been loyally carrying out the law, and who have paid out large sums of money? How are they to be compensated? Is there any compensation at all for them?

For what?

For having paid out large sums of money believing that they were acting in terms of the law, though it was not so. It is quite clear that this cannot be made retrospective, and I think the criticism of the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Coulter) is perfectly justified. You have two positions created. The one is that the employers who have not paid the full amount in terms of the Act, ought to have paid. On the other hand you have a larger number of more law-abiding people who have honoured the law, and carried it out, and have paid the larger amount in terms of the Act. They are not to be relieved in any way. If one will only look at it, one must ask what is going to be the result. The present position is anything but satisfactory. Nothing could be worse. The department has been in the wrong. What is to be done in the matter? Honestly I do not think the passing of this Bill will have any equity in it at all. I do not know what the hon. Minister intends to do, but I regard the matter as being very much more serious than the hon. the Minister seems to think. The Minister brings the Bill forward, almost smiling, and we find the position that exists applies to all the determinations. It is common cause that other determinations have been dealt with, and those who have not paid the correct wage have been called upon to do so. Here we are relieving those people of that responsibility. It is of no use to condemn the Minister of Labour, as he cannot now repair the wrong that has been brought about. Whatever the cause, it is one of those things that would not happen in the ordinary course of events, and there is no reason why it should happen in a Government department.

I have listened on many occasions to hon. members opposite indulging in criticism of the cost of the Labour Department, but now that the Labour Department has had an opportunity of saving £20,000 in advertising expenses they condemn it for that. The department is put in the pillory because it did not know the law when we find the highest judges have disagreed on those points. What do they suggest? Do they suggest that employees should repay the excess on those wages? How would they assess such excess? Would they accept the lowest standard of the unscrupulous employer? Should the Act be made retrospective and risk the court ruling it to be ultra vires? Do they suggest that the wages fixed by the Wage Board are excessive? They do not seem to suggest any remedy, and I do not know what they want.

I want to refer to Hansard, page 127, where a question was asked on the 26th January by the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Coulter) as to what was the revenue earned by the Social and Industrial Review during 1929 from sales and subscriptions, and what was the cost of printing. The answer showed that an enormous amount of money was lost in the publication of this review, approximately £200 a month. The Minister ought to have known that this review is not a publication within the meaning of the Act of 1925. We are told he allowed himself to be advised that it was by some person whose name he will not divulge. The intention of the Act was the widest possible circulation of every wage determination, so that employer and employee should be able to read what the award was. Yet there are large numbers of people ignorant of the award. Does not the Minister consider the amount should be paid back to those who observed the awards? The hon. Minister asks for what he has always been opposed to, namely, the validation of an unlawful Act. There is an illegal Act here; and who is going to refund people who paid out wages under the award? Is the Government going to refund the money? I suppose not. It seems to me that this Act is necessary. I think the majority of the members on this side are of that view. I hope that when this Bill comes into the committee stage, the Minister will accept the amendment, which will make it perfectly clear that there will be no retrospective effect whatever.

Of course, I might have known that the hon. members for Gardens (Mr. Coulter), and Von Brandis (Mr. Nathan) would have taken a different view to the view taken by the four judges of the provincial courts; they would have known the law. But we acted on advice, and, as I have already emphasized, it must have been good advice, because two divisions of the provincial court decided that they were correct. I do not think that hon. members should talk in that way about carelessness. I only want to refer to what the hon. member for Rondebosch said, and I agree with him in one reading of a technical point. That is if there was any allegation at all that the persons concerned were not fully alive to the terms of the determination I should not call it a technical point. The technical point is one where we err in very good company. Let me be quite candid. The hon. member must have seen by the amending Bill. Even if these judgments are in our favour, one felt that it was not altogether a satisfactory position. Neither position is satisfactory. The position is left under the principal Act which imposes a totally unnecessary expenditure on the public purse, and the course to which objection has been taken, and is now found to be not quite law, is not satisfactory either. In point of fact, it has not been owing to any lack of knowledge of what the determination was. In regard to the other questions raised, I shall be charmed and privileged for the assistance of the intensely valuable suggestions of the hon. member for Von Brandis (Mr. Nathan). Whether I shall accept them or not is another matter. There is another matter, the fact that a very large number, indeed the great majority of employers, have abided by all the determinations, and it is only a small fringe of them who usually have contested them. Although I would like to have made it retrospective so that it would be even for all, I am afraid that I can see very great objections in the way of that. On broad general grounds the Bill is framed and designed to remedy the matter to all parties concerned.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into committee to-morrow.

When the debate was adjourned I was on the point of attempting to deal with the Minister’s contention that the law dealing with agitators had broken down. I say that the law has not broken down. About six weeks ago some of these agitators who have caused the trouble with which Parliament is proposing to deal, were arrested and charged as the result of one of these inflammatory speeches that we have heard so much about. They were charged with inciting to public violence as defined in a section of this Act 27 of 1914, which we are now proposing to amend. Alternatively the accused were charged with contravening this section of the Act of 1927 under which Bunting was charged but escaped. One of these agitators, Ndobe, was convicted. He was bound over to good behaviour. He was given a very straight talk by the learned judge who presided at the trial and the result of that has been a very great abatement in the tone of these Parade speeches that are complained of. There is a moral in that for the Minister and for this House. That is that the native will accept control by the courts. He accepts the administration of justice and will take his punishment from the courts without complaint or unrest. But he will not accept repression by the police. If the hon. Minister proposes to deal with these agitators on the lines of repression by the police and the administration, he is not going to settle this unrest, but will only accentuate it. Then let me come to the suggestion that the courts are powerless to deal with these agitators. Of course, the courts will be powerless if the weapon that Parliament puts into their hand breaks at the first test. That is what happened in Bunting’s case. What has happened is that the weapon Parliament put into the hands of the courts in the form of the definition contained in the Act of 1927 has been found defective and has broken. But it does not follow that no better weapon can be devised, and that no better definition of the crime one wants to prevent can be devised. I submit it will be perfectly easy to alter the definition even in that very section of the Act so as to cover this agitation that has been causing so much trouble.

Will you have a try?

Yes, let me give the Minister an example. I have referred to the difference in wording between the first sub-section and the second sub-section of section 29 of Act No. 38 of 1927. I referred to the fact that the Eastern Districts courts devoted a good deal of attention in its reasons for judgment to the difference in the wording of these two subsections, and drew attention to the fact that in the first sub-section which created the crime the words used were “with intent to promote ill-feeling," and in the second sub-section to words “which may be calculated to promote any feeling of hostility.” If instead of the words “with intent,” the words in the second sub-section had been used the result would have been different. The sub-section would have read as follows—

If the legislature had used those words in the first sub-section of that section, I make bold to say that Bunting would never have escaped, because the language he used would have been amply covered by those words “which may reasonably be calculated to promote any feeling of hostility.” Further, if we had had that definition contained in the Bill of 1926, I make bold to say that Bunting would never have escaped, because the ordinary rule of law is that a person is presumed to intend the natural consequences of his acts.

Why did you not suggest that at the second reading?

I shall come to that. I listened carefully to the speeches read by the Minister in the debate before the Bill was referred to the select committee; and every one of them would have been covered, with one exception, by the definition in the 1926 Bill. We now come to the position which arose in the select committee. The Minister, no doubt unintentionally, gave this House a misleading impression of what took place in the select committee. He conveyed to the House that the S.A.P. members went to the select committee with a definition on the lines of that contained in the 1926 Bill, but without the proviso he referred to. That was not the position, for they did not go to the select committee with a definition which omitted the proviso. That definition was put forward by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) as it stood in the 1926, Bill, that is, he included the proviso, but the Minister himself found an objection to the proviso that a clever agitator might trim his sails and avoid coming under it. In deference to that and also because it was felt to be superfluous the hon. member for Yeoville agreed to drop the proviso. At any rate it was because of the difficulties raised by the Minister that the amendment was put without the proviso.

You saw the difficulties yourself.

I say the proviso was not really necessary. It embodies the result of a series of decisions in the English law which are riders to the definition. It is not part of the definition of sedition. I am perfectly prepared to let the proviso stand. Another impression conveyed by the Minister was that the “deeming” clause was found to be unsatisfactory, but that we were unable to suggest anything instead. We never reached the stage of considering the defects of interpretation or draughtsmanship. If difficulties about the draughtsmanship of the “deeming” clauses had been raised in the select committee, it would have been an easy matter to overcome them. I quite agree with the Minister that the “deeming" clause is defective, because it does not refer to sub-section 4, which makes it a crime to promote ill-feeling. I have draughted a revised “deeming” clause which I am prepared to hand to the Minister, and I understand the hon. member for Yeoville has also draughted a revised “deeming” clause. We found, in the select committee, that the Minister was not very anxious to consider our suggestions for amending the Bill. He rather liked the power that the Bill gives him and had no desire to give it up. The Minister said he did not know the exact history of the draughtsmanship of the amendment of 1926. Let me tell him. In 1902, peace preservations ordinances were passed in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, which remained in force until 1914 when they were repealed by the Act we now propose to amend. These ordinances contained a definition of “sedition” which was roughly in substance the same as that contained in the definition in the 1926 Bill. In that Bill, Mr. Roos, the then Minister of Justice, attempted to re-enact the provisions contained in the peace preservation ordinances with such alterations as were necessary to make it more suitable to the changed conditions. That, however, was thrown out on account of opposition by the Labour wing of the Government side of the House, and the present position is largely due to the alliance between the Nationalists and Labour parties. This sub-section (iv) in the Bill dealing with the intention to promote feelings of hostility between the different races was not inserted at random by the select committee on the 1926 Bill as the Minister suggested, but was part of the ordinances to which I have referred. The “deeming” clause was part of the original Bill introduced in 1926 by the late Minister of Justice. The amendment was drafted by the Government law advisers, was reported upon by a select committee which included the late Minister of Justice and one other eminent member of the legal profession, and was supported by Mr. Lansdowne, who is a very eminent authority on criminal law; it was also supported by Col. Trew and Maj. Trigger, the senior police officials in the Cape. The Minister says Mr. Lansdowne had a different object to ours, and that was to restore the law to what it was before the case of Rex versus Viljoen. I can understand that statement only on the assumption that the Minister has not read the evidence given before the select committee; for it is clear from that evidence that the problem Mr. Lansdowne had in mind was the prevention of exactly the same type of disorder that we are now faced with. There are references in the evidence given by the police officers to Kadalie, Thaele, Bunting and company, so the object of the select committee was not greatly different from our present one. Mr. Lansdowne considered that the definition in the Bill of 1926 was sufficient to enable the Government to deal with this very type of disturbance, and he said, on page 2 of the select committee’s report—

On page 7 he says—

In face of that statement, how on earth can the Minister say that an amendment of the law to put power in the hands of the court to deal with these agitators is impossible? I want to refer now to another portion of the evidence before the select committee because it contains a warning for us. Col. Trew and Maj. Trigger both refer to the danger of driving these agitators underground, unless they are given some scope. Maj. Trigger said—

Col. Trew said—

These police officers were alive to the problem which they and we have to face—the danger of too much suppression. The Minister said that the amendment we suggested was useless to meet the evil aimed at. The Minister will no doubt recollect that in the select committee he was asked what type of speech he wished to suppress which would not be suppressed by this amendment we put forward. I asked him that question, and he gave no answer. Now he says that the South African party members in the select committee were unable to suggest any other amendment. If he would not tell us the evils he wished to suppress, how on earth could he expect us to devise a law to deal with it? The Minister said that a conclusive answer to the query why he refused to adopt the measure brought forward by Mr. Roos was that Parliament drafted this Act, of 1927 with the avowed object of getting at the agitator, and failed in that object. I am astounded at such an argument. It does not at all follow that all attempts must fail. If a draughtsman merely sets himself to work to draft something to catch these agitators, it would be found to be perfectly feasible. The Minister said that without the proviso of the 1926 Bill, nobody could open his mouth outside this House about two-thirds of what affects our daily lives without committing an offence.

If the deeming clause applies.

Even with the deeming clause, I challenge that statement. The safeguard lies in the words “natural and probable consequence.” I cannot agree at alt with the suggestion of the Minister, which I regard as a bugbear intended to frighten hon. members. And even if it were so it might have a good effect in making politicians weigh their words before they utter them, and in considering whom they are addressing and shaping their remarks accordingly, and with the necessary responsibility. I do not think ordinary criticism would be hit by a provision such as this, and, in any event, if there is to be a contravention of the law, every member of Parliament would rather be dealt with by the courts than by the Minister. The Minister referred to the sub-section which purports to safeguard the power of the courts; I consider it no safeguard at all One knows that the courts have powers of review, but this provision does not carry them any further; to my mind, it rather limits them Sub-section (13) gives the Minister power to withhold information, simply on the ground that it cannot be disclosed without detriment to public policy.

That is the law to-day.

If a review came before the courts, and the Minister refused to disclose information on which he had acted, on the grounds of public policy, it seems to me the courts would be inclined to take cognisance of that.

There has never been a case like that.

I agree; probably the case has never arisen. If the Minister had done an irregular thing, and refused to disclose information, the courts would say that to interfere with the liberty of the subject and to withhold the information upon which that interference was justified was such an irregularity as would induce the courts to step in in order to preserve the liberty of the subject. Then the Minister said that if the Minister wished to withhold information under sub-section (13) he would have to declare on oath that the information could not be disclosed without detriment to public feeling. I do not regard that as a safeguard. Whatever Minister is in power, if his conduct were attacked the natural tendency would be to withhold the grounds upon which he acted, and the more irregular his conduct the greater would be his inclination to refuse information on the ground of public policy. With regard to the power to deport, I want to say that it is quite true that the Act of 1927 provides for deportation, but that is a very different power from that contained in this Bill. Under the 1927 Act the Governor-General can only deport on conviction by a court of deliberately promoting feelings of hostility. Under the present Bill the Minister may deport in consequence of a conviction of merely disobeying the Minister’s order. The position may arise that the Minister may prohibit a person from attending a public meeting, and that person may be brought up for contravening that order, and may be sentenced, and simply upon receiving that sentence he may be deported. This provision for deportation is infinitely graver than anything contained in the 1927 Act. We unfortunately see nowadays a growing contempt on the Government side of the House for our public institutions. We have had a Minister of the Crown in this House referring in the most sarcastic and contemptuous tone of freedom of speech in Parliament. We had that from the Minister of Finance a few days ago, and now we have the Minister of Justice, whose aim it should be to safeguard our institutions, and principally the administration of justice in this country and the power of the courts, attempting to side-track the courts. If this Bill goes through, not one of us will be able to feel that he is a free man. Not one of us could walk down Adderley Street without feeling that he was liable to deportation by the Minister at any time. In this country we are not used to that. The English and the Dutch have never tolerated a dictatorship or a tyranny. Law and liberty have always been the breath of life to both of those races.

To which section are you speaking?

I am referring to the powers the Minister wants to take to exclude any person from any area he prescribes. [Time limit.]

As one of the members of the select committee on this Bill, and as a member representing Natal, which is chiefly affected by this Bill, I think it is very desirable that I should say a few words about it. It is common cause that sedition has been spreading throughout this country, and that something should be done about it. It is unnecessary, at this stage, to dilate upon the overwhelming evidence which is reaching us from all sides of the trouble which is occurring all over the country. In Natal, quite recently, we have had to face a very serious situation, which caused loss of life, and throughout the whole countryside we are getting evidence of disaffection which is being spread broadcast by ill-disposed people. It has been necessary for quite a long time past to preserve, in the heart of Natal, a mobile police squadron ready to proceed to any spot where a conflict may occur; and quite recently it was necessary to send aeroplanes to the Transkei in order to deal with the disaffection created by the natives at Wellington. We have had riots and upheavals in Durban which no one can afford to ignore; and, strangest of all, we have had and still have the spectacle of an organized boycott of all the municipal beer halls in Durban. That, surely, is one of the strangest things that has occurred amongst our natives for many years past. Here we have a combined movement of natives boycotting their own national beverage, Kaffir beer, which is both food and drink to them, to which they have been accustomed since childhood. If any evidence was necessary to show that an organized campaign is in existence among the natives to-day, controlled by evil-disposed persons, I think the evidence furnished by this boycott is sufficient to convince anyone. We have then this position in Durban. Kaffir beer has been manufactured and sold by the municipalty for a whole generation without exciting the slightest complaint from the natives. The system has won wide approval. The natives have accepted it as a wholesome beverage; they have bought it daily, and the profits which came from its sale have been utilized entirely for the benefit of the natives. Suddenly, without any warning, and without any rhyme or reason, they turned against it, and any law-abiding native who did not join in the boycott was assaulted.

What is the reason?

The reason is not very clear. The commission which sat on the Durban riots did not say; though the riots were connected with the beer boycott, the commission did not go to the root of the causes. But we do know some facts about the causes. We know that this agitation has been largely created by those who desire to engage in illicit liquor selling; and we know that the native women in the locations around Durban have been in spanned in this campaign, because they think that home brewing may be brought about, by which they may profit. We know that natives have been threatened with death if they drink this beer. We also know that behind all this unrest which we see in Durban and, indeed, throughout Natal, behind this strange combination of forces which have brought about this boycott, there lies some central control, and that central control is given by people who have a revolutionary bent. These are facts; I am not dealing in hearsay or theories, but in demonstrable facts. The native population in this country has got out of hand. We have had representations from responsible natives all over the Union asking the Government to take action to prevent the spread of sedition. Even the Bunga itself has adopted a resolution asking us to prevent the dissemination of sedition. We know that the existing laws have proved inadequate to deal with the situation. The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) drew attention to this fact last session. Some better method of dealing with this matter must be found; hence the introduction of this Bill. I want to explain my attitude in the select committee on this Bill. There are four main points which we have here to deal with. The first is the power which the Minister seeks to prohibit the holding of a meeting which he considers is likely to result in hostility between the races. To the taking of that power we have not the slightest objection. It is obvious that in dealing with a huge native population, we must either rule or abdicate. No government could long maintain the confidence of the electorate in South Africa if it continues to allow the preaching of sedition from public platforms all over the country. It is our view that this might be met by an extended definition of sedition; but those who live in native areas consider that the effect of the words of the speaker upon a native audience cannot be judged by the meaning of mere words uttered. Words may be used which show no seditious intention, but which, nevertheless, are so charged with the spirit of passion and revolt, that their effect may be to stir the audience to deeds of violence. For we are dealing not with thinking people, but a semi-barbarous population. One of the objects of this Bill is to prevent a meeting taking place which is likely to spread sedition. There is no getting over the fact that there are certain individuals in the country of whom it can be predicted with moral certainty that if they are permitted to address a meeting at all, they are bound to cause trouble. It is better in such cases that the administrative authority should have power to prohibit that person addressing a meeting. The second point I wish to refer to is the prohibition which is provided of books or pamphlets or newspapers calculated to produce hostility. The Bill emerges from the select committee with rather too wide powers in this respect. Perhaps the Minister may say this is not intended to refer to daily newspapers. I understand it refers only to documentary information which may be contained in such papers.

That was before the safeguard of the supreme courts was provided.

The Minister wants power to suppress pamphlets and papers being circulated amongst the natives. Perhaps the Minister will agree to allow this to be amended in committee, so that the assurance he gave to the committee may be properly set out in the Bill. Upon these two points we are agreed. We agree that it is better to prevent an offence than to take action after the offence has been committed. To illustrate how necessary this power is, I have here a native “dodger,” which reproduces a photograph of the upper portion of the body of a native who was killed during the Durban riots. This “dodger” is passing from hand to hand in thousands in Natal today, and I ask you to imagine the effect of this "dodger” upon the native mind. It is written in Zulu, of which the following is a translation. It is headed “Blood and Tears,” and it goes on to say—

The House should note the implication here. The dead native has been sacrificed to the cause of this boycott. To the superstitious mind of the Zulu, beer has therefore become unclean. There is a taboo upon it. The text continues—

That is witchcraft—

Here it will be seen that every native is threatened with death if he disobeys—

After thus preying upon the minds of the ignorant native, the writer of this pamphlet seeks some excuse for writing, and goes on—

Now this is published with the idea of perpetuating a state of strife, and with the object of leading natives to believe that there is something in the bodies of these unknown dead natives which will leap on to punish them if they disobey the instructions given them. Now that pamphlet is a fact. There is no theory about that. There is concrete evidence of the existence of a conspiracy, and that evidence has been distributed throughout the country. I do not think any government can afford to stand quietly by and see this state of affairs continued by which hostility is being created between white and black in South Africa. I have, therefore, no objection, and I do not think anybody can have any objection, to the Government prohibiting the issue of such pamphlets and documents as those I have read. When we come to the other two points of the Bill on which we are not agreed, we are on different ground altogether. Personally, I incline more to the administrative view than to the legal view expressed by my friend. I realize the slowness and the dangers of, the courts in many cases where immediate action is necessary. They spell delay when delay may mean danger. Nevertheless, I realize that there is a considerable amount of feeling in many minds against the Government taking such drastic powers under the two other points upon which we have differed from the Minister. In the first place, the Minister seeks power to remove any person from any defined area, if he is satisfied that he is creating feelings of hostility by remaining there. In the second place, he seeks power to deport any person guilty of an offence under the Act. Now it is felt that whilst power is absolutely essential to the Government to do these things under certain circumstances and safeguards, that power should not be so completely unqualified as it is under this Bill. In committee I voted for the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), who brought forward an extended meaning of the definition which he and his legal friends thought would meet the situation. I am aware that that extended meaning will not meet the situation entirely. We have to consider that the most potent factors for evil are not to be found in those who address public meetings on public platforms all over the country, but in the brains of the organization behind the movement such as we have had in Durban—those people who do not appear on public platforms. It is the individual, well supplied with money, who worms his way into the inner circles of native disaffection and carries on propaganda in secret, more than the man who addresses public meetings, whom it is intended to remove from a given area. He is the man who forms the inner cell of revolution; he furnishes no material for a conviction before the courts of the land. He does not make speeches. He organizes. His tools make speeches, and while they can he dealt with and convicted for what they say, the more potent danger, the brains of the movement, remains untouched. That is the trouble we all see. We have had experience of it in Durban. We know very well that Europeans have gone down there and foregathered with the natives; they have sat in council with them, and have been able to send men out to address people and to organize their campaign; but they have furnished no material evidence upon which you can convict them. I have realized that, and in order to meet that difficulty I suggested to the Minister that, instead of taking these powers entrusted to him as an individual Minister, perhaps some scruples might be met if the word “Minister” in the Bill was translated into the Governor-General-in-Council, or that the powers which the Bill place upon him were vested in the Cabinet as a whole, and not left to the individual whim of a Minister. As the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Roper) said, the countries ruled by parliaments have been jealous of entrusting individual liberties to the whims of a politician. Where it is possible to utilize the courts to protect these liberties, only the gravest situation of the state can excuse the abrogation of that procedure. To do otherwise is in effect a proclamation of martial law in certain areas without the necessity of seeking an indemnity. I voted for the amendment of my hon. friend because, like everybody else, I am jealous of the liberties of the people. But I have to look at the matter from a practical administrative point of view, too. It is the liberty of a few individuals, perhaps, against the probable riot and disturbance by many thousands. Therefore, on the balance, I think that I would be prepared, in the ultimate, if no other means can be found, to see an injustice done to one or two rather than to see an injustice done to thousands of innocent people who would be drawn into the vortex from which there is no escape. I understand that the Minister has invited the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) to put forward an amendment, if he can do so, during a later stage of the Bill. In those circumstances I am not prepared to vote for the second reading. I shall take precisely the same attitude during the passage of this Bill that I took in committee. If an amendment is moved in committee, I hope to be able to support that amendment. If it is found in committee that no amendment is forthcoming, or it is rejected by the House as unsuitable, and that the power is to be given to the Minister without amendment, I am prepared to vote for the third reading on the principle that administrative power is urgently necessary to deal with the present position; and I am prepared to accept this Bill rather than have no Bill at all.

In supporting the second reading of this Bill, it seems to me that certain hon. members seem to be in favour of some amendment, and they are leaving out of account some of the most important factors we have to consider to-day. The Minister in asking for these powers is taking into consideration obviously, a changed world. He has taken into consideration a condition of affairs which has never existed in Europe or in South Africa before. It is because we realize that conditions have changed and that is a danger threatening us to-day which has never before threatened this country in the same way. The hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Roper) seems to be opposed to the Bill mainly because he said that the Minister was using methods which were contrary to the spirit of the country; which were against the spirit of freedom; methods which were bringing our public institutions into disrepute. It is particularly because I feel that the Minister is getting power through this Bill to protect the liberty of the very highest public institution, because he is taking power to protect the liberty of the state, that we should support this measure. It is because we feel that, if we do not take such steps, the liberty of the state would be injured, and if the liberty of the state is injured, the first liberty that will go is the liberty of the individual. Then the high traditions of Parliament and the courts of the country will be of very little avail. Therefore, I feel that we have the strongest grounds for supporting a Bill which becomes absolutely necessary because of the changed conditions. If the danger threatening us was entirely a danger from within, then the courts of the lands and their slow process might be well depended upon, but when the danger that threatens us is so obviously engineered from without our boundaries, then, I say, it becomes absolutely necessary to take these powers. The experience of the past has been quite definite and clear. The courts have not been successful because of the difficulty of legislation, because of the difficulty of definitions in Acts of Parliament from making secure this liberty of the state. Although I feel my limitations, not being a legal man, it strikes me that we are placing the liberties of the state higher than the prestige of the courts. That may be a defect, but nevertheless we feel that the opinion of the citizens of the country should not entirely be disregarded. I was a little surprized at the attitude of the hon. member for Zululand (Mr.Nicholls), who so obviously agrees with us in every respect that it is necessary to pass this legislation, but at the last moment declared that still he is unable to support the second reading. That is an absolute anachronism, and I do not understand his position, unless it be that he is willing still further to experiment and is prepared once again to face failure to achieve the ends we desire to secure. He has read a lurid document which is typical of others which, under the guise of temperance documents, are attemepting to stir up trouble. In the past, South African governments sometimes found it necessary to deport people, for which action they had to obtain indemnity; that is more high-handed than anything suggested in the Bill. Feeling strongly as I do that by this measure we are not taking away the liberty of the people, or undermining the prestige of the courts, but are safeguarding the liberties of the state, I feel it is incumbent upon us to support the second reading.

I welcome this Bill, and I support it. I recognize that its powers are such that they are the only means of checking the bad effects caused by agitators. Do hon. members realize the grave position that has existed in Natal and Zululand during the last six months? We have a native population of 1,500,000. They belong to the Zulu warrior nation. I was born amongst them; I speak their language; I understand their mentality, and I know how easily they are roused by agitators, and when aroused, how they fight to a finish. Public opinion in Natal is solidly in favour of the Bill, and the native chiefs and headman are also in favour of it. Two years ago the tribal chiefs in Natal prohibited agitators addressing meetings, and they did not allow their young men to attend the meetings. The communist has no chance in the tribal areas ruled by these chiefs, but he finds fertile ground for planting communist seed in the urban areas. The stream of natives leaving the rural areas for the urban centres is very great indeed, natives being turned off farms and gravitating to the towns, but in places like Durban and Pietermaritzburg, there is no employment for these men. They take out licences as day labourers. The employment they are engaged in is spasmodic. Sometimes they are employed, and sometimes they are not. It is a custom among Zulus to help their kith and kin, and if they are out of work others assist them. With regard to this propaganda which is going on, in Greytown two years ago these meetings were held on Sundays, and as many as 1,500 to 2,000 natives were addressed by these communists. One of the most diabolical acts was perpetrated afterwards to the graveyards there. They must have entered with sledge hammers, and the damage done was indescribable; one could not have thought such a thing could occur. Such a thing has never happened before. A very grave situation arose again. Relatives of those whose tombstones had been smashed rose up, and it was only by a miracle that bloodshed did not follow. Then came the case of Durban last June. Look what a trivial event caused bloodshed there. The reason they gave for the boycotting of native beer was that it was too weak, but they have never complained of the formula that had been used. They wanted the chief brewer to be a native, and not a European. I happened to be within a few hundred yards of this disturbance. The natives proceeded to pull out those who were patronizing the beer shop, and a certain disturbance was created. Only a small body of police was available to restore law and order, and they were overcome. Reinforcements arrived just in time, but just before this bloodshed was going on all round. One European, sixty years of age, was standing on the pavement, looking on with curiosity at what was taking place, and he was bludgeoned and killed on the spot. Reinforcements were forthcoming, but there were also reinforcements for the rioters, and it was only by good order and generalship that the police were able to master the situation. It was a very gruesome sight to see the lorry loads of wounded, who were bleeding profusely, passing to the hospitals—both police and natives. What happened that night? Europeans in Durban, an infuriated mob, foregathered in the vicinity of the natives’ trades hall. The police were there, fortunately in large numbers, and prevented the raiding of this hall while the natives were in it. The hall was evacuated, and eventually it was entered by the Europeans and wrecked. For the past two years at Cartwright’s Flat, a large piece of ground in the heart of Durban, within a quarter of a mile of the railway station, has been occupied Sunday after Sunday by the natives as a meeting place. It might have been thought that after the events I have mentioned the natives would have been cowed, and would not have assembled at Cartwright’s Flat as usual; but the natives decided to hold a meeting and the chief magistrate of Durban, realizing the danger, got into communication with the Minister of Justice, and obtained an order forbidding this meeting. The chief magistrate spoke to the leaders, and told them it was the Minister’s order that the meeting should not be held. They treated the chief magistrate with contempt, and defied the Government, and held the meeting, and there were between 3,000 and 4,000 natives present. Since then organization has been redoubled by these agitators, and their organization has taken the form of again asking the natives to defy the Government in regard to the payment of personal taxation. The borough police failed to collect the taxes. They were hopeless. They were reinforced by the Natal Field Force, a force of mounted men numbering about 80. I may say that in Durban thousands of natives are employed. I believe the total number of natives in Durban is between 45,000 and 50,000. Those natives are housed right in the middle of the industrial centre, not in compounds as on the Rand, but merely in a kind of barrack three or four storeys high. On the arrival of the field force the natives swarmed out of the barrack, surrounded the police, and rescued prisoners the police had taken. The situation was very ugly. There was all sorts of wild talk. Some of the agitators recommended the severing of the electric light mains of Durban, and the position was ugly and critical. It was then that the Minister of Justice, without waiting for things to develop further, sent down 500 men from the Transvaal. In a short time law and order were restored. Had those 500 men not come down it is very difficult to say to what extent disorder and bloodshed would have taken place, and from one end of Natal to the other gratitude was expressed for the sending down of those men by the Minister of Justice. Some of my hon. friends, particularly the leading legal lights on this side of the House take great exception to powers of banishment without going through the courts. Natal had that power before Union. There was a most powerful chief in Natal, Silwan; a chief of the Meunu tribe. He could mobolize 20,000 men and his location was bordering Umvoti county near Greytown. This man, when in a semi-inebriated condition, could pour forth sedition of the vilest kind. It was in the 1926-’27 rebellion that this man was a source of great trouble to the Natal Government and after the rebellion had been quelled, Silwan was arrested and brought to Government House and sentenced to banishment. He died in banishment. The effect was such that all trouble ceased, and no other chief in Natal has attempted anything in the way of sedition from that day to this. I call that good, sound British justice. If he had not been treated in that way, he would have caused no end of trouble and bloodshed. When our present sovereign was Prince of Wales he was present at Maritzburg at a tribal dance. This chief Silwan was then a young man. He was jealous at his tribe not being chosen to lead in the dance and as a result, he mobilized 5,000 to march on Maritzburg to wipe out the dancers, fortunately he was stopped. I mention that to illustrate the mentality of these natives and to show how necessary it is to act promptly. I know it would be absurd for me or any other member to say that a farmer should obtain an order of court before he could extinguish a grass fire on his farm or on the next form. When a grass fire breaks out, the farmer gets it put out as quickly as possible. The present position with the natives is like a grass fire, and prompt action is necessary. I know it will be argued that the eyes of the world are upon us in this measure, but may I ask does the world know what is the composition of the population of this dominion. We have 7,500,000 population of which 1,500,000 are Europeans and 6,000,000 are natives, and of these 6,000,000 about 75 per cent. are semi-civilized. It is in the interests of Europeans and natives alike that a Bill of this nature is necessary. I am supporting this Bill because by this Bill we shall prevent bloodshed and maintain law and order.

If there was anyone in the House who still doubted the seriousness of the position in the country with reference to the instigators and agitators, I believe that such a person, after having heard the statement of the Minister of Justice, and also the speeches of the hon. members for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) and Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Deane) will be convinced of the fact that we have got to a point when something must be done to ward off the threatening danger to the European race in South Africa and South Africa as a whole. I agree with the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) that even if our judicial procedure was in principle, as applied in the courts, was sufficiently adequate under normal circumstances in the past it is no longer adequate to-day, because we have no longer to do with normal, but with abnormal circumstances, and as we have to deal with abnormal circumstances, it is clear that we must take extraordinary measures to be able to control those offences under abnormal circumstances. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) and also the hon. member for Wynberg (Maj. Roper) clearly appreciate the seriousness of the position, and they are, therefore, prepared to a certain extent to give the Minister extraordinary powers, but there is one thing they are afraid of and that is—which possibly is not the worst part in the Act—the proposed power to the Minister when he thinks that a certain person in a certain part of the country is engaged in stirring up bad feeling between whites on the one hand and another section of the population on the other to prohibit such a person from living in that area, and to force him to go and live in another part of the country. It seems to me that if the hon. members are prepared to grant the Minister the powers which they are prepared to grant him under the first 10 clauses of the Bill, they had better grant these powers as well to the Minister as they are absolutely necessary. According to the hon. member for Yeoville a court has first to convict a person before he can be removed from an area, but the amendment also wants to include the impossible term “intent.” It is not only a layman like the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet who appreciates how difficult it is to prove concretely to the court a psychological consideration such as intention.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

When the House adjourned I was arguing that the general principle of our jurisprudence, viz., that before anyone can be convicted by a court of a crime, it must first be proved that he committed the act with intent, that that general principle of our Roman Dutch law has so far worked well. In normal circumstances, and where we are concerned with normal white races, the principle is effective, but as, especially during the last few years, it has become clear that we have to deal with abnormal conditions and propagandists of the Bunting and Kadalie kind, and on the other hand with undeveloped native races, it appears that the general principle is no longer effective, and that the time has come for us to substitute something else if we want to ward off the danger which threatens white civilization. Accordingly, the Government and the Minister felt that we ought to make other provisions by way of legislation which measures are now included in this Bill. The Minister has very clearly stated them, and pointed to the fact that the danger we have to fight against arises chiefly from communistic doctrines which are preached to the natives in South Africa by bolsheviks and others, and as an hon. member explained here this afternoon it is a doctrine which is penetrating here from abroad. For that reason it is still more necessary for the Government and the Minister to be given sufficient power to take action against the danger which is now threatening us. I have here a report of the French colonial office, “Sur la preparation du government sovietique des revolts coloniales,” in which it is made clear that the Internationale is thinking about South Africa. With the permission of the House I will read a translation of it—

From this it clearly appears what dangerous propaganda is being carried on at present, and that it is our duty to support the Minister in his attempt to fight this pernicious propaganda. It is clear to me that even the hon. members opposite who have spoken so far appreciate with us that other measures must be found. They are, however, afraid to give the Minister the power to prohibit such an inciter and agitator to live in a certain area. Therefore, they moved an amendment in the select committee which will give us the same difficulties again with regard to the word “intent” that the Minister so very clearly explained a few days ago. He showed that with regard to the “intent” clause it would be quite ineffective, because it would not affect the chief point in the whole Bill, viz., where the Bill wants to prevent hostile feeling between the white race on the one hand and another section of the population on the other from being aroused. I do not intend to repeat what the Minister said, but it struck me this evening that while the hon. members for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) and Wynberg (Mr. Roper) acknowledged the night before that the Minister was right with regard to the ineffectiveness of the amendment, and practically then undertook to substitute something else, the hon. member for Wynberg has apparently not succeeded in getting anything effective. He, therefore, tried once more to defend the amendment which they moved in select committee. Let us enquire what is aimed at in this Bill, and especially in Clause 12. In our legislation in the past such a contravention of the law would in the ordinary course of events be dealt with by the courts by the way of judicial process. What is here proposed is to permit of the Minister doing by way of administrative action what under ordinary circumstances is done by judicial procedure. That is the real object of the Bill, but now it is represented as if this principle is something new and quite revolutionary. It is not so. It is, indeed, a very strong power which is granted to the Minister, but it is nothing revolutionary. When the State is in danger it may happen, as in the past, that the powers of the courts are conferred on the military authorities to exercise them administratively. We have the same thing in our Immigration Act. When a man is a prohibited immigrant he can be kept out of the country by the administrative powers of the Minister and not by the judicial powers of the courts. We, who have experience of the application of our native legislation, know that the native commissioners and sub-commissioners have carried out the law administratively, where in our case, as Europeans, it would have been done by the courts judicially. Therefore, it is nothing new that is proposed here. It is true that great powers will be given to the Minister, but the circumstances demand it. I hope that not only all hon. members in the House, but, in fact, the whole population of the country, have by this time been convinced that effective measures must be taken to put an end to the pernicious propaganda which is being carried on amongst the natives in South Africa. The danger that threatens is not anything of a temporary kind which will diminish in the course of time. I am absolutely convinced that at this stage we are only at the commencement of a development. In the future we shall have to take very much stronger action than we are doing to-day or have done in the past. Accordingly I am absolutely satisfied that if we want to fight the danger effectively we must give the Minister the powers asked for in the Bill. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) has, like us, appreciated how urgently necessary it is to create such powers, but he is apparently a little nervous about giving those powers to the Minister. He would prefer to give them to the Governor-General and the Cabinet. I do not know if that would make much difference whether the power is given to the Minister on the one hand, or to the Governor-General and the Cabinet on the other hand, except that it will cause trouble when the Minister has to act immediately but first has to get the consent of the Governor-General and the Ministers. That will nullify the whole object of the Bill, especially if the Cabinet first has to be convened when Parliament is not sitting to perform one of the acts which are proposed in the Bill. The hon. member for Wynberg when he was opposing the Bill said that the powers which the Minister asked for were only used in Russia.

No, he said that in modern times such a thing is not done save in Russia.

I wonder whether the hon. member really intended that. Is his memory then so weak that he does not know what occurred in our country in 1913? Does he not know that in that year quite a lot of labour people were deported without hearing?

Are you prepared to do it to-day?

No, if persons have to be deported then the powers will be granted to the Minister, but in 1913 the powers had not been granted. But if they deported people in 1913 because they thought the country was in danger, why do they say now that it is such a dangerous principle? The Minister anyhow is surely also a Minister of the Crown, and he will not for any trivial reason deport people from South Africa. He is surely responsible to the House. I cannot imagine any Minister who will deport anyone in an irresponsible manner. The powers the Minister is asking for are, in the circumstances existing to-day, fair, and the House can grant them to the Minister without fear. Just because we want to prevent South Africa becoming a second Russia, we want to take the necessary measures timeously just to prevent the bolsheviks overthrowing our national institutions as they have done in Russia. It is necessary to give the powers to the Minister now to combat the danger. Hon. members opposite said that it is possible to move an amendment to give such a definition to the word “intent” that offenders against the law can be tried before a court. I agree with the Minister that it may be possible to give such a definition to the word “intent,” but that description will be so comprehensive and wide that no politician will ever be able to open his mouth where it concerns matters in connection with our native, coloured and Asiatic population. If that stipulation is made effective no one, for instance, will dare to say at a meeting that it would be in the interests of South Africa for the native franchise to be abolished, because then it might immediately be said that he was arousing hostile feelings between the races. In the same way no one will dare to advocate or to ask that legislation should be introduced to deport Asiatics in certain circumstances, because that would lead to hostility between the Asiatic and the white. It must be clear that we cannot dare to give such a definition to the words “intention” and “intent” that it will be possible to fight the danger by means of the courts. The only solution is to give administrative powers to the Minister, for him to use from time to time, as a responsible Minister, when it is necessary to combat this danger of agitation. I feel convinced that if the Minister makes proper use of that power we shall find in a year or two that there are fewer agitators of the Kadalie and the Dobey type to stir up the natives. Therefore, I shall, without any hesitation, vote for the measure. I hope my hon. friends opposite will also do so. If the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) is going to vote for the third reading, then I cannot see why he cannot vote for the second reading. I should like to see the amendment which the hon. member for Yeoville is going to propose in the committee stage. At the same time I doubt whether he will succeed to so define the word “intention” that the House will adopt the definition.

I think we all agree with the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) and the member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Deane) from the standpoint that they related what actually happened in Durban during the riots. I can support their statements as an eye-witness. But that was yesterday, and I think we should ask ourselves to-night what, of to-morrow? I think a responsible man, when he weighs matters of this kind, should express himself in such a way as to represent the true interests of the whole of the people. I ask myself, can we fairly accept the principle of this Bill if it adheres to the wording as it is now? Personally I cannot, for this reason. If you are going to give any individual, whether he is Minister or Prime Minister, powers of this kind, then you are usurping the rights of the courts and of Parliament. I believe in 1922 a responsible Minister took a courageous action on his own intiative, and then came to Parliament to seek the indemnity which Parliament was willing to give. It has been stated again and again that it is an essential feature of the Bill that the Minister should have power to act quickly, acting quickly being the essence of the Bill. The Minister has power to-day to interfere where any illegal act is taking place, as he did when he suppressed the riotous acts in Durban. He had the courage to act, and trespassed in order to do a right action. That, to my mind, was acting quickly. If the Minister found it possible to control the situation in Durban with the powers at his disposal, then he is in a position to deal with situations that might arise from time to time. But, as I interpret this Bill. The Minister aims at placing himself above the law, and above being responsible to Parliament. To face Parliament and be indemnified for any exceptional action he might take is not to his liking. I believe this is going to affect our native population very seriously. I would ask, where is this Bill leading us? Will it have the desired effect or not? Will it help to control this menace, or further agitate the minds of the natives, and make the present position worse? We are faced with a position that the minds of the natives are extremely agitated, and there is every indication that the situation may become a real menace, but I do not think this Bill will assist. I believe it will agitate the minds of the people a good deal more. It will enable agitators to use the contents of this Bill as a supposed instrument of injustice against natives. In fact, I think we are playing into agitators’ hands, and giving them a rallying ground and battle cry. I wonder why the Minister is seeking this power.

To assist Natal.

I suppose the Minister has come to Parliament because he considers there is real need for this power to be given him. It has been stated that we must rule or abdicate: but I think we must rule by liberal acts which enable us to guide people into right actions and right thinking. If we are to rule these people, liberal-mindedness will not lead us astray. There are people in our midst, we are told, who are preaching Communist doctrines, but does this justify putting on the statute hook legislation of this kind? I say no. For that reason, I think I must protest that while I might agree that the intention of this Bill is sound, that in principle we might support it as indicating a desire to save the people of this country from seeing bloodshed or agitation brought about by native violence. I say that, while the intention is a good one, I do not know how the Act will be administered. For that reason, I shall oppose the second reading of this Bill, because I feel that it is not altogether in the interests or in the fair and right spirit of government in this country. I have received a wire from certain trades unions who protest against this Bill becoming law in this country. Surely this Bill cannot be right if we find the trades unions, composed of Europeans, objecting to a Bill of this kind. We remember that it is the natives that have been agitating. We remember that the white trade unionists have been opposed to the natives, but here, because they see a fundamental principle of right being violated, they say that they cannot support it, and they ask me, as representing them, to oppose it. I think we must take notice of all those indications as proving that this Bill is not sound in every way. I am one of those who believe that our native people can be led. If they are going to be dragooned, then let me say we might be laying up for ourselves trouble, and lighting a fire that cannot very easily be put out. I say that in all seriousness. I say that the Parliament of this country to-day is facing a situation that, perhaps, has not arisen in the past. It is facing a situation which calls upon every man who thinks at all to weigh every action he might take. We are facing a situation whereby we can lead these people and, having obtained their confidence, we can lead them on the right road, or we can, with irresponsible ideas of government, through the spleen of a moment, or a sense of power we possess for the moment, suppress them for the moment. But let me tell you that you can never suppress the spirit of the people if they feel that they have a right to a bigger place in the sun. Therefore, we must approach this question from that point of view. Whether we lead them with liberal ideas and gain their confidence, or force them into our ways and they interpret it as suppression and oppose it, and make it difficult for us to govern, is for us to say. I believe that the present situation demands statesmanship of the highest order, and not laws being made and drafted to suit a special occasion. I am told to-day that throughout the country our commissioners are finding it most difficult to control these people. It is becoming more difficult to handle these people, and they are not as amenable to law as they have been. The hon. Minister of Justice, I suppose, knows the position better than I do. Why? I ask the question, why has this arisen? Is it because of the beer being boycotted in Durban, as stated by an hon. member? No. Underlying it all there is an awakening of these people to a sense of what they feel their rights, and perhaps right as against wrong. I say that all serious men will stop, think, and analyze the position, and find out what the true cause is, and not suppress people because they are trying to lift up their heads. They will find out perhaps whether there is not some means of governing these people so that legislation of this kind is not necessary. My desire is to win the goodwill of these people back again. I believe that we have lost it. Once we have won that goodwill back again, legislation of this kind will not be necessary. Our desire is to see that these people are treated liberally, so that we can win their loyalty again through that liberal treatment. We shall find that governing these people will be a good deal easier. I know that certain Natal members do not think altogether as I think on that, matter. I am not concerned with that. I believe I am sent here to express my sincere and conscientious convictions. It is easy to pander to a crowd, but our duty is not to pander to the crowd, but to do our duty here. I think that we have lost the goodwill of these people, and we have to win it back again, and, as I see it, we shall not win it back again by legislation of this kind.

I listened attentively to the speech of the hon. member for Durban (County District) (Mr. Eaton), and I want at once to say that in expressing a certain amount of sympathy for the native in the circumstances he is in, as he did, I, to a certain extent, agree with him. I believe, however, that that, sort of speech which the hon. member made here does his own case more harm than good. It is noticeable how the leaders of the natives and their representatives in this House and elsewhere only regard the relations between white and black from one point of view, and how they forget to look at the other, which is perhaps just as important. The hon. member asked: “What will be the effect of this Bill on the native?” He asked what the effect will be, and I want, in my turn, to ask him what the effect of his speech will be. But is that a reasonable question to ask before a Bill has been passed when it has been introduced for the very purpose of dealing with people who are acting in opposition to the aim of the Bill? Is it not just as important to the other side to ask what the mental condition of the white section of the population is? Who has brought the native to the stage of development he has reached to-day? It is the European, and is it not much more important to ask what is the danger which that section of the population is exposed to in our country? We can ask no more important question, but the hon. member only looks at the matter from one side, and asks what the effect of the Bill will be on the mentality of the native. This Bill is not intended to raise feeling, but to maintain law and order in the country, and conditons are such that law and order can only be maintained by drastic measures. I have difficulties as well in connection with certain provisions of the Bill, but yet I feel that the first duty of a citizen is to ask himself what is required for the maintenance of peace and order in the country. It has been said here, and it is said outside in the country to the natives that the Europeans are living on a volcano. When such expressions are used to incite the natives against the Europeans, is it not our duty to ask what measures must be taken to bring about a better relation between Europeans and natives? When I see the direction the agitation is taking, how impertinent the natives are becoming and how they accuse the Europeans of everything that is bad and repellant, and how they exhaust their vocabulary to find abusive words for the Europeans to whom they owe so much, and on whom their future is dependent, then I feel that it is our first duty to ask what is necessary to create good relations between the two races in the country. If we cannot attain that object by moderate legislation, then we must pass drastic legislation of this kind. There has existed for years now a condition of enmity amongst the natives towards the whites. The hon. member for Durban (County) is better acquainted with it than I. He is well informed, and I am trying to become so. He feels that the agitation which is on foot must lead to economic disorganizations, and the first section which will suffer in that case is the natives. Bad relations between them and the Europeans will first and foremost injure the former. The hon. member asks what the effect on the natives will be, but he doesn’t worry himself about the feelings of the Europeans. Does he not think that the mentality of the Europeans is extremely strained? Does he not feel that the Europeans are being annoyed in all sorts of ways, and that they have much to endure? No one wants to do an injustice to the natives. We have a proof of that in the commission which the Minister of Native Affairs recently announced and which will enquire into the economic position of the natives. I want to express my thanks for that in advance, but I want to add that we must first see that there is peace in the country between the two races. The hon. member for Durban (County) further said that our great ideal ought to be to lead, and not to drive the native. As the hon. member is therefore convinced that the native population in the country can be led, I want to ask him if he has ever tried to lead them in the present state of affairs. There are hon. members opposite who represent natives, because a large section of their constituents are natives. Have they risen here and warned the natives not to go on in this way, and that the agitation is against their own interests? I think the answer must be “No.” We have listened here to various speeches, including that of the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron), and we feel inclined to say that this Bill ought to prohibit speeches of that kind. It is, to my mind, a disturbing thing that members who represent natives, as certain hon. members opposite do, and also another class in the various joint councils, do not give the natives a right lead, but really mislead them. The hon. member appeals to us to lead the natives, but he neglects his duty to give a proper lead to the natives. I really think that such speeches do more harm than good. I have no time to enlarge on the kind of leadership which the joint councils in Cape Town and the other places give. They would do far better if they persuaded the native to abandon the propaganda which must lead to an outburst between the Europeans and the natives. In one respect I sympathize with the hon. member for Durban (County), and that is where he says that it will be unnecessary to use force unless we investigate the causes which gave rise to the present trouble. He does not wish to encourage the spirit of hostility, and only wants to bring about a better spirit between the two races. In judging the Bill I asked myself what the contributing cause is for the existing dissatisfaction which is extending more and more not only among the natives, but also among the coloured people. I have been living for nearly 50 years in a part where Europeans and coloured people live next door to each other, and during that half century I have not known of one case where the coloured people have made common cause with the natives in a feeling of enmity towards the Europeans. Here in the western districts we recently had cases of this at Worcester, Rawsonville and Carnarvon. It is one of the most serious signs of our times that there is gradually being created a feeling of enmity between whites and non-whites, and therefore it is, to my mind, a question of importance as to why the condition of dissatisfaction arose. Not owing to the agitator alone. Is it the agitators imported from overseas or Nyasaland, people who have different views on the matter from what we have in South Africa? Is it possibly the representatives of the Bolsheviks, is it the economic position, or is it a lingering dissatisfaction because the natives cannot find a suitable field of labour? I am inclined to agree with hon. members who feel that the Bolsheviek propaganda is a danger, but I am not convinced in my mind that that is the only cause. Therefore, I welcome the more this step of the Minister of Native Affairs to enquire into the economic position. Thereafter enquiry will possibly follow in other directions. We cannot wait. The fire is smouldering, and must soon break out, but that outburst we must prevent, and therefore I support the Bill. I have, however, a few difficulties, and the first is that with the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) the question arises in my mind whether the Bill will be effective. I do not want to go into the legal side, and ask if it is sufficiently comprehensive. I think it is drastic and comprehensive enough, but what I feel strongly is that if such a measure has to be taken for extreme circumstances everything must be tried to bring about that Europeans should at least stand on one platform. It is one of the great duties in this House, where we bear the joint responsibility, that we shall at least try to go to the utmost to find a common standpoint. It will convince the non-Europeans of this that after earnest enquiry and consideration it has been found that it is the only right and fair standpoint. It grieves me that I have to-day to hear so many conflicting standpoints in the House, and I therefore hope that both the opposition and the Minister will not stop enquiring whether some common standpoint is not possible. I feel that clause 12 and, in a lesser degree clause 16, contain principles which can only apply in extreme cases. Clause 12 gives the Minister the power in his discretion to send letters to A, B and C in a district X, and to order those persons to leave the district. The power interferes so much in life, in the family life and the freedom of individuals, that it can only be justified in extraordinary circumstances. By it we are temporarily putting law on one side, and putting the discretion of an individual in the place of it. Experience has taught us that there are moments when we have to give such great powers to individuals. It is not only necessary in time of war, but it may also be necessary in other circumstances. I expect the Minister to use the utmost discretion, but yet I feel that the powers here given are extraordinary. I therefore hope that the Minister will keep an open mind regarding attempts to amend the wording of clause 12. I assure him that I will vote for the second reading, and if necessary for each separate clause, because I see that there may be circumstances where it is necessary; but I should be glad if he will continue to try to find one point of view. I want, in any case, to give the hint that the exercise of the powers under clause 12 should not be in favour of the Minister, but of the Governor-General-in-Council. This does not make much difference. We feel that the Minister is in any case the person to act, but in the first case he acts on his personal responsibility, and in the second case on behalf of the joint responsiblity of the Ministry. This will give the public a greater amount of confidence, and the assurance that the powers will not be flippantly or indiscreetly applied. Where the powers in favour of the Governor-General are used in a wrong way, the citizens of the country will have an opportunity at the next election of bringing the Ministry before the court of the people and in passing judgment. It will also give the non-Europeans some satisfaction.

What about clause 16?

I have no objection to clause 16 as it stands, that is, against the deportation of persons born abroad when they have once been convicted. I am glad to see that the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige) is so concerned about convicted people being deported. There was a time when he was not concerned about the deportation of people who had not even been convicted. I do not, however, wish to remind the hon. member of his political past. When a person has once been convicted by the court and is considered as a danger to society and to the good understanding between the races, then I have no objection to deportation.

He can be deported merely because he attends a meeting in conflict with the law. Is that enough?

He must first be convicted. I have no objection to the clause, because I do not think much injustice can be done under it. We are not here concerned with small distinctions of politicians, but are making a test, and if we can adopt a joint standpoint it will mean the salvation of all.

I suppose this Bill in its principles and implications is one of the most vital and important we have had before this House: and especially so because of the grounds on which it was introduced by the Minister. I followed the Minister’s speech very carefully and followed most of the speeches that were made. I wonder if members appreciate the full implications of the Bill and of the member’s speech. The Minister said that the position was a very serious one and had become more serious in the last few months. He relied on the promise made by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) to co-operate in some measure to meet the position. We stand by that promise: but we must be satisfied that the measure is in our opinion one in the best interests of the state. We have come down to the bare, naked issue on this Bill—and that is are we to be governed by the rule of law or by the rule of the administrator. I, for one, accept the word of the Minister stated here in all solemnity, with all the weight of his responsible position and the official knowledge which he alone can have that the position is a serious one; and I agree that the gravity of the situation has to be faced in the interests of the black and the white races of the country, and in the interests of the state. The Minister expressed the fear that the white rural population might take the law into its own hands, and that the native urban population was becoming restless: and he contended that some drastic measures are needed. The situation has, we are told, become a graver one during the last few months. It has been universally acknowledged in the House that something must be done. Where we differ is as to what is to be done. The Minister arrived at a conclusion which I deplore very much, and I deplore especially the reasons he gave; namely, that the cut and dried rules of law have proved quite inadequate, and therefore something must be done of a drastic character outside the rules of law. I think the Minister will admit that I have given a fair summary of the arguments he developed the other night. The amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) was turned down, and turned down on the issue that the drastic thing that has to be done must be something within the mere whim of the Minister. That is the issue we have to face. I would like to point out that if the House supports the Minister in this matter, it will serve as a dangerous precedent for future legislation. Many members of this House do not realize this at the present time. I listened with wonder to the statements made here by descendants of the great freedom-loving peoples, Dutch and English, who won their way to freedom through centuries of struggle. I listened to statements made based on reasons I cannot see the justification of, showing that these hon. gentlemen are now willing to go back on all the principles of liberty that their ancestors held. I hold that that is not the conclusion to be drawn from the present grave state of affairs. I oppose the Bill, not because I do not think that something should be done, but in the first place because the Bill is founded on the statement of the Minister of Justice, that the rule of law has failed, and that the rule of the administrator has to be substituted for it. Coming as that does from a man of the Minister’s training and holding the high office he does in the state I consider that nothing could be more lamentable than that statement. On this as on that side of the House it behoves us to speak with a full sense of our responsibility. It behoves us all to speak calmly but definitely and firmly in adumbrating the line of thought and action which we believe should be taken. I believe that we should be untrue to ourselves and to the traditions of our forefathers if those of us who dislike, from the bottom of our soul, the major principles embodied in this Bill, do not state quite definitely what it is we object to, and why we object to it. I should like to lay down what seem to me to be fundamental points upon which we ought to be guided in a matter of this kind. The first fundamental point is that white civilization must be maintained, and, therefore, law and order on which white civilization depends, and which we owe to white civilization, must be maintained. All those who deliberately, or wantonly or recklessly in order to subvert the principles of civilization and the principles of law and order, are guilty of violent conduct or violent language, are persons who ought to be dealt with by a firm hand. But we say they should be dealt with by the law, and not by the administrator. Another fundamental point is that anyone who promotes hostility in this country between the native and the European races should be dealt with firmly; but again by the law, and not by the administrator. I believe as another fundamental point that white justice must be maintained, both in fact and in the belief of the people to whom white justice is administered. The whole of our white prestige depends upon that, and our white civilization depends upon our maintaining white prestige in this country, upon our making every person, white or black, believe that the thing which is being done to him is done to him as an act of justice. You may have the most competent administrator in the world in the position of the Minister of Justice, a man with the highest motives, but he is always a party man. Is that man going, in the opinion of the people, and especially of the people who have the impression that they are the under-dog, to make them believe, even if justice is being done to them, that it is being done? Are they going to believe that justice is being done if it is administered by a man with strong party views, views perhaps of a party which they believe to be at least not favourable to them? I do not say anything more than that: for I do not want to say anything unfair or unjust. I am looking at the matter from the point of view of the man who is or thinks he is the under-dog. Is he going to have respect for the white man’s justice, if he believes that the thing that is being done is, being administered, not by an independent tribunal, but by a man whose whole life, for the time being, is devoted to the service of a party which he, the under-dog, believes is a party opposed to justice towards him?

Would not this argument apply to a proclamation of martial law under any circumstances?

No. Because there is between this Bill and the proclamations of martial law the most complete difference in the world. Because of this state of affairs, which is one only of recent growth, we are putting on the statute book a provision for all time which in effect gives the Minister the powers of martial law. Now the old Roman maxim is “The safety of the state is the highest law.” That has always justified the Prime Minister acting for the head of the state in taking such steps as may be necessary to protect the safety of the state by proclaiming martial law in a crisis, provided he comes thereafter to the tribunal of Parliament as representing the people and justifies what he has done and seeks indemnity for what he has done in the crisis. The need for deciding on the facts of each particular case whether the need for martial law has been established is having in mind the necessity for obtaining indemnity thereafter is the greatest and most thorough check—but that check is absent from this Bill which proposes to give the Minister all the martial law powers without such restraint.

Have you any alternative?

I will come to that presently. When we deal with the question of white justice, we find in the judicial practice and principles of the systems both of Holland and England certain things on which these systems are based—things which are fundamental principles of these systems of justice—and indeed are elementary principles of all justice. The first is the liberty of person and speech of each individual based on the right of trial by independent tribunals which will go into the fects before any man is condemned on any charge. What have we corresponding to that in this Bill? The second thing is the right of every man to be heard in his own defence when he is charged and of knowing his accusers, and having an opportunity of testing the veracity of the statements made against him and of giving evidence in his own defence. Above all, the right of being heard and judged by an independent tribunal so constituted as to be above suspicion of bias. I think we may say that no country in the world has a greater right to be proud of her legal tribunals than South Africa has of their independence and of their impartiality. But these principles on which white justice is based are conspicuously absent from the Bill. I challenge the hon. Minister’s statement that the rule of law has broken down and proved inadequate. Take the case of Rex versus Bunting. The Minister will know Clause 29 of the Act of 1927 under which Bunting was charged. If those words “with intent” had been left out, and some other alterations made, Bunting would almost certainly have been found guilty. Take the leaflet which the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) read. That is a leaflet for which the author should be severely dealt with. It is a very bad document. I do not know whether the Minister of Justice has considered the question of a prosecution of the author (Champion) in this matter.

It would be quite hopeless.

It is a most surprizing thing to me after hearing such a leaflet read to hear the Minister say that this is a matter in which it would be quite hopeless to prosecute. I quite agree that speech beyond certain limits should be checked and that has always been accepted. But those limits must be defined by the law and judged by the courts. I say it is well within the power of the Minister of Justice to prevent unbridled free speech so far as it is necessary. I think the Minister has been very hard on the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan). I submit that the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville will meet the situation. I understand that the Minister does not object to the first part of the amendment but objects to the “deeming clause”. I think that much unjustifiable criticism has been directed to the “deeming clause.” But in view of that criticism I have prepared a draft amendment in lieu of the “deeming clause” which I shall now read. Will the hon. Minister follow me in the blue book, page ix; a new definition of sedition is proposed there. After dealing with seditious words we have seditious acts, seditious libel and seditious conspiracy. Then follows a definition of seditious intention—

1. (i) To incite persons to commit any unlawful or violent act or to adopt any unlawful or violent method (whether in the Union or elsewhere) towards persons or property in order to alter any system of government prescribed by law or to subvert organized government.
2. (ii) To incite persons to attempt to procure by unlawful or violent methods the alteration of any matter by law established in any part of the Union.
3. (iii) To incite any person to commit any crime in disturbance of the public peace.
4. (iv) To promote feelings of hostility between different races in the Union.

A person shall be deemed to have had a seditious intention in regard to any of the Acts in this paragraph described if the natural and probable consequences of his incitement would, under the circumstances, lead any member of the public or persons in whose presence the act took place to commit any of those acts. All this was the proposal of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan). Now the Minister took several objections to that last clause. While I think his objections are hypothetical. I have prepared an amended draft. I should like the Minister to follow my proposed amendment which is—

The definition of sedition proposed seems to be a comparatively simple definition, and the application of the new deeming clause should prevent the difficulties the Minister has alluded to.

I have already considered that amendment and I have considered the circumstances and the natural sequence.

Not my amendment. But if the Minister of Justice has decided already I do not propose to argue. I do not wish to put the clause forward as a matter for argument. This is not a court. If the Minister has decided that he will not, with the clause now proposed, be able to deal with anything that can be usefully dealt with by the Minister, then I dread all the more the drastic powers, the dictatorial powers, which he proposes should be given to the Minister under the Bill. If the net is not in my clause spread wide enough to catch all the people who ought to be caught in defence of the principles of law and order, in defence of persons white or black who would be incited to do things by such people when deliberately and wantonly trading upon their feelings, I am infinitely more alarmed than ever I was before at the implications contained in the Bill as it stands today. The Minister is new in the saddle. I do not think in order to show your horsemanship that it is necessary to ride the horse with whip and spurs.

Have I already done so?

I do not wish to discuss what he has or has not done. I am apprehensive of these powers for use in the future. However correct the hon. Minister’s conduct may have been, I am apprehensive of the future use of these powers. It is not only the Minister of to-day that we must remember. It is the Ministers of the future. I submit that that is a very serious and important point. I wonder at the Minister’s attitude about the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan). In 1926 I was on the select committee on the Prevention of Disorder Bill when it came from the Senate. With one or two minor alterations that Bill was in fact almost verbatim the Bill introduced by Mr. Tielman Roos who was then Minister of Justice, with the full concurrence of Mr. Lansdown, who was a gentleman of great administrative experience and of great experience of criminal prosecutions in the courts and who I think actually drafted the Bill with the clause which the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) took from it and proposed as an amendment on the present Bill. I do not think we could have had a better official to deal with the matter of such a Bill than Mr. Lansdown was. The Prevention of Disorders Bill could not be allowed to aim directly at natives alone. I went into the question then to see that it would apply equally to the necessary classes of white agitators. The Bill brought before the select committee then was intended mainly to deal with that class of man whom the Minister is desirous of getting at now—men like Kadalie and others who were specifically mentioned in the evidence before the committee. The Minister of Justice and Mr. Lansdown, the administrators of the law and their very experienced police officials were satisfied with the Bill as it then was. They were satisfied it would do perfectly well for all the circumstances of the case. What has happened to make that Bill which was then effective, out of date now? Why did not that Bill go through in 1926? Here we come to one of the most pitiful facts of the whole position. It did not go through in 1926 because of the opposition of the Labour party. Where is the Labour party now? I have been in the House for 15 years, and when I came in 1915 the fulminations of the Minister of Defence and his supporters of 1913-’14 were still ringing in this House. They were against any measure which seemed in any way to threaten the liberty of speech or the liberty of the subject, or the rights of access to the courts, any one of those things which for years they and their colleagues across the sea have fought to secure. Those are the men who to-day are tamely sitting by and letting go through more drastic measures than were contained in the Bill which they caused to be thrown out in 1926.

What Bill was that?

I ask the Minister of Defence what did he say about the 1913 deportations in this House. How can he reconcile the fiery and eloquent speeches he made at that time with tame acquiescence in a Bill of this sort? We have seen certain episodes outside as to what is happening to the two parties. We know the fierce attitude they took up for years on this subject, and now they sit by and meekly and tamely swallow everyone of their convictions and principles. The Minister has made an interjection. I would not have said that about him myself but by Heaven he has made and fitted the cap himself; they have tasted the depths of humiliation even if they have shown the virtues of Christian humility. We should reconsider our attitude from the point of view of the possible effect the Bill will have on people who should receive the protection of the courts, and we should give the courts an opportunity to prove whether they can deal with this crisis, as in the past they have grappled with other and far greater crises in our national history. Are Parliament and the courts of law no longer able to devise ways and means of protecting the state and of carrying out the principles of justice? Are our courts impotent—is Parliament impotent? What is there to prevent Parliament grappling with the problem in a fair and just way? I have listened to the speeches of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Deane) and the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) and I appreciate the difficult position which the people they represent in Natal are in, but we believe that they will not be doing either themselves or the country any good by supporting a measure which will be the means of bringing about still greater evils than those which now exist. I yield to none in the desire to recognize the difficulties of the people of Natal, but there are dangers which are far greater than those which they are in at the present time, and I appeal to them to stand by the principles which have always animated us in dealing with the native races, to uphold the right of every man to be informed of what his offence is, the right of free access to the courts of justice, and of the protection of the law in defence of his liberties. I appeal to them to stand by these principles of liberty as by the Sacred Ark of the Covenant.

When this Bill was announced I thought that we had a Bill here which we could approach on common ground and could pass in the interests of the white population as well as of the coloured people and the natives in the country. It seems to me that a dispute is going on about this between the lawyers, and they are keeping up the debate about it, the one to outwit the other with their legal knowledge, while we sit and wait for an Act which ought to have been passed by the House a few years ago. The Minister, who is emphatic on this Bill, is getting great opposition to it, unless another clause is inserted in the Bill providing that the people can go to a court when they have contravened the Act. The comparison which the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (North) (Mr. Deane) made especially struck me. He said that an appeal to the courts would be as much good as when in a grass fire you first go to look for people in the neighbourhood, or for the authorities to assist in putting out the fire. That is a perfect representation of the position. I do not know whether hon. members who come from the towns realize the seriousness of the position on the countryside when they plead so strongly for those people being allowed to come under the ordinary judicial procedure, seeing that that procedure has hitherto proved inadequate. We heard the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Roper) say that he did not know whether after the passing of this Bill it would be safe to walk down Adderley Street. If he walked down Adderley Street properly he would run no danger, but I think that if he came from the bottom end of Adderley Street where the agitators stand on a soapbox to incite a group of natives he will possibly run a risk. The position in the outside districts is as follows: agitators from Cape Town and other parts of the country go amongst the coloured people there who have always been satisfied with the conditions under which they have lived. Then they tell these people that they are the equal of the European socially. It was, I believe, Thaele who said at Worcester: “The European is no better than the native and the coloured person socially, and I believe that I am better than the European socially.” Then they are told that they cannot work for the wages which the farmer pays on the farms, and that they ought to get at least 8s. a day, because otherwise they cannot live a respectable life. Is there in this House a single farmer who can pay 8s. a day to natives, and continue farming? And yet the people are allowed to say so. But then they go further and tell those people who are usually uneducated and illiterate: “It is your country which used to belong to you and which you ought to get back again. You must organize to drive the European out of the country.” Such speeches are then loudly applauded. Usually such an agitator is a native who has been drawn away from his tribe and who does not want to have any more to do with his own people, and does not want to go and work properly. He travels through the country and makes his hearers pay 2s. 6d. a month to be members of his organization. So he lives from the hard-earned money of those people, and they do not realize how they are being deceived. The result is that we get little risings as have recently taken place. What will happen if we have no laws to restrict that agitation? When the troubles recently occurred at Barrydale a group of farmers went to the village and it is known everywhere that some of them were armed. What will it end in if the Europeans are insulted until such time as they take the law into their own hands? Then there will be a terrible state of affairs in our country. The natives are not only worked up by native agitators, but there are also Europeans behind them who usually come from overseas and who have no knowledge of the position of the coloured person and the native in our country, and want to put them in their uncivilized, or half-civilized state on an equality with us. When the Minister now asks for the right to put such people out of the country then the hon. member for Durban (County) (Mr. Eaton) says that we must be liberal. The Minister can do nothing but a service to the country if he deports such people. On the countryside it is not a question of supporting this or that party, but all without distinction ask when we get into our constituencies what we are going to do against that agitation. They ask whether we are going to introduce effective legislation, because if we do not do so they will be compelled to take arms and defend themselves. Do hon. members want that state of affairs to come about if we do not pass this Bill? It was said that in 1913 people were deported and that there was much complaint about it, but it was never said: “To hell with Botha, to hell with Smuts, to hell with the King.” No, we never heard that, and when the people stood on the soapboxes they talked about “Gen. Botha” and “Gen. Smuts,” but not of “Botha” and “Smuts.” When the Minister recently did his duty in Durban under the existing law, and put down the riots what was the result of it? We find that in Johannesburg white people in company with natives burnt his effigy, and at Worcester it was said that Pirow came with his dogs, and if the persons present were wounded his dogs came to lick up the blood. That is more than the South African party was ever willing to allow. I earnestly appeal to hon. members to stand by us and to see that the Bill is passed as quickly as possible, and thereby to prevent our being involved in a civil war, because that is what it will end in. The hon. member for Durban (County) saw what happened in Durban, and if we allow it to happen again and the Minister does not come again to help him out of the difficulty then it will be possible that they will also knock him down. I hope that he will see his mistake before the Bill is passed, and will vote with us in favour of it.

I had hoped when the original Bill was sent to the select committee that a really serious effort would have been made to arrive at an arrangement to secure that the power which the Minister said he does not want should be left to the courts. I have read very carefully the report of the committee, and I must regretfully admit I see no serious effort on the part of the Minister and no evidence of any effort on the part of the Minister, to arrive at some provision by which the powers he dislikes could be left to the courts of law to deal with. We have already quite ample repressive legislation, and we do not want to continue to extend it. The Riotous Assemblies Act goes very much further than many of us would have liked to see, and instead of curtailing the power of that Act, and repealing some of its obnoxious provisions, as many wanted to and asked for from time to time, we have a Bill extending the obnoxious provisions of that Act. As far back as 1925, at a congress of the South African Labour party —not the one to which the Minister refers, but the united party—at which Ministers were present, and our friends of the Nationalist party were represented by Ministers and prominent members, when we were an entirely happy family, a resolution was passed asking the Government to repeal the Riotous Assemblies Act. Anyone belonging to the Labour party, and there are still some, who opposes this Bill, is only carrying out in a minor degree the request and decision of the united party when Labour held the balance of power in this House. Today we oppose the passing of this measure because we believe that in the interests of all sections of the population and of the well-being of South Africa, the right of free speech should not be unnecessarily curtailed. It is necessary that the right of citizens to be tried by the courts of law should not be interfered with. Instead of these rights being maintained in their present inadequate position, we find that they are still further being curtailed, and the right of free speech, as such, is a matter to be left entirely in the hands of the Minister of Justice. The right of the judiciary is taken away, and the Minister is placed in a position to deal with it. These are surely provisions which no one who has any real respect for the rights of citizens can possibly support with any degree of equanimity. We have a provision in the Bill that in future deportation, instead of being something about which the country used to ring, is to be the law in South Africa, not to be carried out by order of the courts of law, but by the Minister of Justice. I want to say in all seriousness that these provisions are alien to the spirit of the constituent people of South Africa; alien to the history and traditions of the British people, and alien to the history and traditions of the Dutch people and of Holland. If there is any spirit which is evident in this Bill it is the spirt of communism, the Russian spirit. The hon. the Minister wants to deal with communism. What does he do? He forgets to deal with communism, but adopts all the vicious methods of communism, and puts them into the Bill. There is not a single provision in the Bill which deals with communism. There is not a single clause in the measure which would enable the Minister to secure a conviction against anyone who endeavours either himself to subvert the present system of government, or to incite others by violent measures to subvert the present order of society. The only provision which enables the Minister to deal with the matter is by a side-wind, a provision to enable the Minister to do whatever he pleases. Surely in the twentieth century it is not beyond the wit of man to devise some method by which law shall be the deciding factor in these matters? It is not a question whether one agrees with this, that or the other. It is a practical proposition that if you want to deal with these matters you should devise some method by which you can deal with it through the courts of law. The only provision in the Bill is that the Minister can do this, that or the other as he pleases. I have read the amendment submitted in the select committee, and without expressing any opinion as to whether it is right or wrong, I must say that the amendment gives ample power to deal with communism. The amendment provides that a seditious intention is an intention—

1. (i) To incite persons to commit any unlawful or violent act or to adopt any unlawful or violent method (whether in the Union or elsewhere) towards persons or property in order to alter any system of government prescribed by law, or to subvert organized government.
2. (ii) To incite persons to attempt to procure by unlawful or violent methods the alteration of any matter by law established in any part of the Union.

That covers not only the propaganda of communism, but it covers more. It may be that because it also covers the propaganda of republicanism that it is deemed to be too wide by the members on the Government benches, but if it is really the sincere desire of the Minister to deal with communism, the Minister should have been too happy to accept the amendment. All that I find, however, is that this proposal was rejected by a majority of one, and the Minister again comes along and says: “Give me the power to deal with the matter, to deport people, to send them from one place to another, to stop manifestoes, literature and books, and to prevent meetings; give me the power and I will deal with them in a just and adequate manner.” Neither Stalin nor Mussolini, having secured such powers, have been able to withstand the temptation to use it capriciously, and what Stalin and Mussolini have failed to withstand the Minister will not be able to do. If the Minister does not accept this amendment, then I am not at all sure whether the only definite object of the Bill is not to interfere with all legitimate trades union activities. The first provisions in sub-section (4) deals not only with genuine hostility between natives and any other race, but with Europeans on the one hand and any other section or class of the inhabitants. In the ordinary trades union activity I can conceive of occasions when hostility may be created between one section of the people and another section of the people. The Minister has accepted an exemption in favour of certain trades unions. I notice that sub-section 17 definitely provides that the provisions of subsections (4), (5) and (6) shall not apply in connection with any public gathering held exclusively for the purpose of dealing with the business of any particular trade union, registered under the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 (Act No. 11 of 1924), or any amendment thereof of which only Europeans are members. If the Minister adheres to that provision, then I submit that it is an insult to a self-respecting trades unionist that he should be exempted from the provisions of a law which may apply to other workers who may organize themselves. It provides for trade unions of which only Europeans are members being exempted from the provisions of the Bill. I want to know what will become of the trades union of which the hon. Minister of Posts and Telegraphs is such a distinguished member, and which only recently decided to include Asiatics among its members? I want to know what will become of the Indian union of waiters and waitresses which has been reinforced by the European waiters and waitresses as a result of the influence and pressure of the late Minister of Labour, who is no longer in this House. There are other unions which have a mixed membership, and in terms of this provision they are not provided for. I understand that the hon. Minister proposes to withdraw this clause. I have been told—perhaps the hon. Minister of Defence will correct me If I am wrong— that the S.A. Trade Union Congress in Johannesburg, of which Senator Briggs was the president and is, I believe, a vice-president, is definitely opposed to this Bill. I notice in the press that in Cape Town the district committee of the Creswellite section of the Labour party has adopted a resolution opposing this Bill. Only as recently as last Thursday this matter was down for discussion at a meeting of the Cape Federation of Trade Unions, and it was only on the friendly intervention of the Minister of Defence, who sent a message to the effect that the objectionable clauses will be withdrawn, that the matter was dropped. If this clause remains in the Bill, it is not only an insult to the ordinary trade unions, but also a reflection on the trade union of which the hon. Minister of Posts and Telegraphs is a member. It is a definite indication that there is to be one law for one section of trade unionists and another law for another section.

I withdrew that.

Then I must give the Minister another point. If this section is withdrawn then all trade union activities will fall under the scope of this Bill. Rightly or wrongly when a trade union asks for an increase in wages or a reduction in hours, their activities may be interpreted as being directed to promoting hostility between two classes.

[Inaudible.]

My hon. friend always interjects very unfortunately. I will ask him if that is his view what will be the position of the ordinary trade union; take a native trade union. I believe the Minister has met some of them and discussed matters with them. I will not say he shook hands with them, although I am told he did, but there is no harm in that. But if those trade unions say they want an increase in wages, can that not be interpreted as bringing about a state of affairs which will cause hostility between the natives and another class; between the white employer on the one hand, and the native employé on the other. This is not a mere debating point but I see a danger in connection with the matter. It will not only affect the ordinary native trade union, but you cannot afford to make any distinction between one trade union and another. It gives the power to the Minister of Justice to interfere also in trade union activities. I am sure no respecting trade union—if they know the implications—will be in favour of this Bill. I believe strongly not only in maintaining white civilization in South Africa but in developing it and creating new opportunities, and breaking down the disparity between the native and European population of this country. If you want to safeguard European civilization and dominance you can only do it by showing those who are in an inferior position to-day that they are to be dealt with justly; that provisions of the law will apply not to one section of the population only but to all sections. I put to the Minister this question, is he satisfied or can he satisfy the House that the only reason for the agitation to which he has referred is the existence of a few agitators? There have been agitators throughout all the ages and sometimes they have been found to be right in the long run. Is it not probable, judging these matters from the viewpoint of history, that to a great extent agitators can only work on ground which has been prepared for them by the existence of real grievances among the people? It is only when you make the ground suitable for agitators that agitators can work in that ground. Therefore the question that does arise is whether the Minister has satisfied the House that, apart from the agitators, there are not other reasons which should be looked into and other causes which should be examined, and whether there may not be some grievances which should be redressed before he takes powers of such a nature. The Government itself, and I give it credit, by its action during the last few days, in appointing another commission, an important commission, to deal with native grievances and the question of wages and conditions of labour and generally with the conditions of the native population of this country, the Government itself has admitted that it realizes that there are questions for enquiry and grievances to be gone into. It is only right and fair and logical that, once they have admitted that position, they should see it is ridiculous, on the one hand, to appoint a commission to deal with grievances, and on the other, to say that “we shall not wait for the answer of that commission, but shall introduce legislation to give the Minister power to deal in this drastic manner with the position, and to deal with the circumstances that may arise from causes which that commission has under enquiry.” That is surely illogical. Even at this late hour, if the Minister will really consider the matter calmly and dispassionately, in the interests of right and justice, in the interests of the future well-being and the honour of the white civilization of South Africa, he will see, at any rate for the time being, that he should withdraw the Bill and wait for the report of the commission which has been appointed.

The hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close) made out here that the weak place in this Bill was that it proceeded from the point of view that the existing law was not adequate, and that it was the administration that was at fault in the application of the law. We ordinary people who do not belong to the bar argue slightly differently. We ask ourselves why there are more criminals outside the gaols than inside. We say that it is due to defects in the law. If the law were stricter then more of those criminals would be in gaol. We say that it has in heaps of cases occurred that a person consults a lawyer who says that we have a good case to go to law with. There is the story that a lawyer said to a person that he had a splendid chance according to van der Linden. When his case came up, however, Voet was quoted by the other side. The judgment went against the man, and when he consulted his lawyer again after the case the answer was that he had a splendid chance according to van der Linden, but that according to Voet his case was not worth a penny. We also argue in that way. If the legislation is effective why then do so many of these astonishing things go on without the law being able to reach the people? People go about the country and make inciting speeches and nothing can be done to them. It is the way our ordinary people, who do not belong to the bar, argue. We also say that extraordinary circumstances exist, and extraordinary circumstances demand extraordinary measures. This Bill says at once in the preamble that something extraordinary is afoot, it says there that it is an amending Bill, i.e., a bill which goes on the principle that a change has come about. The thing which previously existed as a germ has developed, and it has become a disease so that the Bill proposes an operation to cure us of that disease. I can quite understand that it is painful for people to think of an operation. An operation is a painful matter. I am certain of it because I have had one myself. But it is safer to undergo an operation than to die of a disease, and if we permit this agitation to continue and if nothing is done to stop it then there will be a hopeless state of affairs in the country, and the evil will be greater than we can imagine. What is going on in our country? One must read it on the banners of the people, because on those banners we see much more than what even the agitators say. They clearly show that their world is not the world we imagine. They speak of rights which we can never think of giving to them; they speak of emotions with which we do not agree; their banners contain slogans like “Live the South African Republic.” Once more we read how they want to send everybody to the warm place. We must listen to what they say about highly placed men, not only in South Africa, but in the whole British empire. When this House was in session and the Prince of Wales was here hon. members had to listen to the statements that were made about him at the bottom end of Adderley Street. Out of respect for his Royal Highness I will not repeat them here, but the most terrible things were said. Can we permit that kind of thing I And that is not all, that insulting language, and those arrogant propositions. There is another side to the matter, viz., the state of unrest that those speeches cause in the population. We run a danger that people will one of these days take the law into their own hands and do things that we will regret. When we have extraordinary circumstances like this then extraordinary measures are required. If the existing legislation can deal with those men then the amendment is not necessary, but if that is not so then it would be foolish for the House to sit still and just allow things to develop. I also enquire into the contributory cases of this agitation. All kinds of things have already been said about that and what I am now about to say will possibly make members opposite and also on this side of the House think that I want to talk like a minister wishing to preach a sermon here. I want to warn hon. members that that is not so in the least, I do not consider the native a dog, as the hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) said here and that the natives therefore must bark because he is a dog. But I do say that there are contributory causes. There was a ferment among the people. Years ago a movement started in north Africa the Senussie order among the Malay Arabians, which was a kind of political and religious movement and it came to Nyassaland. They preached a kind of political religion to the natives, so that they not only made missionaries but also soldiers of them, and they preached the doctrine of antipathy towards the white race to the native, In 1905 the movement had spread to Central Africa and the Ethiopean Church joined it. One of the bases of that combination was “Africa is the land of the natice.” Therefore, in America they speak of a president of Africa; therefore they write on their banners of an African republic and those ideas are deeply entrenched in the hearts of the natives. I came across it in Johannesburg when I was stationed there, and was called to come and speak to a native who was condemned to death, he told me that he belonged to the Ethiopean Church and that this was his country. It is people with that mentality who come to our country and agitate among the natives here. The most dangerous thing is that the natives are gifted with a special amount of animal passion of life (lewensdrif), “animal vitality,” if I may call it so, and that passion becomes dangerous when it is excited. The native is tractable, but he so easily is roused, and it is on that that those agitators base their agitation. It is not so much the native who is wrong, but we cannot think of a sufficiently severe punishment for the agitators who want to use the natives in that way. They are engaged in doing a pernicious work among a race which is otherwise submissive and does it work without dissatisfaction. I say that in my opinion those have been the contributory causes. On that the agitators have built. Then I ask the question what is to be done? The question which was also asked by the hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close). It is a difficult question, the heart of the whole matter. The hon. member for Mowbray agrees with me that white civilization must be maintained and he even acknowledges that the offenders must be punished. I think he will also say that the rights of the white civilization must also be respected. We cannot allow people to go on in the way they are doing and respecting nobody in the country, no government, no authority, and no high personage in the country. We cannot permit things to continue developing and if we ask ourselves what is to be done, then we must try to find a common basis on which we can all agree and where we stand together. I hope that we all agree on the point that this is a white man’s country. Historically the people are told lies, that it is not the white man’s country. It is not true historically that they occupied it before us. The truth historically is that while we came in from the south, they came from the north. It is untrue that the country was entirely, or to a great extent, occupied by them, and was their country. You have the agitators coming from Swaziland, Nyasaland, and some from Zululand, who have never yet lived here, demanding the rights that we possess. I must honestly say that if a man says to me that I must give up my rights to him I will not do so. We must treat the native honestly. I am not for a moment in favour of doing him an injustice. I want him to climb up him own pole as high as he wishes. Nor am I in favour of putting grease on his pole so that he cannot climb up, but if he wants to climb up my pole then I say it is mine. I tell him: “That is yours, climb up it as high as you like, become as civilized as you wish, but you shall not climb up my pole.” We want to give him the rights that are his due, the civilization which is his civilization. They have a long history behind them in the north of Africa; they lived between the Nile and the lakes and came down to the south. Have you ever yet heard of a ship they built, or a house of stone which they allowed to stand there, or a book that they wrote? When people come and say that we must surrender our rights, then I say with all respect and honour that I firmly refuse to do so. We must act honestly, but I want to warn hon. members opposite that owing to the psychological standpoint or peculiarities of the natives they can never regard mildness otherwise than as weakness. All mildness with him is the same as weakness, and if with helpless hands we give things to him when we ought to take action, then it will create the impression on him that we are weak. I would like to see some small points in this Bill altered. I will agree with any reasonable alteration that the other side may propose, but I shall vote heart and soul for the principle of the Bill.

Surely at this late stage it is not necessary to cover the whole ground again, in view of the debate on the second reading and of the report of the select committee. The various points have been thoroughly debated, and the whole thing resolves itself around the clauses from 12 onwards. It is common cause, I think, that the dangers due to these unscrupulous agitators are realized on this side of the House quite as well as on the other side. The point in dispute is one of the best methods of dealing with the matter, and I think it is nothing else but fair to this House, and in the interests of the natives, that I should quote from the proceedings and the report of the Select Committee of the Transkeian Territories General Council at the session of 1929, because this has not been sufficiently emphasized from the point of view of the natives themselves. In my constituency I have a large number of natives—respectful, law-abiding and respecting the authority of the Government, no matter which political party may be in power. It is most difficult to-day to get true native opinion, owing to so many would-be self-constituted leaders who, for the purpose of self-advertisement, indulge in a good deal of irresponsible talk, and I would therefore suggest to the hon. the Minister not to be influenced by such irresponsible people, but far rather to look to the members of the Transkeian Territories General Council, who are the true and responsible representatives of the native people, and who are selected from the very best of the natives themselves. Here I find the best expression of native opinion. When I refer to this report of the Transkeian Territories General Council for 1929, I find that a resolution was passed at one of the meetings of the 1927-’28 sessions to the effect that the Government be approached and respectfully requested to appoint a commission to enquire into the causes of unrest among natives in the Transkeian territories. The Native Affairs Department replied to that resolution on the 24th August, 1928. The reply was to the effect that the remedy lay in the hands of the people themselves, that ample powers are vested in the authorites to deal with agitators and similar undesirables in the Transkeian territories, and full use could be made of those powers if the people would come forward with sufficient evidence to enable the authorities to take action. Such evidence had, however, not been forthcoming, and there appears to be no likelihood that any would be obtainable by a commission of enquiry. The reply further stated that in the circumstances the Government was not prepared to appoint a commission whose labours it was expected would prove abortive. This made a tremendous impression in the Transkei at the time, because Wellington was touring those parts and causing the unrest. At the following meeting of the Transkeian Territories General Council, held in 1929, the chief (Councillor D. Dalindyebo) moved as an unopposed motion that the Government he respectfully requested to take immediate action against Mr. S. P. Bunting under the provisions of Act No. 29 of 1897 (Cape), as, owing to the statements he was making at public meetings, he is dangerous to the public peace if left at large in the Transkeian territories. Some of the speeches at this meeting are most significant, as indicating the true native view and pointing out the danger, and urging the Government to take action. The mover of the resolution said he moved it because he had a great fear, and because the time had come when they should uplift the native people. He said that peace had been reduced to nothing, and was being trampled underfoot. Proceeding, he said—

Native opinion is most difficult to get at the present time; in fact, I doubt whether, apart from this most excellent council, you can get true native opinion, owing very largely to these self-styled leaders, who are particularly noisy and voluble in their own interests. Do not let us regard all of them as dangerous agitators on that account. It goes on—

Another councillor (Councillor E. Mda) seconds this, and says—

Another councillor (S. Sopela), who is a postmaster in the Transkei, says—

Another councillor (H. Makamba) says—

It is not grievances, but fanaticism, which plays a great part amongst these poor unfortunate people to-day, and agitators are very quick to trade on that fanaticism. He continues here—

Another councillor (P. Xakekile) says—

Another councillor (P. Tshangana) says—

The chief, in reply to the debate, says—

This shows the unbounded faith and respect which the native has in our courts. We have come to the stage now in connection with this Bill before the House that the whole crux of the matter is whether the English and Afrikaans language is so bankrupt of words that it cannot frame a clause defining “sedition” so as to make it a criminal offence by which the courts can punish men who stir up strife. I am not prepared to concede that we are so bankrupt that we must be compelled to deal with these agitators in terms of the drastic proposals contained in the Bill in preference to our ordinary courts of law.

These natives asked for Government action, not for trial by the courts.

Do not let the Minister run away with that idea. I know what the natives had in mind. They thought of the Minister of Native Affairs as their father and they thought he would intervene and stop this. They have implicit faith in our sense of Justice and our courts of law. Whatever faults you may have to find with the native he has an inherent sense of justice. They regard the Minister of Native Affairs as their protector and guardian and they look to him to protect them. If he has done wrong you can punish him, and he will stand all the punishment, and not resent it, but if you perpetrate an act of injustice, he will never forgive or forget. I know the trust that they put in the white man’s word and the trust they put in the sense of justice of the white man. When I know this, then I say, we must be very careful before we put upon our statute book anything affecting the natives that will lose to us that confidence. I prefer to stick to the old Latin tag “Fiat justitia ruat coelum” (Let justice be done though the heavens fall). It was much more elaborately put by the hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close) and I pin my faith to that sentiment. The Minister of Justice subscribes to it, and to every principle of the rule of law, and so does every other member in this House. The crux of the whole matter is the provisions following after Clause 11, whether, out of a sense of fear, I do not know. However, I do not believe it. I believe the underlying principle of our legislation towards the natives has been in the interests of the natives themselves although that has not always been appreciated. There is a sense of kindness which at times may appear to be harsh towards the natives. I do believe that unless this pernicious agitation is stopped and nipped in the bud, there will be a certain following of these agitators which will only result in bloodshed when the natives will be the chief sufferers. It is in the interests of the native himself, and of his own self-preservation that both sides of the House should come to the decision to deal with this matter of agitation without sacrificing principles which have stood the test of time. I believe that if the Minister of Justice will give a trial to that definition of sedition proposed by the hon. member for Mowbray (Mr. Close), a trial for a year, he will find out whether it is effective or not. If it is not effective, and has failed to put a stop to these unscrupulous agitators whom even the law-abiding natives so grossly dislike, then he can come back next year to this House and ask for additional powers. I want to plead with the Minister to let the courts have the paramount say in connection with this matter, for they have dealt with all criminal cases in the past. These are criminal cases. I am not convinced that our language is so poor, whether English or Afrikaans, that we cannot frame the definition of a criminal charge which will apply to the people we have been referring to. For the sake of the white man’s honour, for the sake of maintaining the fine position he occupies in the minds of these simple and humble folk, do not let us sacrifice a principle which has stood the test of time, and by attempting to take a short cut to deal with this difficult and dangerous matter antagonise large numbers of our law-abiding natives who have given ample evidence of their loyalty to the Government, their respect for law and order and their sincere desire to co operate with the Government to rid the country of this menace to their race. I plead once more for the ultimate decision to rest in the law courts of our land.

I listened attentively to the speeches of hon. members and waited for proposals which they would submit to the Minister, but the only amendment proposed was that of the hon. member for Durban (County) (Mr. Eaton).

On the motion of Mr. de Jager, the debate was adjourned; to be resumed to-morrow.