When the adjournment of the debate was moved on Friday, I was saying that the discussion had covered a wide field. I want to take this opportunity, firstly, to reply in general on the discussion as a whole, but before doing so I think it is necessary once again to state clearly what the pattern of activities of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions is.

As is generally known, and as was also said by the hon. member for Prinshof (Mr. Visse), and as it is contained in the Annual Report of the Department, the objects of this Department are in the first place to prevent maladjustment and need in the family or in the community, and where it exists, to combat it; and thirdly, to co-ordinate measures taken in this regard. The co-ordination of those measures is a special task, particularly in a big country like this. In addition, it is the function of the Department to provide for civil and war pensions. It is self-evident that a matter like this, which affects thousands of the citizens of the country, arouses country-wide interest. I want to say immediately that I appreciate that interest. I am glad that this interest is there, because this is a matter which is not the function of the State alone. It is also the function of the community as a whole. It would be a sad day if the community were to leave it to the State to look after the interests of all the less-privileged people in the country. It should be noted that the scope of the activities of this Department are affected in its annual Estimates, which amount to just over R90,000,000. as we have just heard. Administratively this huge amount is paid out every month in installments to approximately 300,000 individuals and families. When it is noted that the Department has about 1,500 posts, it cannot be otherwise regarded than as a great achievement that the work is done so smoothly and satisfactorily, so that hon. members of this House and of the Other Place are always talking with the greatest praise and appreciation of the work done by this Department.

That it has its problems and will always have them is realized by all of us, because it has been written that we will always have the poor with us. Of these 1,500 posts, more than half are spread among the field services of the Department, its regional offices and its branch offices. I must again emphasize this aspect, as I do every year. It is once again necessary for me to point out that these field services form a unique part of our welfare organization and our welfare services which are rendered to the people all over the country. During my visit to Europe, when I was asked about it, I referred to this system of field services and I gave it the highest praise, and everywhere I came people considered that this was a very laudable organization.

In a widespread country like the Republic of South Africa it is particularly through such a system, as was so effectively stated in that Annual Report, that service which is the eyes and ears of the Department, that the needs can be ascertained and provision made for them. The doors of those offices are open to anyone who is interested in welfare work, and they are also open every day to any hon. member who wants to bring any problems to the notice of the officials. There is also an annual regional conference which is held in Pretoria and which is attended by all the regional chiefs, and which I always attend as well, and where they report to me what has been done all over the country. With a Department like this, it would be wrong of me to be over-sensitive to criticism in this House, and I will not be over-sensitive because that would result in my denying hon. members the opportunity to discuss certain matters and to bring them to my notice. Therefore I have always said, and I do so again to-day most emphatically, that I listened with great interest to all the representations made to me in this House. I have stated that repeatedly, and still it strikes me every year that there are individual cases which could perhaps have been remedied during the recess but which were not brought to the notice of the Department, and then they are raised in this House as if they are typical of the general position in the country. it is again necessary to remind some hon. members of the Opposition that the system we have is not intended to make the State fully responsible for all the needs of those who need care.

Our system has been working for all these years on the basis of co-operation between the State and the churches and the community and everybody who is interested in the welfare of the needy. It is essential that this should be so. We must move forward, and in our forward movement we must take the underprivileged with us. We must also accept that they are the responsibility of all of us. The day when that responsibility is put exclusively on the shoulders of the State will be the day when we will have taken the first step towards becoming a welfare state. Then we would lose a very important aspect of this service, namely the interest and the warmth and the concern of the community. In this regard particularly is the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) often inclined to set out as if only the State should render assistance, and then the hon. member refers in passing with appreciation to private initiative, but he lays the responsibility exclusively on the shoulders of the State. He says, inter alia, as he has repeatedly said during this Session, that the State contributes only R28 a month directly for the care of those people, and he intimates that that is the exclusive source of income on which those people must all live. For the sake of the record, I should like to rectify that. I do my best to rectify the record every year. I want to show what this Government has done since 1948 in regard to social pensions and allowances.

The hon. members complain that the system we adopt is wrong. The hon. member for Umbilo moved a motion in this House this Session in which he criticized the system, but if the system is criticized an alternative system must be sought. This has been the traditional system in South Africa ever since these services have been instituted. When they talk about the system, one hears in passing about a contributory pension scheme, but I again want to ask hon. members what their idea of a contributory pension scheme is? Should it be a compulsory scheme? Should it be made compulsory by legislation passed by this House, or should it be voluntary? We have voluntary contributory pension schemes, and we have given reports about them from time to time. We encourage them and good progress is being made. But it is not right just to talk generally about contributory schemes without saying specifically what is meant by them. The hon. member also says every time that he is not in favour of a welfare state. All I can say is this: After my thorough investigation I came to the conclusion that the services rendered in South Africa to the less privileged people—I am speaking now of the Whites with whom I have to deal—compares very favourably with anything they have in any country in the world to-day.

In 1947-8 when we took over from the Opposition, that system was already in force. Then the expenditure on social pensions and allowances was R16,931,000. We took over in 1948-9, and it immediately rose to R21,769,000. Nobody can tell me that in that one year there were so many more applications that it could lead to an increase of R4,800,000. I just want to take a year at random here and there. I take the year 1952-3. At that time the expenditure was R29,000,000 as compared with the R16,0U0,000 in 1947-8. The increase in that year alone was R5,500,000. Take 1953-4. In that year it was R33,400,000, and after the R5,000,000 increase which was given the previous year there was a further increase of R4,100,000. Just the increases in those two years amounted to more than half the original expenditure under the previous Government.

I want to go a little further. I take the year 1956-7. The increase in that year was R7,000,000. I also want to take 1963-4, because hon. members say that in these years of prosperity we did practically nothing. That is just a general statement anyone can make.

I can understand it if a person says he pleads for still more, but what I cannot understand is that when they plead for more they want to give the country and the world the impression that very little is being done. I take the years 1963-4 and 1964-5. They say that there were no really appreciable improvements made in those years. In 1963-4 the increase was R6,301,000 and in 1964 it was R3,500,000. If I add these increases, then the total increases since this Government took over amount to R53,175,000. Only the increases alone are more than three times as much as the total sum spent before we took over. How can hon. members still think that people will believe those stories?

I just want to add this. In regard to the accusation made by the hon. member for Umbilo that the changes made in regard to the means test were just due to his urging, as he has again said in this debate …

I did not say that.

The hon. member said it on 29 January. He said that some progress had been made, but in his speech he belittled the progress made. He spoke about the means test and he has just repeated what he said on 29 January, that the relief granted in regard to the means test should be ascribed only to the urging from that side of the House. I replied to that on 29 January and I do not want to go into it further. From 1954, year after year, the means test was relaxed. I do not know whether the hon. member was already in this House in 1953, but ever since that time the means test has been relaxed every year.

There is another matter which I should like to bring to the notice of the hon. member for Umbilo. He lays particular emphasis on it and says we should remember that in this time of prosperity we grant an increase of only R1 a month to the most needy people in the country, and then unfortunately he puts it in such a way as if this were the only concession made during the past few years. Let me refresh the hon. member’s memory. I want to remind him of the fact that we make concessions year after year—I just want to summarize it. On 1 April 1959 R1 a month was added; on 1 April 1960 another R1 per month was added. On 1 April 1962 R1.50 was added. Since 1 April 1963 to 1 April 1964 R2.50 a month has been added. Has the hon. member forgotten that? This amount, which was granted last year only, amounts to an expenditure of R2,750,000. Together with the R1,250,000 granted in 1963, it amounted to R4,000,000 for the two years. Why is no notice being taken of that R4,000,000, and why is no appreciation expressed for it? It gives a wrong impression to the country to concentrate attention merely on the R1 which is now again being given. In this regard I want to give further statistics. I want to point out to the Committee that in 1953-4 that pension amounted to R216 per annum, and now it is R324, and as from 1 October 1965 it will be increased to R336. What does that indicate? It indicates a rising tendency. Hon. members may say that we should have given more, but they should not try to create the impression that in recent years the interests of these people were neglected. During 1947 the means plus pension limitation was R180 per annum. The present concessions, which have already risen from R180 to R324, are increased further to R528 per annum. Nobody with a sense of justice can say that nothing is being done.

I just want to deal with the Estimates as a whole. In 1958-9 the Estimates amounted to R66,500,000. In 1964-5 it was R89,000,000, and in 1965-6 it was appreciably increased to over R90,000,000. Since 1958-9, over a period of six years, there has been an increase of R27,750,000, which is appreciably more than the total expenditure at the time we took over in 1948.

I just want to give a few other figures. The expenditure in respect of White social pensions and allowances in 1958 was R34,000,000, and by 1964-5 it had increased to R48,000,000, an increase of R 14,000,000 over a period of six years. The argument is often advanced that the cost of living is increasing and that these people are now living below the breadline. That is said year after year, and therefore it is necessary to say these things over and over again. From 1946-7 to 1958-9 the cost-of-living index shows an increase of 58 per cent. If we had had to keep pace with the increase in the cost of living, our increase should also have been 58 per cent, but we did not peg it at 58 per cent. In that same period we increased it by 120 per cent. Since 1958-9 the index has shown an increase of 11.5 per cent, whereas the average pension has increased by 30 per cent. Since this Government took over in 1948—and now I am giving the total figures —the cost of living has increased by 71.1 per cent and in the same period the increase in the pensions and allowances was 170 per cent.

The debate continued to follow the pattern, on the one side of the House, of justifiable appreciation, assisted also by certain hon. members opposite. There were hon. members opposite to who spoke appreciatively of what has been done and is still being done, and I am very grateful for that. I just want to add something to that. It is traditional in our country that there is still an obligation, in so far as the family structure is concerned, on the part of the parent towards his child and of the child towards his parent, and it would be a sorry day for South Africa if that tradition were to die down or disappear. Fortunately there are still many of our people who adhere to that tradition, children who out of love and appreciation for what their parents have done for them, assist their parents when the latter grow old and are no longer able to work. There are many such people. I want to express my deepest appreciation to them. I want to take off my hat to them. They are sons and daughters of South Africa who are worthy of the appreciation of any civilized person in the world.

The hon. member for Umbilo repeatedly referred to “social pensions as a means of livelihood”. I have already dealt with that. We all know what the object is in regard to this State assistance, and that assistance is appreciated by everybody. Everywhere in the country where I hold meetings people speak appreciatively of what has been done in regard to pensions and allowances, particularly this year. All the newspapers on both sides appreciate it. I want to add that there is a term which is so often used. They say these people “do not want a social pension as a privilege, but as a right”. That proposition is quite wrong. The pensions which are being paid are paid in terms of legislation passed by this Parliament, and they are already a right and not a privilege. Why must one always hear that these people must receive it as charity? It is not charity; they receive it as of right.

I want to express my thanks to all hon. members who made contributions in this debate. I listened with interest to various members, also hon. members opposite, who said that they wanted to make certain suggestions; they appreciate what is being done but have further suggestions to make. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Mr. Dodds) said, inter alia, that instead of granting small increases from year to year we should simply grant a large increase in one year. But that will have the same result. We may give a large amount and circumstances may change, and then the position will become more difficult and the people will say that they want still more. Then one says that last year already one gave so much and one cannot give more again this year. But these increases are granted from time to time. Great things were done this year. There is the consolidation of the bonus and special allowances with the basic allowance. That is a tremendous thing. These things which Parliament has given to the social pensioners are a right, and any Government which tries to deprive them of that right will be faced with tremendous opposition. Therefore it is wrong to say that we should have held over everything which we gave these people during the last few years and that we should have given it in one lump sum. There are difficulties; circumstances change, and my Department and I have to deal with the interests of those people not from year to year but from month to month.

I want to pass on to the Questions put to me by other hon. members. The hon. Member for Bloemfontein (District) and the hon. member for Umbilo spoke about the re-employment of officials. I have already given some attention to that matter, but as hon. members will know this is not a matter for one Department exclusively; other Departments are also concerned. But I want to give hon. members the assurance that we will go into the implications of it. It is not something on which one can make a hasty decision. I shall go into the matter and contact my colleagues and we will go into it thoroughly.

The hon. member for Umbilo further wanted to know why an amount of R300,000 only appeared on the Estimates, whereas R750,000 was made available as a single payment. That is a reasonable question. The amount of R300,000 is based on the expected expenditure at this stage. The Treasury did not want to place the whole amount on the Estimates again, but if more than R300,000 should be required for this single payment, I can give the Committee the assurance that the money will be made available. In any case the balance will still be available for the next financial year.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) spoke about the lack of planning. She must forgive me if I am wrong, but I think this is perhaps the first time she has discussed these matters in this House.

You are wrong.

I appreciate it if the hon. member, is interested in these matters. She made the accusation that there was a lack of planning. How can the hon. member for Houghton say there is a lack of planning when I have just shown in my summary what the activities of the Department have been since 1948? What does the hon. member mean by it? As I have just explained, there is thorough planning. The hon. member may say that the planning is wrong and she can try to prove that it has not worked well. She also referred to a contributory pension scheme, but she was also vague there. I inferred from what she said that she does not think there is enough planning in regard to the provision of accommodation for the aged. I have appointed a special work group. I pay particular attention to the position of those old people. If I could put every one of them into a good house I would do so immediately. But I say with appreciation that I recently visited Pietermaritzburg and there I saw a housing scheme which was established on the initiative of a single person, Mr. Allison, the ex-Provincial Council member. He showed me a model housing scheme—beautiful houses, all ejected on his initiative. I went with the Mayor and he took me to all the places established for all races. But one cannot do everything in one year. I have already mentioned the flatlet system which I saw in Europe. I can eive the hon. member the assurance that I am in continuous contact with the Minister of Community Development and it is our intention, in regard to new communities which are to be established, also to make provision for the accommodation of old people in those communities. I strongly support it because I have often advocated it. I have said that we should see to it that the old people are not isolated. We must take them with us and the best way of doing that is to let them remain active in the community for as long as possible. We should not isolate them because then they feel lonely and that they are no longer of any use and that they are being pushed out. Therefore we are making this provision in regard to the building of homes for the aged. There is a great demand and we meet it as fast as we can. The demand has been such that the number of such old-age homes has increased from 25 in 1948 to 106. We are also trying to spread these old-age homes all over the country so that the old people will not be taken out of their environment. When one becomes old—and this applies to every person and to every nation—one longs for the place where one grew up, and that is why we try to spread these homes all over the country. I want to tell the hon. member for Houghton that I have appointed a work group, with the specific instruction to go into the whole matter of the care of the aged. But I just want to say this. Where old people live by themselves in slums or in little rooms in the urban areas, it is not only the duty of the State and of the welfare organizations and of the churches, but it is also the duty of the community to go and visit them there. We must make them feel that they are part of the community. They will appreciate that much more than money. They appreciate much more than money any interest shown in them; it gives them a warm glow when their fellow-men give them a little attention. The hon. member for Houghton also suggested that local authorities should be encouraged to build homes for the aged. We had a system of getting local authorities to build homes for the aged but it failed. We are now doing it on this other basis to which I have already referred. If one does so through the local authorities, one finds that they always cause difficulties, and I think it is better to do it in the way I have just mentioned. It is not our policy that homes for the aged should be established by local authorities; it is the function of the private welfare organizations and therefore those bodies are encouraged by means of subsidies and low rates of interest to establish those homes. I want to express my appreciation for the fact that welfare organizations to a large extent make use of the facilities made available to them.

I want to congratulate the hon. member for Mayfair very heartily on his maiden speech. I listened to it with interest. I was surprised at his sound approach, an approach based on the traditional way of life of our people. I listened to him with particular interest when he spoke with feeling and conviction about the role which should be played in our national life by all-round family assistance. That is something which should be preserved. I heartily want to congratulate the hon. member on his speech. He also spoke about the care of the aged. I just want to tell him the work group I have appointed will also investigate this matter thoroughly, and as soon as it has been thoroughly investigated, I will not hesitate to take action where improvements can be made.

The hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) pleaded for the provision of homes for the chronically sick aged. There is a difference between the chronically sick and the infirm aged. The provincial authorities are responsible for the treatment of chronic diseases. In regard to the care of frail old people, we have been following the policy for many years of not approving an application for the building of a home for the aged unless provision is made for a certain number of infirm old people. I have already given instructions that that provision should be made. All the old-age homes take in a certain number of infirm people. There are a number of old-age homes which accommodate only the infirm. In Cape Town, for example, there is an old-age home which provides for 240 infirm people, and in Pretoria there is a home which cares for approximately as many infirm people—also about 240—and in Durban they have already started building such a home. I readily admit that this is an essential service. We are implementing it to the best of our ability. Where, however, an infirm person is still being cared for in a provincial hospital because there is no home available where he can be cared for, my Department pays R2.50 a day to the hospital concerned for the care of that infirm old person who is not chronically ill but who needs care.

The hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) spoke about the large number of aged people who commit suicide because they get depressed by the conditions under which they have to live, particularly in the cities. As I have already said, that is a matter which this work group will also investigate. I shall appreciate it if the hon. member for Rosettenville will bring this matter to the notice of the regional chief in Johannesburg. I have often invited the hon. member and other hon. members to come and inspect all our work, and if they think there are things which are not right it is their duty to bring them to my notice.

The hon. member for Rosettenville also spoke about the child welfare clinics established for problem children, and crèches. As the hon. member knows, the provincial authorities control the crèches for school-going children. The children in crèches are still very young; they are not older than six years and I am informed that there are not many problem cases among them. There is close cooperation between the Departments and wherever necessary use is made of the facilities provided by the provincial authorities and the Department of Health. I can give the hon. member the assurance that continuous attention is being devoted to this particular matter.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) spoke about the delays that take place and he blamed it on the shortage of staff. I want to point out that a very important factor which is causing delays at the moment is the installation of the electronic computer. We sent people overseas to study the matter thoroughly. Various State Departments have installed electronic computers. We also train our people inside the Department. I myself officiated at the inauguration of the electronic computer. But delays and mistakes still occur. We expect, however, that within a few months this machine will work properly. Much of the work can then be done by that machine. The difficulty we have at present is due to the delay taking place until the computer is in good working order, and we trust that then the position will improve. I want to express my regret, also on behalf of my Department and my staff, for the delays which have taken place, but I just want to ask hon. members to exercise a little patience. They must also take into consideration that more than half of the officials in our head offices are young ladies. There is a continuous labour turnover; these young women are not there long before they get married. I just want to mention in passing a system which we introduced there—and I am told that other Departments have also done so—and that is to employ married women on a half-day basis. I am informed that the married women do almost just as much work in half a day as the younger women do in a whole day. Then that married woman is free in the afternoon to devote attention to her home and her children. I am informed that both in our Department and in other Departments which have been consulted in this regard, this system is working particularly well. I think it is a matter we will have to consider further in order to see whether we cannot solve the problem of staff shortages in this way.

The hon. member for Durban (Central) wanted to know why a representative of the Department does not attend the international conference of social work. I want to give him the assurance that we are still a member of that organization. We pay an annual subscription of R300. That conference is held every two years, and it is our practice to send a delegate to every second conference. In 1961 we were represented at that conference. Recently there was another conference, but due to circumstances it was not possible for us to send a delegate this year. We are still a member and we are still interested in it, and I want to assure the hon. member that in future we will regularly attend that conference, as in the past, because we can gain valuable information there.

The hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) again reverted to the question of the war pension and again objected to the provision in terms of which the wife or widow and the children of an ex-volunteer are not entitled to benefits if such ex-volunteer got married more than ten years after being discharged from military service, or if the children were born more than ten years after such discharge. This is an old question which we have discussed in this House year after year. My information is that during the past 19 years this matter has been raised on about 14 occasions by the South African Legion, and one of the main reasons advanced by the Legion for the abolition of the time limit is that in other parts of the British Commonwealth this time limit was either never applied or has been abolished in recent years. We feel that the absence of the provision concerning the time limit in the legislation of other countries is not a valid ground for abolishing it in our scheme. I think what should count most is whether the people in our countries, irrespective of the abolition of this provision, are better off than our people in general. The South African scheme makes ample provision for widows, as was readily admitted by the Legion. Every country has certain provisions in its legislation which are advantageous in comparison with the provisions in the legislation of other countries. It is generally admitted also by the Legion that the South African scheme as a whole is more favourable than any of the schemes of other members of the Commonwealth. That is admitted by the world. We have again gone into the history of this matter. Ministerial decisions since 1946 have been unanimously against any change in the ten-year time limit. That has been the position since 1946. These decisions were taken after thoroughly considering all aspects of the matter. The hon. member mentioned an additional argument. He mentioned the youths who are now in the service of the Defence Department as an additional argument. There is in fact a difference. These youths who are now injured are in their 18th or 19th or 20th year, and these are not war-time injuries; they are injuries suffered in peace-time. They still have ten years in which to get married. I think these youths will get married within ten years. I think the hon. member will agree with me there. They are still young and they still have the opportunity of getting married. I regret that I cannot assist the hon. member further in regard to this matter, however much I should like to do so.

The hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Cruywagen) referred to the long period that elapses before children who play truant come under the notice of the welfare officer and before action is taken. We are dealing here with a social aspect and we should not lose sight of the fact that one cannot always take speedy action when dealing with a social matter. One must follow the procedure prescribed by the Act and that is why it takes so much time. If is our policy not to remove children from the parental home unnecessarily. Attempts are always made to keep the child with his family and to rehabilitate him there. That obviously takes time, and these matters cannot be disposed of speedily, because one first has to see whether one cannot keep the child in his own home.

The hon. member also spoke about vacation or concession facilities for the aged. I just want to say that the hon. the Minister of Transport sat next to me while the hon. member was speaking; he also heard the hon. member’s representations and we will devote our attention to this matter.

The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. van Eeden) spoke about measures to encourage larger White families. This matter has already been thoroughly discussed this Session in the motion moved by the hon. member for Kimberley (South) (Dr. W. L. D. M. Venter). I can only repeat that the National Welfare Bill which I have already introduced provides, inter alia, for a commission for family policy. It is a special commission which will devote particular attention to this matter. I agree with the hon. member that we should encourage larger White families. It is a matter which, emanating from the Family Year Congress, has continuously received our attention, and it will now specifically be studied by this Committee.

The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Wood) suggested that the Advisory Council on Alcoholism should devote attention to two aspects of the problem, viz. advertisements of liquor and contributions by liquor companies in connection with research into alcoholism. I listened with great interest to the hon. member’s contribution. This matter already came to my notice on a previous occasion in Pretoria. I assure the hon. member that I am taking note of his representations, and I shall consider whether it falls within the functions of that Council. The hon. members for Kimberley (South), Prinshof and Odendaalsrus (Dr. Meyer) spoke appreciatively about the increase and the scope and the intense interest in welfare work, and once again I must express my greatest appreciation to them. The hon. member for Kimberley (South) was the head of a children’s institution for years. He knows more about this matter than anybody else in this country. He is also a member of the National Welfare Council. As I said in the beeinning, I appreciate everybody’s interest, and particularly the study the hon. member made of welfare matter. He and the hon. member for Prinshof asked me, in regard to the annual report, whether more copies could not be made available. I want to assure them that we will see that more copies are made available.

The hon. member for Odendaalsrus emphasized something which I also want to stress, and that is that we should not approach the development of welfare services in South Africa from one angle only, but that we should view the matter against the background of the global development throughout the years. The hon. member for Odendaalsrus is particularly interested in this matter and he has referred to it every year. I want to thank him, and I want to conclude by telling all members of the House this; Let us regard our welfare services as a matter which lies close to the hearts of all of us. The doors of all the offices of my Department, on the regional and the branch offices, will always remain open, and if hon. members want to make suggestions we will thoroughly consider them. I have said previously that welfare work is not static; it cannot be static; welfare work changes its scope and direction. Its scope is always expanding; its form may change, but not its essence. I therefore trust that all of us will co-operate in a spirit of harmony and a proper sense of responsibility to our fellow men to; do everything possible in the best interests of those needy persons whom we will always have in our midst.

We have listened with interest to the reply of the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. Some of the questions raised by this side of the House have been satisfactorily answered by the Minister, but I believe that there are other questions which have not been satisfactorily answered, and I intend to deal with a few of them. Firstly, the hon. the Minister dealt with the question of the relaxation of the means test and also with the present rate of pensions. First and foremost, as far as the relaxation of the means test is concerned, the Minister is well aware that hon. members on this side of the House have over many years advocated a relaxation of the means test, and indeed we are pleased to see that some of those recommendations have been taken note of by the Government and that amending legislation will probably be introduced later on this Session. I refer particularly to the consolidation of the allowance with the basic pension, which has the effect of raising the ceiling permitted in terms of the present means test quite substantially. There are, of course, certain other recommendations that we have put forward to the Government, in regard to which the Government has not seen fit to take any action at this stage and in regard to which we have had no reply from the hon. the Minister. For example, there is the question of the self-employed person. Although recognition is given to those who are over 70 years of age and who are still in employment in that their earnings are disregarded for the purposes of the means test, the position is that those persons who display initiative and who are self-employed are still discriminated against under the means test.

Then there is also the position of the war veteran pensioners. There seems to have been no effort to alleviate the position of the war veteran pensioners. There are certain suggestions which have been put forward by organizations serving the interests of the ex-servicemen and also by this side of the House; it has been suggested that certain concessions which are made to the Anglo-Boer War veterans should be extended to war veterans of World War I. If the Minister is unable to do that it has been suggested that those war veterans who are over the age of 75 years should be exempted from the means test. Those are some of the matters, as far as the means test is concerned, which we on this side of the House think still require attention, and in this regard we would like to have a definite policy statement from the Minister. Sir, the hon. the Minister was quite right in saying that we on this side of the House believe that it is in the interests of the country that a national contributory scheme should be introduced, and although in principle we are in accord with the Government as far as the relaxation of the means test is concerned, the Government side of the House and this side are in complete conflict as to the necessity of introducing a national contributory pension scheme. We on this side believe that such a scheme should be introduced so as to provide a comprehensive programme of social security for our people, a scheme which will give them social security in their old age, which they do not have at the present time. The reason why they do not have it at the present time is that, they are subject to the means test before they can qualify for a social pension. Because of the small amount of the pension, some of these people look forward with a certain amount of trepidation and fear to their old age, because c they face the prospect of having to spend the twilight of their lives in poverty. That is why we would like to see the introduction of a national contributory pension scheme so that all persons will be members of some pension scheme and will be able to enjoy security. The. Government’s policy is to encourage the establishment of private pension schemes. We are not opposed to that in principle, but if you take this matter to its logical conclusion, how long will it be before the Government will be able to say that all people are covered by some pension scheme and will therefore have security in their old age? The Government, as things stand to-day, will not be able to say in the foreseeable future that all people are covered by some pension scheme or other, and that is where we seriously differ from the Government as far as policy is concerned. We feel that the introduction of a contributory pension scheme is the ultimate longterm solution to this problem of adequate security in one’s old age,

The other point on which I would like to have a reply from the hon. the Minister is? the question of the adequacy of the present rate of pensions. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is satisfied that the Government is not able to afford to give a greater degree of relief to social pensioners than the increase of R1 per month that was granted in the last Budget. I believe that the hon. the Minister in his heart must view with a great deal of sorrow the policy which seems to be followed by the Government at the present time, and that is to keen the pensions of social pensioners low in an attempt to curb inflation to some extent. It would seem that that is the reason why the pensioners were not granted an increase of more than R1 per month.

Nonsense.

I would like to ask the hon. member over there who says “nonsense” whether he is satisfied that this increase of R1 per month was the most the Government could afford to alleviate the position of our social pensioners.

What do you suggest?

I suggested earlier on that there should have been an increase of at least R3 per month. It is stated in the White Paper that this increase of R1 per month will bring about an additional expenditure of R2,000,000 per annum. An increase of R3 per month would have meant an additional expenditure of only R6,000,000. Does the hon. the Minister believe that such an increase would bring about a greater degree of inflation in South Africa? Sir, these people, I believe, require this money for the necessities of life. The costs of necessities of life have increased considerably over the past two years. The hon. the Minister conveniently forgets that in 1963 the Government introduced a special allowance which was granted only to a section of our social pensioners. The Minister in reply to a question last year said (Col. 706) that of our 126,469 White social pensioners, 42,457 qualified for the special allowance. That means that one-third of those White social pensioners received an increase in 1963. In 1964 the Government did not give a general increase to the social pensioners. These persons who were termed the neediest of the needy by the Minister of Finance in 1963 in his Budget speech received no increase whatsoever in 1964. After a period of two years. on 1 April 1965 they will receive an increase of R1 per month. They are the neediest of the needy; they have no assets: they receive no income from any other source and if so, it is limited to R60 per year, I think. So this group who are solely dependent on their pension in many instances receive an increase of R1 per month. That is just over 3 cents per day. We are expecting our social pensioners, some of whom are unable to call upon children to assist them, to live on less than R1 per day. Some of them have to look to welfare organizations which are doing a magnificent job in trying to subsidize them, for assistance. We hear of surpluses of R 140,000,000 and if we cannot expect a greater degree of generosity from the Government in these times of economic buoyancy what hope have these people got of receiving any greater degree of alleviation from the Government in times of financial stringency? I feel that this particular aspect is one which deserves greater sympathy from the Government and the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions is the responsible Minister in this regard.

I have referred to the efforts of welfare organizations to try to alleviate the plight of these people. It has become obvious recently that these welfare organizations are having a great deal of financial difficulty in being able to render the services for which they were originally established. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) expressed his appreciation to the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions at the beginning of his speech for having emphasized the sound objectives of social welfare so clearly here this afternoon and for having produced revealing figures whish clearly indicate that he has an open heart and an open hand as far as the less privileged people of this country are concerned. I am only sorry that the hon. member for Umbilo became somewhat reproachful towards the end of his speech. I can only tell him that when I think of what they did when they were in power it is clear that their hand was closed as far as our less privileged people in South Africa were concerned. When they are in the Government benches they keep their hand closed but when they are in Opposition they want this Government to be converted into a kind of charitable organization. [Interjections.] When they are in Opposition they want the Minister of Pensions to distribute largesse with a liberal hand and say in a paternal voice: It is more blessed to give than to receive. This Government has done much more for the pensioners than the previous Government.

We want to give scientific assistance as far as social welfare work is concerned as well. I am pleased that the hon. the Minister has emphasized the fact that private initiative is one of the fundamental bases of social welfare work in our fatherland.

I want to bring a matter which I regard of the utmost importance to the aged and the physically disabled on the social welfare settlement at Sonop to the attention of the Minister. I want to suggest a few improvements and I want to do so against the background of what is happening on that settlement. One hundred and forty families can be accommodated on that settlement and these families can be divided into two groups. You get the settler and the tenant farmer. There are 37 settlers; 16 tenant farmer families; 18 widows; two widowers, one divorced person and approximately 22 dependent children. [Interjections.] I think hon. members should bear in mind that I am talking about physically disabled persons and old people and that I am trying to get the sympathetic ear of the Minister. A settler married couple only receive R27 per month. It is true that they do not pay for their little house and the plot. I think they pay five-sixths of a cent for milk per pint. They are given two bags of coal, two bags of firewood as well as the water they use for irrigation purposes on their plot free of charge. They receive free medical services. They are conveyed free of charge to the nearest hospital and they are provided with free medicine at the clinic at Sonop. I want to thank the Minister in particular for the fact that he is paying the same children’s allowance this year in respect of the settlers’ dependent children than that paid in respect of the tenant farmers’ children. Children’s allowances are now uniform and the Minister makes no distinction between the children of the settler and the children of the tenant farmer. The single settler receives R23.50 per month, apart from the other privileges, whereas a married couple receive R27. I mention this so that the Minister can bear it in mind because I am now coming to the improvements I want to suggest.

As far as the tenant farmers are concerned, i.e. those people who are in law entitled to a pension, they have to pay R4.98 for a brick house or R3.78 for an ordinary little timber house together with R2 per month for certain privileges which the settler also enjoys. They get something like one-eighth of a morgen of land for gardening purposes free of charge and are entitled to hire a quarter or half a morgen of land in addition. I think the tenant farmer, as a family, receive something like R47 per month after they have fulfilled all their obligations. I now want to suggest the improvements which I think have become necessary. In the first place I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the big gap between the allowance paid to the settler family and the tenant farmer family. The one receives R27 per month and the other R47 per month. I think an improvement can be effected in this regard. The Minister has already narrowed the gap to some extent but I make this suggestion in the right spirit; the Minister has indicated that he is not averse to criticism. I want to appeal to the Department to attend to this matter so that this gap can be closed. I hope that just as the children’s allowances have been made uniform in the case of the children of both the settler and the tenant farmer we shall get a measure of uniformity between the settler and the tenant farmer on that settlement, by further increasing the allowance of the settler.

I know the hon. the Minister has visited that settlement and that he is au fait with the position. There has been a thorough investigation into this settlement in the past but I think greater stress should be placed on the fact that Sonop is not a place of production but a place where the aged and the physically disabled can be settled happily in a rural atmosphere. We find that half a morgen of land is rented to these old people at R2.35 per month. That is approximately R27 per annum yet that is no place for production. There has been a drought; the people could hardly produce anything and I think the time has arrived for us to emphasize the fact that Sonop is not a place for production. The people cannot pay that rental and I shall be pleased if the Department would again go into the matter. I think they ought to give this land free of charge to the people or at least charge them a smaller rental. They cannot go in for intensive farming there. During the past four years there was hardly any water and I think an improvement can be effected in this respect. I know both sides of the House agree with me in this respect.

I should like the furrows to be cemented. All the furrows on the closer settlements are being cemented and I trust the Minister will get in touch with the Department of Irrigation in an attempt to have the furrows at Sonop cemented as well.

At the moment the district of Britz is being electrified by Escom and I want to ask that not only the homes of officials should be supplied with electricity but also those 140 houses. I also hope that lights will be installed in the streets and along the main road through that settlement in order to protect and safeguard the settlers when it is dark. I also think that recreational facilities should be provided. What I have in mind, for example, is a swimming bath. [Interjections.] There are so many interruptions, Mr. Chairman, that I trust you will allow me an extra minute to make my final submission. I know you are as sympathetically inclined towards this matter as the hon. the Minister. There is a need for a shop on that settlement where the motive ought not to be to make a profit but to serve so that, even as far as trade is concerned, the people will be treated sympathetically. The old settlers receive a meagre allowance and they have to spend it judiciously. It is tragic to see how people descend on that settlement and often persuade the people to make the most injudicious purchases. That is why I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister, as always, to give his sympathetic attention to the five improvements I have suggested.

The hon. Chief Whip who has just spoken started by castigating this side of the House, particularly the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield), for having had the temerity to criticize the amount of increase given to pensioners and to make demands for further improvements.

It was the way in which you criticized.

When we criticize the Minister the hon. member for Britz (Mr. J. E. Potgieter) gets up and attacks us. But then the same hon. member who is so against a welfare state demands not only a welfare state, but a welfare shop. We on this side of the House will not be silenced by criticism nor will we allow the Chief Whip to turn the question of the welfare of pensioners into a political football. We are not interested in the 1948 memories of the hon. member for Britz or in the figures given to us by the hon. the Minister. To us pensioners are not statistics on pieces of paper. They are human beings who suffer, human beings who have feelings and who are not to-day receiving the sympathy and consideration which we believe they should receive. I care not two hoots whether the United Party did or did not look after them in 1948. I am interested in how they are being looked after in 1965. [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, this hon. member behind me has not stopped shouting since I tried to address the Committee. We shall continue to fight for the benefit and the welfare of pensioners because we regard them as human beings with human problems and not as figures on paper. What if they are being treated better than they were 20 years ago? If we did not treat them well enough as a Government we are to blame for it but I am not interested in history; I am interested in to-day. What I am interested in is the human tragedy which has afflicted so many hundreds and thousands of our people in this country.

The hon. the Minister spoke about a pension being a right. I am glad he did that, Sir, but I believe it does not go far enough, because despite the Minister’s statement look how these hon. members shout and scream when we plead for better conditions for our pensioners. They do not regard a pension as a right; they regard it as a privilege; they regard a pension as a generous dole dished out by the Government, thanks to their political party government. I believe that we should go further than merely saying a pension is a right. I believe we should strike at the very root and abolish the words “old-age pension”. I would like to see this social service of the State called a senior citizens’ allowance. I believe that if we called our old-age pensioners senior citizens, as they do in America and elsewhere, we shall be giving to them a title in keeping with the status they hold in our society. They are people who have lived their lives in this country, people who have served the country. They are not old-age pensioners who are a burden on South Africa but senior citizens who have a right and a claim on the people of South Africa and on the Government. If we called them senior citizens then perhaps the whole attitude of South Africa would change towards the pension they receive. It would then be an allowance granted to them in keeping with their right to claim it from their fellow-men and from the State. Then the Minister’s statement which he made this afternoon that this was a right could well find reciprocal reaction throughout the country and the Government. Although I accept it is a small minority, I am sorry to have to say that there are officials who regard the pensions and the grants they handle as some privilege which they are dishing out. I know of pensioners who have taken months and sometimes years before they have plucked up the courage to go and fill in an application form because they were too proud; they thought they would be asking for charity. By the time they do get to that office a harmless word or a lack of appreciation of their sensitivity can often upset them tremendously.

I hope that those who have to deal with applicants will realize that they are often dealing with very sensitive people, people who have had to pluck up tremendous courage to go into a social welfare office. There are chancers admittedly who try to get what they can and the officials have to be tough with them, but the vast majority are honest people who, in their nervousness, and in swallowing their pride are hypersensitive to the way in which they are received. Courtesy and understanding at that point can do a great deal to make people feel better about applying for benefits.

In Britain for instance old-age pensions are called retirement allowances and people do not feel that this is a hangover from the poor-house days but that it is something they need not be ashamed to apply for. It is in the attitude of the Government and in the attitude of the Department that this problem of the sensitivity and the pride of the individual can best be dealt with, the sensitivity and the pride which often make people delay applying for rights to which they are in fact entitled.

I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister, as others have done, to see whether he cannot streamline the administration and eliminate delays. We have had correspondence about the position of pensioners and grantees who are hospitalized and who, when they come out, have to wait months before their allowance or grant is reinstated.

The Minister is acting on that and I hope the inquiry he has ordered will report soon. But apart from that one issue in respect of which I have been dealing privately with the hon. the Minister, the whole question of the time it takes before a pension or a grant is granted is often the cause of endless hardship. By the time a person applies for a pension he is usually in desperate need and that period of one or two or three months before they get the first cash is often an impossible period for them to live through. I am sure there could be some simplication and some cutting of red tape. That will eliminate some of the long delays which take place in the consideration of applications.

Another aspect which I believe could receive some sympathetic consideration is the question of seasonal workers, people who can get work for a month or three months out of the year. Their earnings over those three months do not disqualify them in terms of the means test on an annual basis but they do disqualify them on a monthly basis once it goes over the second month. It is usually over Christmas time that these people look for extra work. They get a job for two or three months and because of it they lose their pension. I believe that where people try to earn a little bit extra to help them over the festive season those earnings should not be taken into consideration for the purposes of the means test. [Time limit.]

I am sorry that hon. members opposite want to lower the debate, which has so far been conducted on a high level, to a party-political level. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) and the hon. member who has just sat down have really lowered the level of the debate by trying to make dirty political capital out of the needs of the old people and the conditions under which they live. I think that is a mean thing to do towards those people. The hon. member for Umbilo complains about the increase being only R1 per month. I readily admit that it is only R1 per month but hon. members should at least be sensible and realize that simultaneously with the R1 increase per month the means test has been considerably relaxed. Nobody can say with any degree of accuracy how many additional pensioners there will be.

May I ask a question? Is the hon. member aware of the fact that those pensioners who receive the maximum pension are not affected by the relaxation of the means test?

I know that, Mr. Chairman, but the fact remains that the relaxation of the means test from R324 to R528 clearly means that there will be a larger number of pensioners. Nobody can estimate with any degree of accuracy at this stage how many additional pensioners there will be. Surely it is ridiculous to say that, apart from that concession, we must still increase the pension by R4 or R5 per month with the result that a huge amount will be involved. That may perhaps mean that the pensions will have to be reduced next year because the expenditure has become too high. The Government has never yet been so stupid as to do anything like that. The Government has done the normal thing by relaxing the means test; in that way there will be many more pensioners. We do not begrudge them that in the least; we have been pleading for it for years. In addition the Government has done what it could by increasing the pensions by R1 per month. Once we know how many more pensioners there will be now that the means test has been relaxed we can decide in future what further increases to grant. Surely that is very clear. I think hon. members are simply making much ado about nothing. One can, of course, never do enough for the pensioners. Everybody always wants more than he is getting at the moment but the Government has to act sensibly and responsibly. The Government cannot do away with the means test, increase pensions and act like an irresponsible child. Both sides of the House have been pleading for years for the means test to be relaxed and the Opposition cannot claim all the credit for themselves today. From 1947 to date—the hon. member has said he is not interested in figures but these statistics are nevertheless important—the means test has been raised by 193 per cent. The relaxation the hon. the Minister has just announced and which will come into operation on 1 October will mean a 63 per cent increase on last year’s figure. In other words 63 per cent more people will qualify for a pension than up to the present. Hon. members act as though that is no concession whatsoever.

There is a further concession. The old-age pensioner buys a piece of ground, builds a house on it, but as soon as that house exceeds a certain value he does not qualify for a pension. We have always maintained that that is wrong because those people cannot eat bricks, they must get a pension. We have now had this wonderful concession about which nobody has so far said a word. Whereas a pensioner could continue to draw the maximum pension even if he owned a house of a value of R2,400 in the past, and he had no other assets, from 1 October 1965 that house can be of a value of R5,600. In other words, a person who has no other income may own a house and live in it of a value of R5,600 and still draw his full pension. Nobody has so far praised the Minister for this. They only criticize. It amounts to this that a person who has no other source of income whatsoever can own a house to the value of R 10,800 and still draw R2 pension per month because his pension is reduced by R2 per month for every R400 by which the value of the house exceeds the amount of R5,600. But the Minister is not lauded for this concession; there is no praise for the fact that people who have seen to it that they have a house to live in in their old age have been met in this way. They are only levelling destructive criticism the whole time.

I want to give the hon. member a few figures before I come to the actual matter I want to raise. The Opposition continually argues that the cost of living has gone up and that the value of money has decreased with the result that the increases in the pensions have been of little consequence. Let us take a few examples. Let us express the position in percentages and see whether there has really been an improvement in the pensions. I am taking the last year the United Party was in power. In 1947 a war veteran received a pension of R120 per annum—£5 per month. At the moment he receives R336 per annum. That is an increase of 180 per cent whereas the cost of living has increased by 71.1 per cent over the same period.

Is the pensioner better off or not? I am asking the hon. member. Since 1947 to date the number of pensioners has increased from 60,000 to 86,500. I am referring to old-age pensioners. The amount paid out has increased from R6,500,000 to R25,700,000. The hon. member says he is not interested in history, but he is not interested in the truth, Mr. Chairman. What is the position in regard to the war veterans? In 1947 there were 13,600 war veterans who received R3,318,000 annually. That number has fluctuated over the past few years. The present position is that there are 23,668 war veterans to whom an amount of R9,283,000 is paid annually. That means that each war veteran has received a 250 per cent increase since 1947 to date while the cost-of-living index figure has risen by 71.1 per cent. [Interjections.] We have relaxed the means test to such an extent that there can be no question of a decline in the value of money. The hon. member should not always criticize adversely. If there is one Department and one Minister which have deserved the praise of the Opposition this year it is this Department and this Minister for the concessions they have made this year. Then we would have placed some value on their criticism in future but because they do not know how to show appreciation we cannot pay any attention to their criticism.

In the last few minutes at my disposal I want to say a few words about the concession announced by the hon. the Minister of Finance in his Budget speech in regard to the protesting citizens (protesterende burgers) in the 1914-5 rebellion.

That is the wrong word.

I also raised this matter last year and asked that these forgotten war veterans should no longer remain forgotten. The Minister of Finance announced in his Budget speech that the position of the 1914-5 rebels would be investigated.

Is Goldreich also a protesting citizen?

If the hon. member wants to compare Jopie Fourie with Goldreich I leave him to the inanities of his mental ability. I raised that matter and the reaction to that speech was that I received letters from all quarters. Here I have a file with 62 letters received from war veterans, former rebels, from all parts of the country in which they state their case and in which they ask that their cases be now given the necessary attention. These people were there, they fought; they believed in an ideal and they fought for it. That ideal has materialized to-day and they were in the front lines in fighting for that ideal. Because I raised this matter there are a few questions which are automatically put to me in those letters to which I have to reply. The first question is what precisely does the announcement made by the Minister of Finance mean, namely, that the matter will be investigated. Does it mean that it has been approved of in principle and that the people will therefore receive a pension or does it mean that a further investigation will be conducted? When can we expect another announcement? The second question to which I should like to have a reply is this: Must those people apply immediately and bring their names to the notice of the Department or will there be an announcement later as to when they must apply? What exactly is the position?

I just want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that these people, who are grateful for the concession, receive a war veterans’ pension at the moment because they were members of the Active Citizens Force before they rebelled and consequently qualify, in that capacity, for the war veterans pension. Many of them are in receipt of an old-age pension because they are old enough and are not disqualified by the means test. The amount involved will not, therefore, be as high as the Minister or the Minister of Finance may perhaps think. In many cases it will only be the difference between the old-age pension and the war veterans’ pension. In other cases they are people who only benefit to-day because in existing circumstances the means test has been relaxed in respect of war veterans over 70 years of age.

The hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) correctly stated that the Government can never do enough for pensioners. I agree with him entirely. We assert that the Government is not doing that. If you look at other countries with a comparable economy, such as Australia, you find that the whole standard of pensions is a different one, and there the objective is to provide a pension which at least will save the pensioner from any hardship in his every-day, normal basic requirements. To compare the situation to-day with 1947-8 is completely wrong, because we are living to-day in times of unprecedented prosperity, and any proportional comparison with the ’30s or ’40s, during which the previous Government was in power, is completely out of perspective in assessing the value of what is being done to-day.

But I would like to make a plea to which, I think, the hon. Minister can give some close and careful attention, and that is for those pensioners who have no homes to live in. One conceded that an effort has been made to meet those people who have been left with a home and who want to retain and maintain that home, and in that respect the ceiling has been lifted after many years of pleading by members on this side of the House. I also know that a number of people are living in what are called old-age homes; I agree with the hon. member for Durban (Point) that we should rather give it a different name, for instance there is a home in Johannesburg which is called a village, with 250 residents, and it is not called an old-age home. But the point is that there are people who have no homes to live in at all, and they number many, many thousands. Those people, unfortunately, have not been able to get into the buildings which are presently being erected for the aged, and all the homes in Johannesburg (of which I know a little bit more than about other parts of the country) have long waiting lists, and despite the fact that there is a coordinating council it is very difficult indeed to meet even a small percentage of the problem that faces us. Now the hon. the Minister has set aside, I think, some R750,000 to enable organizations or interested persons or local authorities to initiate the building of further homes, and he has said, correctly, that this money should be used as soon as possible. But would it not be a useful thing, perhaps, to divert a portion of that money in order to subsidize those pensioners who find themselves in a position where they are obliged in order to have a roof over their heads, to pay more than 20 per cent of their income in rental, and that is a figure that is accepted by the Department of Social Welfare as a reasonable proportion of one’s earnings for rentals. Sir, in a home the usual rental is approximately R4 to R5. That includes light and water, it includes recreation, it includes medical services on the premises, it includes entertainment—it includes a host of things which the average pensioner who does not live under such favourable circumstances, cannot obtain, unless he or she spends money for this purpose. If one takes a pension of R28, which is the maximum, and deducts from that amount 20 per cent, which would be approximately R5 to R6, then there is at least the largest proportion of the pension left to enable that person to fend for himself, also of course under difficulties; but if the Department could provide an additional subsidy for the pensioner specifically to meet the cost of rental, then the aged person will have some chance to meet not only the increasing cost-of-living, but a real gap that exists to-day in the life of those citizens: particularly since, in order to keep pace with the tremendous growth of our country—not only in the social sense but also in the physical sense—buildings are broken down in every city and town, almost every village in this country, to make room for new and better projects. The people who suffer as a result are the people in the pension class, because they cannot meet the new rentals which they are obliged to pay when they leave premises where they have been protected by rent control and where they had to some extent been able to build a little nest for themselves at a fairly moderate rental. I make a strong plea on behalf of those persons because I see no means of meeting that situation. The cost of building is going up and we cannot build homes at a sufficient pace to meet the demand, and secondly, there is not sufficient money to meet this demand. Sir, I do believe that in order to take the burden off the voluntary bodies which are making a great effort in the direction of assisting those people, the State should step in and maintain the dignity of the aged person, particularly with regard to that important question of privacy, which he or she can enjoy only by being in some accommodation which is specifically his own.

The other matter of criticism is this Question of the incentive to persons to continue working, and I wonder whether the date in 1966 should not be altered. We are living in an era in South Africa to-day where the manpower problem is of a very severe nature, and I think we should do something better than what has been suggested, something which would be a greater encouragement to a person to continue working. Already there is talk of bringing the retirement age specifically to the age of 65, and it is quite on the cards that even that particular period may be extended because of the advance of medicine, and South Africa could well use that manpower and is in dire need of that manpower. I think in that direction the State could play a bigger part and improve the situation. It is rather extraordinary to find that we are living in an era of prosperity in our country where an assessment of R 110,000,000 as a surplus can almost within a fortnight suddenly jump by R32,000,000 to R 142,000,000, and the Minister of Finance says that even this is not the last word, that we have not yet got the final picture before us. We might well finish up with a final picture of somewhere in the region of R 150,000,000, may be R 160,000,000. When you live in times like this surely we can drop any sense of being afraid of the possibility that because we make a concession which is sound and essential, we might be met with a slightly larger bill when we have to meet our commitments in the following year! I think that that is a very poor argument indeed that the hon. member for Randfontein used, that one cannot assess now what the additional number of pensioners will be in a year’s time. Sir, he has quoted statistics. You can do anything with statistics. But we do know from statistics, and we have some very good ones in regard to the longevity of the citizens of our country, and we can assess more or less by experience what the increase will be annually.

What about the income?

There are means of assessing it and one need not have the cold feet that is shown when we find that a surplus jumos in a fortnight from R 110,000,000 to R142,000,000. I defy hon. members to tell me of any other country where you find a comparable situation. [Time limit.]

I rise in the first place because I should like to have it on record that the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) has made the allegation this afternoon that the Rebels (I refer to them as that because that is an honourable name) must be placed on the same footing as a Goldreich and a Wolpe.

It is not true and you know it. I asked whether he was also regarded as a protesting citizen.

He wants to place them on the same footing; I protest against that; I say it is scandalous!

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say, “It is not true and you know it”?

Mr. Chairman, I did not make that comparison.

Order! Did the hon. member say it is not true and that the hon. member knows it is not true?

Yes.

Then the hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Sir.

I say it is a stigma which he is trying to attach …

On a point of order, the hon. member for Durban (Point) said he denied that he said it and the hon. member must accept his word. It was said in this House.

Of what is the hon. member for Heilbron accusing the hon. member for Durban (Point)?

That he said they could be placed on the same footing as a Wolpe and a Goldreich.

On a point of order, I did not say that.

In that case the hon. member may not continue with it.

In that case we shall continue the debate outside this House as far as that point is concerned, Sir. I invite the hon. member to come to the Free State.

I want to go a little deeper into that matter, Sir, because there are many rebels, protesting citizens—I prefer calling them rebels because they were rebels in 1914; they fought for an ideal which has become a reality today and I on this side of the House am proud of what they did and of the fact that I am here to-day as a result of the struggle they waged.

Those who win are heroes and those who lose …

After the Budget speech of the Minister of Finance some of those citizens got in touch with me. They want to know whether they will get it as from this year. The hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) referred to the fact that the matter was going to be investigated or he wanted to know whether it was going to be investigated. I took it that it had been accepted in principle and I trust it has indeed been approved of in principle.

Yes, it has been.

Then I am quite satisfied as far as this point is concerned.

Then I want to break a lance for another small group of people who have remained forgotten, namely, the women who were in the concentration camps during the three-year war, and who are not treated as war veterans. Very few of them are left but they are women who, I think, may not be forgotten. Their position should also be considered and I should like to plead their cause this afternoon. They have made as big a contribution as that made by the men. The husbands of many have died but they are still alive. They have been through a hard struggle and that is why I want to plead for those women who were in the concentration camps during the three-year war.

It is not customary for me to get up and always to thank a Minister but I do want to express my gratitude to the Government for the concession made this year to the old-age pensioners. As the hon. member for Randfontein has clearly indicated the concession amounts to much more than R1 per month because there has been a concession in respect of house ownership, for example—something for which we have been pleading for years— so that when a person has saved money during his lifetime and acquired a little home in which to live that thriftiness on his part is not debited against him in later life in that he is unable to qualify for an old-age pension as a result. We have pleaded for this to be changed and the concession made by the Minister in the Budget in that respect is a major one because they can now receive a pension. That is a very big improvement.

When did you ever plead for that?

I think I pleaded for that before that hon. member became a member of this House. As far as that is concerned that hon. member is still a chicken in this House. That is a very great concession and I want to associate myself with the argument advanced by the hon. member for Randfontein that it should be stressed that the hon. the Minister could not go any further this year than the R1 per month because the Minister does not know how many additional pensioners there will be, but it will be an extremely large number. The argument advanced by the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) has no substance in it. You can calculate from the statistics available how many people there will be next year of 60 years of age or over but you cannot say how many of those people of 60 years of age or over will fall within that income group. That cannot be calculated and that is the difficulty the Minister faces. That is a factor which can have an important influence on the Budget. That is why it simply cannot be done.

I really want to raise a matter other than pensions and that is the welfare of the youth of the country who are in need of care. I do not know what other steps can be taken but I know there is a serious shortage of welfare workers in this country. I think it is very important that the youth in our cities be cared for. I do not want the position to develop in South Africa which is developing in Great Britain, for example, namely, where the youngsters, also those who belong to well-to-do families, are degenerating, deteriorating and falling prey to the new revolution in the lives of youngsters. You have the ducktail movement, for example, and the Beatle movement. The ducktail movement has taken root throughout the world, but particularly in the Western world and in Great Britain. It affects the lives of all the youngsters, also those of well-to-do parents and I think jit should be nipped in the bud. At the moment a, certain section of our youth are exposed to that danger because their parents do not look after them perhaps because the parents live in flats or because they themselves are in need of care. But the youngsters are beginning to grow up and this movement is assuming greater proportions in the country. It also affects the children of well-to-do parents. This is a matter which calls for urgent attention. In this connection action should be taken even in conjunction with the educational authorities in the country. Social Welfare will have to join forces with the educational authorities sooner or later so that control can be exercised over our youth. Efforts should be made to uplift all our youngsters so that their future can be ensured. I want to plead for it that more social welfare work be done in this connection. There is a great and urgent shortage of welfare workers as far as that is concerned in the cities. They can practically only attend to those cases which land in court. There are many cases which do not land in court but which are also in need of care and I want to plead that attention be given to them as well.

1

The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) seems satisfied that perhaps the Government is justified in the amount of the increase granted to social pensioners. He quoted the amount of R1 a month, which is the increase granted to our White social pensioners. Sir, when one reflects on the announcement made during the Budget debate, and knowing that the hon. member for Heilbron is a Native Affairs Commissioner, it appears that he is easily satisfied in awarding pensions or allowances to the old people. We know that any increase that is granted to the White social pensioners is then taken on a ratio basis of 4:2:1 and that the Coloureds and Indians will therefore receive a half of what the White social pensioner is to receive as an increase. The hon. member for Heilbron is apparently quite satisfied with these increases, because with his interest in the affairs of the Bantu people, the Government saw fit to reduce the amount of pensions paid to Bantu residing in the cities. So in actual fact, with his interest in the affairs of the older people and his interest in the affairs of the Bantu people he could perhaps give us some indication as to the reasons why he expresses his satisfaction with the position. In actual fact the Bantu pensioners in the cities receive R47.40 per annum, and in terms of the Budget announcement, future Bantu living in the city areas will only receive R44.40 per annum. So in actual fact the hon. member is in favour of reducing the amount of pension paid to pensioners.

The hon. member also dealt with matters pertaining to the 1914 rebels, and the hon. member for Randfontein also dealt with this matter, and it will be interesting to hear the hon. Minister’s reply to the question that have been put to him, because there are other people who are also interested in this evident concession that-is to be made to a certain; group of persons. The Minister of Finance in his Budget speech did not say that; the principle had been accepted. He merely stated that the matter, was being investigated and that immediate attention would be given to this matter. He did. not indicate whether it was the Government’s policy to, in fact, accept the position. I mention this point, Mr. Chairman, because I believe that there is also another small group of persons who should receive some consideration from the Government. Representations, I know, were made to the Minister concerning persons who took part and who served the Natal military authorities in the Zulu rebellion of 1906.

Here is another group of persons who answered the call in serving in the Zulu rebellion of 1906, and there are a certain number of these people who for various reasons were not able to serve in any subsequent wars and therefore are not classified as war veterans in terms of the War Veterans Pensions Act of 1962. I know that there is not a large number of these people involved, but certain of these people were able to attest and to serve their country in subsequent wars, such as the 1914-8 war. However, there is a small number of persons who rendered full-time military service to the Natal military authorities during the Zulu rebellion of 1906, and therefore have asked that the hon. Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions as a matter of policy should also take into account this group of persons who in terms of the definition of “war veteran” in the Act of 1962 are not included. The other aspect, dealing with the military pensioners, is one which shows that with the relaxation of the means test, in actual fact the older war veterans will not receive any further consideration as far as the assets permitted are concerned. With the consolidation of the allowances into the basic pensions, it will have the effect of raising the ceiling for those war veterans over 70 years of age, but the White Paper that was tabled in the House made it quite clear that as far as the free assets permitted were concerned, apparently the war veteran over 70 years of age will not receive any concessions in that regard.

I mentioned earlier the difficulties that are being experienced by welfare organizations. The hon. Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions is well aware of the important task performed by these organizations and the services they render in the interest of welfare in South Africa. Indeed these people who are rendering these services, are finding it increasingly difficult to carry the increasing burden they have to carry and not only am I referring to welfare organizations which are caring for the aged, but also the welfare organizations that care for the other numerous aspects of welfare, such as child welfare and other fields of welfare work. Sir, it is interesting to note that in the United States of America, which cannot be described as a welfare state or a socialistic state in any way, the welfare Organizations find that it is to their advantage to take the benefit of a 100 per cent subsidy for all their qualified social workers. It often happens that these qualified social workers prefer to work for a welfare organization or a welfare society where they can specialize in a particular aspect of welfare work in which they are particularly interested. It also means that in many instances they can settle down in an area without the fear of being transferred to some other part of the Republic if they are in the employ of the State Department. Therefore it is found that these organizations have to devote a good deal of their time in raising funds towards the salaries of these qualified workers.

I know that the hon. Minister has taken into account this aspect. He does allow subsidization on a certain basis to these welfare organizations, but they do not receive 100 per cent subsidy in respect of the salaries of these qualified social workers, and I believe that the hon. Minister could perhaps make further investigations to see whether it is not possible to take this particular step. Because these welfare organizations, and I refer particularly to child welfare societies, are having to carry an enormous case load and it means that the service they provide to the public in some way suffers, and many of these organizations are short-staffed; but the reason that they are short-staffed is not so much that they are unable to obtain the necessary qualified persons, but their organization is not able to continue which the increased cost of keeping these qualified workers in employment and the drain on the resources of their organization. The large child welfare societies which are carrying out very important field work for the rehabilitation of families and to foster family life, find that with the increasing number of case loads that has to be carried by the qualified social workers, they are unable to render a more efficient service in the field of welfare work.

Now the other aspect on which the Minister should give some information is in regard to attendance centres which we believe is an important way of carrying out preventive work as far as juvenile delinquency is concerned, but there is only R 1,000 placed on the Estimates for this work. On a previous occasion, in reply to questions, the hon. the Minister stated that these attendance centres are in operation in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Therefore it is rather disappointing that a larger sum has not been provided in the Estimates. The principle involved in these attendance centres is in. line with modern trends throughout the world, where they find that the preventive work that can be done at these centres is invaluable in preventing young persons from becoming deviates and possibly developing into juvenile delinquents or criminals. If the work of these centres can be intensified, and the centres can be extended to all the cities and larger centres, it might result in carrying out this preventive work. [Time limit.]

I have only a few minutes at my disposal and I want to be very brief. On Friday and to-day a great deal was said about pensions for people who have rendered service to the State and persons who served in the wars, but I want to express a few thoughts in regard to our youth who will have to render these services in the future. I want to discuss the question of child care and, more specifically, the question of crèches. We are aware of the fact that various requests have been made to the hon. the Minister in the recent past to appoint a commission of inquiry into the possibility of the establishment and control of crèches by the State. It is said that there are about 300,000 working mothers and that 100,000 of them have children of school-going age and younger than schoolgoing age. It so happens that those small children who do not as yet attend nursery school can be placed in crèches, but many of them are not given that privilege. They simply remain at home under the supervision of other members of the family or of attendants and in most cases these attendants are non-Whites. In the Northern Provinces a good 50 per cent or 60 per cent of these children are under the supervision of non-Whites who assist in the care and even education of these children. This is a very unhealthy state of affairs. We are all aware of the extremely important part played by the working mothers in combating our manpower shortage but we must also remember that their children may not be neglected. There are a number of Departments and other bodies as well which arrange matters in such a way that the working mother works only in the morning so that she can be home in the afternoon, on the one hand, to enable her to care for her children who do not as yet attend school and, on the other hand, to assist the children who do attend school and to ensure that they do not wander about the streets. I am informed that there are 176 private organizations or persons controlling crèches. Under sub-head “L” the item “Crèches”, I find the amount of R9,000, and I notice that this amount has remained constant. In 1964-5 the amount was R9,000 and this year the amount is the same. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this amount represents a subsidy, and if so, how many crèches are subsidized? Is there any basis or condition on which the subsidy is granted at present? I should also like to know whether a report or annual statement is required from the organization or body to which the subsidy is given. Lastly, I should like to ask whether additional requests have been received in connection with these subsidies and, if so, whether those requests cannot also be complied with?

I want to start at the end. The hon. member who has just sat down referred to crèches. Those crèches make provision for the children of working mothers or mothers who seek work. There are approximately 400 children in these subsidized crèches. There are ten such crèches. The subsidy which is payable is prescribed in the regulations under the Children’s Act. The subsidy is 20 cents per day for a White child, 50 per cent of the actual rental for the building and, in approved cases, a grant not exceeding R5,000 on the rand-for-rand basis. The per capita subsidy is only paid in respect of children whose parents have a joint income not exceeding R120 per month. If their income exceeds that figure the subsidy is not paid, because otherwise the parents will go to tea parties while their children are looked after in crèches.

The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) has raised some further points to which I want to reply in connection with the difficulties connected with the subsidization of welfare organizations. We cannot subsidize these organizations themselves, but we subsidize the salaries of social workers in the employ of these organizations, and we have considerably increased the subsidies. In doing so, we also raise the status of the social workers, and I think they are doing very good work. It is essential that we enable these organizations to maintain the standard of their work. I may say that an inter-departmental committee has been appointed this year to deal with juvenile delinquency. The hon. member for Heilbron also spoke about it. This matter is therefore receiving attention; as I have said here before it is done through our field services. We make a survey every year to see how things stand. We want to know to what extent there is maladjustment or delinquency amongst our youth and whether there are certain social problems which require attention. Our branch and regional offices constantly keep an eye on those things, and the regional officers submit their reports to me when I meet them in Pretoria. When there is the slightest sign of developments which are detrimental to the youth, we give our attention to them immediately. Some time ago the reports indicated that there was a wave of juvenile maladjustment. These things come along in waves; to-day it is ducktails and to-morrow it is something else again. When those things manifest themselves we are aware of them and we take the necessary steps.

The hon. member for Umbilo also raised the position of the 1914 protesting citizens. Let me say at once that I feel very strongly that those citizens should be given a pension. There are not many of them left. I myself was involved in the 1914 disturbance. Some of these people are already receiving the war veteran’s pension and there are others who are receiving the old-age pension. I could mention numbers of cases, which are within my personal knowledge, where people served in the Government forces and thereafter joined the protesting citizens and subsequently rejoined the Government forces for service in the campaigns in South West Africa and East Africa. We should regard these people as an entity. I want to put the position as the hon. the Minister of Finance did. He said—

As I said, there are many of them who were under arms first on the one side and then on the other.

Why are they called “the so-called rebels”?

Some people like the name. My late father was a Member of Parliament when Parliament voted in favour of participation in the war in 1914. He voted against it. To this day I still have in my possession his appointment as a general in the field; it is a document which is very precious to me. It states that he is appointed as assistant commandant-general of the protesting citizens. That is why I like that term. Quite a few of these protesting citizens are already receiving war veterans’ pensions because of their service in other wars. The Minister of Finance went on to say—

It is receiving attention at the present moment. Sir, I listened to the representations of the hon. member for Brits (Mr. J. E. Potgieter). I just want to say that even if he makes his representations almost at the speed of greased lightning, the hon. member for Brits has just as much right as any other member to make representations in this House. I have never denied any member the right to plead any cause. I shall go into his representations. Hon. members will understand that in the case of a Department such as this with such very wide ramifications it is extremely difficult for me to say immediately that I am prepared to do this, that or the other, but I shall give my attention to the representations which have come from all sides of the House.

To the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) I want to say that it will not be possible to subsidize the rentals paid by these people. The hon. member for Constantia once said that there were two rules which always applied: “Is it just?” and “Will it work?” Well, this thing will not work. These people may hire a small room for one month perhaps and then they hire a room elsewhere again. It would involve enormous administrative costs to subsidize the rentals of these people. Practically and administratively therefore it is impossible to pay a higher pension to people who have to pay rental. These old people cannot always work things out for themselves. If you give them more the landlords may tell them that they have to pay a higher rental. I am sorry but the proposal is impracticable.

I want to say to the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) that he was entirely wrong when he said this afternoon with much ado that he was not interested in figures. This is the very place where one must be interested in figures. He says that he is not interested in what happened in 1948 or in the intervening years; that the only thing in which he is interested is what should be done to-day, according to his opinion. What right has the hon. member to arrogate the authority to himself to say whether a thing is right or whether it is not right? The hon. member is wrong in his approach. He is entitled to say that the concessions which have been made since 1948 are not enough, but he says that he takes no interest in them. He is only interested in grievances that he can exploit. That is the wrong approach. The hon. member also brought certain other matters to my attention. I will go into them. He talked about “senior citizens”. The hon. member does not know whether that is a term with which these people will be satisfied. We have always talked about the aged; it is an honourable term and I have never heard any objection to it. Many of these old people would object if you were to tell them that they are now going to be called “senior citizens”. It is a very easy thing to make such a suggestion here but it is quite a different matter to apply it outside. I do not think that the English term “the aged” is a term which is not treated with respect. I have never heard anybody say that the term “homes for the aged” is an ugly term. Much water will still have to flow under the bridges before our aged will want to become known as “senior citizens”.

The hon. member for Point also referred to the seasonal workers. That matter was rectified as far back as 1963. The seasonal worker’s income for the month is spread over a period of a year. That position was rectified in 1963. His income for the month is spread over the year, and as soon as such a person stops doing seasonal work his pension is restored to him, but his earnings over the period during which he worked are spread over the whole year, and the result of this is that he is not affected very detrimentally.

But is the position not that the pension is stopped while he works?

Yes, but it is restored as soon as he stops doing seasonal work.

I just want to say again that I think generally speaking we have had a debate here in which everybody has had the opportunity to state his point of view. I just want to say to hon. members that if there are other matters which they still want to bring to my notice they may do so and I will give my attention to them and do as much as I possibly can.

Vote put and agreed to.

On, Revenue Vote No, 15,—“Interior”,, R1,793,000,

I want to start this discussion by referring to a question which was asked by the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) in the beginning of this month on the question of naturalization of certain immigrants and the cost of it, and whether there have been any alterations in the rules concerning naturalization., The Minister gave a very full, reply and he dealt with a number of matters in respect of naturalization. He told us that immigrants from any part of Africa, by reason of their approximate knowledge of the Continent, were to be allowed to become naturalized after 12 months. He told us that the old fees for becoming naturalized had been abolished, and that the fee now was only, I think, R1.35, and he dealt with other classes of persons and the conditions under which they could apply for naturalization. Those classes of persons, in so far as the Minister dealt with them, were fairly numerous, and I do not think it was possible for him in his answer to deal with all those classes. My point is this. I want to ask the Minister whether he does not think the time has come to review the whole policy in regard to naturalization and to streamline and to simplify it to conform as far as possible to the present-day needs and the policy of immigration which, as the Minister will agree, is more than just getting workers into the country. The policy of immigration to-day, as adumbrated by the Government and supported by us, is to get into the country people and to build up new South Africans, people who identify themselves with our country and its problems and who will pull their weight in helping to solve those problems. At present I do not know the figure—the Minister may be able to tell us—but I would say that there are probably between 300,000 and 400,000 aliens living in the country with permits for permanent residence. If the Minister can give me a more accurate figure I shall be very glad, because this is an important matter. Whatever the figure is, these aliens, wherever they come from, owe no allegiance to the State. They are not liable to render any service to the State, like military service. They cannot play their part in the various aspects of the public life of the country in which they are living, and in our particular circumstances it seems to me very undesirable that we should have such a large number of people who are not actually full citizens of the country, especially as most of them stay here, and I suppose the greater number of them have children who are growing up here and are becoming assimilated in our population, and who in many respects, from our point of view, are more important than the parents themselves. These young immigrants will be important to us in the years to come. I cannot see, now that the Minister has taken this step, which I am not criticizing, of by regulation easing the steps by which immigrants from the north can seek naturalization, why they should be regarded as being intrinsically more desirable than those immigrants from elsewhere. After all, a great number of them are refugees; a great number of them are coming here not because they want to come here but because conditions in the countries in which they were had become so unfavourable that they sought refuge here. They may become good South Africans and one hopes they will; whereas the immigrants who are coming from abroad are all screened by our own officers abroad; they are all certified as being of good character and as persons who want to come here and who want to join us, and I want to suggest, since it is quite likely in my opinion that the question of immigrants from the north has been considered, that the time has come when the whole question of making it easier and of encouraging immigrants to become South African citizens as soon as possible should be reviewed and simplified and streamlined. By reducing the fees the hon. the Minister has made it much simpler because that undoubtedly has deterred a lot of people in the past from applying for citizenship. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that when a man has been carefully screened, when he has come here and brought his family here, when he has got permanent employment and has shown that he is a steady asset to the country, in these days when we are needing every man we can get to identify himself with this country and to help us to overcome our problems, and to play his full part as a citizen of the country, I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that in principle five years is too long a period to make him wait before he can apply to become a permanent citizen of the country and enjoy the privileges and also accept the responsibilities of that citizenship.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether the whole matter could not be simplified. If a man has been screened overseas he presumably gets a permit for permanent residence either before he gets here or as soon as he gets here. He very often comes here subsidized by the Government, so presumably he either has a permit or is entitled to get a permit for permanent residence as soon as he gets here, which means that superficially at any rate he has been accepted by the Government as a man who on the face of it is a potential permanent settler. If that is so, then I suggest that there is no reason why a man, after he has had permanent residence here for 12 months, and provided he has a good report, should not be allowed to apply for naturalization. I think a period of 12 months to two years would be quite sufficient because after all the man’s background was examined before he came here. There is already provision that if a man becomes fully bilingual, the present period of five years can be reduced by one year. Well, if a settler comes here from Germany or Greece or any other country, if he is sufficiently serious-minded to get down to it and to learn both official languages and to become proficient in both languages, I should have thought that that is sufficient proof that he is anxious to become a South African citizen, and I think a period of four years is too long. I think once he has passed the language tests he should be allowed to become a South African citizen. After all, if he misbehaves himself, the hon. the Minister can always cancel his naturalization certificate. It is not something which is irrevocable. But 99. per cent of them, as you know, stay here and become part and parcel of our community. [Time limit.]

I think the hon. the Minister will probably give his attention to the matter which has just been raised by the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) but I want to warn against one thing and that is that we must guard against making South African citizenship too cheap. If a person has been in the country for only five years, particularly a country of vast distances such as South Africa, with so many different facets of society, then in my opinion he scarcely knows the country. In dealing with a thing Of this kind one should not try to ripen it prematurely; it should ripen by itself.

I know many people who have become excellent South Africans, judging by their way of life, and who have qualified long ago to become citizens but who have not yet applied for citizenship. People are not over-anxious to become citizens of another country. I think it is a very important step for a person to move from one country to another and to renounce his old country entirely; it is expecting a great deal of such a person. I feel that we should be careful with the granting of South African citizenship because there is always the danger that some people will try to become citizens with the sole object of getting out of certain difficulties. I hope that the hon. the Minister will consider the matter raised by the hon. member but that he will not go too far and make it too easy to acquire citizenship.

Then I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will not see to it that other Departments apply the Population Registration Act properly. I have in mind the Receiver of Revenue, for example. When the then Bill was introduced here at the time by the present Minister of Finance, one of his main arguments was that we should have the population register because it would enable him to catch out people who were evading income tax. But the Commissioner of Inland Revenue still does not use people’s identity numbers in applying the Income Tax Act and other laws administered by him. Then you have a semi-State Department like the Broadcasting Corporation, for example. Why cannot the Broadcasting Corporation have the identity number of every licensee? The identity number could also serve as a means of race classification; it indicates to which race the person concerned belongs.

What is the object of it?

The object of it is to see to it that there are no duplications. One continually comes across duplications. I had a case the other day, for example, of a person whose income tax assessment was twice as much as his total annual income because his name had been confused with that of another person.

What a Government!

The assessment was not made by the Government; that assessment was done by a young United Party supporter!

That brings me to another matter, and that is that municipalities, particularly the municipality of Pretoria, for example, make use of identity numbers in connection with water and light bills. They have offered to notify the electoral office every month of all changes of address or as a matter of fact from day to day as the notifications of changes of address reach them. They simply make an extra copy of the receipt, which bears the identity number of the person concerned and particulars of his new address. The electoral office can then follow up the matter immediately; they can trace the person’s new address and register it. Sir, this was one of the recommendations of the Postal Vote Commission. One of our terms of reference was the question of registration of voters and we recommended that we should make use of that sort of machinery. I understand that the municipality of Johannesburg is also considering the question of introducing identity numbers in connection with water and light bills. Johannesburg is very anxious to furnish that information to the electoral office so that they will be able to register changes of address. The Electoral Laws provide that the electoral offices must register changes of address but for this purpose they need the identity number, otherwise they do not know whether it is a White voter or a non-White voter and where he is qualified to vote. If, however, they have the identity number they can immediately follow up the information given to them. I feel that special attention should be given to the recommendation of the Postal Vote Commission in this regard. The Broadcasting Corporation and the Department of Posts informed us that all they needed to be able to let the Minister know all changes of address from month to month was six typists—junior typists, if necessary—one for every regional office. They deal with 1,200,000 licensees and they are notified of many changes of address. They could forward details of such changes of address to the Minister every month, and those persons could then be re-registered under tbe Electoral Act as it now stands. I feel that if this was done effectively we would hardly need such a thine as a general registration in the future. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to give special attention to this matter. This matter can be further facilitated by an administrative change, which may perhaps be somewhat radical. I am thinking here of the supplementary voters’ rolls that we had in connection with the recent provincial election.

When one looks at the number of duplications which occur on those lists, the number of names struck off the rolls during just these few months, one realizes that the time has come when we ought to consider whether the drawing up of voters’ rolls should not be centralized, so that in the case of every application that is submitted it can be checked at one central place to determine where the person is registered so that his name can then be removed from one roll and placed on another. My experience in the recent provincial election was that there were duplications throughout the country, duplications which one simply cannot eliminate under the present system under which we have numbers of regional offices. The regional offices can be retained to see to it that voters qualify within the specified dates and to do certain other work but I think the drawing up of the lists should be co-ordinated in one central office. I am not suggesting that this should be done to-day or in the immediate future, but it will greatly facilitate our task in the long run and I hope that the hon. the Minister will give his serious attention to this.

I want to raise the question of race classifications under this Vote, the details of which appear under the heading “population register” on page 61 of the Estimates. Sir, during the recess the hon. the Minister and I had a very interesting correspondence relative to the application of the Population Registration Act and Section II in particular. On 9 October last year I asked the hon. the Minister, by letter, for a ruling on his application of Section II and whether my interpretation and that of senior counsel, whom I had taken the trouble to consult, was correct, namely, that the only really operative portion of Section II, as the Government is handling these matters at the present time, is that portion dealing with the 30-days proviso, i.e. giving people 30 days in which to lodge a formal objection to their classification, and not the 12 months’ discretionary period given to the Minister. I asked the hon. the Minister in writing for a ruling on that particular issue. I asked for a ruling because it was quite apparent, and it remains quite apparent to many of as on this side of the House that many hundreds of people in this country have in fact been prevented from having their cases heard by a classification appeal board because of the way this matter has been handled. They have been prevented, firstly, on the technicality of the 30-day proviso and, secondly, because their cases have never been referred to the hon. the Minister in order to give him an opportunity, which is given him in terms of the Act, to exercise his discretion over a 12 months’ period, if the circumstances in any case warrant it. These cases, where an objection has been lodged, whether formally or otherwise—I repeat, whether formally or otherwise—have for the most part been handled and summarily dismissed on the 30-day objection proviso by officials of the Minister’s Department and by no one else. Sir, on 3 November last year I received a reply to my request for a ruling from the hon. the Minister, a reply which confirmed exactly what I have just said, namely that generally he has not been attempting to exercise his discretion in this matter at all. I would like to quote to the Committee one paragraph of the hon. the Minister’s reply to me, a paragraph which makes this position perfectly clear. This is a letter from the Minister written on 3 November last year in which he says—

I want hon. members to listen very carefully to this next part—

Sir, that to me is a very dangerous and a very damaging admission on the part of the hon. the Minister. Because of that letter, at the start of the Session I had a series of questions on the Order Paper. There are four questions which seemed to me to be of interest to the general public in this regard. The first question which I asked the hon. the Minister on 29 January was whether any objections were not referred to him because the objectors failed to advance grounds for applying for a condonation of the late lodging of the objection —that is to say, after the expiration of 30 days—and, may I say, even where considerable correspondence had changed hands. I referred, of course, to people who had sent back identity cards, as has happened in hundreds and hundreds of cases, refusing to accent them after the 30-day period but within the 12-months discretionary period allowed to the Minister, people who clearly had no idea of the legal procedure involved in lodging a formal objection. The hon. the Minister’s reply to me was—

Well, if the hon. the Minister can have those cases referred to him in terms of his discretionary powers under Section II from the end of last year onwards, I would like to know why that has not been taking place from the start; why these people have not had the benefit of the doubt, because I have no doubt that the Minister’s instruction was given as a direct result of the correspondence that took place between us. Sir, arising out of this new decision given by the Minister—because it is a new decision—in the interpretation of the Act —I asked the hon. the Minister another question; I asked the Minister whether he would direct his Department to refer to him all objections already made within the one-year period and not referred to him for his discretion, and, if not, why not, meaning all those who had not received this consideration from the Minister in past years which he is prepared to give them now. The reply which I got from the hon. the Minister was—

and then there follows an invitation to me to submit any individual cases for his personal consideration. In other words, the fact of the matter is that until the end of last year hundreds of cases—there is no question about it —there are lots of hon. members on this side who have had to deal with this matter—were never referred to the Minister by the Department at all as the law demands; they were not even given the option of having the Minister exercise his discretion. Sir, in order to prevent this type of thing happening again I asked a third question. I asked the Minister whether he would direct his Department to inform potential objectors to race classifications that reasons for objection must be submitted before an application for condonation would be considered and, if not, why not? Sir, it should be clear to everybody in this House and to the Minister most of all that we are dealing with very simple people with regard to these cases, people who have little or no knowledge of the law as it stands and who cannot be expected to have such knowledge. The hon. the Minister’s reply to me was—

Sir, I lay emphasis upon the words “in future”; in other words, it is a tacit admission by the hon. the Minister that until the end of last year this was never done. I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister what the explanation is, because all these hundreds of people, who were quite unaware of the intricacies of this legislation, were not given the option of the Minister’s discretion. They are only now being told that they can receive it, and we had been led to believe by the hon. the Minister that all sorts of kindness had been meted out to these people. It was nothing of the kind. It was simply that he failed to carry out the letter of the law as it stands. Many people suffered as a result of this, and I know that because I have a whole basket full of these cases, as the hon. the Minister knows; he must be tired of receiving letters from some of us. On 29 January I asked the hon. the Minister in this House whether his Department ever notified recipients of identity cards of the time limit laid down in the Act for objections and, if not, why not? Surely, Sir, one of the easiest things in the whole world, when this Act Was passed and when the cards were sent out to people would have been to include in the envelope a little roneod notice saying, “Notice is hereby given that if you have any formal objection, on the receipt of this card, to your classification, the following procedure must be followed”. But no notice of any kind has been given to any of these people and the Minister’s reply to me in this House was—

Sir, does the hon. the Minister think that everyone in South Africa goes about clutching the Government Gazette in order to make sure of all the fantastic provisions governing our lives in South Africa to-day? Sir, the conclusions to be drawn from all this are quite clear, and the first conclusion is that hundreds of innocent people, generally unaware of the 30-day objection provision, have not been given the option of having their cases referred to the Minister for the exercise of his discretion. [Time limit.]

I do not want to follow the hon. member although it appears to me that her objection as far as the hon. the Minister is concerned is that the hon. the Minister has not yet made sufficient concessions …

I am not finished yet.

I should like to make use of this opportunity to say a few words about the Republic Festival of 1966 for which a first provision is being made, and I want to make use of the opportunity to put forward the suggestion that, if possible, we should not be content as far as our festival is. concerned simply to talk a great deal and to make much ado about it but that we should erect a few symbolical and physical structures which will commemorate our Republic in a practical way. This is of course a matter which cannot be given effect to by the Committee but which can be initiated by the Committee. I want to put two matters to the hon. the Minister. We have in the immediate vicinity of this House an open space which is not being utilized to the full. I am referring to Stal Plein and the parliamentary parking area next to the old Good Hope Theatre, which is now a storeroom. This is the heartland of South Africa; this is where our parliamentary buildings stand, the oldest democractic parliamentary institution in the Republic. Next to the theatre stands the President’s residence which before it was remodeled in the British Georgian style, was one of the most beautiful of our old Cape Dutch buildings, the oldest State building. We have the old Good Hope Theatre which is one of our oldest cultural institutions, and the State has now purchased the eastern block for what will probably be an imaginative development of State buildings. Can we not transform this space by means of a global plan into one of the most magnificent squares in the world so that visitors to South Africa will disembark at Cape Town and come to see Republic Square, a modern triumph of architecture erected to commemorate the fifth year of the existence of the Republic of South Africa? Can we not make one integrated complex of the remaining portions of our company garden where the first roots and stronghold of civilization were established? Let us convert the President’s residence and the Good Hope Theatre into a dignified cultural centre, and, in the replanning of this square, let us make provision for a parking lot which will also result in their being adequate parking space for Members of Parliament and for officials and the staff of Parliament. Let us plan something big to commemorate this Republic, not simply a small fountain or something similar, but something for which we need the imagination and vision of our best architects. Let us have co-operation between the State architects and private architects so that we will have something for which Cape Town will be renowned and famous, just as in the case of Brazil in the architectural world to-day. Let our Republic, which is not yet a tradition here in the Cape, become a visible reality for the future by means Of a great artistic and physical structure in the heart of the Mother City.

Will it be for Whites only?

In suggesting a physical symbol of our Republic here in Cape Town, I should also like to suggest that this Committee should give consideration to the establishment of something great and dignified in Pretoria. We in South Africa lack a great street, a Champs Elysees, a street along which the traffic can pass majestically, a street near to or along which can be commemorated the great happenings in our national life. Church Street runs next to the President’s gardens for some distance, and these gardens are unused and undeveloped. There is therefore space for the building of a six or eight-lane free-way, in the middle of which a start can be made on our Heroes’ Avenue along which statuary commemorating memorable figures in our history can be placed in a dignified manner. I ask the hon. the Minister to consult with this Committee which he has appointed to plan the Republic. Festival in order to give effect to these and perhaps other cultural and artistic ideas so that the initiative can be taken, as part of our Republic Festival, in breaking new ground and for the realization, to a large extent, of these glorious and fine things which will symbolize our Republic.

I want to support the plea made by the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) in regard to the conditions under and the time within which citizens to South Africa acquire citizenship. While one cannot deal with immigration under this Vote I think it must be a matter of considerable importance to the Minister of Immigration if some arrangement could be arrived at along the lines advocated by my hon. friend.

I know it was suggested two years ago that people from up North should be treated on a favourite nation basis, in regard to citizenship and other matters. The hon. Minister of Immigration will probably remember that that idea received no comfort from him. Notwithstanding that, however, the Government has changed its policy subsequently. In this connection I should like to ask the hon. the Minister of the Interior to view with a very open mind the real benefit accuring to South Africa if we were to take a completely fresh look at the immigrants who come from overseas through the ordinary channels or immigrants who have expressed the desire to settle in the Republic and become South African citizens. I want to emphasize the point that the people who so come to us have indicated that they want to be South Africans. They have also passed a screening test. In the main the people who come from Central Africa— we welcome them—are not people who have come here of their own volition and free will, as the hon. member for Constantia has said, because they want to make South Africa their home, in contradistinction to those who come from overseas. I do not believe that we can continue to give indefinite permanent residence to people who have indicated that they are coming to South Africa with a view to permanent residence here if they do not take out South African citizenship. The position, as far as these people are concerned, is that if they come here with the idea of settling here permanently the matter should have some finality; they must come to some final decision at some time or other as to whether they want to become South African citizens. If they want to become South African citizens they must take their share of the responsibility and their share of the privileges.

I want to deal very briefly with a number of other matters. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister would tell us what the staff position in his Department is. I have had a number of complaints about delays in dealing with correspondence relating to cases referred to the Department for attention. Of course, the Minister’s Department is not unique in that respect. I do appreciate this that the existing staff are probably doing all that they possibly can. I accept that. From my own personal experience I cannot doubt it. I also realize that you cannot just recruit staff from any-where to work in the Department of the Interior. That Department has to have trained staff. What I am seeking are the facts. Where delays are taking place it is clear that it is due to the fact that the staff of that Department is being over-worked to-day. I do not know quite what the position is. I know I cannot deal with the Civil Service Vote at this stage. I shall raise the matter again in further detail under that Vote but I do hope the hon. the Minister will tell us what the position is in his Department. What is to happen about the increasing delays in attending to correspondence which is taking place to-day? The existing staff are incapable of coping with the work, with the best will in the world.

Finally I want to raise the case of public servants who come to Cape Town for the parliamentary session. If Parliament rises before the end of June they find themselves in the position that they cannot get their homes back or other accommodation they had in Pretoria …

Order! I think the hop. member should raise that under the Public Service Vote.

Sir, I am quite prepared to do that. Under E there is an amount of R100 in respect of the Union Council of Coloured Affairs. This seems to be the very last dregs of something to do with Coloured Affairs kept in the hands of this hon. Minister. In terms of the Act referred to it would appear that this deals with the election of members to the Coloured Council. Why money is made available from the Treasury for that purpose I do not know. Perhaps the Minister could explain to us just what interest the Department of Interior has in the question of the election of members to that particular council which falls under another Minister and another Vote entirely.

I think I must reply every now and then so as to avoid a whole long discussion. The hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) said he understood there were between 300,000 and 400,000 foreigners in this country who have not been naturalized. I do not think anyone knows how many there are. It is impossible to determine how many foreigners there are in this country. What we do know is that there are people in this country who would long am have qualified for South African citizenship if they had availed themselves of the opportunities now provided by the Act.

The hon. member for South (Coast) (Mr. D. E. Mitchell), in the rather impetuous way which is typical of him. said that in his opinion we should not allow persons domiciled in South Africa to remain foreigners for an indefinite period. He suggested that we should compel them to decide at some stage or other whether or not they want to become citizens of South Africa. My personal opinion is that it would be utterly wrong to do that. I do not see my way clear—and I think that if the hon. member gives due consideration to the matter he. will agree with me—to take the most precious possession that one has as a citizen of any country, namely one’s rights and privileges as a citizen of that country, and to force it down the throat of someone else who cannot appreciate and use it properly.

But think how dangerous it is.

I say that the hon. member is exaggerating. The figure of between 300,000 and 400,000 is a totally exaggerated one; there are not so many. Many of the people who come here, people who are not mere fortune-hunters, only decide to become citizens of South Africa when they have got to know the country and have identified themselves with the position here. As the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Van den Heever) rightly observed, one cannot shorten the process as has been requested by the hon. member for Constantia. We already have the position that we have reduced the period of six years to five years. The period used to be five years in respect of immigrants from Commonwealth countries and six years in respect of immigrants from foreign countries. When we withdrew from the Commonwealth we made it five years for everybody. In the case of a person who has mastered both official languages the period may be reduced to four years. It is right that that should be so, because in that case such a person has already furnished proof that he has identified himself with this country. It is essential for a person to have been in this country for a number of years before he can express a proper opinion or form a proper judgment on the problems of this vast country. One person may perhaps manage to do so within the space of a year, but another may not even manage it in four or five years, and a third perhaps not even in ten. I think hon. members have perhaps not given due consideration to this matter. I would be the last person to make any changes as far as this matter is concerned.

The hon. member for Constantia called for a general streamlining of the law relating to naturalization. I think we have already streamlined it. As regards the fact that it is now possible for people from the African countries to become citizens of the Republic within a shorter period, the attitude of the Government is that people who have lived and moved on the Continent of Africa, who have come into contact with the colour problem to a large extent, who are able to differentiate and who realize that the issue here is not one of colour but of standards of civilization, are better able to understand and appreciate the problems with which we are faced in this country and form their judgment accordingly.

The hon. member for Constantia suggested that we should reduce the period that has to elapse before a person may apply for naturalization to the period for which that person has been permanently resident in this country. That would mean that we would have to grant any person who has been resident in the Republic for any period between 12 months and two years the right to apply for naturalization. I do not think we can do that. In my opinion we have already done a great deal as far as this matter is concerned. The hon. member also said that the children are born in this country as foreigners, but the position is that every child born in the Republic automatically becomes a South African citizen. That is his birth-right, even though his parents are foreigners. [Interjections.] Yes, but they were not born here; they have to await their turn. The maximum period is five years. I appreciate the hon. member’s interest in this matter, but I regret to say that we shall first have to see what happens, especially now that there is a tremendous influx of immigrants into this country.

The hon. member for South (Coast) put a few questions to me. The first was what the staff position in my Department was. My Department is reorganizing the registry section at the moment. That has caused some delay. The delays in dealing with correspondence in the registry section which hon. members have complained about arose as a result of that. Hon. members must also bear in mind that there is a very great demand for birth and other certificates at the beginning and at the end of any year. The staff then finds it difficult to deal with the applications immediately. I can assure the hon. member that there are of course vacant posts, but if he looks at Interior he will see that there is no abnormal shortage of staff. The staff is not being overworked either. There is no need to work overtime. Even with the major tasks recently undertaken by the Department there was no need to work overtime. Fortunately the Department is in a position to keep its head above water. As everybody knows, there is of course a shortage, just as in the case of all the other Departments. There are posts here and there which cannot be filled immediately. The officials have to work hard, but I may tell the hon. member that in general they are doing their work faithfully; they are doing their duty, and no unnecessary burden is being placed upon their shoulders as a result of the manpower shortage.

I am not blaming them, of course; I am blaming you.

Yes, I know.

The amount of R100 provided on the Estimates is for the registration of Coloured voters and the election of the four Coloured representatives in this House. It is to defray any incidental expenditure in connection with the election of the Coloured representatives. We have to make provision for that, as the Act providing for separate representation here is administered by my Department.

Now I want to come to the hon. member for Pretoria (Central), and after that I shall have a good chat with the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor). I just want to tell the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) that the Commission’s recommendations in regard to changes of address are being investigated by the O. & M. officers of the Public Service Commission, as is the matter of the production of voters’ rolls. The object is to check them at a central point. This investigation has reached a very advanced stage, and I cannot say at this juncture when it will be completed, because all kinds of technical problems are involved. As soon as those problems have been ironed out we shall be able to report progress.

Now I come to the hon. member for Wynberg. The hon. member for Wynberg is of course way out in front as far as the matter of objections by Coloureds to their classification is concerned. I may just tell her that she occupies the top position on the list. She has done more than all the other Members of Parliament together, including those on her own side. It is right that she takes an interest in the matter. These people have discovered that she is a better intercessor in this matter than the Coloured representatives, who do nothing. I do not have one single case on my list which was submitted by them. The hon. member for Houehton (Mrs. Suzman) has only brought one little case to my notice. I can quite appreciate why, when the Press reports appear, the Coloureds turn to the hon. member for Wynberg, who then submits the representations. She does it neatly, and I have no objection to her doing it. The relationship between the two of us is a very good one. Everything she quoted from the correspondence is correct.

But now I come to the point where the hon. member did convey a wrong impression. I am not saying that she did it purposely, but she did leave a wrong impression as far as this matter is concerned. She asked what happened before she objected. She knows that I issued instructions at the end of last year that cases where objections came in late, that is to say, after the 30 days have elapsed, have to be referred to me. Now she asks, what about the injustice done to the other people who received unfair treatment before 31 December 1964? That is not the true position. The true position is this—and I think we must face these facts squarely at once: If someone submits an objection within 30 days then I must—I have no choice—consider that objection. Irrespective of whether or not the Department feels like doing so. I must decide whether or not I shall condone the late submission. In order to enable me to consider the case—if the objection is submitted within 30 days—reasons have to be furnished to me. because how can I exercise a discretion if the person concerned does not furnish me with reasons why I must exercise a discretion? Surely the person concerned cannot just tell me that he only heard about it the other day? He must furnish me with full reasons. I may say that I have also referred the matter to the law advisers, and that they have endorsed the whole matter of the way in which Section 11 is to be administered. I shall quote the decision of one of the ad hoc boards in a moment, and that will show how benevolent an attitude we adopted and, in fact, that we were perhaps a little too lenient in some cases, as the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) said. I am going to prove that. The decision given by the ad hoc board has stopped us now. We cannot do that any more. If the position is not altered by a decision given by a higher court I shall in future be much less free to act than I was before. [Interjections.] The hon. member must not be so impetuous. She can go to court if she likes. A third party can go to court and she herself can be the third party if she is so concerned about these matters. I want to challenge her this afternoon to do so. Why does she take no action? Why does she fight here for the rights of these people? Why does she not go all the way? Surely she knows what avenues are open to her? Where no reasons are furnished it is legally quite correct of my Department not to refer the matter to me. The Department can only refer a matter to me if they can say that the Minister is in a position to exercise his discretion because reasons have been furnished and that on account of those reasons the Minister can exercise his discretion. In my letter to the hon. member for Wynberg I furnished proof of the fact that we do not adopt an unsympathetic attitude towards objectors. It is not our object to fob objectors off with fair promises and to get rid of them in that way. It is not a question of our having administered the Act incorrectly. In fact, I issued instructions that in future cases where objectors furnished no reasons the Department had to write to them and ask them to submit good reasons why they were objecting to their race classification. If they can furnish good reasons within the period of one year, the matter is submitted to the Minister. Those were my instructions. These cases have to be submitted to me and if no reasons are furnished the objector must be asked to furnish his reasons. What is wrong with that? In reply to my letter the hon. member wrote me a letter in which she stated that there were two admissions in paragraphs 4 and 5 of my letter. She stated in her letter that she preferred not to deal with the matter at that stage, but that she would raise it when Parliament met again. With what object? The hon. member by no means conveyed the impression that what I had done was a concession. Formerly it was not necessary for my Department to submit an objection to me if people merely said that they objected, that is to say, within the period of one year. They acted quite correctly in not doing that. I have now issued instructions that if objectors do not furnish reasons for their objections, they are to be asked to do so. Then the matter must be submitted to me. I just want to correct the terrible impression which she has created.

I now come to a very important matter, and it is this: I appointed an ad hoc board here in Cape Town to deal with a certain case which I want to mention. It was a third application from John Bowes Randall and Olgo Dorothy Randall. The ad hoc board consisted of a chief magistrate, Mr. Van Noordwyk, as chairman, a retired magistrate, Mr. Burger, who is now practising as an advocate, and Mr. J. D. G. Louw. He was a chief magistrate. As an ad hoc board they dealt with this application by Coloureds to be classified as Whites. I have told the hon. member for Wynberg how lenient we were. It now appears that we were too lenient and had gone much too far. This ad hoc board has tied my hands now, and I want to show the hon. member in what respect it has done so. This board said the following in its decision—

That is the first point. Our law advisers had also found that that had to be done. Here it is confirmed. In other words, the grounds have to be set forth very clearly. The second point is—

I accept that.

Wait a bit; I shall read the whole thing. The hon. member must know that everything is working up to a point. We shall be on top of the pyramid in a moment. To continue, that means that if a classification had been made on 1 April 1964 and the person concerned had not lodged a formal objection before 1 May, he would only be allowed to file an objection if he did so before I April 1965. It is only in that case that the late submission of his objection will be condoned. It is not a year plus 30 days, but only a year. The decision of this ad hoc board goes on to say—

It was further stated that counsel for the defence contended that in terms of sub-section (1) the Minister could grant a further condonation. The board states in its decision—

Therefore—

And in another sentence the following further statement is made—

It is therefore imperative for the Minister to adhere strictly to those provisions. Now the hon. member says: What has that got to do with it? The hon. member came along here with cases which she called “hard cases”, in which persons declared two or three years later that they had heard only then that they, had been classified in some way or other. And when we look at the evidence we find that those people indicated on the 1951 census forms that they were Coloureds, and that they had subsequently registered as Coloured voters. I have a case here---T do not want to mention the names of the persons concerned, because that would not be fair to them— which has been submitted by the hon. member. In the 1951 census the respective fathers signed statements indicating that they were Coloureds. The birth registration certificate of the husband States that he is “mixed”, that of the wife that she is “European mixed”, and those of the children that they are “Coloured”. According to their marriage registration certificate they are “Cape Coloureds”, and for purposes of school attendance they are “Coloureds”. In their applications for identity cards the husband’s race group was stated to be “Coloured” and the wife indicated her race group as “White”. Now we are getting to the point. In spite of a record such as this the hon. member for Wynberg comes along and says that she regards the couple as “White”, but that she has not seen their children and that in the social sphere the family associates with both Whites and Coloureds as a result of the husband’s work. I have referred this case to the Appeal Board. But, Sir, can you understand such an attitude in the light of such a record? The hon. member for Wynberg has nevertheless said that she regards them as Whites, but that she has not seen the children. Those are the statements that have been made. I have referred the matter to the Appeal Board.

The cases we have had here are in conflict with the decision of this ad hoc board. The ad hoc board has now stated specifically that I am tied to the Act—30 days. I must therefore adhere to the Act, and for all practical purposes the 30 days is extended to one year in the Act. But within that period of one year I have to react if an objector furnishes reasons for his objection. I must say whether or not I grant condonation, or whether or not I am going to appoint a board, and let us hear no more complaints in the House of Assembly hereafter in regard to this matter. As long as that decision stands those “hard cases” can only be referred to the Secretary of the Interior in terms of Section 5 (3) and not to the Minister, because the Minister’s hands are completely tied by this decision so that he cannot alter that classification in any way. It would be a pity if we were now told that certain persons have only discovered now, after two, three, four or even five years, that they have been wrongly classified, but my hands are tied until such time as the hon. member for Wynberg as a third party files an objection and takes the matter to the Supreme Court and that Court gives another decision which may afford me an opportunity of taking the matter to the Appeal Court. I hope we do get such a case, so that we shall know exactly where we stand. But I accept the decision which has been given by this ad hoc board, until such time as a decision is given by a supreme court, and I am not going to allow us to occupy the time of this House by arguing about this difficult case and that border-line case and cases which have only come to light after many years and about what happens in these cases. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, if I give you the figures you will see that the small number of objections lodged to-day come mainly from Coloureds in this area. These objections are dealt with expeditiously, and we would only complicate matters by acting in that way. It was very sensible of the Coloured Representatives to leave the Chamber, because the Coloureds themselves are objecting that some of their best people are being declared White, or that efforts are being made to be declared White for very selfish reasons, even to the point of sacrificing their pride in their race. I hope that the hon. member for Wynberg will in future rather cooperate as far as these matters are concerned, because she is virtually the only person who is trying to set the world on fire as far as the matter of race classification is concerned.

I cannot agree with the hon. Minister’s closing remarks about causing trouble in regard to this issue. I would like to say that the cases I plead for, whether they are predominantly Coloured, or predominantly White, I plead for on one basis only, and that is that they should have a fair hearing and a fair trial and fair investigation of the facts. That is the whole reason why they come to me. If the hon. Minister says that I bring more cases to him than anybody else in this House, then I take that as a compliment and not the reverse. The hon. the Minister said in his reply that he cannot exercise his discretion until reasons are given for the lodging of an objection. Of course he is correct in terms of the Act. But when I asked the hon. Minister this year whether he or his department has made any official or public statement to the public concerned that it is essential for an objector (a) formally to advance reasons for the late lodging of an objection, and (b) to apply for condonation, and if not, why not, the hon. the Minister replied—and if I may say so, I think under the circumstances it was a rather inhuman reply—that it was not considered necessary in view of the clear provisions of Section 11(1) of the Population Registration Act. As I have said already, many of these people are simple folk and belong to the lower working class group of people: How can they possibly know anything about the contents of Section (11), if the hon. Minister is not prepared to tell them anything about it? The hon. Minister, I regret, mentioned the name of one of the cases that appeared before the Classification Board in Cape Town. I had intended, in any case, to raise this matter, so that I am very glad that the hon. Minister did so himself. The hon. Minister knows that in two of those cases at least, he himself was responsible for condoning the late lodging of appeals. Otherwise these two cases would never have come before that Board at all. The Minister himself, under the Act, has power to appoint the Board.

That shows that I am very sympathetic towards such cases.

What is interesting is this: The hon. Minister read just now from the ruling given by the Chairman of that Board, who refused to deal with two of these cases on the technicality that they had not lodged their appeal within the 30 days laid down in terms of Section 11. With respect, I think the chairman really made a monkey of the Minister in that regard. Because who has the pre-emptive right then? Who has the preemptive right to decide upon the late condonation of an appeal? The chairman of the Race Classification Board, or the Minister himself? Where does the power lie? The power surely lies in the hands of the hon. the Minister and not in the hands of the chairman of a board whom the hon. Minister happens to appoint, who could be any magistrate from any part of the country. The hon. the Minister was quite correct that counsel arguing this case made certain points. Counsel for the appellant said that the Board was not competent to enquire into its own jurisdiction on this question of condonation: the second point he made was that the Board was a statutory body, with powers, duties and functions clearly set out in the Act; the third point he made, the most telling point of all in my view, was that the Minister had to decide whether to condone or not condone a late objection, and he said finally that the Board did not have the power to enquire into any irregularity on the Minister’s part. It looks very much as if the hon. Minister was guilty of an irregularity if we are to accept the explanation he has just given, my final point, and here I agree with the Minister one hundred per cent, was that any such irregularity cannot be enquired into by a race classification board, but only by the Supreme Court. I hope very much that we will get to the stage when one of these cases can be brought to the Supreme Court so that we can get clarity on this issue. You see, Sir, the chairman ruled in both these cases to which I am referring, that the Board was not competent to deal with the matter and he based his ruling on the submissions made by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) acting in his legal capacity on instructions from the Secretary for the Interior. What a fantastic situation! The hon. the Minister condones the late lodging of an appeal, the case comes before the Board with the Minister’s tacit consent, and then the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North), on instructions from the Secretary for the Interior, in fact argues on instructions against the action of his own Minister in this case. That is what happened. It is absolutely ridiculous. And the chairman’s ruling means that the individuals concerned, the family mentioned by the Minister, and the other cases as well, now have no right of appeal to the courts of law against the Board’s decision because the Board refused to hear these cases. And the hon. Minister knows it. That seems to me the greatest possible drawback that these people have, and if I fight these cases, it is simply because I feel that they should have a fair hearing, that the Minister should exercise his description as I have suggested and that he should condone late appeals because these people should have the right to be heard by a board. Why not? Any decision taken by a board, if it is in their favour is one thing, but if it goes against them, they have a right of appeal. So I want to conclude by saying that as far as the general public is concerned, two things are of vital importance, and I hope the hon. the Minister will pay serious attention to these two vital considerations in future, and be kind enough to do something about them. The first is that no notice is ever sent to any member of the public when identity cards are issued telling them that they have only 30 days in which to object. I consider that to be grossly unfair. Some notice should go to the public to warn them about that situation. The second thin-; is, whether the hon. the Minister likes it or not. that hundreds of cases have been deprived of their democratic right to have their cases properly investigated, or to appear before a race classification board, because the hon. Minister knows that some of these people have corresponded with the department for as long as two years; they objected to their cards and corresponded with the department for one or even two years and the Minister did not look upon that as a formal objection, merely because they did not hand in affidavits in specific legal terms, in terms of Section 11. How are they to know how to do it, unless they consulted one of us or a member of the legal profession? I think if the hon. Minister is really sympathetic he might in future let the members of the general public know both of these things the moment they get their cards. Many of these people have been arbitrarily classified by officials in Pretoria who have seen nothing but photographs in the first place and census forms in the second place; not all of them have been interviewed by local representatives by any means, and a great many people have suffered hardships, and I really mean that, and I am not concerned with what colour they are either; it is a question of fairness and rightness in this respect.

May I end by saying that I do not think that any of this is an accident. I am sorry, but I think it is deliberate policy on the part of the Government in order to prevent a whole host of people queueing up in the courts to challenge their classification. Neither are there any means by which the Minister’s actions or his intentions can be challenged in the Supreme Court, as the law is at the present time, and if you think. Sir, that the public has had a square deal in terms of this Act. then I am afraid I must disagree with you 100 per cent.

I do not think the Minister has given a satisfactory explanation to-day. I would be only too delighted to see one of these issues brought before the Supreme Court in Cape Town, where we have most of these borderline cases in order to obtain a ruling from a Cape Judge on one of these issues, and if I have anything to do with it, I will do my level best to see that that is done.

I should like to address my remarks to the hon. the Minister who deals with the administration of public holidays. I want to congratulate him on the decision of the Government, and his Department’s share in it, to give particular importance to Re-, public Day next year. I should like to associate myself with what has been said by the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) and the suggestions he has made in regard to how stature and meaning can be given to Republic Day. But I do not want to discuss that day any further—Republic Day, the day which commemorates the political coming of age of South Africa.

I should like to discuss another public holiday which is also celebrated in our country, a day which in my opinion has up to the present not been given its due attention. I refer to Van Riebeeck Day, the day which actually symbolizes the establishment of the White’ community, of an orderly State as we know if to-day in South Africa. This Parliament passed a law declaring that day to be a public holiday with the intention of its being a day of celebration. It so happens that each year Parliament sits on that day while here in the Mother City—some people feel that the City sometimes treats the rest of South Africa in a very stepmotherly fashion—the actual establishment of the White community took place more than 300 years ago. Parliament is usually sitting on that day here in Cape Town, the day on which a ceremony takes place at Jan Van Riebeeck’s statue, a ceremony which I do not think has captured the imagination of our people. This House sits on that day although actually we ought to set that day aside as a day of particular celebration. While Republic Day symbolizes the political coming of age of our country. Van Riebeeck Day is a day of great importance which South Africa cannot neglect to emphasize day by day and year by year to the world as being the day of the coming of the White man to this southern point of Africa. This day of celebration must be used to inform the world that the White man was here first, before the Black man, and that the White man is here to stay permanently. And because Parliament sits on that day in the Mother City, this day of celebration can also symbolize the fact that the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is a White Parliament and must remain a White Parliament. I am convinced that Parliament itself and its members can be made use of and must be made use of to give meaning to this great day in the history of our nation. I do not want to elaborate on this point any further. I just want to ask the hon. the Minister to instruct his Department to organize something here in Cape Town on the basis of the Republic Festival. even if, just as a start, it is only for one year.

A further meaning which this day has for us is that it commemorates the coming, more than 300 years ago, of Jan Van Riebeeck and his handful of White followers. Moreover, Whites are continuing to come to our country from Western Europe. If we can organize our celebrations in such a way that we can present new immigrants with their certificates of naturalization in a colourful and spectacular manner on that day, we shall also by this means be assisting to inform the world that the White nation of South Africa is here to stay and that it is strengthening its position here with the assistance of people from South Africa’s countries of origin in Western Europe. But there is also another reason why we should commemorate this day in a suitable way.

On 6 April 1652 Jan Van Riebeeck stepped ashore here and began by civilized methods to till the soil for use by civilized people. The White man has been here now for more than 300 years and. as far as we are concerned, the White man will stay here and use this soil in order to ensure his existence here and that of his country. We are sad when we see the signs of deterioration of our soil after more than 300 years. The hon. member for Edenvale (Dr. Koornhof) referred to this fact in his maiden speech in this House. In my opinion there is no better day on which to convey the message to our people, to the Whites and also to the non-White, that the soil which belongs to us, the soil of the Republic of South Africa, is dear to us and, I would almost say, is sacred; that we must conserve it and that our growth as a nation and our whole future depends upon how we conserve that soil. That is why I ask that attention be given on Van Riebeeck Day, throughout the length and breadth of our country and in the best way possible, to this appeal for the conservation of our soil for the sake of our future generations.

Beyond referring very briefly to what the hon. member for Stellenbosch said, I cannot deal with the matter which he raised. I can only say that when he talks about the “bodem van Suid-Afrika” and the need “om die bodem te bewaar” and so on, I, for one, am struck by the fact that the party to which he belongs is making every effort, in terms of its policy, to give away this very “bodem van Suid-Afrika”.

The hon. Minister referred to the speech which the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) made, in very appreciative terms, and he used as a yard-stick her interest in the affairs of the Cape Coloured people, by referring to the correspondence between herself and the Department, the speeches she has made, and the questions asked. Now, I hope that when I deal with the matter which I propose to discuss with the hon. the Minister, he will use a similar yard-stick, and will express his appreciation of my interest in this particular matter. I think the hon. Minister knows what is coming to him. Since last year, a film has been released, and is still current in this country, called “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” I would like to ask the hon. Minister “whatever happened to baby film board?”— what has happened to the National Film Board which was established in terms of the Act which was passed in 1963 and promulgated in July, in terms of which a fairly large organization was set up and about which, Sir, I will say that this honourable House knows less than it does about the Chicory Control Board —and that is saying something, Sir, speaking for myself! Last year I had to ask a large number of questions concerning the National Film Board—hence my desire to have an expression of appreciation from the hon. the Minister. Sir, you will remember that a “general manager” was receiving deputations, but he was not in fact the general manager— the hon. Minister of Information said that he was “general manager designate”.

It was all your fault because you are a very poor questioner.

Yes, indeed, I am a poor questioner when dealing with a Minister who refuses to give any information—I admit that. The fact of the matter is that the Board has provision for 110 members of the staff, it has a budget of R246,182 per year for salaries, it has undertaken a rental obligation of R30,000 per year, and to date it has received by way of loans the sum of R962,000 …

Order! The hon. member can discuss the Film Board under Vote No. 18 (Education, Arts and Science).

I would like to say to the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Smit) that I am very grateful indeed that he has raised this question of the Van Riebeeck Day. The pity is that he left out the most important people that followed Van Riebeeck, the Coloured people. That is one of the reasons why Van Riebeeck Day will never be celebrated as the hon. member for Stellenbosch wants it to be celebrated in this city, because he will be the first one to boycott celebrations at Van Riebeeck’s statue if the Coloured people also celebrate, because the City Council of Cape Town has no colour bar as regards to this celebration. If the hon. member wants to truly celebrate the coming of Van Riebeeck, then he must permit every person in South Africa. White and Coloured, who is entitled to celebrate to come and take part in that celebration. But the hon. member must not plead as if Van Riebeeck Day belongs only to the White section of South Africa, and he must not plead that it belongs to a certain section of the White people of South Africa. The Coloured people are very much interested in Van Riebeeck Day. I know that many people reject with contempt the suggestion that the Coloured people cannot take part in Van Riebeeck Day. The hon. member knows—he said that Cape Town has not been a good Mother City to some people—that his party has refused to attend any function in the City Hall of Cape Town …

Order! The hon. member is now going too far.

I want to come back to the Vote, Sir, and to the Minister himself. Quite frankly, I did not believe that you were so naive as to believe—and I have a very high regard for the hon. the Minister—as you indicated to-day, and I want to prove that you were wrong …

Order! The hon. member knows that he must address the Chair.

Yes. Sir, I want to address the hon. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman. The hon. Minister paid tribute, and rightly so. to the hon. member for Wynberg for the interest that she has taken in reclassifications. The hon. Minister said, however, that he had no requests from the Coloured Representatives. But, surely, he did not expect any from us, because those people do not want to come to the Coloured Representatives to be declared White people. But in any event, I would like to say that the few cases that I have had, I have taken to the officials, and I want to pay tribute to the officials for the courtesy which has always been extended to me. I tried to resolve my difficulties with the Department and the officials of the Department without going to the hon. the Minister, because I know that if a case has to go to the Minister after I have discussed it with the officials, it will be hopeless to go to the Minister. So I want to tell the hon. the Minister that we do not find it necessary to go to the Minister direct. We first explore every possible other avenue. But I admit that we have had few cases, and I want to say that in those few cases we have had satisfactory answers and satisfactory results through the officials. I want to come to the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn). I want to say that he has expressed something worthy to beautify the city and I asked him by way of interjection whether it would be for Whites only. I say that apart from the fact that there is a Committee of this Parliament which deals with the question of parking, it is a good thought to beautify the city. But I am also not prepared to allow the city of Cape Town and its beauty to be there for one section only, and unless the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) is prepared to allow all the people of the city of Cape Town to use parks without permits, I will object.

I wanted to raise also this question of the Republic Festival. I see there again it is going to be on an apartheid basis. You will notice, Sir, that in the present Estimates there is an amount of R75,000 for a Republic Festival in It is Item “J” on page 63. I cannot discuss it now, but I just want to refer to the Coloured Vote on page 252, where it is called the Republic Commemoration, and there is an amount of R2,000. That is what the Coloured people will get, only R2,000, which apparently will be the only amount to be spent, and which is called “commemoration”. But the one for the White people is called a Festival, and on that we will spend R75,000. I know why it is under two different headings; it is because the Minister has appointed a Board of Whites only for the festival, and the Coloured people will have to be satisfied with some sort of commemoration. I do not know why there is that difference or what this “commemoration” means. I suppose the schoolchildren will get a little flag to wave, but I do not think I can really ask the Minister why there is that difference.

The hon. member must raise that under the Coloured Affairs Vote.

It is a little difficult, because I want to ask the Minister, who is originally responsible …

Order! The Minister of Coloured Affairs is responsible for matters affecting the Coloured people, and the hon. member must raise this under his Vote.

Well, that is very awkward …

Order! The hon. member must accept my ruling.

Then I can only point out the difference in the amount.

I should like to raise a few matters with the hon. the Minister in connection with the operation of the censorship provisions in South Africa at present, particularly the censorship of imported books. We have the unfortunate position to-day that we are one of the countries in the world which has probably the largest number of books which have been banned and placed under censorship, excluding countries behind the Iron Curtain. I do not think I am wrong in saying that we are well on the way to having a list of 10,000 books and periodicals which are regarded as undesirable in terms of the law. I think that the way in which this law is being administered to-day has caused unnecessary difficulties. It has resulted in inconvenience to importers and wholesalers, as well as to retailers and libraries. Inconvenience is caused partly from the nature of the case and partly from the point of view of administration. The Act itself has already been interpreted in the courts on two occasions; there is no certainty as far as the meaning of the Act itself is concerned. I do not want to go into details but I am sure the hon. the Minister knows of a court case which took place in Natal a short while ago in which a certain interpretation was given to the law, and I am sure that that interpretation is not shared by all the other persons dealing with censorship. As matters now stand, censorship is governed by no less than four laws. There is the Customs Act, the Publications and Entertainments Act, the Suppression of Communism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act. It is forbidden to publish anything said by a person named in terms of either of the two last-mentioned Acts. This uncertainty has led to the situation where the book dealers in South Africa have become almost over-careful in regard to censorship and have even gone so far as to do damage to themselves and therefore also to the public generally. I have, for example, had occasion to buy the Observer or the New York Times here in South Africa and have found that Darts have been cut out of those newspapers., This was done simply because the sellers were afraid because a small portion of a speech of some or other banned person had appeared in the newspaper. I do not think that that sort of thing should happen. I think the hon. the Minister should give responsible newspapers such as those the assurance that their newspapers can be sold in the country even though here and there they may contain a small report or other which is not to the liking of the hon. the Minister or which, strictly according to the law, cannot be published. I have already bought periodicals parts of which have been torn out. I have already entered a very large bookshop here in South Africa and have not been able to buy a single issue of the Penguin series, a clear indication to my mind that these booksellers are afraid of the provisions laid down in connection with soft-cover books and have accordingly held many of those books back. I say again that it is this feeling of “safety first”, which is unfortunately created by the administration of this Act, that causes all these difficulties.

There is no doubt that there is a great deal of confusion to-day on the part of wholesale and retain dealers in the book trade in connection with this matter. We find that books are held back by Customs under a temporary withholding order; they are, to use an international term, placed under an embargo, and that is where they stay for weeks and weeks in many cases because no decision is forthcoming which will enable them to be released. Some of the difficulty is, of course, caused by the fact that all soft-cover books arriving in South Africa have to be inspected, even a soft-cover edition of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” or some other quite uncontentious work. We find that books are withheld and banned for some time, books like Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”. I think his “Wayward Bus” was banned and we had the same difficulty with Fagan’s “Bonyour Tristene”. The Board takes too long to arrive at a decision in this regard.

I should like now to make a few suggestions to the hon. the Minister for his consideration. I do not want to give the impression that they are all good suggestions but there may possibly be something in them which can be considered. The first is based on the fact that having to inspect all soft-cover books has a hampering effect upon the whole question of administration. A smaller number of them can be held back. It may even be possible to have some of them inspected by officials in America and Britain before they are sent to this country. If so, this will prevent great expense being incurred in sending some of these books to this country. Many of these soft-covered books which are withheld or placed under an embargo are books which appeared previously in hardcover editions and which were allowed into South Africa but which are withheld in their soft cover form. I admit that concessions have been made and that attempts have been made to try to relieve the position in regard to these soft-cover books but I feel that as yet not enough has been done. There are, for example, certain soft-cover books to which these provisions do not apply. I admit that this is so, but I feel that not enough is being done in this connection. I also want to suggest that where persons are appointed by the Customs Department to inspect these books, attention will also be given to the literary background of those persons who are appointed. It will probably be difficult to appoint a person with a B.Lit. degree or similar degree at all the places where these books are inspected by Customs, but I do feel that more attention should be given to the appointment of people with a literary background. I have read that the person who does this work here in Cape Town for the Customs Department is a person with such a literary background and that his work is on the whole very satisfactory. But when a large number of books arrive or when the person concerned is not able to pass judgment, we experience the administrative difficulty which we have to-day. I hope too that the provisions of the Act will in future be applied more sympathetically so that we do not give to foreign countries the impression that we are a country seeking to impose further restrictions on the freedom of speech or thought. Of course, we admit that it is necessary to have a law governing pornography and communistic literature but we can apply those laws in such a way that we do not give the outside world an impression which will be to the detriment of South Africa.

The hon. the Minister is making provision for an amount of R 10,000 for the remuneration of temporary readers in connection with the censorship of books. I should like more information from him in connection with these temporary readers. On what basis are they appointed? What are they paid? Would it not be desirable to appoint more people or to pay these people more or to give less work to each person or to obtain more assistance from persons having the necessary qualifications for this work? We know that a vast number of books are published throughout the world each year. This figure runs into tens of thousands per annum in regard to books in the English language, and it is an extremely difficult task to inspect all of them. The machinery for this work of inspection must be enlarged. I would also say that the holes in the sieve should not be as small as they are to-day and I believe that the delay which is being caused to-day, the confusion which exists in the book trade to-day, can be eliminated, perhaps not by an amendment of the law but by the application of certain administrative measures which will ensure that matters run more smoothly and cause less confusion in the book trade on the part of the public. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) to-day at least spoke with less melodrama about the control of publications and expressed a few ideas which might perhaps be considered. But in his speech he again revealed the same venom, the same subtle sowing of suspicion we have had here every year. He spoke, for example, of “the image of the country which is created by restricting freedom of speech further”; and he also said that the Republic “was harmed because the booksellers are overcautious” and that “booksellers do not stock Penguin books because they are afraid of being prosecuted”. We therefore see that all those clichés which were formerly used to make the control of publications suspect again appear in his speech. I honestly believe that the control over publication in South Africa, with the means at our disposal in the form of the Publications Board and the Customs and the control exercised in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act, is really negligible; that it is not worth mentioning. I am surprised that the booksellers make such a fuss about the matter. During the past few months hardly a week passed without some bookseller telling some or other English language newspaper of the misery they had to endure as the result of the control of publications. Surely that is not true. The examples the hon. member for Orange Grove mentioned in regard to the Penguin Books are exaggerated. Who is there in South Africa who will not to-day be suspicious of Penguin books, seeing that Penguin appointed Ronald Segal, a communist from Cape Town, as the editor of its Africa series?

I think the mere fact that Penguin did so is sufficient reason for any patriotic bookseller in South Africa to refuse to distribute those books, not because of fear but out of decency. That is the type of book which is off-loaded on to us in masses.

Then there is Pall Mall, the other big publishers of soft-cover books in Britain. Colin Legum, who is one of the heads of that company, is the person who recently wrote that vile book about South Africa, a man who is to-day a sort of adviser of every movement and demonstration against South Africa. Those books still arrive here. There is such a preponderance of leftist-liberal books coming here that I am surprised that the hon. member for Orange Grove and others object when now and again one of those books is kept back. The ordinary public suffer no harm as the result of it. These soft-cover books he mentioned are usually reprints which are available in more than one edition, like those he mentioned, “Of Mice and Men” by Steinbeck and “Tortilla Flat”. Surely the public does not suffer any harm. If a mistake is made here and there, it surely does not affect the whole pattern of book distribution in South Africa. The real fact we are faced with is that the majority of these publications entering the country are not sympathetic towards South Africa, that they are not even sympathetic towards the objectives of the United Party—I am now referring specifically to books dealing with racial and political matters—and that they are often not even sympathetic towards the Progressive Party’s standpoint.

Now I come to the booksellers themselves. The books published overseas and which are well disposed towards South Africa or which judge soberly of matters in Africa and in South Africa, books which judge soberly of other matters in the world, are largely kept out of South Africa by the booksellers. And then they kicked up a great fuss about the harm that is allegedly done to the public by State control.

I can mention many examples of books which one cannot buy to-day in a bookshop in South Africa. There are books which are worth much to us politically, books reflecting thoroughly considered political philosophies, of which we really have a great shortage, but they are not favourable to the leftist-liberal pattern of thought, and therefore there is complete ignorance in regard to those matters because those books are not made available.

Can the hon. member mention a few books which he thinks are kept out of the country by the book trade?

I can give many examples. [Interjections.] Give me a chance; I am talking now. I say those books are being kept out of the country deliberately. I cannot find them anywhere—not even in the Parliamentary Library. The hon. member asks for examples. I can mention many examples. There is an author like William Buckley in America. I challenge the hon. member for Orange Grove to go into any bookshop in South Africa and to buy a single book by William Buckley off the shelves.

Who is he?

He is the editor of “National Review”. He is a person who has been writing books in America ever since 1951, and I challenge that hon. member also to buy one of his books for me in this country. Because he writes in a political trend of thought which does not fit into the leftist-liberal efforts which are being hawked to us, his books are not imported. There is Prof. Russell Kirk. There is James Burnham’s book “Suicide of the West”. With the greatest effort one can to-day find a copy of that book here and there. The Cape Times in fact reviewed that book the other day, after it had already been reviewed over the radio eight months ago. That is one instance where there was to some extent a break-through after much trouble.

There are many of these books, Sir, but they are being kept out of South Africa by the book trade. Now I ask the hon. member for Orange Grove in what respect this sort of technique, this technique of depriving readers of books, differs from the technique of book-burning. That is what is going on in South Africa. I say that these people who complain about the books which are being kept back by the Customs and are disapproved of by the Publications Board are the last people in South Africa, who should complain about it. And then they have the temerity to say that the public of South Africa is being deprived of literature which they should really have! It is a scandal.

The hon. member for Orange Grove referred here to Penguin and I want to put a pertinent question to him: Does he expect us in South Africa, we who know Ronald Segal as a communist, who know that he arranged the boycott conference against South Africa in London last year, to be well disposed towards those publications? No, Sir, that is the type of thing we get from abroad and which the hon. member now wants to defend here. Here we had the case last year of Collier’s Encyclopedia, which published an unsavoury article about South Africa and about Dr. Verwoerd and other things in this country, and which is being freely distributed here and is being spread all over the world and which describes South Africa in the leftist idiom of the Rand Daily Mail; which is not worthy of being called an encyclopedia and which stated that “according to outside observers pressure was brought to bear on the courts”. I now ask the hon. member for Orange Grove whether it is the truth that in South Africa pressure is exerted on the courts?

No.

Precisely. [Time limit.]

I would point out that the importation of soft-backs, except under the authority of a permit, is prohibited by statute, and I must ask hon. members not to refer to this matter any further.

Listening to the hon. member for Innesdale (Mr. J. A. Marais), I think it becomes perfectly clear that he is over-sensitive about this whole issue. [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, one hears the cat-calls even on the left, coming from the cross-benches who themselves seem to react very violently the moment one levels any reasonable criticism in regard to the work of this Board, carried on under this department. Sir, the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) put, in my view, a very reasonable case in regard to the machinery that exists when dealing with the workings of the Act. Far from being over-critical of the fact that reports appear in the Press. I think we should be grateful that at least this particular problem sees the light of day, and I think the hon. the Minister when he replies will probably tell us and I hope he will, that he has taken some cognizance of what is going on. There is no question, Sir, that the whole matter has become completely chaotic because the Board has not dealt with this matter satisfactorily. The thing that bothers me a great deal, and also bothers a great many people, is that a number of publications which should not be allowed to be sold and which particularly should not be accessible to little children in the various tea rooms and other book-selling establishments round and about the city where book-selling is not the specific undertaking of that business, are permitted to fall into the hands of children; publications which could well have been dealt with by the censors. In other words, in their anxiety, which I think is exemplified by the sensitivity that we see displayed here through the hon. member for Innesdale, a lot of publications which on the face of them should be discarded immediately, pass through because there is a peculiar search going on for things in respect of which so many people are over-sensitive. Sir, if one is critical of any public figure in any part of the world, either from abroad or from the country internally, we do not have a similar reaction to that which takes place here. I admit that there are certain articles which are scurrilous and one should perhaps either discourage them, or take other steps, but I do not know that one should go to the length of neglecting the important machinery that has to be put into proper operation, to assist booksellers, to enable publications that come into the country to go through the normal channels and reach the bookshelves; it should not lead us to the position where we become the laughing stock in the eyes of publishers with books which on the face of them are perfectly in order, which have been read many, many times, which have always passed through the customs and been displayed in our libraries. When those books are held up we are made a laughing stock in other parts of the world. Sufficient damage in any event is being done by some of the activities of the hon. the Minister in other spheres for us not to be burdened with this type of conduct in this particular sphere which reaches the attention of people in every part of the civilized world.

I see on the bookshelves, even in our own Parliamentary Library, a number of matters which deal with Marxism, a subject which I must confess I have not even read, but I know a number of members on the other side of the House who read it avidly in order that they should know something about the systems in vogue in other countries; and that is the objective of having books published about the systems of other countries, without the criticism that these books only appeal to those who are particularly left-thinking. I think one of the hon. members there spent a week-end on a half-a-dozen books on Marxism, and when one reads for instance some of the reports in regard to what is taking place for instance at the University in the Transkei one finds that that very devoted Rector in that university is actually teaching his pupils some of it in order that they should be cognizant of what is taking place in other parts of the world. The purpose of books is to enable people to learn something, to know what is going on and not to become a subject which brings about the peculiar reaction which we get here when an hon. member puts up a reasoned case to the hon. the Minister.

Business interrupted to report progress.

House Resumed:

Progress reported.