I move—

Agreed to.

I move—

Agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Mr. Speaker, it has been agreed that I should deliver my speech and that the debate be then adjourned. I move as an unopposed motion—

The Bill now before the House makes provision for expenditure in the amount of R480,000,000 which will be sufficient for approximately seven months of the financial year 1966-7—R400,000,000 is required to cover expenditure to be defrayed from revenue funds in respect of the maintenance and operation of all services, and R80,000,000 to enable the Administration to carry on with its programme of capital and betterment works until such time as the budget has been approved.

Up to the end of September last year, the Railways experienced a high level of activity in almost every sphere of operation. The volume of imports was particularly heavy, and goods tonnages and revenue continued at a high level. In fact, revenue and the traffic volume not only maintained a level well above that of the comparable period during 1964, but continued to show a strong upward trend. From October 1965 onwards, however, there has been a notable decline following upon the measures introduced to curb inflation. This decline became more evident in the finances of the Railway Administration than was noticeable in other sectors of the national economy.

There has also been a substantial increase in expenditure as a result of the recent wage concessions to the staff as well as a rise in the cost of various items such as material, power, coal, operating expenses, Sunday time and overtime incurred owing to staff shortages, etc. It is therefore evident that the surplus for which I budgeted at the beginning of the year will not be realized. The economic position, as it affects the South African Railways, is in such a fluid state at present that with two more months to go to the end of the financial year, I am unable to make a reliable prediction at this stage. In the event of there being a shortfall it will be financed from the Rates Equalization Fund.

The position in general cannot, however, be regarded as unsatisfactory, especially when bearing in mind—

1. (a) the cost of essential staff improvements;
2. (b) the effects on the country’s economy of one of the most serious droughts ever suffered; and
3. (c) the inevitable levelling off in the economic upswing.

I shall now give the House a brief account of various aspects currently affecting railway working.

Goods traffic

As a result of severe drought in two successive years, goods revenue from agricultural products is expected to account for only 12 per cent of the goods earnings during the current financial year whereas two years ago, this class of traffic brought in some 17 per cent of total goods revenue.

The proportion of goods revenue derived from high-rated commodities, with the exception of petroleum products, also showed a notable decline during the second half of the year as a result of import control measures.

On the other hand, low-rated commodities, ores and pig-iron in particular, are maintaining the upward trend experienced during the first half of the year.

Despite the decrease in maize exports and in high-rated import traffic, it is expected that the gross tonnage of goods will exceed the figure of 1964-5 by some 2,000,000 tons.

Passenger services

Notwithstanding the improvements in the standard of passenger services in recent years, the ratio between revenue and expenditure is still not satisfactory.

Coal

The tonnage of export coal is appreciably lower than originally estimated. Coal for consumption within the Republic is on average being conveyed over longer distances, the reason being that much of the short-distance traffic is now being conveyed by road.

Road Transport

It is anticipated that road transport revenue for this year will be below the estimate for which the setback in the agricultural sector is largely responsible.

Catering

Patronage of the dining-car services has shown no appreciable improvement on last year’s figures.

Harbours

Whilst there was an increase in harbour activity during the first half of the financial year, the tonnage of cargo has shown a decline since September. Harbour revenue for the last quarter of the financial year is, therefore, not expected to maintain the margin it reflected over the original estimate earlier in the year.

Airways

The number of air passengers carried within the Republic during the period April to November 1965, reflects an increase of over 15 per cent. Passenger traffic on our overseas routes increased by 9 per cent during the same period. The frequency on the Springbok Service has been increased from six to eight with effect from November last and there will be a further increase to nine per week in the near future. The pooling arrangement between South African Airways and B.O.A.C. continues and separate pool agreements have been entered into with T.A.P. of Lisbon and the French airline U.T.A.

On the Australian run the frequencies have been increased from once per fortnight to once per week and it is expected that jet aircraft will be introduced on this route during the course of next year.

Staff

The staff position has not shown any material improvement since last year, and the shortage in certain key grades is still serious.

The question of recruitment has received the constant attention of the Management. Recruitment from overseas has, on no less than three occasions in the past, proved unsuccessful and it is obvious, therefore, that our labour requirements must in the main be met from local sources.

Members will recall that during the course of the last Budget we were under pressure for wage improvements from all sections of the staff. I undertook to review the position in October. After negotiation with individual Staff Associations wage improvements totalling R35,000,000 were granted.

These concessions I consider to be fair and reasonable and the maximum which the Department could offer in the light of the economic conditions obtaining at the time. However, two of the Staff Associations have deemed it necessary to go into arbitration on the wage awards. Commissions have now been appointed by the State President in accordance with the relevant conciliation machinery.

In addition to the salary and wage adjustments the following concessions were made during the course of the year:

1. (a) Improvements in the rates of relieving and travelling expenses at a total cost of R1,000,000;
2. (b) an increase in the allowance payable to running shed staff responsible for the maintenance of locomotives at a cost of R300,000, and,
3. (c) the payment of special allowances to married and single men who are transferred to systems on which there are serious shortages in their particular grades.

The following figures which have a bearing on the staff position over recent years may be of interest:

During the period 1948 to 1965 the staff establishments for European and non-European staff increased from 98,000 to 115,000 and from 89,600 to 110,600, i.e. increases of 17.3 and 23.4 per cent, respectively. During the same period, the wage account rose from R109,000,000 to R294,250,000, i.e. an increase of 169.6 per cent. The average annual income per capita for European staff advanced from R909.3 in 1948 to R2,179.5 in 1965—an increase of 139.6 per cent; that of non-European staff increased from R222.7 to R392.4, i.e. by 76.2 per cent.

The more important concessions granted the staff during recent years, include, inter alia,consolidation of the cost-of-living allowance with effect from 1 April 1961 at a cost of R11,500,000; the rationalization of the salary and wage structure based on the principle of job evaluation, with effect from 1 September 1962 at a cost of R18,000,000; the granting of a holiday bonus with effect from November 1964 (cost approximately R9,250,000) improved scales for Sunday and weekday overtime introduced during January 1965 at an estimated cost of R5,500,000 and lastly, the recent salary and wage improvements at an estimated cost of R35,000,000.

All in all the monetary value of the concessions granted the staff since 1948 is R190,000,000. This excludes various improvements in pension benefits, the most valued of which is a widow’s pension scheme introduced in 1951.

Housing

As far as housing is concerned, I allotted R5,000,000 of last year’s appropriation for departmental housing. Contracts have since been placed for the erection of 638 houses at various centres and by the end of November last, 385 had already been completed. An amount of R7,670,000 was made available for loans to more than 1,400 members of the staff under the various house ownership schemes.

Since 1948 approximately 21,000 houses have been acquired under the house ownership schemes at an estimated cost of R84,000,000.

Pensioners

It has been decided, with effect from 1 April 1966 to pay a bonus of R4 per month to married and R2 per month to single persons whose pension, excluding allowances, does not exceed R150 per month. The cost of this concession is estimated at R575,000 per annum. Concurrently, the minimum income of R88 and R44 per month for married and single pensioners. respectively, is being increased to R92 and R46 per month at an estimated cost to the Administration of R227,000.

It is noteworthy that since 1948 no less than R50,000,000 has been spent on relief measures for pensioners over and above improvements effected in basic pension benefits.

The past 17 years in retrospect

Bearing in mind the importance of the South African Railways in the economic life of the country, it has throughout the years been the policy to modernize and develop our national transport undertaking in keeping with the country’s transport needs. The extent to which traffic increased since 1948 is reflected in the following figures—

* million.

The unprecedented economic expansion during the past few years has taxed the Department’s resources to the utmost but, despite serious staff and material shortages, as well as other adversities, the Railways has, with few exceptions, been able to meet the country’s rapidly increasing transport demands.

It would not have been possible to cope with the traffic increases, had it not been for timeous forward planning and the vast expansion programmes comprising,inter alia, the following:

Expressed in percentages, the increase in line capacity approximates 16.3 per cent, truckage 106 per cent, coaching 40 per cent and tractive force 62 per cent. The cost involved in modernizing and expanding the Railways during the past 17 years aggregates some R1,545,000,000.

The pipe-line for the conveyance of petroleum products from Durban to the Witwatersrand, came on stream on 1 November 1965. This project was commenced during August 1964 and completed in October 1965 at an estimated cost of R23,000,000.

Extensive harbour expansion also took place. The capacity for handling cargo at the various harbours has, for example, been improved as follows—

Expenditure on improvements and expansion at harbours since 1948 aggregates approximately R108,000,000.

South African Airways is equipped with the best and latest aircraft on all the major routes. The overseas fleet consists of four Boeing 707 jet airliners and will be augmented by another early next year. Five Boeing 727 jet airliners are used on the regional and domestic services and two more are on order. Compared with 1948 the ton mile capacity on the overseas services increased from 9,600,000 to 95,000,000 during the past financial year—an increase of 889.2 per cent. On the domestic services the comparable figures are 11,900,000 and 49,500,000—an increase of 316.7 percent.

Seat miles on the overseas services came to 656,000,000 during the 1964-5 financial year as against 65,000,000 in 1948—an increase of 907 per cent. On the domestic services seat miles rose by 373 per cent from 91,000,000 to 431,000,000. The total increase on all services came to 520 per cent. With the introduction of the five Boeing 727 and one Boeing 707 aircraft during the current financial year, the figure in respect of 1965-6 will be even higher.

Since 1948 a total amount of more than R52,000,000 has been spent on the modernization and expansion of the S.A.A. fleet.

At this stage the question inevitably arises: what about the future?

In order to meet anticipated future traffic requirements forward planning to improve line capacity is receiving constant attention. Surveys are continually being conducted on the major lines to ensure that timeous action is taken to improve carrying capacity before saturation point is reached. In this connection doubling of lines, electrification dieselization and the installation of C.T.C. are resorted to as dictated by circumstances. In addition, close liaison is maintained with the latest developments in the fields of electronics and automation.

The extension of harbour facilities to meet shipping requirements is likewise under constant surveillance. In this respect the future development of Richards Bay to which I have referred on previous occasions, can be cited as an example of advance planning, duly coordinated with rail development projects.

The capacity and potential of the harbours, particularly at Durban and Cape Town, are continually studied to ensure the provision of facilities to promote optimum performance.

On the score of the brief outline I have given here I make bold to state that throughout the years the Railway Administration has done a fine job of work, and this in the face of many adversities, particularly a serious shortage of manpower in certain grades. This is no mean feat and here I would like once again to pay tribute to the staff for their devotion to duty at all times under all conditions.

The good relationship that exists between management and staff augers well for the future.

Because we shall not have the usual Railway Budget this Session, but will have to discuss railway affairs when the Part Appropriation is considered, the Minister’s speech is naturally not as closely knit and as logical as usual, as he had to discuss quite a number of subjects not relating to particular votes in Estimates. Consequently it is very difficult to react immediately to the very large number of subjects dealt with by the Minister, and we will have to ask for the debate to be adjourned. However, we should like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to the hon. the Minister for readily granting our request yesterday afternoon that we should follow this procedure, namely that he should make his speech to-day and that the debate should be held to-morrow. I can assure him that he will have an interesting 12 hours as from to-morrow morning! I move—

I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

I have had an opportunity of considering the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), and find that the amendment is not only destructive of the principle of the Bill as read a second time but also extends the scope of the Bill to insurance companies not contemplated at the second reading. For that reason I am unable to accept the amendment.

In giving consideration to Clause 6, it has always been the opinion of this side of the House that it is not the interests of the motorists or of the public who are being provided for in this clause, but that the clause is designed in the interests of a monopoly and in order to ratify an agreement previously entered into by the Minister. We are reinforced in this opinion, Sir, by the ruling you have given this morning that the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville seeks to extend the scope of this Bill.

Order! Having rejected the amendment, I must ask the hon. member not to attack the principle of the clause.

This particular clause of the Bill has a limiting factor, subject, of course, to Clause 4 of the Bill. We have been unable to find out how these 11 companies were appointed or why they were appointed. The hon. the Minister says that he has no knowledge of this; that it was done by his Department and that he does not know how or why they were appointed.

Order! There is nothing in the Bill about 11 companies.

Under the circumstances, therefore, we are forced, as an alternative which we do not lightly accept, to move an amendment for the removal of this clause from the Bill. We will therefore move that Clause (b) be deleted. The effect of this amendment will be that the Minister will either have to continue with third-party insurance as it is at the moment or he will have to create a State organization in terms of the Bill. Sir, we move this amendment with certain reservation. This side of the House, like the other side of the House, stands for private enterprise, but when private enterprise reaches the stage where the Government decides to create monopolies, we would prefer to have a State organization rather than allow third-party insurance to fall into the hands of a small group of companies selected on a basis unknown to this House.

Order! The hon. member is attacking the principle of this clause.

On a point of order, when the hon. the Minister introduced this Bill, he indicated that he was going to re-enter, because he felt morally obliged to do so, into an agreement with 11 companies to the exclusion of all other companies. In those circumstances I do submit that the hon. member should be allowed to mention that that is the object of this clause, as the Minister has indicated that it is.

I will allow the hon. member to refer to the 11 companies if he wishes to do so.

I have little more to say about these 11 companies; we have canvassed the matter fairly fully during this debate, but I would repeat that in our opinion it will be in the interests of the country that third-party insurance should be undertaken by a State monopoly rather than any other monopoly, because the creation of any other monopoly is completely objectionable not only to us but to most people in the country. It is unfortunate that we have to move this amendment. We would have welcomed the opportunity to have referred this Bill to a select committee so that the whole question as to whether a State organization was the correct organization to handle third-party insurance could have been gone into thoroughly, but our suggestion in this regard at the second reading was not acceptable. The concept of State enterprise is not new; we have it in Escom and Iscor and in a lot of organizations in this country, and whereas we may or may not agree with the idea of the State taking part in private enterprise, it is an accepted way of our life. I therefore move—

The effect will be that the public will know that any monopoly to be created is to be created in favour of the State.

I regret that I am unable to accept the amendment as it is destructive of the principle of the Bill as read a second time.

It is a great pity that the Rules of this House do not permit the amendment which the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) has moved. It is a great pity because circumstances have arisen since the second reading which I think should cause the hon. the Minister to have second thoughts about including this clause at all. Since the second reading there have appeared in many newspapers in this country reports that there will be an insurance war as a result of this Bill, an insurance war not in respect of third-party premiums but in respect of all the other types of insurance which those companies conduct.

That will be to the benefit of the public because they will then pay lower premiums.

The hon. the Minister is now conceding that competition is to the benefit of the public. That is what we have been arguing that competition is to the benefit of the public but here the hon. the Minister is excluding competition.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the particulars of the clause; he is attacking the principle now.

I want to ask the Minister whether he has considered the effect that this clause, if passed as it is before us now, is going to have on the insurance industry as a whole in South Africa; the effect it is going to have on the small companies, because if such a war is started it will be the small companies which will go under first. Sir, I want to say to the hon. the Minister that he must not regard what he sees in the newspapers as mere newspaper gossip. I can assure him that substantial companies are not going to stand idly by and allow this clause to have all the side-effects that it is going to have, with the inroads it will make on their legitimate business.

Order! I have warned the hon. member not to attack the principle of the clause and I must insist that he abide by my ruling.

Sir, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister two questions. He has indicated to us that this Clause is going to be used by him to re-negotiate the agreement which is the subject of a court interdict at this stage, that is to say, the agreement with the 11 companies forming the consortium. What I want to ask the Minister in the first place is this: Does he feel morally bound by the whole of that agreement or only in respect of parts of that agreement? I hope the Minister will indicate to us whether he is going to sign the identical agreement or whether this agreement is going to be different and, if so, in what way it is going to be different.

In the second place I want to put this point to the Minister, arising from sub-clause (4), which states that the State President may in his discretion from time to time admit any insurance company which is not a party to an agreement concluded in terms of sub-section (1) (b) as a party to that agreement. Obviously the State President is going to be advised by the hon. the Minister. I want to ask the Minister, when he advises the State President in respect of that sub-clause, whether he proposes, in exercising the power which he is going to be given here, to honour the promise which he gave (in respect of which I submit he is morally bound as much as he is to these 11 companies of the consortium) to the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) when, as reported in Hansard at col. 4702 on 23 April 1965 he was asked by the hon. member for Yeoville: “Will companies who have played the game and are prepared bona fide to undertake this business get preference?” and the hon. the Minister replied: “They will obviously be considered. It is quite natural that any company that has played the game will have an opportunity of coming into the scheme”. Sir, I ask the Minister to give this Committee a reply to this question: Is he going to honour that undertaking which he gave to this House and to the country when he advises the State President as to which other companies are going to be allowed into this consortium? In other words, are those companies which are excluded, the majority of which have played the game, going to be given any chance whatsoever to come into this consortium when the hon. the Minister exercises his discretion?

I should like to confine my remarks to line 5 of the clause and I should like to say first of all what it does not say. It does not say that the State President may without prior notice to any person have the power to establish this consortium. What it does say is this: “ … may in his discretion …” We should like to have some proof or some statement from the hon. the Minister to convince us that he has exercised his discretion in selecting these 11 companies, in other words, that he has been discreet. I think that is a fair request. I think the Minister should give us reasons for the manner in which he has exercised his discretion up to the present time, and we ask him to give us a reply to this question.

I would like to support the request made by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). One of our major criticisms of this clause and of the discretion given to the State President under this clause has been that we have had no evidence, that the Minister who advises the State President, had in fact exercised any discretion. Insofar as any discretion had been used, it was a peculiar discretion. I do think that before we pass this clause the hon. the Minister owes it to this Committee to explain how he has acted in the past. How can we give this discretion unless we are satisfied that it has been used properly in giving advice to the people concerned. Then, Sir, your ruling, which of course we accept immediately, makes it necessary for us to reconsider our attitude to the whole clause. The Minister explained at the second reading that the main objectives of this Bill were to protect the motorists and to prevent the consequences of companies going insolvent; but you have now ruled, Sir, that an amendment to limit the monopolistic content of the Bill is destructive of the principle of the clause. In accepting your ruling, it becomes clear to us that the creation of a monopoly is the principle of this Bill. That was not the way we understood it but we entirely accept your ruling, and I am sure that the Minister will not dispute it either. We know now that the principle of the Bill before us is the creation of a monopoly and the limitation of insurance business to people selected at the discretion of the State President who acts on the advice of the hon. the Minister in a manner which is inexplicable to us and which even the hon. the Minister who is responsible does not explain. When we asked him how this discretion would be used in the light of past actions, he told us that he had left it entirely to his Department. Sir, that is most unsatisfactory. Even if the Minister has left it to his Department and will leave it to his Department in future, we must assume that he is still responsible and he cannot escape explanations to Parliament and to the House in Committee by saying that he is leaving it to an official. Who is responsible, Sir? Surely the hon. the Minister is responsible, and I therefore call upon him—in fact in the public interest I demand from him—that he should explain to us how he has exercised this discretion. Secondly, I think the Committee should know that in view of the fact that we cannot destroy the principle of the Bill, which is to create a monopoly, by moving an amendment, we will have no option but to vote against the clause as a whole, which will have the effect, if we are successful, of retaining the status quo and giving the Minister an opportunity to think again about how he will use his discretion and how he can avoid the evil of a monopoly in our insurance law.

I just want to say a few words in connection with the remarks made by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), which amount to this, that the Minister is discriminating against certain insurance companies and that these insurance companies are being boycotted.

That was at the second reading.

Yes, the hon. member said it during the second reading debate, and now he has said it again. There is no such thing. Seventy-five per cent of the companies were not interested in motor vehicle insurance; they were not interested in it at all.

On a point of order, may the hon. member discuss the principle of the Bill?

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

The hon. the Minister, in his reply to the second reading debate, said that he had left this matter very much in the hands of his Department. We know the difficult circumstances in which the Minister found himself at the time he entered into this agreement referred to in Clause 1 (b), but what worries me is the discretion which the Minister left to his Department, in view of the surprising evidence given by his Department before the Marais Commission. I refer to the evidence given by the chief administrative officer of the Department of Transport, the gentleman who is in charge of piloting this Bill, when he said to the Marais Commission that he had no practical experience whatever of insurance. When he was questioned further by counsel, he went on to admit furthermore that no member of his Department had any practical experience of insurance. That, Sir, is on record in evidence given before this commission, and that is why we are so worried about the fact that the Minister leaves this discretion in the hands of people who have admitted that they have no practical experience of insurance. That is why we say that motor vehicle insurance should no longer be handled by the Minister’s Department but should be handled by the Department of Finance where other insurance matters are handled.

On this question of creating a monopoly, I would like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister of Transport to the policy pursued by his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs …

Order! The hon. member is attacking the principle of the clause. He must confine himself to the particulars of the clause.

On a point of order, Sir, this is really an enabling Bill, is it not? This particular clause does not create the monopoly; it creates the machinery for creating a monopoly. Are we not entitled to find out and to discuss the manner in which the Minister intends to create this monopoly because this clause merely enables him to create a monopoly.

The hon. member must confine himself to the particulars of the clause. The principle was adopted at the second reading.

On a point of order, cannot we discuss the manner in which the Minister is going to apply the principle of the Bill? After all, this clause gives him the power to do so, but we do not know what he is going to do.

Hon. members may do so provided they do not attack the principle which has already been adopted.

All we are trying to do now is to find out how the Minister is going to apply this principle.

Hon. members must abide by my ruling.

Sir, may I deal with the attitude of the Board of Trade in circumstances similar to these. The Board of Trade adopts the attitude that no group of traders shall be able …

Order! The hon. member is again attacking the principle of the Bill and of the clause in particular.

Sir, I have accepted the fact that all that this Bill does in actual practice is to create a monopoly! May I ask the hon. the Minister whether he has had representations made to him by the Association of Chambers of Commerce of South Africa, a very responsible body, who protest against the contents of this particular clause. This is what they said at their annual congress …

Order! The evidence which the hon. member wants to adduce is also against the principle of the clause.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether, in giving consideration to the establishment of this concession group, he will take into consideration, and favourably consider the question of including other South African-based companies, so that all South African-based companies can be included in this particular group with which he wants to enter into an agreement, and that it will not be confined to those members with whom he had negotiations last year. I appeal to the hon. the Minister that this would be a fairer approach towards those insurance companies in South Africa which have played the game both with the Minister’s Department and the public of South Africa not only in the field of third-party insurance, but in all other branches of commerce. I submit, with all due respect, that they should be included by the Minister in any other consortium or consortiums that he may wish to establish. I feel that if he were to tell the public, at this stage, that that is his intention and that he is going to consider this suggestion favourably, it would prevent a very unhappy situation developing, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell), I refer to the imminence of a price-cutting war in the insurance world in South Africa. Although the Minister says that that may have the effect of bringing down premiums, on the other hand he must realize the disastrous effects it is going to have on the considerable number of smaller insurance companies in South Africa which will not be able to stand up to a price-cutting war of this nature, and that in the process, we may have repetitions of what happened in the case of Auto Protection and Parity and all those other insurance scandals. He should also bear in mind the terrific losses and hardships which the public of South Africa are going to suffer. I feel that the Minister can undo a lot of the harm that has already been done by the introduction of this Bill, by publicly stating that he is prepared to favourably consider the inclusion of all South African-based companies which are willing and able to undertake third-party insurance. Sir, with those comments I leave it to the fair and impartial discretion of the Minister to make a public statement in this regard.

I said in the course of my second reading speech that the admission of other companies to the consortium was not excluded.

You said you were morally bound.

Yes, I am morally bound. It will be a question of negotiation. My reply to the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) is that the State President cannot exercise his discretion until this Bill has been passed by Parliament; that is quite obvious. The Bill has to be passed by Parliament before the State President can exercise his discretion.

You have used your discretion already.

That has nothing to do with this Bill. We are dealing with the Bill now. Mr. Speaker, I said that the State President will exercise discretion after the Bill has been passed by Parliament. That should be quite clear.

[Inaudible.]

Must I repeat it again, does the hon. member not understand? I said that the State President can only exercise his discretion after the Bill has been passed by Parliament. The new agreement will be drafted on a basis of negotiation between the State President and these companies.

These companies?

Yes, the companies in the consortium.

Then he has got no discretion.

He will exercise discretion and do it on a basis of negotiation. The agreement will be drafted on a basis of negotiation between the State President or the adviser of the State President, in which capacity I will act, and the companies. But I am rather amazed at the volte face of the Opposition. The hon. member for Parktown now pleads for the establishment of a State corporation in the place of this monopoly. Mr. Speaker, I can refer those hon. members to a speech made by the hon. member for Yeoville last year. This is what he said in regard to the establishment of a State corporation:

That is what the hon. member for Yeoville said but now the hon. member for Parktown is pleading for a State corporation in the place of the consortium. This is typical of the United Party—always sailing according to the prevailing wind. This is all I have to say. I cannot deal with the principle of the Bill because the Chairman has given a ruling. I say again that the State President will exercise his discretion after the Bill has been passed by Parliament The new agreement that will be entered into will be drafted on a basis of negotiation between the 11 companies and the State President.

I cannot let the hon. Minister’s quotation of the speech I made last year pass without providing my answer to it. I want to say at once that this party stands for private enterprise. We would infinitely prefer to have third-party insurance conducted by private enterprise. We feel, and we have said it again and again, that private enterprise has done the Government well in this undertaking. But rather than see the injustice contained in this clause, the injustice of the creation of a monopoly, we would prefer to see a State corporation. If there must be a monopoly, let it for heaven’s sake be a monopoly conducted by the State in which the public has general participation and not only a selected clique. That is the difference between the Minister and us, and I think he should understand that.

The other point I want to put to the Minister is the question of the discretion that this clause confers on the State President. The Minister persists in telling us that the agreement will be entered into on the basis of negotiation and that the State President will then exercise his discretion. But he also persists in telling us that the negotiations will take place with the 11 companies in the present consortium. In other words, this clause is meaningless and the State President’s discretion is a fraud against the public. How can the State President, the constitutional head of the Government, exercise a discretion when the Minister who has to advise him and upon whose advice constitutionally he acts, bind himself in advance. He will not have a discretion in what this clause stipulates, namely in selecting the companies with which the agreement will be entered into. The State President will have no discretion. The Minister decides in advance to advise the State President in a certain way and frustrates his discretion. Is that the type of legislation the Minister brings before the House and expects us to take seriously? Mr. Chairman, why has he worded this clause in this way? Why is he trying to bluff the public of South Africa into believing that the State President will have a discretion? This clause states that the main discretion given to the State President is that he can select one or more companies. But he does not have that discretion. He is limited to 11 companies already chosen by an anonymous member of the Minister’s Department, not even by the Minister himself. The Minister is morally bound by something that he will not explain to this House. How can a person be morally bound by something which he will not defend? He tells us he is bound by something which he did not do himself and for which he will not accept the responsibility to the extent of telling us why he has selected these companies. I want to ask him pertinently why a company was selected which in the past had only insured 129 motor vehicles out of the 1,500,000 motor vehicles insured. Why will the State President’s discretion be bound to perpetuate something as inexplicable as that? I am making it easy for the Minister by asking about one company only and I am also focusing public attention on exactly what is at stake. We have a clause which talks about discretion, discretion which has already been exercised. The Minister is not advising us correctly when he says that the discretion will be exercised after this Bill is passed. That discretion is bound. It is already frustrated—it is meaningless. It is a discretion which the Minister had exercised before the Bill was introduced to the extent of including that little company which had 129 motor vehicles insured with it and excluding companies with thousands of vehicles insured with them, decent companies—companies that have played the game, not only in regard to motor vehicle insurance, but companies which have been in the insurance practice of South Africa for 100 years. I challenge the Minister—and I want to make it very clear that this is a challenge—to justify to this House the advice he will give to the State President to continue to include in the monopoly already established and now to be made legal by this Bill, a company with only 129 motor vehicles on its books at the time it was included in the consortium. It is a simple challenge. Let the public realize what is going on.

I think we have indeed fallen upon evil times when the Opposition comes here and pleads for the interests of one or two companies instead of the interests of South Africa. [Interjections.] As this clause stands it is intended for the protection of South Africa’s interests, namely those of the motorists and the public, but that is not what the Opposition is pleading for. It is an evil day to think that people should come to this House under false colours and try to demonstrate that the hon. the Minister is creating a monopoly, and then not speak the truth. Say you are pleading on behalf of the company concerned. Say that frankly, so that the world outside may know it. It is quite clear that this clause will have the effect of placing third-party insurance on a very sound basis. It is stated here quite clearly that the State President—I do think hon. members can read—can admit one or more companies. It is not stated in this clause that only those 11 companies can join the consortium. The hon. the Minister put it very clearly that those 11 companies are provisional, and that more companies may be added—that is in the discretion of the State President. It is in the discretion of the State President that companies may be added, and it is also in his discretion to remove companies. Once this legislation has come into operation those companies, all 11 of them, may be removed and be replaced by 11 others or 50 others, but the hon. the Minister told us very clearly in his second-reading speech that those companies about which the Opposition is so concerned to-day, undertook only 20 per cent of our motor vehicle insurance. Now the Opposition comes and tells us that an insurance war is being waged. Let us have the war; I welcome it. Let there be an insurance war so that the public may get the benefit of lower premiums. Even if we had a war in the insurance world, would it not be an indication to us that those companies’ premiums were too high?

And if some of them went bankrupt?

If the position is so bad that a few companies will go bankrupt, then I should very much like to know why they have even started an insurance war? One will not start a war to get something if one knows that one will go bankrupt because of it.

What did Parity do?

We know the Opposition are going to war with their bankrupt policy in order to fight an election. That hon. member has no idea of what happened in the case of Parity. [Interjections.] We shall return to the Parity debacle. Those hon. members are associating themselves with certain things. They should take care, because they have too little information, and I shall later associate those things with them.

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

I am 100 per cent in favour of this clause and we should tell the hon. the Minister to carry on, and I hope he is not paying any heed to those arguments of the Opposition.

The hon. member who has just sat down made an astonishing statement. He spoke without the least concern about the possibility that some of the insurance companies outside the monopoly may go bankrupt. Who would then bear the losses?

Order! I am not going to allow hon. members to continue along those lines.

The hon. member said that the principle involved here was the common good of the motorists. He is mistaken. The principle here is quite clear; we are actually granting certain powers in terms of which a monopoly will be created in South Africa. That is the principle involved here. I find it an interesting case. The clause provides very clearly that when that monopoly is established, the State President will have the discretion to do it.

[Inaudible.]

We are referring to the 11 companies to which the hon. the Minister has already referred.

And for which you are putting up such a hard fight.

In exercising his discretion the State President has to apply a specific criterion. Now a situation may arise where the State President will feel that if he exercised his discretion towards those 11 companies with which the hon. the Minister has a moral agreement, some of them would have to be excluded. The hon. Minister has already said, however, that those are the firms involved. There would then be a conflict between the State President and the hon. the Minister’s moral agreement. And which of the two is going to prevail? As the matter now stands it is very clear. The hon. Minister’s standpoint must prevail; his moral agreement must be upheld. But if it is upheld, the discretionary power of the State President will fall away. As the clause now stands, it requires that discretion on the part of the State President. As long as the hon. the Minister tells us that he is morally bound to negotiate with these 11 firms, the Minister is destroying the power granted to the State President by this clause, and then the clause as it stands means absolutely nothing. That is why I feel that the hon. the Minister should reconsider the matter.

I just want to say the following in connection with this agreement to which the hon. member said the Minister was morally bound to adhere. When the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) asked the hon. the Minister whether he still felt morally bound by that agreement, the Minister replied “yes”. Surely it is quite clear that the hon. the Minister cannot now come forward with legislation and say that he is sweeping those people off the board. Surely he will carry on with the matter. In fact, the hon. the Minister made that quite clear. I am satisfied with what the hon. the Minister said, that those companies would have to adhere to the agreement and to those provisions which are for the benefit of the public of South Africa. The hon. the Minister also warned that if they did not do that and did not do their utmost for the benefit of third-party insurance in South Africa, they would be expelled. What is wrong with that? Surely we cannot ask for anything better than that?

The hon. member for Pretoria (Sunnyside) (Mr. van Zyl) seems to have missed one essential point. He keeps talking about the interests of the motorist and as has been pointed out ably by the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Hickman) that is not the principle of this Bill. The principle of this Bill in accordance with your ruling, Mr. Chairman, is that this Bill is to create a monopoly. That is what the principle is. When the hon. member talks about the benefit of the motorist, he must have regard to the agreement which in effect, as the hon. the Minister has told this Committee, is what this clause does. This clause is going to make that agreement lawful. And Sir, we have not seen this agreement. No one has seen this agreement. The only proper basis on which one can deduce what that agreement is, is to have a look at the Parity commissioner’s report. And in the Parity commissioner’s report, in paragraph 253, it says—

Is that in the interests of the motorist, Mr. Chairman? How can it possibly be, when the Minister virtually commits himself in advance to raise the premiums if these companies, under no control whatsoever from him, with all the inducement to settle claims at a higher rather than a lower figure, in fact have a shortfall? That is what he is doing, Sir, in the interests of the motorist.

Mr. Chairman, I am really surprised at the hon. the Minister. He usually answers questions, and I have put to him pertinently two questions which he has avoided. He wrote one of them down, or at least he made a note of it when I asked him. But in case he did not, I want to ask him these questions again. The first question was whether he was going to sign the identical agreement, or whether he is going to sign a different agreement.

I told you that it will not be the identical agreement. It will be a new agreement which will be drafted on the basis of negotiations with the 11 companies.

Mr. Chairman, does the hon. the Minister then feel himself not morally bound by some clauses of the agreement, but morally bound by others? That is the point, Sir. The hon. the Minister is either morally bound by the whole agreement or he is not morally bound by it. Surely one clause in the agreement is no different from any other clause?

The second question which I asked the hon. the Minister was this: When he advises the State President in terms of sub-section (4) and the State President exercises his discretion, will he honour his undertaking given in this House that those companies who have played the game will be entitled to take part?

There are no companies that played the game. Not that I am aware of.

Does the hon. the Minister say that all the companies which were excluded did not play the game? I told the hon. the Minister that I had documentary evidence that one of the companies which have been included did not play the game. If that is the case, Sir, what did that statement of the hon. the Minister mean? Was it nothing? Was it just a statement in the air or did it have some substance? Surely, Sir, that was in direct answer to a question by the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn)? That question was: Will the companies who played the game—and that was at the time that this agreement was entered into—be allowed to take part? The hon. the Minister’s answer was: Yes, they will. What the hon. the Minister said was that they would obviously be considered. He said: It is quite natural that any company that has played the game will have an opportunity of coming into the scheme. Mr. Chairman, where is the opportunity to come into the scheme? Where is it, if the hon. the Minister is morally bound by the agreement with these 11 companies to have them do all the business to the exclusion of all other companies? What is the hon. the Minister saying? What is he going to do? Is he going to honour that undertaking or is he not? Surely the hon. the Minister is morally bound by that undertaking far more than he is by an ill-conceived agreement which is invalid in terms of the law? Surely the hon. the Minister can give us an answer to that.

The Minister has been a member of this House for longer than I have. But I ask him to cast his mind back and to think of any precedent for a measure of this nature, where a Minister introduced a bill giving a discretion to the State President—the House is asked to accept the principle that the State President will have the discretion—and yet the Minister in the Committee Stage says that the State President will have no discretion. I want to ask the hon. the Minister why he has worded the Bill in this manner. If the Minister has already made up his mind—and he tells us so; he says that only these 11 companies are going to be considered—why did the Minister not draw his Bill up to reflect the true position? Why did he not say, for instance, that the Bill should read this way: “… that the State President may enter into an agreement with 11 companies, the names of which are set out in the schedule hereto”? That will reflect the true position. This Bill does not in fact give the State President that power because the Minister has told us that he will not exercise it. The Minister has already made up his mind that there are to be 11 companies. The Minister has told us that he does not know how these 11 companies were selected. I thought that perhaps the Minister was under the impression that these 11 companies had stood aloof and have played the game with the public. But now he tells us that no company played the game. It is shocking that this Minister should give 11 companies— picked at random apparently—this preference over all other companies.

Sir, this Minister has the reputation of being able to administer his Department efficiently. The Minister has always been able to give us facts in support of any decisions he has made. I should like to say that this is the first time that we have seen this Minister get up in the House and not even attempt to justify a decision which he had taken. I ask him again, Sir, to reconsider this whole matter and not to let this legislation go through as it stands now, which, as the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) said, is a fraud on the public and on this House.

I have no intention of repeating my second reading speech. I dealt with the whole issue in my second reading speech when I replied to the debate. I submitted the reasons why these companies had been asked to participate in the consortium. If hon. members read their Hansard, they will know what I said.

How did the hon. the Minister arrive at those 11 companies?

I have explained all that. The hon. member should read my speech. I have no intention of repeating it. It is not proper to repeat a second reading speech in Committee. But the hon. members do not listen. They have been instructed by the insurance companies to oppose this Bill. [Interjections.] That is true. They have been instructed by the companies, because when I broached this matter last year, that same hon. member was completely in favour of it.

That is not true.

That is true. I have the hon. member’s speech here.

I said that it required further consideration. That is recorded in Hansard. Read it.

The hon. member is always doing an egg-dance. He is always leaving a gap through which he can slip. That is his usual way. He always sees to it that he has a back-door through which he can escape. He will never adopt a definite and unequivocal attitude. He always sees to it that there is a back-door so that he can slip out. I have the hon. member’s speech of last year, when he praised the action, the drastic action taken. He was completely in favour of that, but now they have received instructions from the insurance companies, and now they are opposing this Bill in this way.

That is not true.

Let me say it again: I have no intention of repeating my second reading speech. What I did in fact say, was this:

a new agreement will be drafted. I said in my reply to the second reading that the admission of other companies to the consortium was not ruled out. What more can I say?

But you were speaking about the 11 now.

The 11 companies will be negotiated with, but I said in reply to the second reading that the addition of other companies was not being ruled out. Is that not clear?

Yes, but the 11 companies have to agree.

It will be by way of negotiation. Under the new agreement I can decide whether those 11 companies have to agree or not. It is for the State President to exercise his discretion; in other words, for the Minister to exercise it. I have no idea what all the fuss is about. And now we have the same old story again. They are trying to impress upon these people that it will not be in the interest of the motorists. I repeat that it is in the interest of the motorist and the public. It will be the first time that third-party insurance is placed on a sound basis. That is what is happening. The motorist, in any event is protected now. The hon. member should read my reply to the second reading debate once more. I said there that the other provisions of the principal Act remained in force. In other words, before there is any increase in the premiums. there has to be a recommendation from the premiums committee, for which provision has been made in the principal Act. Increasing the premiums is not a matter of negotiation between that group and myself. The ordinary procedure will have to be followed, as is laid down in the principal Act.

I repeat that this Bill provides, firstly, that more companies can be added in terms of sub-section (4) of the new Section 24. Secondly, the State President will exercise his discretion after this Bill has been placed on the Statute Book. Thirdly, it is not ruled out that more companies can be admitted to the consortium.

If agreed to by the consortium.

By way of negotiation. I have nothing further to say, Mr. Chairman, because the whole matter is a repetition of what I said in my second reading speech.

I wish to point out to hon. members that I have allowed a very wide discussion. I shall now deal strictly with any member who repeats.

I do not want to repeat. I want to deal only with something which is contained in this particular clause, and that is the discretion of the State President in the light of what the hon. the Minister has just said. I have pointed out before that it seems from this Bill as if the Minister’s discretion was …

Order! The hon. member is repeating himself.

I am summarizing what I have said before. If I may not do that, I will not. The hon. the Minister now tells us that as the result of negotiations with the II companies more members may be allowed in at the discretion of the State President. But he made it perfectly clear that for that he would need the agreement of the 11 companies. In other words, Sir, the position is worse than before. It is not that the Minister has limited his discretion. The Minister has now handed his discretion over to 11 companies. Only if these companies agree, will it be possible for other companies to join. The State President’s discretion is not limited by the moral commitment of the Minister.

I did not say that. You are distorting my words.

The Minister said a minute ago that it was a matter of negotiation. If the 11 companies agree after negotiation, other members may be admitted.

I did not say that. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, if I must accept that, then every member on this side of the House is wrong. Could the Minister please repeat what he said. I take it I will not lose my turn if I give way to the hon. the Minister?

No, I will agree to that.

I said, with regard to the agreement which existed, that it was a matter of negotiation, and I also said that that right enjoyed by the companies could be taken away. If the hon. member would only listen carefully before he spoke, he would know what I had said.

I am glad to hear this because the Minister certainly gave the impression generally to the opposite effect. We are very pleased to find out that the consortium under the agreement must agree that other members will be admitted. Now the Minister said …

Order! I am sorry, but the hon. member has already spoken three times on this clause. He had one turn yesterday.

There seems to be some misunderstanding. As I understood the hon the Minister he said very clearly that before additional members could be admitted to this consortium, the present 11 members of the consortium had to give their consent. On the second occasion the hon. the Minister made a different statement when he said that it was a matter of negotiation, and that the specific right of the 11 companies to exercise a veto, so to speak, could be withdrawn. That is a very important point, Mr. Chairman, and I honestly believe that the hon. the Minister should give us a very definite reply on that.

If we look at sub-section (4) of the proposed new Section 24 (1), we shall see that the State President may in his discretion from time to time admit any insurance company which is not a party to an agreement, to that agreement. But if what the Minister said in the first place is a correct statement of the position, then I put it to him with all due respect that this sub-section is meaningless.

In reply to the debate just now the Minister said that premiums could not be increased except with his consent.

I did not say that. What I said was that the provisions of the principal Act still remained in force. In terms of that the premium committee must make a recommendation to the Minister in this regard.

Order! There is nothing in this clause about premiums. Consequently I cannot allow hon. members to continue on these lines.

This clause, Sir, allows the State President to make an agreement and we have been told by the Minister what this agreement is going to be. I raised the question as to what type of agreement the State President was going to make. Surely, Sir, this is an enabling clause. I understood from the Minister that this consortium will pay all premiums into a pool, i.e. all premium income after the deduction by the companies of 25 per cent. This, the Minister said, would be a protection to the insurer. We also understood from him that claims would be paid out of this pool. But now I should like to know from the Minister what will happen should the pool be unable to meet claims?

I have dealt with this point several times, and although I do not want to repeat myself, I want to put it very clearly once more. The position is that the provisions of the principal Act remain in force—in other words, if there is a shortfall in the Fund, the companies will have to apply to the premiums committee for an increase of the premiums tariff. That would also have been the case if there had been no consortium. The premiums committee then has to call for and check financial statements. On the basis of that investigation, that committee then has to make a recommendation to the Minister as to whether or not the premium tariff is to be increased. But even then the Minister has the right to accept or reject such a recommendation. That is what the principal Act provides at present and that is how it will stay.

And if the Minister decided not to accept a recommendation for an increase in the premiums tariff, what would claims be paid with?

Then the companies themselves would have to pay. Let me just add this as regards the agreement: A new agreement will be drawn up—in other words, the present agreement will lapse as soon as this Bill has been placed on the Statute Book. A new agreement will then be drawn up between the State President and the companies concerned, and all the particulars will be reflected in it. For example, it will not simply contain a provision to the effect that the companies concerned will have a monopoly as far as third-party insurance is concerned. I have already shown the hon. member the agreement. He came to see it in my office and he read through it. He therefore knows what the terms of the agreement are.

But in terms of that agreement the companies themselves will not need to Pay.

But a new agreement is to be drawn up. I have also said already that from the nature of the case an increase in the tariff of premiums cannot be ruled out. I have already said that if the number of accidents increased and claims increased without there being sufficient money in the Fund to meet the claims, premiums would obviously have to be increased.

Order! I wish to point out to the hon. the Minister that the question of premiums is not dealt with under this clause, but under the next clause.

In any case, Mr. Chairman, I have explained what the position will be. The position is therefore that it will be possible to make amendments to the agreement additions or deletions may be made. What will be drawn up will be a completely new agreement and not necessarily a continuation of the present agreement. A brand-new agreement will be drawn up, and such an agreement may contain even more provisions than the existing one. I said that I was morally bound as regards one specific matter, namely that companies will have the right to say who should be admitted to the consortium. But it may very easily happen that as a result of discussions with the companies, the matter is left in my discretion. There is a very good reason why the discretion was originally vested in the companies. It was because I envisaged that if the Minister were to get the discretion, he would be subjected to tremendous political pressure to admit certain companies to the consortium. That is the reason why the discretion was vested in the companies. A similar provision is contained in the Workmen’s Compensation Act, where the final say vests in the Commissioner. The Motor Carrier Transportation Act also contains a similar provision, in terms of which the decision of the National Transport Commission shall be final. This is therefore not a new principle. But it can of course be amended in this new agreement, and I am convinced that if I were to ask that the discretion be placed in my hands, the companies concerned would have no objection. If in my opinion it were in the interests of the public as well as in the interests of the motorists that this veto right be removed from their hands and placed into mine, I am convinced that the companies would have no objection. Nevertheless, any man of integrity is expected to consider himself bound by any agreement he has entered into. He can have it changed only with the consent of the other party.

Have you conducted any negotiations in this regard?

No, not yet. Nothing will be done until this Bill has been placed on the Statute Book. I do not think a new agreement has been drawn up. In any case, I have not seen one yet. So that is the true position, and I hope the whole matter is now quite clear to hon. members.

Clause put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—73: Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W; Botha, S. P.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A; Diederichs, N.; Dönges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J.; Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Henning. J. M.: Hertzog. A.: Heystek, J.; Jurgens, J. C.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G.P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Le Roux, P. M. K.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S; Maree, W A.; Martins, H. E.; Mostert, D.J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, M. D. C. de W; Niemand, F. J; Otto, J C.; Pansegrouw, J S.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rail, J. J.; Rail, J. W.; Rail, M. J.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, J A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Steyn, J. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg. G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever. D. J. G.; van der Spuy. J. P.: van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.: van Staden, J. W.: van Zyl, J. J. B.: Venter, M. J. de la R.; Verwoerd,H.F.; Visse. J. H.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and H. J. van Wyk.

Noes—39: Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Eden, G. S.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Taylor, C. D.; Thompson, J.O.N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.

Tellers: N. G. Eaton and T. G. Hughes.

Clause accordingly agreed to.

Clause 7,

From sub-section (1) of the proposed new section 25 I notice that when the State President has entered into an agreement with the consortium the Minister shall publish in the Gazette a notice of the conclusion of that agreement. But as far as we are concerned it is even more important that the terms of the agreement should also be published. Consequently I wish to move as an amendment—

I think this amendment is a very reasonable one and as such I hope the hon. the Minister will accept it. You see, Sir, the object of this Bill is, as we have been told, to serve the interests of the public. But I submit the public will never know that its interests are in fact being served if the terms and conditions of the agreement are not made known. I do not wish to say any more on this point at this stage because I would like to give the Minister an opportunity to indicate whether or not he is going to accept the amendment.

I am prepared to accept the amendment. After all, there is nothing to hide, and even if information on this point is not published as required by the hon. member, then hon. members will still be in the position to call for it in this House. This will be an entirely open agreement and accordingly I see no objection to the amendment.

I should express my appreciation of the fact that the hon. the Minister has accepted this amendment. I am particularly grateful for that because it may avoid further misunderstanding. There is another thing which would be avoided by the Minister’s acceptance of this amendment and this is in respect of a matter relating to the present agreement. The Minister told us it was not the intention under the existing agreement that claims should be settled on a prescribed basis. I find however that the 11 companies constituting the consortium have issued an advertisement wherein it is stated inter aliathat claims will be settled on a prescribed basis. Future agreements will now, thanks to the Minister’s acceptance to this amendment, be published and thus prevent companies from publishing, as the Minister suggested, lies like this in order to mislead the public.

This clause is almost becoming a hardy annual. It deals with the validation of certain changes in conditions of employment. The Minister is aware of the fact that those changes in conditions of employment which can be brought about by way of regulation are very considerable. These regulations can also deal with regulations concerning the disciplinary code. In 1961 there were 14 cases requiring the validation of Parliament; in 1963, 15; in 1964, seven; and for 1966 three. The question now arises as to what is actually happening so as to make it necessary for this type of validation to be asked for year after year. Changes in conditions of employment are usually gazetted. They are made known in the usual way, i.e. by means of the weekly notice and are then acted upon. Such action remains valid for three months afterwards but the moment this three months’ period has expired such changes are no more valid unless they are validated by Parliament.

The question I should like to put to the Minister concerns more particularly changes in the disciplinary code. Anyone who is charged under this disciplinary code during the period of three months immediately following upon the changes being announced, may find that the regulation or the condition which has been changed and which has formed the basis of the charge against him, is no longer valid.

The disciplinary regulations are never made retrospective. I shall quote you a case just now.

At any rate, this seems to me to be a very unsatisfactory way of dealing with the matter. I am not saying it is being done deliberately but it would appear that the machinery which is in use to avoid this type of validation does not function as well as it should do. Could the Minister perhaps give the Committee an indication of the nature of the changes which require to be validated by Parliament every year? How does it happen that we are faced with these cases every year especially in view of the fact that there is a period of three months available during which the necessary authority can be obtained?

These changes concern mainly improvements in working conditions—wages, etc.,—which are being applied with retrospective effect. The hon. member can rest assured that should there be any other type of change, such as changes in a disciplinary code, and such changes are made retrospective, the staff would very soon object to it. If that were done, the hon. members’ arguments would be valid. The case dealt with in this Bill deals with the granting of special wage increases and allowances to pilots. These improvements came into operation on 1 August 1964. The staff, however, were advised only on 27 August. Hence the retrospectivity of these improvements.

*Pilots requested that their improved conditions of employment be made applicable with effect from 1 April 1964. However, that request could not be granted, but it was recommended to the Minister that the improved conditions of service should come into operation on 1 August. The Minister’s approval was then obtained for that. Then there has also been a revision of Sunday time, overtime and the bonus scales. These changes came into operation as from pay-month of January 1965. These improvements were announced to the staff on 7 December and 15 February. In other words, these improvements were granted with retrospective effect. The Act now requires that we should obtain this validation.

I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister, even now, not to proceed with this measure which will ensure that every taxi carries a label. This measure, as is so much other Government legislation, is directed exclusively at the Coloured community. Some of these people own taxis and in some instances they drive taxis for White owners, as was said yesterday during the second reading stage of this Bill. All this measure means is that every taxi is going to be plastered with a label. I doubt whether the complaints received in this connection and referred to by the Minister yesterday, are in fact as numerous as he suggested they were. Mr. Chairman, the whole brunt of Government legislation has fallen upon the shoulders of the Coloured community to the exclusion of all others. In the years gone by there were Native taxis and other taxis; and Coloured people, respectable people and persons of repute, were engaged in the taxi business. Disputes have arisen over the years, involving the Road Transportation Boards and other agencies, in connection with deciding who should be carried, when and in which taxi and for what price. Mr. Chairman, I wish to lodge a protest on behalf of the Coloured community as well as this side of the House, and say that this is something, done in the name of apartheid, which offends to a far greater extent and degree than the hon. the Minister himself realizes. After all is said and done, this is, I think, something more or less confined to the city of Cape Town and neighbourhood, and to a lesser degree to certain other areas. As far as Bantu taxis are concerned this matter does not raise much difficulty. These taxis have their own ranks and it is well-known that Bantu taxis convey Bantu passengers. Applications are dealt with by municipalities and Road Transportation Boards for increased facilities and more taxis for the use of Bantu people. But the Coloured people, who have always been part and parcel of the Western group—and I emphasize this— and part and parcel of the White man’s way of life, are once again being discriminated against because they will have to placard their vehicles. I have to confirm the story told yesterday by the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) about a White lady who had a Coloured maid with her and who had to engage two taxis …

Order! I have allowed the hon. member to state his objections, but he is going beyond the amendment now.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I wish to restate my objections and I ask the hon. the Minister to show a little kindness towards these people.

I replied to the hon. member for Karoo yesterday that this measure has nothing to do with the provision in the principal Act which provides for the conveyance of different races in different taxis. It has nothing to do with the Act. What the hon. member is pleading for is that these people who receive a certificate for the conveyance of a particular race should be permitted to evade or contravene the law.

No, that is not so.

Of course that is what the hon. member is pleading for. All this provision relates to is that in a conspicuous position there must be displayed a notice stating for which group—Whites or non-Whites—the particular taxi caters. And that is not the principle. The principle is embodied in the principal Act, namely that the certificate issued to a particular person states which race is to be conveyed in his taxi. The hon. member’s objection is directed against that principle. But this measure has nothing to do with the principle. When the certificate is issued, it states very clearly that the taxi concerned can only convey the particular race mentioned thereon. That is embodied in the Act: Parliament has already approved of that. We are not discussing that. The position is that the law is being contravened because taxis issued with a certificate stipulating which race is to be conveyed are conveying members of other races too. People are objecting to that sort of thing. Europeans object, inter alia, having to be conveyed in a taxi which has just carried a group of Bantu passengers. This is not the appropriate occasion for discussing the principle involved. This measure only states that, in order to prevent people from contravening the law, the required notice must be displayed in a conspicuous place indicating whether Whites or non-Whites may be accepted as passengers. That is all this provision refers to.

We on this side of the House, and I in particular, object to people and groups of people being labelled with placards, posters, etc.

As I told the House during the second-reading stage of this measure, resulting in the reply which was given by the hon. the Minister, it is desirable that Republic Day every year should be a paid public holiday for all workers falling under the Factories, Machinery and Building Work Act. At this stage, Sir, I wish to move the following amendment—

The effect of this amendment will be that Republic Day will be a paid holiday annually for all those who fall under this Act.

The hon. the Minister has told us that at present many employees falling under the Act do in fact enjoy this day as a paid holiday every year. The position then exists that in certain factories some of the employees have a paid holiday on Republic Day whilst others have not. In terms of this Bill all employees covered by the principal Act will have Republic Day as a paid public holiday this year and every fifth year thereafter. Now, Sir, in the year 1967 as a result of industrial council agreements— 37 of them, as the Minister indicated—certain employees in certain factories will get a paid holiday whilst others will work on Republic Day. The hon. the Minister will realize that this anomaly causes a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction in a workshop or a factory. Therefore I believe it to be desirable for uniformity to be achieved in this regard, and not only once in five years but every year.

Another point, Mr. Chairman, is this. Although Republic Day will be celebrated with national festivities once every five years only, that does not mean that we as individuals should only celebrate once every five years as well. Because, what we are celebrating at the same time is the creation of Union in 1910. That fact has made possible the constitutional development which has taken place since then. That being so, I feel it is desirable that on 31 May every year each and every one should be in a position to celebrate Republic Day, either because the day has special significance for them or because they are interested in historical facts associated with that day. The day should become known as our national day.

We on this side feel that it would be a good thing if the hon. the Minister were to accept my amendment so that we would have recognition of a national day annually, with special celebrations every five years. We should know this is our national day, and every one should be free to take part in any celebration or any ceremonies which might be organized for the day.

The hon. the Minister indicated yesterday that he had had discussions with certain employers in connection with this matter, and also that he had had representations made to him by certain employees’ organizations. He said that he hoped with the passage of time the day would become an annual holiday for the class of employee referred to. But this will take a very long time, in my view, unless the hon. the Minister takes specific action and calls employers together to discuss this matter as a matter of policy. I feel there has been ample opportunity over the years for employers to have lodged their objections, and the hon. the Minister should now say he is prepared to amend the Act in order to give effect to what is proposed in my amendment.

The Minister also said the right time would eventually come, because of the “inevitability of gradualness”—to use a phrase used by the hon. the Minister of Finance on another occasion—for the introduction of the suggested change. He said the passage of time no doubt would bring about this change. Well, Sir I feel we should move a bit faster than the hon. the Minister thinks we should. Therefore I move my amendment and I hope the Committee will see fit to accept it so that there will be uniformity in this regard and a more general recognition of the fact that 31 May every year is in fact our national day.

Order! With reference to the hon. member’s amendment, I regret to state that there are also State employees who will be affected by the amendment, resulting in increased expenditure requiring the State President’s recommendation. In the circumstances I cannot accept the amendment.

I wish to support the plea that has come from the hon. member for Umhlatuzana (Mr. Eaton) for the hon. the Minister to give further consideration to this particular aspect. Perhaps the Minister could consider the whole question of the development of Republic Day into a national day so that we can appreciate …

Order! I have just ruled the amendment of the hon. member for Umhlatuzana out of order, and therefore the hon. member cannot speak to it now.

Am I thus not allowed to support the plea made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana?

Order! No, the amendment has been rejected.

I accept your ruling in this regard. I do not know whether there are many State employees who fall under the Act. I cannot refer to or proceed with my amendment, but nevertheless I think I would be correct if I were to say to the hon. the Minister that the achievement of the aim of my amendment is within his power. The remedy is in his hands to give effect to what I asked by further amendment, possibly in the Other Place. I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is prepared to do that rather than let this matter stand over for a further year. My plea to the Minister is to get the necessary authority to introduce a measure of this nature in the Other Place.

I regret I cannot give that undertaking because, Sir, I am not prepared to do what the hon. Member asks of me. This question has been debated and discussed on previous occasions. The Bill now before the Committee is simply to give effect to the policy of the Government that Republic Day celebrations will take place only once every five years. It is desired, therefore, that Republic Day shall be a paid holiday only once in every five years for the class of employee concerned.

At the second-reading stage of this Bill the hon. member asked me for certain information. I have not been able to obtain all the desired information, but only some of it, and it may be of interest to the hon. member and the Committee. As at 31 December 1964 there were 92 wage regulating measures (i.e. industrial council agreements, conciliation board agreements and arbitration awards), published in terms of the Industrial Concilation Act, in operation. These measures covered approximately 580,000 employees. Of these agreements 37 provide for Republic Day as a paid public holiday.

In so far as wage determinations, published under the Wage Act, are concerned, 158 determinations were in operation as at 31 December 1964 of which approximately one quarter were wholly or partly suspended for the currency of agreements or awards which were binding in respect of the same industries and areas in terms of the Industrial Conciliation Act. Approximately 481,000 employees were covered by these determinations. Twenty of these determinations already provide for Republic Day as a paid public holiday every year.

As regard the Factories Act, approximately 988,000 persons were employed in factories as at 31 December 1964.

In the light of the above approximate figures, it is estimated that some 500,000 workers will benefit by this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to say there is nothing unusual under our industrial council agreements for employees in certain industries to have public holidays not enjoyed by employees in other industries. There is, in fact, no uniformity whatsoever.

All we ask for at this stage is for Republic Day to be a paid public holiday once very five years. But as time goes on and there is a growth in public opinion, it may be, as the hon. member said, that by a process of gradual inevitability, and in the not too distant future, it may be possible to have this Republic Day of ours a national fully paid public holiday. But in my view, and in the view of the Government, that time has not arrived yet.

I am glad the hon. the Minister has given us this information. It would appear that of people falling under this Act, 500,000 enjoy this privilege each year and about the same number do not. This fact reinforces the point made by me, namely that some employees in a factory may have a paid holiday on 31 May whilst others have to work. What is more, those who have to work on Republic Day may be told that because of the absentees there is no work for them on that day and as a result they lose a day’s wages.

Be that as it may, Sir, I am not going to pursue this matter. I wish to say I am glad to have the information given by the hon. the Minister. It underlines the need for the speeding up of the process which will result in overall recognition of Republic Day as our national day each 31 May.

I wish to move the following amendment to this clause—

The effect of this amendment is to enable the hon. the Minister to issue permits to persons who wish to abstract water from a river without reference to formulae set out in subsection (2)bis, but he will not have an unfettered right as far as time is concerned to issue such permits. A limitation of 18 months will be placed on the duration of the permits from the date of publication of this measure or the date of the area being declared a water controlled area, whichever is the later. So there will be a full period of 18 months in respect of those permits. The intention, Sir, is to overcome the difficulties which no doubt exist regarding the compiling of formulae applicable to the larger rivers. One can understand that that can take quite a long time. But what one wants to avoid is the hon. the Minister or his Department merely sitting back because of the powers contained in this Bill, and letting year after year go by without the formula being devised. This amendment, if adopted, will enable the hon. the Minister to remedy the situation which appears to have arisen in some instances where a water control area has been declared before his Department has got the necessary information with which to declare the formula in terms of sub-section (2)bis.That situation having arisen, one can well understand that occasions will arise thereafter where the hon. the Minister wishes to issue a permit authorizing someone to take water from a river. One feels strongly that a different approach should perhaps be adopted and that a water control area should not be promulgated until the Department is in possession of the information which will enable it to compile the formula required by sub-section (2)bis.If that were done, the power sought in this clause would not have been required. Apparently we have the situation where some of the areas have already been declared, but because the information necessary for devising the formula is not available, the hon. the Minister finds himself unable to issue permits in deserving cases. And that is why he wants to remove the protection afforded by sub-section (2)bisin this particular clause. Now, to give him an unfettered right to ignore the provisions of that sub-section is wrong, because the subsection is the only protection of the rights of all riparian owners. This sub-section is the sheet anchor of all riparian owners. If the hon. the Minister is given power, as is intended by this clause, to ignore that in all cases for an indefinite period, then the situation is wrong. We are prepared to give the hon. the Minister that right for a limited time to overcome the problems which appear to have arisen.

I have put the amendment, but I wish to point out to the hon. member that it is hardly fair to the Chair to move an amendment of this type at the last moment. Moreover it is written, and not even typed. I would appeal to hon. members in future to give notice of their amendments in good time, especially when they are as involved as this one.

I do not know how the hon. the Minister is going to react to this amendment, but before he rises to say whether or not he will accept it, I want to say that I do not think it was very wise of the hon. member to move this amendment. What the hon. the Minister is trying to do, is to overhaul the provisions of the 1956 Act in order to enable him to apportion flood water, but the hon. member is now trying to bind the Minister. He says that if the Minister decided to assist an area by giving people the opportunity to utilize water in the meantime, pending the future announcement of a formula, he should be able to do so. The hon. member is saying in effect that the Minister will hesitate. The Minister will say that he does not see his way to collecting all the information and to produce the formula within 18 months, and will therefore rather not apportion the water in the meantime. The Minister will therefore not help in the meantime. In recent times we have noticed how the Minister assisted an area. I mention the example of the Letaba area. If the Minister had to act in terms of this amendment, he would quite probably say that he was not going to issue temporary permits in the meantime. We should like the Minister to be in a position to apportion the water flowing past in the meantime, and that should not commit him to announcing a formula at a later stage, because the Minister’s Department may report to him that it will not be able to do so in such a short time. Then the effect of the clause would be that the Minister’s hands would be bound to such an extent that he would actually harm the country because of that. I, therefore, cannot agree with the hon. member’s amendment, and I want to tell the Minister that as far as I am concerned, and I think also other members on this side, we would prefer to retain the clause as it is.

First of all, I wish to make the point that in view of the time factor your criticism, Mr. Chairman, was invalid. I believe allowances have to be made when we are being pushed as we are at the moment, to get legislation through this Session quickly. All we were able to do, in view of the complicated nature of this clause, was to inform the Minister of the amendment. We apologize, but it was done through no wish of our own.

I want to deal with the effect of this clause, which amends the Act. This is before us not because the Act as it exists cannot deal out the water to the people entitled to it—this amending Bill is before us because the Minister is unable for some reason or other to comply with the obligations laid upon him by the original Act and the Amendment of 1961. In other words, he has been unequal to the task of complying with the requirements of the Act. When these amendments went through in 1961, which placed the onus upon this Minister to devise a formula by which he would distribute the water, he did not complain; he accepted it. He drafted the legislation, and now he has come back to this House and he has admitted that he has in fact failed to comply with the obligations placed upon him by the 1961 amendment.

I want to deal with what was said by the hon. member for Soutpansberg (Mr. S. P. Botha). All the speeches from the other side of the House yesterday dealt with floodwater. Sir, this clause does not affect only floodwater. It affects the original distribution of water in an area proclaimed as a water control area. Let us get that basic fact right. It does not deal only with floodwater.

What is floodwater?

What is floodwater? All right, the hon. member can get up and criticize me if I am wrong. The hon. member for Soutpansberg wants to give the Minister the right to give out water that is available now. We do, too, and that is why we have moved this amendment, but at the same time we want to protect the rights which were put into this Act in 1961. Well, let us see how we want to do it.

The onus is on the Minister, when he declares a water control area, to devise a formula which basically says how much water there is and how much irrigable land there is, and to apportion that water equitably amongst the people entitled to it. But he has not been able to devise the formula and so he has come back to this House and says: You must just give me the right to distribute this water to these people without devising a formula. But he has done quite a lot of things in coming to ask us for that. The first thing he has done is to take away the right of appeal to the Water Court, because if there is no formula which determines how much water a man is entitled to, how do you determine whether he has been treated fairly or unfairly in the allocation of his water? And on what basis does he go to the Water Court to appeal against the Minister’s decision in allocating him water? I do not know of any basis on which he can possibly go to the Water Court. But as the 1961 Act stands at the moment, anyone who feels himself aggrieved by an allocation of water by the Minister under his formula, has the right of appeal to the Water Court, which can then decide either that he is or is not being treated fairly. But the Minister now, with this apparently small amendment, sets himself up not only as the Water Court which allocates the water, but he also takes away the right of appeal. That is what the removal of the provisions of (2) bis does. It takes away from a man the basis on which he can appeal. There is no basis of comparison on which to decide whether he has been treated fairly or unfairly, and therefore I cannot see how any Court could possibly decide whether that man has been treated fairly or not.

The other point I want to make is that in trying to draw up this formula the information necessary comprises determining what irrigable land there is and what quantity of water there is, plus the requirements of industry. In many cases the Minister obviously declares a water conservation area because he wants to do certain Government works in that Areas, because he wants to build dams, etc.

That is one of the reasons but not the only one.

In such a case, surely a survey is made of that area beforehand, so the Minister should have the bulk of the information necessary to determine the formula before he even starts working on the dam to conserve water, or allocating what water will be available. Surely he has that information already and he does not embark upon water works and decide to build dams, etc., without first knowing the history of the area and all the other factors necessary to decide whether he shall in fact build it or not; and those factors are very much the same factors necessary for him to determine his formula. So I cannot believe that there is so much difficulty involved in getting all the data. If we let the Bill go through in its present form, the effect will be that the Minister will not have to comply with the requirements of determining a formula. That, in turn, means that for three or four years—that is the period given to me—the Minister alone will go on allocating water. Three or four years in the life of a country is not very long, but for a farmer it is a long time, and if any farmer should be unfairly treated and is given a supply of water less than he requires, he has to endure that position for three or four years, or until such time as he can say that the Minister has been unreasonable in the time he takes to determine the formula, and goes to a Water Court to force the Minister to produce the formula. So a farmer can be placed from three to six years in a position where he has no right of appeal against the decision of the Minister, an arbitrary decision, as to the amount of water he can in fact have to irrigate his lands. I think that is a very bad situation, and we have tried in this amendment to restrict the Minister to a period of 18 months. In other words, if he is going to proclaim a water control area he can do so, but within 18 months he must determine the formula. We believe that 18 months is a fair time to keep any farmer waiting before he knows positively how much water he will get and what planning he can do for the future. At the moment he does not know, and unless we can nail the Minister down to a limited period which will allow him to allocate any water he has to allocate, so that the farmers can use it without delay, there will be difficulty, but that period must not be excessive because the allocation of water should only be determined by the formula, and not by the Minister; because the Minister cannot distribute it fairly unless he has gone to the trouble of determining a formula which decides what each farmer is entitled to. That is the effect of our amendment and I sincerely hope the Minister will see his way clear to accepting it, in spite of the blind recommendation of the hon. member for Soutpansberg, who, without even giving it a second’s thought, jumps up and advises the Minister not to accept it. I think that was very wrong of him indeed. All things that concern water need our sincere deliberation.

I have listened attentively to the fears and objections contained in the speeches of hon. members opposite and in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman), and I have also listened to what was said by the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis). Before coming to the standpoint which I adopt, I just want to say this. There are various reasons why one feels compelled to proclaim a Government water control area. It is not always because one plans to build a dam there. For example, the first water control areas to be proclaimed, namely along the Blyde River and the Crocodile River, were proclaimed in 1957 already, before I became Minister, and it is only on the Letaba River that there was a dam, the Ebenhaezer Dam. Furthermore, since before that time and up to the present, the Government has undertaken no storage. One has to have very good reasons for declaring such an area. One of the main reasons for doing so is because, with the knowledge that one has at one’s disposal, it is clear to one that unbalanced or unfavourable development, or development which perhaps does not serve the broad national interests of the country, is taking place in an irrigation area. One wants to step in in order to have justifiable. fair and orderly development take place. It also happens that one extends areas which have already been declared. One might find a Government dam below which development has taken place, but then one finds later that development has taken place in the catchment area above the dam, which is also in conflict with broad national interests. That is why one wants orderly development to take place there under the guidance of the Department, but with due regard to the rights of riparian owners along all public streams in that catchment area which form part of the whole. Because a great deal of work has to be done and many matters have to be taken into consideration, which is a time-consuming process, it has been found that if the Act remains in its present form—and I am not talking now about surplus of flood water, but about the normal flow—and one has declared an area, the result would be that practically no further development would take place. One virtually freezes development. This might be to the disadvantage of many people who have already had a measure of development, but who were in the process of expanding, or of people who have not yet had any development but who have the legal right to abstract water for irrigation purposes, and it would be to their disadvantage if one took a long time, in some cases many years, owing to various factors, before one was able to determine and publish a formula in terms of which one made the apportionment. Apart from the fact that one has to acquaint oneself with all irrigation developments which have taken place and with all irrigable land, it is not merely a question of aerial photographs or of the size of the farm, but there are soil surveys too, because in such a Government water control area it has to be determined what an economic irrigation unit is, as that is what the formula and the principle of orderly development are based on. For that one requires more detailed knowledge. Then there are other matters too, such as riparian owners and the sub-division and the size of the land, as the permits also deal with the owner factor.

We found in practice, without going into too much detail, that it was absolutely essential in the national interest to declare a certain area as a control area, and one knew beforehand that if one did it and one had to do it in terms of Section (2)bis of the Act as it stands at present, one would first have to publish that formula before one could issue permits, and then it would mean that even people who had riparian owners’ rights could suffer hardships. Our legal draftsmen have now tried to amend the Act in such a way that we can overcome that problem. I am only dealing now with the rights of riparian owners. We wanted to amend the Act in such a way as to enable us, in the meantime, within the limits of the data we have, to issue people with permits which are less extensive than those to which they are really entitled, so that they could allow the development to continue in the meantime. Now, if I understand them correctly, the Opposition’s objection to this is that as the section stands here, i.e. as we want to amend it, its effect is going to be that if we obtained those privileges the Department could simply sit back and wait years before publishing a formula, and on the other hand again, it might have certain implications which would not be just and fair in respect of the riparian owners. I see that point, but I cannot agree with them on the other points. I did not have the proposed amendment in my hand, so that I could form an opinion of how effective it is, but I want to agree with them on the basic objection. It is possible that it could happen in that way. Perhaps it is possible, as it now stands, that one could circumvent the provisions of Section (2) bis merely by making use of temporary permits without carrying into effect the provisions which stipulate that one must lay down and carry into effect a formula as soon as possible after obtaining the particulars. I wonder if I could satisfy everyone by saying that. In the short time I have at my disposal it is very difficult to indicate precisely where it should be inserted, and how it should be done. My personal opinion is that an amendment to remove that objection should be effected in Clause 3 (a), where we are now removing this provision in regard to sub-section (2)bis “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Act.” We now want to eliminate the words “But subject to the provisions of sub-section (2)bis”. In this regard I want to make a promise to the House, but before doing so I want to discuss the matter with the legal advisers so that we can decide where it would fit in best, and how it should be worded. I do not want to do it now, however; I would rather deal with it in the Senate. There I am prepared to make a change introducing the principle that permits which we issue under this amendment shall only be valid for a period not exceeding three years. A period of 18 months is not realistic; I want to extend the period a little. The permits will therefore be valid for a period not exceeding three years, but the Minister must then base them on a formula which has been published. In that way one would make absolutely sure that neither the Minister nor the Department can abuse the amendment and circumvent Section (2)bis of the original Act.

As far as flood water is concerned, I just want to say this: In reality the additional surplus water allocations do not fall under Section (T)bis. But if one makes those allocations one still needs the formula, and I shall tell hon. members why one needs it. If one has a formula and you have issued permits on the basis of a formula for normal riparian rights, it then means that you are treating everyone fairly according to that basis. If one wants to issue permits for the use of surplus water, then, if one wants to do it fairly, one would want to link the permits with the man’s actual riparian rights as determined by the formula. If one then links the permit with those rights, one is also ensuring that when one issues permits for the use of flood water, one does not give the one less than his share or the other more than his share. In practice it works in this way, that where we have issued flood water permits we have always done so solely in instances where we published the formulas so that the permits could be based on them. I think that if I were to do it in that way it would allay the fears or meet the criticisms expressed here.

I am very glad that the hon. the Minister has seen his way clear to meet us to this extent. I should have preferred him to have said “two years” rather than three years, but nevertheless I think that we are prepared to accept his undertaking to limit it to a period of three years. I believe that that gives a safeguard to the farmers, the very safeguard that we are against being taken out of the Act by this Bill, and I am very pleased therefore.

Then I want to deal with one more item and that is at the very end of this Clause, in line 40 on page 5, where it deals with flood water, seepage, etc. “or any other cause”. I would like a little clarification from the hon. the Minister as to the meaning of this term, because in his Second Reading speech he did talk about water from sewerage effluent and from power stations, if my memory serves me correctly. I do not think it is quite correct for the Minister to refer to effluent because he will remember that in the 1961 amendment he extended the time factor in which he had to deal wiih effluent; in other words, to lay down the standards for the whole of the Republic as to the purity of effluents that were returned to rivers. I think if he is going to use effluent as water to be allocated for irrigation purposes and the like, he should reconsider the question of the control of effluent which is returned to rivers, because I think this is going to become and already is, a very important factor in this country, where there is a shortage of water and where water is so much in demand. I would ask him at the same time to tell me exactly what he means by this term “or any other cause”. He has dealt with flood water, and he has dealt with seepage and the construction of Government water works. What other sources of excess water would there be? We want to know if the point of view we put was right that he might transfer water from one water catchment area to another? We are not necessarily against that if it serves the purpose of the country well, without robbing one area, but let the Minister tell us because we would like to know exactly what he means and what he intends to do.

I only mentioned the three sources referred to by the hon. member to illustrate what was meant by water coming into a river from “any other cause”. I could have added to the list water from dolomitic areas and possibly water pumped out by mining concerns, water which they do not need and which adds to the quantity of water available. I could also have added surplus off-flow from irrigation waters, not only seepage. Irrigation waters have been used for irrigation of irrigable land higher up in the catchment area, along the banks of the river.

I also want to correct the hon. member where I am making it easier for people to let their effluent in unpurified form, flow into our public streams and rivers.

You extended the time.

No, I did not extend the time. What I did do was this: As the Act read I could not really climb down on a certain industry, because of the wording of the original Act that I had to lay down a Republic-wide standard. That is the one change that has been made, but there has always been a provision in the Act to the effect that I can issue temporary permits for effluents to flow into public streams when I was assured of the fact by the company concerned or by the Bureau of Standards that other problems had arisen that did not enable the users of such water to purify it to the desired standard before allowing it to flow into the river again for consumption.

In view of what the hon. the Minister has said I wish to withdraw the amendment which I moved earlier.

Amendment withdrawn with the leave of the Committee.

I can quite understand there being concern about this Clause. We are all concerned about the water rights of land owners, particularly in view of the fact that in Section 62 of the Act these rights are being restricted more extensively than in any other clause.

In order to understand the importance or the implication of this amendment I think it is essential to consider the clause as a whole. At this stage I want to say that in my humble opinion the Minister cannot accept this amendment in its present form, not even with an extension of time to three or even five years. I shall try to indicate in a moment why I think he cannot accept the amendment.

He has already accepted it.

Nevertheless I still have the right to say what I think. Mr. Chairman, if you were to look at Section 62 (1) you would see that with the proclamation of a Government water control area, the water rights which are already being exercised are as it were protected in that section. In 1961 a fundamental, major amendment was made to sub-section (2). Originally sub-section (2) only made provision for the issuing of an additional permit, over and above that for which provision was made in (1), as well as making provision for advertisement in the Government Gazette and in addition for the conditions imposed upon the issuing of such a permit or the placing of such an advertisement. An amendment was subsequently introduced in 1961, and that amendment in 1961 had many repercussions in this House. The amendment introduced in 1961 resulted in the Minister being able to issue a permit for the use of water at any time by any person. In other words, while the section had, by implication, only authorized the Minister to grant permits for the use of water on riparian land, i.e. water to which people were entitled as riparian owners, this section in 1961 authorized him to go further and grant permits for the use of water to any one at any place, i.e. on non-riparian land as well. At that time there was a certain amount of dissatisfaction about that, and provision was made for the protection of the rights of riparian owners. That is why the Minister added sub-section (2)bis. Sub-section (2)bis now deals only with the rights of riparian owners and provides in the first instance that the Minister must, as soon as possible after the proclamation, determine how much water is available. In the second instance the Minister must then, when he knows how much water is available, lay down a formula in terms of which that water must be apportioned to riparian owners, i.e. the owners referred to in sub-section (1) of 2bis. In other words, Section 2bis protected the rights of riparian owners in so far as Section 2, which had been amended in 1961, could possibly infringe upon the rights of riparian owners. Clause 2 provides:

This is what sub-section (2), which we now intend amending, provides. It provides that the rights to the water are vested in the Minister, but a qualification is appended, namely “subject to the provisions of sub-section (2)bis”. It is now intended to eleminate the part reading “but subject to the provisions of sub-section (2)bis”. I should like the hon. the Minister and his Department to go into this thoroughly. If the section provides “notwithstanding anything to the contrary”, in other words, it makes no difference what else is contained in the Act, “The rights to the water shall vest in the Minister”. I wonder whether (2)bis is then of any value. If we eliminate the words “but subject to the provisions of (2)bis” then I wonder whether (2)bis is still of any value in as far as Section 2 is concerned, as we inserted (2)bisfor the very reason of protecting the riparian owner in respect of the provision which is made in subsection (2); that is why we wanted to introduce sub-section (2)bis, and one does not want to have it all undone. But if one goes further and reads sub-paragraph (a) of sub-paragraph (2), one sees that it subsequently reads: “… except as provided in sub-section (1),”. I said just now that sub-section (1) makes provision for the rights which have already been exercised, and now it provides “except as provided in sub-section (1)”. If it is essential that we eliminate the words from the present sub-section (2) I want to ask the hon. Minister whether we cannot then, in order to protect us in respect of the value of (2)bis, insert after sub-section (1) “sub-sections (1) and (2)Z>zs”, so that it would then read: “ … except as provided in sub-sections (1) and (2)bis.”; in other words, so that the protecting right of the owner, in so far as it is provided by sub-section (2)bis in this alteration, will remain protected in sub-section (2), because I know that that is the intention of the hon. Minister. Surely he does not intend anything else; he does not want to nullify sub-section (2)bisentirely; he wants sub-section (2)bis to retain its power and value. But I think that if we continue with this amendment the section will lose its power and will then perhaps be of no further value.

The Minister said just now that he would consider accepting the amendment if the period was extended to three years. It makes no difference what the period is. The principle is the acceptance of that amendment. My humble opinion is that the hon. Minister cannot do it. If you were to look at sub-section (2), Sir, you would see that sub-section (2) was introduced, particularly in 1961, not only to issue permits and place an advertisement in the Government Gazette concerning the use of water in so far as it affected the water of riparian owners, but that sub-section (2), as amended in 1961, specifically provided that the Minister could use sub-section (2) in order to allocate water by means of a permit for nonriparian land. If the Minister accepts this amendment, therefore—it makes no difference whether the period is 18 months or three years —it would mean that he would lose all the powers which he obtained in 1961. He will then have those powers for the period of 18 months or three years only, and as soon as that period has expired, it means that the Minister will no longer be able to issue permits, and those permits might be in respect of non-riparian land. Those permits in respect of non-riparian land are not affected by subsection (2)bis, as sub-section (2) bis deals exclusively with riparian land: it is the section which provides protection in respect of riparian land. In terms of sub-section (2) the Minister must, and still wants, to retain the right, not for 18 months or three years but indefinitely, to allocate water for non-riparian land by means of a permit, and if the Committee is now going to add that provision, then it would mean that the Minister will lose that power upon the expiry of that period. He will then no longer be able to do it and that permit will then be withdrawn and something else will have to come in its place, and that something coming in its place will only be in respect of riparian owners’ right as provided in sub-section (2)bis. It is my humble opinion therefore that such an amendment cannot be accepted by the Minister at all, as he would then lose the powers he acquired under (2) in 1961. [Time limit.]

I listened carefully to the comments of the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. S. L. Muller). I shall certainly take into consideration the points he raised. There are one or two views he put forward with which I do not agree, but I see no reason why we should waste time discussing the matter now. I think his speech was a useful one and I want to give him the assurance that we will take his suggestions as well as his objections into consideration.

I move—

This is a short, formal Bill, the effect of which will be to make the State Attorney organization, as it exists at present in Windhoek, form part of the State Attorney organization of the Republic of South Africa.

Attorney’s work for the Administration of the Territory of South West Africa is normally undertaken by the State Attorney in Windhoek, who is appointed by the Administrator of that Territory in terms of the State Attorney Proclamation of 1921. The State Attorney’s Office, Windhoek, is therefore not associated with the State Attorney’s Office of the Republic, and it acts independently of the State Attorney of the Republic. In the past, however, this state of affairs has given rise to problems in practice, and that is why the Administrator-in-Council of South West Africa requested that the State Attorney Act, 1957, which was passed by this House, should be made applicable to South West Africa. In this instance, therefore, we have a request from the Administration in question with which we now wish to comply. From time to time the State Attorney of the Republic has handled certain matters for the Administration of South West Africa. On occasion the post of State Attorney in Windhoek has been filled from the ranks of the State Attorney organization of the Republic. The latter, however, has no control over the staff or the activities of the office in Windhoek. Apart from that, matters in South West Africa in which the Government Departments of the Republic are concerned are complicated considerably by the fact that the State Attorney of the Republic has no direct representation there. From a practical point of view, therefore, the existing arrangements are for various reasons unsatisfactory, and in all respects it appears desirable to comply with the request for the integration of the Windhoek office with the Republic’s administration. The steps necessary to effect such an integration are contained in this Bill.

In explanation of the various provisions of the Bill it may be mentioned that the amendments contained in Clauses 1 up to and including 4 are merely of a consequential nature and are necessary to adapt the position to the integration of the Windhoek office with that of the State Attorney’s Office of the Republic. Clause 6 applies the State Attorney Act, 1957, to South West Africa, while Clause 8 effects, inter alia, the integration of the State Attorney’s Office at Windhoek as a branch of the State Attorney’s Office of the Republic. For the rest, provision is made in Clause 8 for the essential interpretation provisions, for the transfer of the staff at Windhoek to the establishment of the State Attorney of the Republic, and for the retention of the rights and obligations arising from articles already entered into with the State Attorney, Windhoek, and which are being served there. The repeal of certain South West African provisions, which will now become unnecessary, and the reservation of the validity of steps taken in terms of those provisions is effected in Clause 9. These are briefly the provisions of the Bill.

There is nothing which can be said and which has not been said by the Minister in relation to the contents of this Bill. As he has indicated it is an administrative measure which is necessary and it has the support of this side of the House.

I move—

This is a short Bill which merely substitutes “30 June 1967”, for “30 June 1966”, in the Act. That is what hon. members have before them on paper in the Bill. We have, of course, debated the subject of this Bill for several consecutive years. This Bill contains what has generally become known as the so-called “Sobukwe Clause”. Hon. members will remember that under given circumstances this Bill enables the Minister to detain certain persons sentenced for certain communistic and terroristic deeds, after the expiry of their sentences, in other words, despite the fact that they have served their sentences. The only person in respect of whom the provisions of this measure have been applied in practice, is Sobukwe. Up to the present time the necessity of detaining any other person in terms of the Act has not arisen.

Hon. members will recall—I am merely giving a brief review of the situation for the sake of the record—that this person, Robert Sobukwe, was in the first place a guiding spirit in the old A.N.C. set-up. He came from the Witwatersrand, where he was associated with the University there in a certain capacity. Not merely was he academically associated with that University, but he also had very close connections with the communist groups or cells at that University. He was a guiding spirit in the African National Congress prior to the split between the African National Congress and the Pan-African National Congress in 1959, as hon. members will recall. It is very clear from the court cases which have followed since that time—and hon. members need not take my word for that; they have read and studied the evidence in that connection from time to time—that even prior to the split between the P.A.C. and the A.N.C. both organizations had been communist-controlled and communist-inspired and communist-led.

The split between these two groups came about—there were various contributing factors which I need not mention again here—not as a result of the fact that there was communist infiltration into the A.N.C., not as a result of the fact that communists got hold of and took over the leadership and control of the A.N.C., but at the basis of that struggle, apart from the other causes, was the fact that those with P.A.C. sympathies objected to the White communists who infiltrated and engineered the take-over of the A.N.C. I need not repeat that history to hon. members; they know how that quarrel arose; how Mandela on the one hand was left with the A.N.C., and Sobukwe on the other hand went his own way with the P.A.C. Another basic difference between the A.N.C. and the P.A.C. was that the A.N.C. made more sophisticated subversion its object, whereas the P.A.C. found itself in the sphere of brutal violence. Once again hon. members need not take my word for that. Hon. members have had the benefit of reading court cases in this connection from time to time in which it was made abundantly clear—and it was proved in our courts—that as far as the P.A.C. was concerned, one was dealing with an out-and-out terroristic organization, a terroristic organization which did not hesitate to commit murder, a terroristic organization which did not for one moment hesitate to use violence. Sobukwe was the leader of that organization. He was arrested at a very early stage before that organization could put its plans into operation. Under the provisions of our law he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of only three years, whereas many of his followers who committed crimes—crimes for which one could not hold him legally responsible but for which one could hold him morally responsible because they followed the pattern laid down by him and were committed in a way which was in fact anticipated by him and must have been anticipated by him—were sentenced to death, to imprisonment for life or to imprisonment for many years. Some of them fled the country. They took refuge in African states, in Britain and in the neighbouring Protectorates and not for one moment have they yet relaxed their efforts to incite violence, to influence people and, in fact, ot revive the organization and to establish cells; this is happening as a result of the fact that the Presidential Council of this P.A.C.—in other words, the refugees who fled the country before we struck—is constantly trying to keep the organization going, and what is more important, still regards Sobukwe as their leader and is making attempts from time to time to revive the organization in this country. Fortunately I need have no hesitation at all in telling hon. members that we have the situation under control and that I believe that in future we shall also succeed in clearing up these subversive cells and elements. For that reason I can also tell members that this Bill does not arise from any feat I have for the future, or from any exaggerated sense of importance I attach to this person, or from any fear I have that there will be revolt or insurrection—call it what you like—in the near future. We should remember, however, that the Presidential Council is still set on organizing and that it still regards him as its leader. I believe that for the moment it is in the interest of the safety of the State not to run the unnecessary risk of letting this leader of this terroristic organization loose on South Africa. I know hon. members would want to tell me now that I have other powers, that I can restrict him to some area or other. That is true, of course, but in doing so I shall be running the risk that he will be able to carry on the organization by employing certain organizational means which such a person always has at his disposal. I also know that in doing so I shall be running the risk that he may succeed in getting over the border to get in touch with and join the Presidential Council and to continue his subversive activities from there. I do not think that it would be wise at this stage to allow this person, who has revealed himself to be as I have described him to hon. members, to get the slightest opportunity of being able to continue with his organization. Consequently, what I am asking for in the Bill is further to detain this person up to 30 June 1967 should it be necessary, and I want to stress “should it be necessary”. No decision has been taken at this stage that he will be detained up to that date. That will depend on circumstances which will be reviewed from time to time. I can also tell hon. members that this person has not changed his attitude or point of view at all. He is relentless as regards the course he has taken. To me it is very clear that he will take up where he left off. That being the case I feel that at this stage it is not at all necessary to expose South Africa to the risk of the activities of this person. I want to repeat that in saying that I am not attaching any exaggerated importance to him. He was held in high esteem by his organization; the Presidential Council is still in existence, and I think it would be very foolish of us indeed to run any sort of risk in that connection. As regards his detention, you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I have told this House before that he is being detained on Robben Island under circumstances described by the International Red Cross of Geneva as being "equivalent to that of a high-ranking officer”. You are aware of the fact, Sir, that I have given hon. members on both sides of this House the opportunity of paying a visit to Robben Island. Hon. members, especially the Justice groups in this House, also know that if they want to avail themselves of the opportunity, they may go to the Island and may also pay Sobukwe a visit there. I have asked the hon. member for Prinshof (Mr. J. W. Visse), as I did last year, to see whether he could arrange a common date for hon. members who wished to avail themselves of that invitation. I can tell hon. members that he is being treated well, that he receives any medical attention if and when required, just as he is receiving special treatment now for the prostate gland complaint from which he is suffering at the moment. As far as that is concerned, therefore, he is not lacking any attention, and I am convinced that he is being treated well. Although it is not written into this Bill, he is the only person who is being detained in terms of this legislation, and therefore I feel at liberty to ask hon. members to extend this date from 30 June 1966 to 30 June 1967.

When introducing this measure, the hon. the Minister dealt at length with the case of Sobukwe and he has given us the history again of the A.N.C. and the P.A.C., of the split that developed there and of the different tactics employed by these two organizations. The Minister also told us that he does not attach too much importance to Sobukwe and that he is satisfied that the situation is under control and that he does not fear, at the moment anyhow, that Sobukwe can reorganize these organizations. The hon. Minister has appealed to us to support this measure and I have no doubt that people reading his address will say “well, if this is true, Sobukwe should be detained in jail.” But what we must remember, Sir, is that this Bill does not only apply to Sobukwe, as the hon. Minister himself has said. The Minister himself has said that this Bill and this clause has become known as the Sobukwe Clause because it has only been applied to one man. Our objection to this measure is that it is very wide. When the hon. Minister introduced the original Bill in 1963, he said that it was drastic but that it was needed for the security of the State. Now Sir, who are the people who can be affected by this Bill? As I have said it is not only Sobukwe who can be affected by this measure. There are numerous people and it is perhaps just as well to remind the House of that fact. In the Act it reads “A person who is serving a sentence of imprisonment imposed under the provisions of the Suppression of Communism Act, or any other law in that regard, or the Public Safety Act, the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1953, the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956 or Section 21 of the General Law Amendment Act of 1962”. If such person is serving a sentence for an offence committed under any one of these acts “and the Minister is satisfied that on his release he is likely to advocate, advise, defend or enourage the achievement of any of the objects of communism”—one of the objects of communism may be the establishment of a republic—the Minister may detain him after he has served his sentence. Now the Minister may say “but I won’t detain a person for a minor offence”, but the fact remains that we are giving the Minister these very wide powers in terms of this measure.

When the Bill was first introduced in 1963, the Minister accepted an amendment proposed by this side of the House to make it only of a temporary nature, because he himself, as a lawyer, realized how drastic was this measure which he had introduced. Therefore he agreed to make it only of a temporary nature. That was in 1963. Every year since then the Minister has come with a Bill to extend the operation of this measure. Now I am not pleading for the release of Sobukwe.

You are pleading against this measure.

I am not pleading for the release of Sobukwe, but this Bill deals with a multitude of people—all types of people who may be convicted under the Acts I have mentioned and who can be affected by this clause.

There is only one man who has been affected.

If only one man is affected, if the hon. Minister says that only one person is affected and that he knows of no other person who may be affected, surely the hon. Minister has had plenty of time to work out some other way of dealing with Sobukwe. It is not necessary to have a measure of this nature on the Statute Book to deal with one man. Surely it is not beyond the wit of this Minister to find some other way of dealing with Sobukwe. When I suggested last year that the Minister could deal with him under numerous other laws, especially as he is a Bantu, what was the Minister’s reaction? I referred to the case of Luthuli. The Minister said that Luthuli is a different case. That maybe so. Sobukwe is in fact being detained in a gaol. He may be treated as a senior officer would be treated, but he is in fact being detained in a gaol, because the whole of Robben Island is a gaol. His conditions of detainment may be ideal. I am not disputing that. I am not saying that Sobukwe is being maltreated in this prison. I am not criticizing the way Sobukwe is being treated, but I submit that that is not what this House should consider. What we are to consider is whether we are going to extend this measure for another year. The Minister himself has said that this is a drastic and a harsh measure. We say that the Minister should be able to find some other way of dealing with Sobukwe. He alone is to decide whether Sobukwe must be detained further. We cannot decide. We have not the facts. The Minister is the man who must decide how long Sobukwe is to be detained. For the first time this afternoon we have heard from the Minisster that he may not be detained for a whole year further. We have not had that suggestion before. The Minister now says that we may not detain Sobukwe for a further 12 months.

I said that it had not been decided to detain him for a further year.

I do not want to deal with Sobukwe’s case as such, but I say that in fact that weakens the Minister’s case for keeping this law on the Statute Book.

Do you want him to be released?

I do not want him to be released. I never said so, but I say that a measure of this kind should not remain in our Statute Book and we will vote against this Bill for that reason.

When the Bill was introduced in 1963, I warned the House that any amendment to make it of a so-called temporary nature was not going to make the slightest difference. I knew perfectly well from the past history of the Government and of the Minister of Justice that where a Bill is made subject to the reintroduction of a particular clause, year after year, it really makes very little difference whether it is a permanent part of the law or not. It is going to be reintroduced every year, and in fact that has happened on other occasions in the past, in respect of a few other laws of this nature which were introduced somewhat apologetically as bills of a temporary nature in order to deal with the exigencies of the time, and I refer to the Unlawful Organisations Bill and also the 12-days detention laws. Those were temporary measures and they have become permanent measures now. I dare say the time will come when the Minister will not bother himself or this House with the formality of bringing these Bills before Parliament each year in order to get a date extended for a further 12 months. Because, it is only a formality. As I told the House, three years ago, if the hon. Minister wishes that law on the Statute Book, bringing it to Parliament is not going to make any difference. It will be on the Statute Book for a further 12 months.

The hon. Minister to-day reintroduced the so-called Sobukwe Clause and gave us a long and detailed history of the A.N.C. and the P.A.C. It is the first time that he has treated us to his historical review.

You are talking absolute nonsense.

No, I am not referring to the introduction of the original Bill in 1963, but to the introduction of the Bills to extend the dates. He has stated that it is important to continue to hold Sobukwe on the island and he has assured us that he is the only person held under the particular Section of the Act. Last year he contented himself with telling us that the quarters of Sobukwe on Robben Island were very fine and that a Red Cross visitor had been to see him and had assured the Minister that the conditions under which Sobukwe was being held were equal to those under which a high-ranking officer would be held. Well, Sir, I for one do not care whether Sobukwe is quartered in accommodation similar to that of a four-star hotel. This in no way alters my main objection to this Bill, and my basic objection is that a man is deprived of his freedom, a man who has committed no crime, who has not been sentenced by any court of law for that crime.

No crime?

No crime. Sobukwe was charged in a court of law and he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for a crime which he committed years ago in a form of incitement against the pass laws. That was the crime.

So it was a crime.

He served his sentence, and this seems to have evaded the hon. member opposite: for this particular crime Sobukwe has served his sentence. He has spent three years in gaol and he was due to be released when this Bill was rushed through the House for the first time in order that he might continue to be detained at the Minister’s pleasure for an indefinite period of imprisonment. Sobukwe, therefore, has now served twice the sentence that the judge imposed on him. He is now entering his fourth year of the indeterminate sentence, which means that he has served six years already in prison. So the hon. Minister has taken it upon himself to double the sentence that the courts of law of South Africa thought fit to impose upon Sobukwe.

You want him to be released?

Yes, I do want him to be released because he is serving a sentence without having been convicted for a crime. I think this is a travesty of justice that a man can be detained in prison, it is a mockery of democratic justice, it is a complete abrogation of the rule of law as any democratic country knows it, for a man to be detained indefinitely in prison because the hon. Minister suspects that he has not yet given up his intention (“intention”, mark you) of committing a crime. Sir, nobody knows whether a person who intends to commit a crime will in fact commit such a crime. I would like to ask the hon. Minister if he has personally interviewed Sobukwe, if he is so certain that he is going to commit a crime.

No.

I think he ought to. I think in a case as important as this, the hon. Minister himself should go and visit Sobukwe. I understand that he has been a model prisoner. I would like to go to Robben Island myself, as the hon. Minister knows. I have asked to go, but it has not yet been possible to arrange for me to go. I took up the hon. Minister’s kind invitation that any M.P. could visit prisons and I did so during the Recess, as he knows. I wanted to go to Robben Island before this Session began. It was not possible—I do not know why—to arrange such a visit and I have now heard that he has been attempting to arrange a visit for all M.P.’s. I hope it will be possible for me to visit the Island.

If you come back next Session, you can apply again, if there is no possibility of making arrangements now.

I have heard that there have been changes in respect of this prison, and I am happy to say that these have been changes for the better. But that is another matter. I will come back to that at some other time during this Session. If this clause is put on the Statute Book year after year, then I want to know why we bother to ask Judges to pass sentence on anybody who is brought to court under any of the numerous laws already mentioned in this House. Why bother with it? In practice it does not matter whether a Judge gives a man one year, or two years, or life, because whatever sentence he may impose the hon. Minister can in fact change that sentence and keep a person for an indefinite period.

Who gave you a mandate to talk such nonsense?

We are not going into the question as to who gave me a mandate. I can assure the hon. member that I am not experiencing the same difficulty the hon. member has in getting my nomination.

I am not going into the history of these movements mentioned by the hon. the Minister, although I must say that that history differs from the facts as I have read them.

Naturally.

Why naturally?

Because you always hold different views.

I believe the facts, but the hon. Minister is interpreting things in his own way and then he believes them to be true. Authoritative persons have written about the history of this movement and they show indeed that when Sobukwe went to prison originally, the P.A.C. was strongly anti-communistic and it was not yet a violent organization. It has become violent since then. As to communistic infiltration, the Minister will know more about it than I do, but up to the time of Sobukwe’s arrest all the history that I have ever read of African movements in South Africa has led me to believe that the P.A.C. was not communistic, although it may have become communistic now. But it was not a communistic organization until Sobukwe was sitting in gaol. Therefore the blame cannot be laid at his door. I do not want to say more about the man himself at this stage. I may tell the hon. Minister that I do not know him, that I have never met Sobukwe, but I am not pleading for his cause only. I believe that whether a law applies to one person or ten persons or 100 persons, it is a complete travesty of justice that we have before us now; this measure has no right to be on the Statute Book, either as a temporary measure or a permanent measure, of any country which purports to be a democratic country. This is the sort of law which one finds in countries that go in for preventive detention, in totalitarian countries, in communistic countries. but such a law has no place whatsoever on the Statute Book of a democratic country. Therefore I propose to move the follwing amendment—

Mr. Speaker …

The hon. member for Rondebosch.

May I tell the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) that after the 30 March I shall be the M.P. for Rondebosch. We witnessed a very interesting phenomenon here to-day. We have always suspected in this House that there is absolutely no difference between the United Party and the Progressive Party, and now shortly before the election they have revealed that there is in no wise any difference. Yet I would still like to ascertain the following from the hon. Leader of the Opposition: If the misfortune should occur that he came into office at 30 March, is it then his intention to let Sobukwe go? Are they prepared to release him from custody? They must tell us to-day what they intend doing with Sobukwe if they should come into office. The attitude of the United Party to-day is absolutely identical with the attitude which they have taken throughout whenever this legislation in regard to sabotage was introduced. They have consistently been opposed to any legislation which has been introduced to ensure the safety of the State. They have consistently fought against it.

The attitude which the United Party adopted here to-day is merely the same attitude which they have consistently adopted for the past five years. It is not for me to make a long speech here; neither do I have any intention of doing so.

It will be your last.

It will not be my last. Let me say in conclusion that this legislation which the Minister introduced here to-day is accepted throughout South Africa. This legislation is supported not only by those standing on the National Party side, but also by those who support the United Party outside this House. That this is in fact the case we shall see on 30 March in Natal and particularly in Rondebosch.

As for the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman), of course, her point of view is known to us all. I want to pay her a last compliment to-day— and I am saying “last” intentionally, because I do not think I shall see her in this House again. I hear her opponent is a photographer and I take it that if I wish to see the hon. member again he will have to bring a photograph of her along. Well, as I have said, her point of view is well known and, let me say this to her credit, a consistent one. That is more than I can say for my hon. friends on the opposite side.

The hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) raise an argument here which is my only reason for rising to reply to this debate. With the Act in his hand this hon. member once more elected to use an argument here this afternoon which is completely erroneous. As a lawyer he ought to know that the argument is erroneous and that that is not what is contained in the Act. Nevertheless, this is an argument which the Opposition uses from time to time and which does our country great damage overseas. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories once again sheltered behind this fig-leaf here to-day, a fig-leaf behind which even Eve would have been ashamed to shelter. The hon. member has come along here to-day and alleged that in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act a person is guilty if he makes propaganda for a republic. He says that in terms of this Act that is also part of communist aims. But surely that is not the case, Mr. Speaker, and the hon. member should know that? With what object in mind is he putting forward that argument again to-day?

Surely it is clearly stated in the Act that a person is only guilty of offending against its provisions if he aims at achieving his object by violent means; if he tries to realize it by unlawful means. Let me read the relevant provision of the Act to the House. According to Section 1 (9) Communism means—

1. (a) which aims at the establishment of a despotic system of government based on the dictatorship of the proletariat under which one political organization only is recognized and all other political organizations are suppressed or eliminated …

In other words, Mr. Speaker, in what I have just read we do not find what the hon. member alleged. But let us take a look at (b), which reads as follows—

1. (b) which aims at bringing about any political, industrial, social or economic change within the Union …

But the hon. member did not read the rest of the paragraph. He did not read the important words, “the promotion of disturbance or disorder”.

Read the introductory part of the paragraph again where it states, “in particular, any doctrine or scheme …” [Interjections.]

The hon. member should not give me cause to feel ashamed for his part. A person may strive to bring about the establishment of any form of government, provided (a) it is not based on the dictatorship of the proletariat and (b) he does not want to do so by violent means. Except under these circumstances it is certainly not an offence to strive to bring about any other form of government. Hon. members opposite may even strive to re-establish the monarchy in South Africa. The cardinal point in this connection, however, is, as it is put in the Act, whether it is done “by the promotion of disturbance or disorder, by unlawful acts or omissions, or by the threat …”

But that is not one of the aims of Communism. Read the principal Act.

I am afraid, Mr. Speaker, that if this is the knowledge the hon. member has of this measure, I cannot even argue with him about it. The hon. member made the statement that his side is opposed to this Bill inter-alia because I may, in terms of the provisions of this Bill, ask Parliament to imprison anyone who is striving to establish a republic.

Nonsense!

That was his argument. The hon. member knows that it is absolute nonsense. But why is he coming forward with this argument? He is doing so in order to enable him to exonerate himself from blame outside this House for the fact that the United Party is taking this attitude to-day. If one comes to the point, however, and asks whether or not they want to release Sobukwe, their reply is neither yes nor no. You simply do not get any reply or definite standpoint from the hon. members. I can understand why the United Party adopted this attitude the first time. Then they could at least have offered an excuse the fact that they did not know what was happening. But one is astounded at an Opposition which has seen what has happened here in South Africa during the past number of years and which is therefore just as well-informed, Mr. Speaker, as you or I am. One is astounded that they can still at this stage adopt an attitude such as the one they adopted here to-day. All that I can do is to express my astonishment at such an Opposition.

I move—

In many respects a married woman who is under the marital power of her husband—the only power a husband exercises over a woman! —is not legally competent and cannot open or conduct a current account at a banking institution without the consent and assistance of her husband. In practice, of course, it makes no difference whether the money is in the husband’s pocket or in the bank. In terms of the Matrimonial Affairs Act, 1953, she does in fact have the power, inter alia, to open or conduct a savings account in a banking institution, without such consent or assistance. Of late, married women are availing themselves to an ever-increasing extent of the facilities offered by banks, and find the necessity of having to obtain the consent and assistance of their husbands to operate a banking account, an unnecessary burden which does not serve any useful purpose. As far as the husband is concerned, too, it is better to arrange facilities for his wife at the bank, than to give her his cheque. It appears, that subject to certain reservations, there is no objection to married women being granted greater freedom of action as regards conducting a current banking account. Consequently provision is made in Clause 1 (b) that as from now they may, without the consent or assistance of their husbands, deposit mony in any account in a banking institution and deal with it as a depositor. Seeing that the possibility exists that the joint estate of a married couple married in community of property and of profit and loss may be held responsible for the amount by which the woman’s current banking account is overdrawn, it appears to be reasonable and fair to provide that such a woman may not overdraw her current banking account without the consent and assistance of her husband. The necessary provision in this regard is also contained in Clause 1 (b).

For the rest it is provided that a husband cannot draw a deposit which stands to the name of his wife in any account in a banking institution, or take possession of money she has withdrawn from such an account. In other words, she and she alone has control of that money. These provisions are in accordance with other provisions which already exist in respect of deposits in savings accounts in banking institutions. It is also provided explicitly that without a married woman’s consent, the husband of such a woman will not be entitled to demand from the banking institution in question particulars concerning her deposits. If the man wants to know how much money his wife has in the bank, he would simply have to ask her and believe what she tells him. He will not have the power to check this information at the bank. That is a good thing because a woman’s business is her own affair. The latter provisions are in accordance with the provisions of Section 68 (2) of the Building Societies Act, 1965, and Section 65 of the Post Office Act, 1958. The amendments contained in Clause 2 are necessary as a result of the changed position brought about by Section 60 of the Children’s Act, 1960, in terms of which either of the parents of a child may, in certain circumstances, be deprived of their parental powers.

These are the provisions of this Bill. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without mentioning that I read in the Argus that that paper paid the hon. member for Wynberg (Mrs. Taylor) the compliment that I had supposedly taken over her Bill of a year or so ago. If that has the effect that the hon. member for Wynberg feels better about the matter, then it is a good thing that they said so. It is, of course, a fact that this Bill was drafted long before the hon. member for Wynberg had given notice of her Bill. Of course, I do not mind taking over something good from any hon. member, and therefore if I had based my Bill entirely on the Bill of the hon. member, I would have admitted it. Allow me to say, however, that it was not the hon. member who claimed this compliment for herself, but that it was merely the Argus which was so friendly towards her. She is not to blame. As regards the provisions of this Bill, we—and when I refer to “we”, I am not only referring to Parliament, but also to the Law Revision Committee which is concerned with these matters —follow in broad outline the principles contained in the Act of 1953. The English Press is strange. During the years the United Party was in power, women also asked for these things, but they did not receive them. When the National Party came and granted them these powers in 1953, the English Press called it the “Bertha Solomon” Bill. The United Party could not grant them these powers and they had to wait for a Nationalist Government to grant them. I mention these matters merely to eliminate any possible misunderstanding.

I am indeed gratified to see that the Minister has agreed to take over Clause 1 of my Private Members’ Bill. At the same time I would like to express my regret that he refused to accept Clause 2 of that Bill. I shall not go into past history and show how my Bill came to be printed. The hon. the Minister will, however, recollect that a deputation of women, led by myself, interviewed him two years ago to discuss this matter. He knows very well what requests we put to him at the time. At that time he gave us no indication that he intended introducing his own Bill, nor that he was very interested in these matters, but he told us that he would refer them to the Law Revision Committee.

But that is what I did.

Yes, I know. But I think the Minister was a little bit ungracious when he said that the initiative did not come from the women-folk of South Africa, nor from this side of the House but that it came exclusively from the Government side.

Clause 1 of my original Bill involved an extension of rights and this the hon. the Minister has shown himself prepared, as is proved by this Bill, to accept. Clause 2 of my Bill involved the acceptance of greater responsibilities commensurate with the rights granted in Clause 1, but this clause the Minister has not accepted. At any rate, the Bill now before the House means that any woman married in community of property—and this should be emphasized—will in future be able to operate her own banking account without the assistance of her husband. Up to now she could only be a depositor in a building society or in a post office savings account. In terms of this Bill she will be able to prevent her husband, if she has to, from taking moneys out of her account or from taking possession of any money she may have withdrawn from her own account. Another important aspect is that women will in the future be able to borrow on their own against any deposits they may hold with a bank.

We are grateful to the Minister for having accepted this principle. A new and important principle is being established in South African law as a result of the present amendment in so far as women married in community of property are concerned. This is the first time that an admission is being made by statute that a woman married in community of property is no longer a minor in the eyes of the law, although it is limited to the extent of being enabled to control her own financial affairs by means of a banking account. This is going to affect from 80 to 90 per cent of women married in community of property, because as the hon. the Minister knows, an unmarried woman, a widow and a woman married with an anti-nuptial contract have these rights in law already. It is only those women who are married in community of property who up to now have been looked upon as being minors in the eyes of the law.

But despite this amendment there still remain a number of anomalies. These anomalies should, in terms of modern life, be adjusted or removed. Many of them will flow from the principle embodied in this Bill. This principle is, as I stated a moment ago, that a woman married in community of property will now cease to be a minor in law for this particular purpose. This new amendment involves also what is known in our law as the “marital power” and I hope the hon. the Minister will not take it amiss if I remind him of the fact that there are a great many other issues which will inevitably flow from the acceptance of the principle contained in this Bill. It follows that if a married woman has the power, for instance, to open and maintain her own banking account, she should also have the right to enter into hire-purchase agreements, buy and sell stocks and shares and to be appointed as an executor, an administrator or a tutor in the administration of a deceased estate. This at the present moment she cannot do. These matters will have to be adjusted as a corollary to the principle adopted in this Bill. It was also the purpose of my Private Members’ Bill to have the principle of equal contractual capacity established first and once that had been done to see the legal rights of women systematically extended as a matter of consequence.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister what the position will be of a woman who is married in community of property and achieves certain rights under this Bill and who suddenly becomes a widow?

You see, Sir, she is now to have greater control over her affairs in terms of the provisions of this Bill. But as the law stands at the present moment, if she were suddenly to become a widow, she reverts to the status of a minor. Her husband’s salary and pension are immediately withdrawn, his bank book is seized, the joint estate is frozen and even her private savings account book is sent away to be audited by the authorities. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister could clarify this point and give me the assurance that a widow, who was married in community of property will no longer suffer the last-mentioned indignity but will be allowed to manage her own financial affairs at least in so far as her own banking account is concerned, if in no other respect. Of course, a woman married out of community of property is in rather a different situation.

That position is not altered at all.

Oh, I see, that is not altered at all. Then that is one of the other things which we will have to put down on the list that will require alteration in due course. We trust that we will get the Minister’s sympathetic attention when we raise these points.

Another matter in this particular field which we will have to tackle in time arises out of Clause 2. I would like to state that we on this side of the House support Clause 2 as well. This clause deals with the guardianship of minor children and has reference to Section 5 of Act 37 of 1953, the Act which the Minister dislikes being called the Bertha Solomon Act. Under the 1953 Act a parent—I want the hon. the Minister to tell me whether I am wrong in this interpretation—a parent, that is to say a mother or a father, to whom the sole custody or guardianship of a minor child has been granted by a court, could by testamentary disposition appoint a person as sole guardian or custodian of a child upon that person’s death. Also under the 1953 Act, the father of a minor, to whom sole guardianship had been granted, could not by will so appoint a person to take over his powers, except to act jointly with the mother. That is the position as I understand it under the existing law. The court granting sole guardianship or custody to one parent does so in terms of Section 1 of the original 1953 Act, namely, in the case of divorce or a judicial separation or where the parents are living apart. But this power can also be exercised by a children’s court, as the hon. the Minister said, when it is a question of desertion or of ill-treatment by a parent. In other words, it seems to me that there are two forms of court orders possible—and I hope my interpretation is correct—giving sole custody or guardianship to one parent or the other. These powers must be passed on by testamentary disposition under certain circumstances in terms of the original 1953 Act. If I understand the position correctly the first amendment here is of a minor nature. Clause 2 (a) of the Bill provides for the insertion of a new Section 5 (3) in Act 37 of 1953. In this section reference is made to the Children’s Act of 1960 instead of the Children’s Act of 1937. To this there could be no possible objection. Apart from better language and draftsmanship, it simply means that Section 60 of the Children’s Act, 1960, becomes for all practical purposes the same as Section 58 of the 1937 Children’s Act. There appears to be no alteration in anyone’s powers and apparently all that has been done is an adaptation to the 1960 version of the Children’s Act. I take it that is what it means and if that is the position we, on this side of the House, are quite happy. The only instances in which a father can, under the 1953 Act, by will, appoint a guardian to act independently of the mother is, in the first instance, when he has been given sole custody or guardianship in terms of Section 1 of the Matrimonial Affairs Act—that is in the case of a divorce or where they are living apart—or, in terms of an order under the Children’s Act. That is the law as it exists at present. Now, I take it Sir, that the Minister’s intention is—the second amendment proposed here makes it clear—that the father is now bound to appoint his deputy by testamentary disposition, both in the case of a court order under Section 1 of the Matrimonial Affairs Act and also in the case of an order made by the children’s court. In other words, Sir, the powers of the father in this particular instance are being clarified. I take it that that is the correct interpretation of what this amendment means? Section 1 of the 1953 Act, referring to divorce or separation, taken with the Children’s Act, delegate certain powers to the father.

The third amendment is purely of a consequential nature. It is difficult for a person who is not a lawyer to place the correct interpretation on it, but I can assure hon. members that I have gone into this matter very thoroughly. As far as I can see it means that if one of these powers is rescinded by a court order in terms of the 1953 Act or a children’s court, then any disposition in a will pursuant to it is also nullified. If that is the case, Sir, we have no objection to these amendments. Clause 2 deals with the question of equal guardianship of children, that is minor children, and this is, of course, a matter which has been referred tc the Law Revision Committee. The hon. the Minister tabled these reports a few days ago and I read with great interest those sections which deal with the question of the remaining legal disabilities of married women. I see that in that report, which is relevant to the question of the guardianship of children, that the Law Revision Committee has left it to the discretion of the hon. the Minister to decide whether he should carry this matter any further.

I sincerely hope that the hon. the Minister will be sympathetic enough to have this matter further investigated and to allow the women’s organizations, with whom I am in close contact, an opportunity to discuss it with him or his appointed nominee. The question dealt with in Clause 1 regarding the right to open a banking account and to manage one’s own affairs will inevitably affect another thorny question which arose at the time of the commission on women’s legal disabilities in 1953 and which appeared subsequently as a motion which was passed by the Select Committee on the Matrimonial Affairs Bill, 1953, but was thrown out by this House. This affects the question of presents between spouses. A woman will have control over her own banking account—she may have lots of money in it and may choose to make large sums of money available to her husband. Is this now to be considered as presents between spouses? Is there going to be any difficulty? If so, this is a further matter that requires adjustment. The taxation position may be affected. It has been suggested to me, not by the hon. the Minister, but by various people with whom I have discussed this measure, that our men-folk in South Africa are a little bit frightened of this innovation and that they really need to be protected more than they are. In other words, the suggestion is that this is rather a dangerous step to take. The truth, however, is that if one examines all the legal niceties in South African law, which we as women are so often told exist for our protection—if you examine them carefully—you will find that most of them exist for the protection of the male partner in any marriage and not for the protection of the wife at all. In fact the first really protective statute that was ever enacted in this country in so far as the rights of women are concerned, married women, was the 1953 Matrimonial Affairs Act. All the other provisions, Sir, tend to protect the husband from what might be called the follies and indiscretions of his wife. I therefore think that this myth should once and for all be exploded that it is we who are being protected. This, to my mind, is just a lot of nonsense.

They are frightened to say: Hear, hear! any louder, you will notice. One only hears a low mutter.

One hears this argument quite a lot, this argument about the follies and indiscretions of the little woman, and that she probably does not understand what she is doing and might lead her husband into all sorts of difficulties. May I say that on average in marriage the follies and indiscretions of husbands more often land their wives in difficulty than the reverse. That is the position in this country and in many others.

It all depends on the type of indiscretions.

We are now talking about certain financial indiscretions. Before I sit down I wish to say—and the hon. the Minister knows all about this because he has to deal from time to time with his Law Revision Committees— that lawyers are notoriously conservative people —with respect to all those who sit in this House—particularly where any legislation pertaining to women is concerned. We accept that because we have had to live with it for a great many years. No doubt you will get over it in time. “Stadig oor die klippe” is how the saying goes. I do not suggest that our good husbands should be referred to in these terms, but the fact remains that we will deal with these matters piecemeal and hope to get the Minister’s assistance from time to time. In terms of politics, Sir, I am very gratified and so are all the women of South Africa, to note that our political leaders are becoming increasingly approachable and more adaptable as far as these matters are concerned. In fact, it is not only our political leaders who are becoming adaptable. In this connection I cannot resist quoting a paragraph from a speech that was made by one of our leading businessmen in South Africa, a Mr. C. J. F. Human, who is senior director of “Federale Volksbeleggings”, and who gave a lecture at Stellenbosch last year. He asked me to provide him with certain information for this lecture, which I happily did. The lecture was delivered to women students at Stellenbosch University on the subject of “Die rol van die Suid-Afrikaanse vrou in ons huidige ekonomiese struktuur”. I only want to read two short paragraphs to prove the necessity of the measure which we are introducing to-day. Mr. Human said—

And finally, Sir, just one last comment of his. He said—

Now, that comes from one of our leading businessmen in South Africa, the senior director of “Federale Volksbeleggings.”

I think the hon. member should now revert to the Bill.

I accept your ruling Mr. Speaker. In conclusion I would simply like to say that no one in South Africa need be worried about this Bill at all. The Minister and the Government have taken over my Bill and that of the women’s organizations with which I worked. He has got all their support. He knows that, Sir, and every member of this House has been written to about it. I would only like to say, before I sit down, that tribute should be paid here—the Minister was not prepared to do it but I feel bound to do it—to the women’s organizations which took the initiative as they definitely did in this matter. I do not believe that any Government in this country or anywhere else would take the initiative in regard to improving the rights of women if we did not do something about it ourselves.

And a tribute to Catherine Taylor too!

We have the backing of all the commercial banks, the stock exchange, commerce and industry, the South African Agricultural Union representing the country women, the Life Offices Association of Southern Africa, the Building Societies Institute, the Joint Council of Societies of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Bankers. This support acquired by the South African Federation of Business and Professional Women, of which I am an office bearer. Finally, and I would like to emphasize this again, the principle involved here, Sir, is fundamental. It must lead to a revision of the status of women married in community of property in South Africa over the years. We are grateful to the Minister for having accepted what is an important new principle in our law as far as the status of women married in community of property is concerned—something which affects nearly 90 per cent of all married women in South Africa to-day.

In conclusion I would say what should be obvious, that we on this side of the House support this Bill unequivocally.

I will not be very long. It is a fairly non-contentious issue which has been accepted by both sides of the House. I do not think there is a man in this House who would have the temerity to say anything against it. I do want to say, Sir, that I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and credit should be given not only to this House and to others who I shall mention in a moment, but also Sir, to the previous House in 1953, which introduced the important amending Bill, namely the Matrimonial Affairs Bill which has made such a difference to the status of women in South Africa. I was fortunate enough to make my maiden speech in this House 14 years ago when that Bill was introduced. I am very glad indeed to be present in the House to …

… make your farewell speech.

I do not think the hon. member need be too sure of that. In the unlikely event that it will be my farewell speech, Sir, I must say that one of the greatest sadnesses will be that I shall not be casting my eyes on him any longer. I say, Sir, in the very unlikely event of anything like that happening, the thought of missing all these lovely people is more than I can bear. But let us get on with the Bill, Sir. As I said, I wish to give credit where credit is due, and I do think that the former member of Jeppes, Mrs. Bertha Solomon, does deserve credit for all the work she did prior to the Government introducing the 1953 Bill. It took the Government 5 years after it got in power to get around to that. I must say that women seem to get what they do get, Sir, legally, from men. [Laughter], This, however, often operates at a very slow pace. I am glad the hon. the Minister has seen fit today to go a little further on that path of equality for women. As the hon. member for Wynberg pointed out—and to her I think some credit certainly is due together with the women’s organizations she mentioned—women are playing a very important part in the economic life of South Africa. Married women, married in community of property, are taking very big responsibilities in the economic field, in our professions and in every vocation. They teach our children to nurse the sick, occupy senior positions in medicine and law and elsewhere. They occupy executive posts in business organizations, and if I may say so they do not play too small a part in this House. Indeed I think they can hold their own with practically, I would say, all the male members that I see around me anyway. I do want to say that one is always grateful for small mercies and I am very grateful for certain additional rights which women are gaining by virtue of the Bill which the Minister has piloted through the House this afternoon. And most of all, I am happy for once to find myself in the unique position of being able to agree with and thank the hon. the Minister of Justice.

I think it was clear from the exchange between the hon. the Minister and the member for Wynberg that the hon. member for Wynberg had a large part, not only in pressing this matter here in the House, but indeed in putting the seed into the ear of the hon. the Minister who passed it on.

Mr. Speaker, that need not have been said by me. But it might perhaps be thought— indeed the hon. member for Wynberg suggested it—that men may be frightened by this measure. And I therefore rise partly to say we certainly not only do not begrudge the step forward that has been taken but we on this side of the House welcome it. Mr. Speaker, women will clearly welcome it—the extra freedom it gives, the extra flexibility in their affairs in regard to banks in the way of ceding, pledging or borrowing against any amount deposited in the bank. They will welcome the fact that the funds may not be touched by their husbands. Men too can welcome it, even on purely selfish grounds, namely, on the grounds that they need no longer sign all these forms when their womenfolk are planning to open banking accounts. I think few men have realized how much money lying in bank accounts was indeed within their grasp, if only they had known. That avenue now is closed to them! [Laughter.]

This Bill undoubtedly represents a step forward in the enhanced legal capacity of women. Much of the marital power, however, still remains. But I have no doubt that if the hon. member for Wynberg continues to sit in this House and is joined by others like her there will be many further steps forward which will be pressed upon this House before very long.

I thank hon. members for the support they have given to this Bill. It was with a set purpose that I stated that the hon. member for Wynberg had not claimed for herself the honour for this Bill, but that the papers had done it on her behalf. I said that because it is a fact and also because lady members on both sides of the House, including the hon. Senator Koster and the hon. Senator Visser, discussed these matters matters with me at exactly the same time as the hon. member. It is true that the hon. member contributed her share in that regard. But I think that it would be very foolish of any person to claim this for himself, seeing that this matter has been the subject of discussions and agitations extending over a period of many years. These things took place even before 1953. My attitude in respect of this matter, and I am sure that it is the correct attitude to adopt, is also the attitude of the Law Revision Committee, namely, that one has to by very careful before one tampers unnecessarily with the basis of our family law in South Africa. Family law did not come about yesterday or the day before. It is something which has developed over the centuries, and one does not dare effect fundamental changes to the basis of family law with undue haste. For that reason it is and remains my attitude that I shall at all times give the good ladies of South Africa a hearing as I have done in the past. I shall continue to be consistent in forwarding their representations to the Law Revision Committee, and I shall embody the recommendations of the Law Revision Committee in legislation as I have in fact done here. But it cannot be expected of a Minister that he should decide on such matters personally and all by himself. These are matters which the Law Revision Committee has to investigate thoroughly because they hold very wide consequences. It is not easy for one individual to foresee these consequences. I thank the hon. member for Wynberg for her support, and for the extent to which she took the initiative in connection with this matter. I even thank the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) for the fine words she addressed to me. The closer our parting, the more friendly we become, it seems to me. I also thank the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson), because, speaking on behalf of the menfolk, he gave both the hon. House and me the assurance that this Bill contained no hidden dangers for the men. After all, Mr. Speaker, the only basis of this Bill, and it is a fair basis, is that ladies who are not married out of community of property but are still under the marital power of some or other man, should have the elementary right of keeping that for which they themselves have worked. And that is a very fair principle. It is also a principle which one can concede without violating the basis of family law. But it should not be lost sight of that when our family law came about, women did not yet earn at the rate they are earning to-day. They did not do the work they are doing to-day. Neither did they have the opportunities they have to-day. You will be surprised, Mr. Speaker, by the number of men who live on the earnings of their wives. And for that reason it is good and correct that we should make this provision which does not only provide that the husband will not be able to examine that account, that he will not have the right to check it, that he will not be able to take possession of it in any way, but also that, on the other hand, the husband will be protected in that he cannot be held responsible for his wife’s overdrawn account. After all, that is the only matter that interests men, namely, that they will not be held responsible for those overdrawn accounts. Allow me to say this, Mr. Speaker. I should very much like to see the man who, when “love” comes home one evening and informs him that her account is overdrawn, would not see to it that the matter is put straight the next day. Whatever the case may be, I think women are getting much more than they originally asked for. Once again I want to thank hon. members for supporting this Bill.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

That the Bill be now read a second time.

There are no statutory provisions in the Republic in terms of which civil judgments of the courts of law of foreign countries can be enforced. Common law governs this matter in our country. In terms of that judgments of foreign countries can be enforced in the Supreme Court by means of preliminary judgment and in the magistrates court by means of summons. This procedure is not dependent upon any arrangements for the reciprocal enforcement of civil judgments.

On several occasions South Africa has been approached by foreign countries with a view to making arrangements for the reciprocal enforcement of civil judgments. As regards the matter under discussion it has never been possible, however, to convince countries, such as Britain, that our common law provisions ensure sufficient reciprocity. With the exception of West Germany and Queensland, Australia, it is uncertain whether civil judgments of the Republic are enforceable in other countries.

The extent to which the international traffic of people is taking place at present and particularly the immigration of foreigners to the Republic, and the fact that the Government, as matters are at present, has no control over the matter, have once again given rise to the question whether the legal provisions in terms of which foreign judgments are enforced in our country, ought not to be revised. It does indeed strike one as peculiar that the judgments of countries which are not kindly disposed towards the Republic, or which are not prepared to effect reciprocity as regards the matter under discussion, can be enforced in the Republic without due allowance for political considerations.

Neither is the matter without problems as regards the Republic’s immigration effort. Immigrants from countries in Africa, who are forced to immigrate to the Republic owing to conditions in those countries, sometimes find themselves, through circumstances beyond their control, in a position where they inevitably sustain judgments against them in the countries in question. Their rude awakening when they discover that such judgment can be enforced against them in the Republic, in spite of having sacrificed virtually everything they possessed in the countries concerned, is necessarily a great and unpleasant one.

Apart from any other considerations, it is undesirable and inappropriate that the Government should have no say in a matter which affects international relations, and that a concession should be granted to countries which are not prepared to ensure us reciprocal treatment.

The Bill is on the same lines as the British Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, which, as far as can be ascertained, is similar to those legal provisions of several other Western countries in terms of which the enforcement of foreign civil judgments are governed.

After the necessary negotiations have been conducted with the countries with which reciprocity is desired as regards the matter under discussion, the State President will designate them by proclamation.

Clause 3 of the Bill prescribes the procedure in terms of which civil judgments of proclaimed countries can be registered by the Supreme Court, and provides that in addition to the amount of their judgment, the interest on the judgment, if any, as well as the reasonable cost of the registration of the judgment can be registered. Essential provisions concerning the calculation of the rate of exchange and the calculation of interest on registered judgments, are also contained in this Clause.

In terms of Clause 4 a registered judgment will have the effect, and execution on that judgment will issue as if it were a judgment of the court which registered the judgment.

It is conceivable that circumstance may arise and come to light which can necessitate the setting aside of a judgment. It will, for instance, be quite inappropriate to uphold the registration of a judgment obtained by fraud. The necessary provision as regards the matter under discussion is made in Clause 5.

The procedure for the transmission of judgment given in the Republic for enforcement in proclaimed countries, is governed in terms of Clause 6, and has been simplified as far as possible in order to save costs and to prevent inconvenience.

It will, of course, be an awkward task for the courts of the Republic to determine in every case whether the court of a proclaimed country which gave the judgment in question, had the jurisdiction to do so. The presumptions created in Clause 7 are aimed at facilitating the task of the courts in this regard.

The provisions of Clause 8 are necessary in order to put it beyond any doubt that this Bill amends the common law in as far as it relates to the matter under discussion.

For the rest, the competence of the courts of the Republic to recognize the legal force of foreign judgments for the purpose of any claim, defence, or counter-claim is reserved, and the power is granted to the Chief Justice to make rules, prescribing any matter which may in terms of this Bill be prescribed or which is necessary or expedient to be prescribed.

This Bill is supported by us. We consider it is necessary, to make provision for the reciprocal enforcement of civil judgments. We consider that this Bill has been well-drafted by the Department and we therefore support it.

Bill read a second time.

I move—

In explanation of the amendments proposed in the Bill, I want to point out that the remedy allowance weight per coin in respect of the nickel and bronze coins in the existing legislation was based on a variation of 2 per cent. In the case of the 20c and 10c coins it is unfortunately also still incorrect, because it was calculated on the weight of 5.5 and 3.5 grams, respectively. When it was later decided to increase the weights to 6 and 4 grams, respectively, the remedy allowance was not adjusted accordingly. In practice it was found that it was very difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to keep to the 2 per cent weight remedy, particularly in respect of the nickel coins. An increase to 3 per cent remedy allowance is therefore essential.

I shall explain. In order to achieve a high production of coin discs economically, wide strips of bullion have to be used, from which a number of discs can be punched simultaneously over the full breadth. When wide strips of bullion are rolled out, there is inevitably a variation in thickness across the breadth of the strip. This occurs because the rollers of the roller-presses bend slightly under pressure. The strip is then always thicker in the centre than at the ends. The wider the strip, the greater is the variation in thickness. In order to keep to the 2 per cent variation, an excessively narrow strip would be necessary. This would then result in a low output per machine, that is, of the roller-presses as well as the disc-presses. It is self-evident that more machines would then be required. To meet a steadily increasing demand for coins on an economic basis, it is. therefore essential that wider strips of bullion be used.

The factories that supply the imported nickel coin discs to the Mint have in fact also made it clear that they could not produce the discs on a basis of 2 per cent variation. That would have been uneconomic, and it would not have been possible to deliver the large quantity required within the prescribed period. The South African Mint also received the assurance that it was common practice among countries where nickel was used as bullion to prescribe a remedy allowance of 3 per cent.

As regards bronze coin discs, these are manufactured by the South African Mint itself. New presses have in fact been bought, but in order to achieve the increased economic production, it is necessary to use wider bullion strips for the same reason as in the case of nickel. In respect of the bronze coins it would also be uneconomic and impractical to try to keep to the exceptionally strict limit of 2 per cent remedy.

A uniform remedy allowance weight of 3 per cent is therefore contemplated, and the proposed legislation is based on that. It is expected that there will be no difficulties in keeping within the limit. That is the only provision in the Bill, and I now move that it be read a second time.

We support this Bill of course because the principle involves a technical matter and we have had timely warning of it. We have been told on the Select Committee of the difficulties in minting metal, and this Bill was to be expected. It is accepted that in minting metal it is necessary to have these remedies. There is a matter which might be regarded as a minor matter but which I regard as being of paramount importance in this Bill. Possibly the Minister has not realized it because it does not effect the principle of the Bill, but with your indulgence, Sir, I should like to have a few minutes to put forward this point of view.

When I introduced a Bill ten years ago I made the plural of “rand.” “rands.” I drafted my Bill in English and did not translate it into Afrikaans. In the translation, strangely enough, the translator made the plural “rande” in Afrikaans, but on five occasions in the Bill I introduced I used “rands” as the plural. Now when the Minister’s Coinage Bill was introduced, the first Bill which was introduced on decimal coinage by the Government, the word “rand” was used once and strangely enough it was used there only to describe the denomination “two rand.” I did not notice that because we were concerned about getting the Bill through; I regarded it rather as an adjective, to describe a two-rand coin or note. However, it was never discussed at the time. But over the years, in the second Bill amending that, in Bill 78 of 1964, this error seems to have been repeated. Well, one has been asked on many occasions what the correct pronunciation is in English. I am not speaking Afrikaans; I leave that to the Akademie, which has given its opinion on the Afrikaans and also the English. The Akademie agrees with my view in English and has stated it much more forcibly. I have frequently been asked what the correct pronunciation is in English, and have said that in English one does not lay down a pronunciation as being correct. In English the correct pronunciation is a matter of usage, what is customary English usage; and I have suggested, whenever I have been asked, that we should depend on usage. People could use whichever pronunciation they wish. And then comes the inevitable question from the newspaper correspondent: What do you say? Well, 1 say one rand and ten rands. That is what I have maintained throughout. In this Bill, to my great joy I find that the hon. the Minister, in the English translation of the Bill—I presume it was drafted in Afrikaans and translated into English— says that the denominations of coins in gold are the Trojan, five rands, and then two rands. We get these people broadcasting and talking about “rant” with a short “a” and “rahnt” with a long “a”. They are trying to adopt an Afrikaans pronunciation. But throughout the world, on the London market and on the New York market, they speak of South African rands (with a short “a”). And the rand has a very high reputation, not from its pronunciation but from its stability. To-day I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and say that although I agree with the principle of the Bill I am 100% behind him where he has come over to use this pronunciation.

Now, Sir, this is the last Bill I shall be concerned with in regards to decimal coinage, and can sing my nunc dimittis. I can depart in peace from the decimal coinage stage because I have seen my salvation; I have seen this pronunciation accepted I congratulate the hon. the Minister.

I am very sorry to disabuse the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore), but this is the last occasion on which he will address the House, at any rate on this subject. I am afraid I have to disabuse him. In a Bill no provision is made for pronunciation. Each one can pronounce it as he wishes, and I shall continue to say so whenever I speak of a rand, whether I speak in English or in Afrikaans. But if the hon. member is satisfied with this I am very glad, because I am perfectly satisfied with the Bill.

I move—

The Kimberley Leasehold Conversion to Freehold Act was passed in 1961 in order to enable leasehold owners of erven in Kimberley to acquire ownership of their erven. The Act provides that any owner who owns his erf by virtue of a lease or a licence registered in the office of the town clerk within a period of two years from that date, namely 20 July 1962, on which it was published that a register of the erven concerned had been opened, may apply for transfer. Of the approximately 2,000 leasehold owners, about 100 have failed to apply within the prescribed period, despite the fact that the Act and its benefits were extended and that publicity was given to the matter in Kimberley. These 100 owners are now in a position of uncertainty, for as soon as the State President issues a proclamation in terms of Section 19 of the above-mentioned Act, the provisions of Section 2 of the General Law Amendment Act of 1957 shall apply to these erven, with the result that the agreements of lease on six of them will not be valid in respect of third parties, unless such agreement has been registered against the title deed of the land. What this amounts to, then, is that before such a leasehold owner can deal with his erf, he is required, firstly, to have the erf surveyed, secondly to obtain a diagram of the erf, and thirdly to enter into a notarial agreement of lease with the city council. No financial institution will lend him any money, and no cession of his existing lease agreement is possible, until such time as he has complied with these requirements. It also appears that such a lease agreement no longer offers any security to persons who have already borrowed money against them. A request has been received from a firm of attorneys on behalf of six lessees for the extension of the period of two years in paragraph (1), which I have just mentioned. Their excuse is that they did not understand the matter. It can be expected that other owners will also make similar requests in the course of time. It will cost the State nothing to hold the existing machinery available for a further period, and the City Council of Kimberley, which handles the transfer, is also agreeable. It is not proposed, however, that the transfers allowed in terms of an extension of the statutory period be exempted from the payment of transfer duty, stamp duty and fees of office as has been the case up to now.

I trust this will meet with the approval of the House, in order that the 100 owners concerned here, whom I have mentioned, will also be granted an opportunity to own the properties.

The hon. the Minister will be pleased to know that this side of the House supports this Bill. I know that there is a necessity for this legislation, and we understand the need for it. We appreciate the difficulties of the persons concerned, and therefore we support the Bill.