May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that the officer concerned on 22nd February circularized hoteliers offering his services on a commercial basis in negotiations with the National Liquor Board regarding classification?

The hon. member will have to Table that question.

When the House adjourned yesterday evening, I was pointing out that this Bill did only three things. The first was to define the basic concepts of appearance, acceptance and descent more closely in order to prevent confusion. In the second place I pointed out that a third leg, descent, was being added to the other two legs of race classification which have to serve as criteria in the classification of individuals. And in the third place we now have the abolition of third-party objections to race classifications which have been disposed of, which, as I indicated at the commencement of my speech, have in the past been exploited in a scandalous way by the enemies of our policy in order to try and ridicule our policy and to present it as being impracticable.

Nonsense.

Yesterday, when I accused the Opposition of stirring up feeling not only in this country, but abroad as well, with the great excitement and the emotion with which they dealt with the matter, there was consternation in their ranks. I also accused them of unconsciously being the tool of the people who are hostile to our policy. I now want to announce here that even to-day, in the lunch-hour, we reaped the bitter fruits of this action on the part of the Opposition. I am referring to the action taken by and the picketing by the so-called “Lanfervroue”, also known as the Black Sash, which we again had to experience during the lunch-hour. These poor women, who often do not know what it is all about, and who then allow themselves to be taken in tow by the type of speech we have heard here from the United Party Opposition and also from the hon. member for Houghton, are now picketing outside this building. The television cameras were whirring this afternoon so that the blackest possible image of South Africa may again be presented abroad. That is what has happened and those are the bitter fruits we have already reaped as a result of the actions of that side of the House. But I shall leave it at that.

Allow me, Sir, in the few minutes I still have at my disposal this afternoon, to say a word about the assertion that has been made from the side of the Opposition that this legislation is supposedly the most drastic which has ever been introduced in South Africa for the purpose of determining the race of any particular individual. That is not so. The Leader of the Opposition would do well to go and consult the hon. member for South Coast, who, if he is well-informed, will tell him that in Natal there is a provision in respect of the descent of school-children which is far more stringent and drastic than this amending measure could ever be. It deals with the admission of children to white schools and the way in which they are to be classified as Whites. The requirement in Natal—and I quote—is as follows—

[Interjections.] I can see the Opposition does not like this example I am mentioning, but I want to stress that before any child may be admitted to a white school he has to prove that he is of white ancestry for three generations on both sides. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is the hon. the Minister of Sport entitled to say to me “damn humbug”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the words “humbug” and “damn”. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. the Minister entitled to withdraw what he said and say:“What I think is the same?”

Mr. Speaker, I said nothing further that I would have to withdraw.

The hon. the Minister’s withdrawal should be unqualified.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I withdrew the words without qualification originally.

Mr. Speaker, in other words, before a child may be admitted to a white school in Natal, the school must be satisfied that that child is of white ancestry for three generations on both sides. Now, Sir, I ask you: “Is that not a much more drastic race classification than is contemplated by this legislation?” I shall mention to you the source of this decision. Its source is the case of Seneque v. The Natal Provincial Council (1939, N.P.D., 271). As far as I know this decision has never been rescinded. I want to add that this decision was given by the late Mr. Justice Feetham, who on occasion was a member of the House of Assembly of the old South African Party. Before concluding I wish to say that, after listening for a long time to the speeches made by members of the United Party, the question occurred to me who are really the guilty ones who have made it necessary for us to introduce this amending legislation to-day, and who also made it necessary for us to introduce the previous legislation. There they are. The United Party are really the guilty ones and I level this charge against them to-day.

It is the United Party who, for many years, while they were still in power, were responsible for the indescribable sorrow and distress of those unfortunate people over whom they are now trying to shed blood and tears in this debate. They are the ones who simply let matters take their course. They are the ones who allowed mixed marriages to continue. They are the ones who fought the Immorality Act tooth and nail. In that way all the border-line cases arose for which we have to make legislative provision to-day. Now, as is evident from their attitude to this amending legislation, they want to carry on doing nothing and letting things slide. Before resuming my seat, I want to say that we are enacting this legislation with a clear conscience, that it is an honest attempt on the part of this side of the House, in the face of a very difficult, thorny, delicate human problem, to try and clear up these human tragedies in the most humane possible way, tragedies many of which we have inherited from that side of this House. Virtually all of them have been inherited from that side of this House because they were not prepared in the past to act timeously to prevent our being faced with these tragedies.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment moved by the hon. Leader of the Opposition. I feel that the measure before the House is unnecessary and one that can only add to the misery of many of our citizens. The human tragedies, some of which were described by the previous speaker, which have been brought about by race classification in this country are already so serious that it is most unwise to add to them. I feel that this Bill rather than tending to ameliorate these human tragedies, will add to them. This Bill contains a number of provisions and principles which are really repugnant to the South African legal traditions. I will in due course deal with some of those principles to show that they are repugnant to the ideals and traditions which we have had in this country up to now. Generally speaking I am of the opinion that this is an unnecessary Bill and one which should not have been proceeded with, particularly in the present circumstances.

In addition I am not at all satisfied that the hon. the Minister has made out any case at all justifying the introduction of this measure before the House. I feel that the Government is going too far in this amending Bill and is virtually retracting many of the assurances which were repeatedly given when the original Bill was introduced in 1950 and in the various subsequent amendments to this Bill. These assurances, summarized, were to the effect that whilst the Government was of the opinion that a Population Registration Act was necessary in this country nothing would be done to impose any hardship on any people in the compilation of that register. That is the effect of the undertakings given. Indeed, the responsible Ministers from 1950 onwards have given public assurances in this House and outside that the register will be compiled in the most humanitarian way possible and that every aspect of race classification would be approached in that way. We were assured that the greatest degree of humanity would be used in the compilation of this register and that every step would be taken to prevent any hardship being inflicted upon any section of our population. Previous speakers in this debate have drawn the attention of the House to some of the assurances given by the responsible Ministers previously. I have no intention of repeating those assurances. I would, however, particularly like to remind the House what the hon. the Minister’s predecessor had to say in regard to the manner in which the population register would be compiled. On the 26th April, 1962, the then Minister of the Interior, the hon. Senator De Klerk, when dealing with an amending Bill after having dealt with the test of appearance and acceptance, had this to say and I quote from Hansard, Col. 4436—

Order! That quotation has already been read to the House.

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue with the portion that has not been read to the House.

What do we now find in this Bill before the House? Despite the acceptance of the principle that in race classification the community itself or public opinion was the best judge, the hon. the Minister now proposes to disregard public opinion and introduces new principles of race classification. One of the principles envisaged in this Bill is the descent factor. In every debate since 1950 we were assured time and again that the Government did not intend to investigate a person’s descent or to delve deeply into that aspect.

That is not correct.

I say that it is correct. The hon. member says that it is not correct but I want to remind him that I raised this issue crisply in 1962. The hon. member for Heilbron, who followed me, and who appears to be the Government’s mouthpiece in these matters on various occasions, had this to say (Hansard, Vol. 3, Col. 4484)—

[Interjections.] Now what do we find in this Bill before the House? Despite the acceptance of the principle that in race qualifications the community itself or public opinion was the best judge, as the hon. the Minister’s predecessor said, the Minister now proposes to disregard public opinion and to introduce a new principle of classification. I say that that new complication he is introducing is this aspect of the descent factor. I want to say again that these assurances were given repeatedly. I do not want to waste time by going through them. Despite those assurances this descent factor is now being introduced as an important element in the compilation of our population register. I would like to say to the hon. the Minister that in my view this is grossly unfair and an extremely dangerous principle. Apart from that, it is contrary to all the assurances that we have been given since 1950.

Further, in terms of this Bill, any admission made for instance for the purposes of the 1951 census, would be the means of pegging for all time the person’s race with effect from the date of that census. Does the Government not realize the grave consequences which may flow from such a law? It would mean that the race qualifications of the individual, whether right or wrong, whether made wittingly or unwittingly, will remain rigid and permanent and will for all time peg a person’s race qualification. That will be the effect of the law as it is presently before the House.

We know how many entries on a census form are made. Very often they are made by census enumerators who try to complete their work in the shortest possible space of time. Many an entry has been made on a census form, which has not been personally made by the individual concerned. There have been instances—and I have known of these instances in the course of my experience over many years—of one occupant of a house giving the required information in respect of all the other occupants of the same house, without in any way interrogating any of them. I am sure that there have been many instances when the information given in the census form has been given in sheer ignorance. And yet, in terms of this amending Bill as it stands now—I will deal with the hon. the Minister’s proposed amendment in a moment—any admission made for the purpose of the census will be regarded as an admission of descent made for the purposes of race classification. That is how the Bill reads now. I was very glad indeed to hear yesterday in this House that it was the hon. the Minister’s intention to amend the Bill in such a way as to make it clear that any documentary admission about one’s descent will only be used in registration and evidence if the admission was made for the purposes of race classification. This does at least soften the original intention of the Bill, but even so I am still convinced that even in this amended form, the introduction of the principle of descent is contrary to the repeated assurances which we have received in this House, namely that the descent factor will not be brought in in the compilation of the population register.

I now want to deal with another aspect. The term “mixed descent” has often been used by individuals in total ignorance of the serious implications that flow from it. I have had a case of a person, undoubtedly European, having been described in his birth certificate as being from mixed parentage, because—and these are the facts—his father was South African born and his mother was born in Lisbon. He was described as having mixed parentage. Both parents were Europeans but the father was South African and the mother was born in Lisbon. He was unwittingly described as having mixed parentage. Under this Bill, if the word “mixed” or “gemeng” is used on a census form or any other form to describe a person’s descent, that description will be deemed to be a reference to a Coloured person. This will mean that, despite any proof to the contrary, the race classification of that unfortunate person will be fixed, and he will be classified as a member of the Coloured Group. When that is done, all the embarrassing consequences and hardships will commence to flow. Surely the Government does not intend to make our race classification so inflexible and permanent. Surely the Government does not intend to abandon the assurances which have been given to us over the years by the responsible Ministers, namely that every approach towards the compilation of the population register would be dealt with in the most humane way possible. Again, in fairness, I want to say that I was glad to hear yesterday that it is the Minister’s intention to amend the original Bill so as to provide that when the term “mixed” is mentioned in any official return, this will not be conclusive and that an opportunity will be given to the person concerned to prove that he is in fact not a Coloured person. However, whilst this is some concession, it is by no means completely satisfactory to my mind, because the onus will then be passed on to the individual. The onus passes on to the individual to prove that he is not a Coloured person. I repeat that the proposed amendment does soften the original implications and intentions of this Bill, but it will in no way eliminate the hardship with which some of these people are going to be confronted. Then again, the Bill provides that if either of the parents of an individual have been classified as a Coloured person, he must be classified as Coloured. This will become the fixed classification in terms of this Bill, despite the fact that this individual may over the years have removed himself entirely from all association with Coloured people, and may have become generally accepted as a White person by reason of his employment or his business or his social activities. There are many of them—many of our citizens in this country have crossed the line. They have dissociated themselves entirely from their ancestry. They have mixed with, associated with and become known to White people and they have become accepted as White people. In terms of this Bill once such a man’s father or mother has been classified as a Coloured person, he must be classified as a Coloured person. I ask the hon. the Minister: Is this a humanitarian way of dealing with an unfortunate individual of this sort? Is this the type of treatment that is going to be meted out to individuals, an example of whom I gave the House a few moments ago?

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister realizes in human terms what hardships and frustrations are inflicted upon a person such as I have described if he is classified as a Coloured. He reverts from being a first class citizen in his own country to becoming a second class citizen, with all the disabilities that that relegation carries with it. It is no good laughing or smiling this off. Yesterday afternoon we heard some of the hon. members saying that they should be proud that there are pure-blooded Coloureds, etc. We know only too well of the human tragedy and the enormous disabilities which these people have to suffer. When I speak of disabilities, I have no intention of restricting it to the political aspect. I refer generally to the relegation in his economic and social status which, in terms of this Bill, remains a permanency. Surely it was never intended by the Government that we should forsake compasion in the Government’s determination to inflict upon this country a complete separation of our racial groups. Surely it was never intended that we should forsake compassion. Surely it was never intended that we should completely ignore the humanities involved in compiling our population register. This should be uppermost in our minds at all times. We should deal with this matter in the most humane way possible.

When I look at this Bill I ask myself what reason has motivated the Government in introducing a measure of this kind, which inevitably must produce further bitterness from a section of our people. The Minister gave to this House his reasons for the introduction of this Bill, and his main reason was the fact that the present Act as amended made it possible for people who were not White to become classified as White. He went on to say that this led to a form of insidious integration —and I am using the Minister’s own words— which was assuming alarming proportions. I am afraid that the facts which this House has do not justify the hon. the Minister’s claim. I am afraid that the figures that have been presented to us by no means indicate that this so-called insidious integration was assuming alarming proportions. The Minister, in the course of his introductory speech, said this—

I am afraid that this statement is completely inconsistent with the facts which were given to this House by the Minister’s predecessor. In 1962 the then Minister of the Interior pointed out that, despite the fact that race classifications were made in this country on the basis of the 1951 census, there had only been 3,593 cases where formal objections had been lodged to race classification. There were only 3,500 cases. The vast majority of these objections were satisfactorily disposed of, and I say this in all fairness to the credit of the Government. They were disposed of satisfactorily. At the time of the Minister’s statement the Race Classification Appeal Board and the courts had heard 279 cases of which 233 were decided in favour of the objectors and only 46 cases against the objectors. This afternoon, from a reply given by the Minister to the hon. member for Wynberg, it would appear that there are some 300 odd appeals pending now. Do these figures substantiate the Minister’s claim that there is an insidious integration of so called borderline cases? Is the fact that there are but 300 odd cases an indication that there is insidious integration of so-called borderline cases? Do these figures justify this Bill, a measure which can only aggravate the misery and the heartbreaks and the sorrow of many families in this country?

Those were only the objections that had been submitted to the board and the courts—the figures which you quoted. Those who had lodged objections to the Secretary were not included in those figures. They are many more.

Well, assuming we double or even treble these figures, does this still amount to such an enormous integration figure, an insidious integration of the so-called borderline cases? I ask the Minister in all seriousness: what calamity can result really if by any chance a Coloured person who is a doubtful case becomes classified as a white person? What calamity can result? Would this mean the downfall of our Republic? Would it put an end to our western civilization in this country if it so happens that a hundred or two, nay. a thousand or two doubtful Coloured persons by descent perchance became classified as white persons.

They are not doubtful cases. They are only cases of whom it can be said that most of them could prove acceptance not by the general public but by a few members of the public.

They had crossed the borderline. Would it bring about the downfall of our Republic?

Maybe you would like them to cross the borderline for ever and ever. They can keep on doing that for ever and ever. [Interjections.]

What harm has been done? These people have left their original surroundings. [Interjections.]

Order!

Not necessarily.

No, Sir. A man who has not left his original surroundings does not bother, he does not take the trouble to appeal and try to become classified as a White. I go on to say that even if a thousand, even if ten thousand of these people in our population crossed the borderline, would it be such a terrible calamity.

I am reminded of this fact, and I want the hon. the Minister to bear with me. The South African Institute of Race Relations a little while ago made a survey as to the number of possible cases that would fall into the borderline class and the conclusion that was arrived at was that as little as under 1 per cent of the Coloured population would be affected. Therefore I ask the Minister: Would it matter one hoot if all the borderline cases in those circumstances were permitted, if only on the grounds of compassion, to cross the line? Is it not more humane for us to extend our law in favour of liberty rather than to amend the law in terms of this Bill so that many of our South African citizens should not have the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads and should not have to live in fear. That is the point that I want to put to the Minister. Is it not in the interests of our country to accept people in the racial category in which the community itself has accepted them, which has been the case over these past 15, 16 years? Is it not right that we should continue to allow public opinion to be the sole judge of the race classification of our citizens? For generations many families have been accepted as white people, despite the fact that in the dim and distant past there may have been an admixture of Coloured blood going back several generations. I repeat: Would it mean the downfall of our Republic if we were to allow this situation to continue? Would it do us much harm if we allowed this situation to continue?

I want to ask the Minister this specific question: Does the Government think that the publicity, such as I read in an article which appeared in the London Evening Standard of the 13th February, 1967, does our country any good? I have the cutting before me, and in it appears a photograph of a family consisting of a mother and three sons. The caption to this article is: “Split by law—the family of ‘Coloured and white’”. I repeat, Sir: “Split by law …” For reasons which I will explain I am not going to use the names of these people because it so happens that they have a brother who is a South African Government official. I think that I must mention this article to show the adverse publicity which laws of this kind is giving to South Africa. The article starts off as follows—

The mother and two sons were going to be classified as Coloured, whilst another son of the same parents held a white identity card.

You are now pleading that we must split more of them by law.

No. [Interjections.] Let me read what the mother said. The report continued—

[Interjections.] Well, I should like to see the hon. member separated from his parents and children. He says that it is all nonsense. Well, here is a family of a mother and three sons, two of whom and the mother were going to be classified as Coloured whilst the other son had been classified White. The report continued—

That is why we are altering the law.

The hon. member says that that is why they are altering the law. By doing what? By going into the descent of people over many generations. The hon. member is talking nonsense. Surely the Government must realize that publicity of this sort can only do our country incalculable harm. I ask the hon. the Minister: What offence has this family, obviously of mixed descent, committed? They were a decent, law-abiding South African family living happily with their own relatives and their friends until they became the victim of the Population Registration Act. Rather than suffer the misery created for them by the law in splitting their family they decided to abandon their fatherland. Sir, this case which I have quoted here and which incidentally was only reported in February of this year in the Evening Standard of London is one of many cases of extreme hardships which has been inflicted upon a section of our people, many of whom have left the country of their birth forever. There can be no doubt that this law was originally designed to deal with our Coloured people. They were the main target and they were the main reason for the introduction of the measure, but the Government tried to apply the law in the most humane manner possible and allowed the test of a man’s race classification to be the judgment of society. This Bill is radically departing from that old accepted humane principle. In this Bill the Government seeks to impose race classification on people on an inflexible and permanent basis regardless of the political, the social and the economic consequences.

There is another provision of this Bill I want to deal with. Under our existing law third parties were allowed to object to race classification. This was a means of remedying many injustices. This Bill seeks to abolish this procedure, and the only reason the hon. the Minister has advanced is the fact that there have been too many appeals. In the Minister’s speech and again in his answer given to the hon. member for Wynberg this afternoon in reply to a question, he disclosed that there were some 300 border-line cases where people had lodged appeals, and then he went on to say that they would be subjected to the provisions of this Bill. Sir, can these 300 pending appeals, by any stretch of imagination, justify the Minister’s claim that there have been too many appeals? Does the Minister not realize that these appeals deal not only with the future destiny of the appellants themselves but of their children and their children’s children, probably for generations and generations to come? Sir, I said earlier that there were certain principles in this Bill which were repugnant to the legal traditions of this country. In this connection I refer particularly to that portion of the Bill which lays down that the Bill will be deemed to come into operation on the 7th July, 1950, i.e. the date on which the original Act came into force. I say that this is grossly unfair and it will prejudice a large number of people, including those whose appeals are presently pending. These people have already incurred great expense. They have sought legal advice; they have engaged attorneys and advocates and arranged for witnesses and they have generally done everything that is necessary for them to carry on with their appeals in terms of the existing law. They are now confronted with retrospective legislation in terms of this Bill. Sir, generally the legal tradition in this country was that legislation was not made retrospective if by doing so people would be placed at a disadvantage. [Time expired.]

In the course of my speech I want to refer, firstly, to certain statements made by the hon. member for Peninsula; I also want to refer to a statement made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and to a certain statement made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. It was striking that several speakers on the Opposition side, and also the hon. member for Peninsula, admitted that we had acted very sensibly and very humanely in our implementation of the original Act, and that the number of people who complained of having been wronged or who asked for their race classification to be changed, was very small. The hon. member for Peninsula mentioned the figure of 3,500 here. If we take that into account, it bears out an important truth for us, namely that we in South Africa have various population groups which, through the application of sound human judgment in the course of our history, have been given a definite form, have developed their particular distinctive characteristics and have been consulted as such. That is why it astonished me that the Opposition could succeed every time to raise so much dust in advancing so many arguments in support of their argument, namely that terrible cruelties and injustices occurred in regard to certain people. I want to point out that the hon. member for Peninsula made a terrible blunder in his argumentation as a whole this afternoon. Other hon. members of the Opposition were also guilty of that. They kept on harping on the idea that we had a measure here which was much stricter and harder than any previous measure. The way the hon. the Leader of the Opposition put it, was that with this measure we wanted to draw the line very rigidly and very clearly, and the hon. member for Peninsula suggested that it was our intention to delve into the ancestry of people as deeply as possible, and if subsequent to that we were able to prove that there was a little Coloured blood in a person, such a person could be reclassified to the detriment of his whole family or generations to come. I want to tell the hon. member for Peninsula that he read the Bill totally wrongly. This Bill does not make provision for revising the classification of people on the basis of descent and on the basis of the fact that there may possibly be Coloured blood somewhere in their family. This Bill does not refer to descent, but refers explicitly to classification. The hon. member’s statement that the principle of acceptance by the community is now being destroyed, is not true; that is not a true reflection of the facts. This Bill starts from the assumption that the principles, as laid down in 1950 and the principle added to it in 1962, are still valid; that they still form the basis on which classification should take place, and then the following is being added—

I want the hon. member for Peninsula to note the words “have … been classified”. In other words, this Bill starts from the assumption that a classification has already taken place; it builds on the Act of 1950 and what was effected subsequently. The Bill provides further—

In other words, there is no question of delving into his past, into his descent, to find out who his great-grandfather was. The Minister and the Department are guided by the large amount of data which has been collected since 1950 in terms of the Population Registration Act. The most important reason for an amendment Bill now being introduced by the hon. the Minister, is because certain problems have cropped up in connection with a relatively small number of cases which are still being considered, where the persons concerned lodged appeals or where other people raised objections to their classification. Allow me to say that we have actually reached the stage where the vast majority of the material has already been sifted, and there are only a few cases left. But what has happened in the last few years, and particularly in the last two years? People have discovered that the original Act leaves a little loophole. In other words, they discovered and admitted that the Act was being implemented very fairly and that there was an opportunity to help certain people, who had previously been considered to be Coloureds, across the colour bar. I want to say this afternoon that there are people who have made that their business. There are even people who are making money out of that; they look for these people and then they persuade them to object to their classification. Such people do exist. We do not want to expose this type of thing, as the hon. member for Peninsula exposed the affairs of the hon. member for Houghton’s party on a certain occasion, but it is without fear of contradiction that I say that there are people who are making this type of reclassification and this type of objection to the classification of certain people their business, and it has also become apparent that there are more and more people, third parties in fact, who are lodging these objections. That is why the Minister says that this Bill is calculated to define these concepts of appearance, acceptance and descent further in an attempt at putting a stop to this creeping integration, and this creeping integration he referred to is that deliberate attempt at changing the classification of certain people. I shall return to that later, because some rather illuminating opinions were expressed here by members of the Opposition during the course of this debate.

Now I want to tell the hon. member for Peninsula that I find it disappointing that at this stage he, who is supposed to be a representative of the Coloureds, of the more developed section of the Coloureds in the Peninsula, regards this as a much sought after opportunity for the Coloureds to be declared Whites. This is virtually the only ideal he sees for the Coloureds. If he has a whitish skin, has made some progress and associates with Whites here and there, then one puts the machinery into operation to have him declared a White person, and then one serves the Coloured community. I want to tell the hon. member that the National Government has not only classified the Coloured community, but has also given them, as a population group, identity as well as national self-respect, and it is also giving the Coloured community living-space in the economic as well as the educational sphere; it is giving living-space to the Coloureds who are South Africans by birth, who are proud citizens of South Africa, the same as to any White person. A world of possibilities has been opened up for these people and especially for the leaders in the Coloured community. But the hon. member for Peninsula failed to notice that. He thinks that he can only serve those people and retain their support if he is able to have a few of them declared White. That is a very naive approach, and then the hon. member, who is a jurist, says that it is the purport of this Bill to investigate only the descent of people; but in the Bill explicit reference is made to their classification and, after all, the Bill cannot go back further than 1950, when the original Act was introduced. People have only been classified since that time. In other words, it can only go back to their classification, and that classification took place on the basis of acceptance and of appearance, not on the basis of descent. That is why I want to leave the hon. member there. I just want to tell him that he made a very poor impression to-day, particularly since we are prepared to accept him as a person who is able to pass a reasonable judgment and to adopt a sensible attitude in regard to a matter. I hope that he will examine this matter, and that he will find that there is an awakening national consciousness and national pride amongst the Coloured population as a whole. [Interjections.] An awakening national pride and national consciousness is to be found amongst these people, and now my charge against the hon. member for Peninsula is this: Why do you want to have their leaders declared White? Why does the hon. member want to pull the group of leaders of those people across the colour bar, instead of leaving them where they are so that they may take the lead in their own community? What can you offer them? You cannot offer them that which they can be offered by the Coloured population group, where they naturally belong and where they may take the lead and rise to the topmost strata. You merely want to make out of them an appendage of the Whites, which cannot have any significance for them.

But now I should like to refer to a further statement which was made here by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He made the statement that race had become a golden calf in South Africa; in other words, the hon. member is suggesting that we in South Africa are worshipping the idea of race and the grouping of people into various race groups. The golden calf, as you know, was made and worshipped by the Israelites on their way through the desert. I want to tell the hon. member that if he makes such statements, he should not take it amiss of the hon. member for Brakpan if he says that you say a certain prayer when you go to bed at night. That is a bad insinuation; it bears testimony to bad taste and it does not make any impression on me whatsoever. [Interjections.]

You are thick-skinned.

Order! Did the hon. member say that he was too thick-skinned?

No, I did not say that he was too thick-skinned; I said that he was thick-skinned.

The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

As far as that remark is concerned, I do not want to say any more about the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I only feel that he, who is a frontbencher of the Opposition, might just as well refrain from making this type of statement and put his case in a more responsible manner instead, because that is really the only type of thing which is being propagated abroad to the detriment of South Africa, and, surely, as a good South African, he does not want to harm his country by saying that we in South Africa have made race a golden calf. On the contrary, I want to say this afternoon that as regards race and the grouping of races we in South Africa are very moderate. Actually, we have no race classification in the strict sense of the word. We have population grouping. When it comes to the white group, it is not a question of people who belong to one race only. In this group we have people of Jewish, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese descent; and there are many other races as well, even Syrians. In our white group we have assimilated people who are descendants from a tremendously varied number of nationalities. Our white group represents a large variety of races, and the same applies to the Coloured group. I do not want to go into that any further. I just want to say that we in South Africa are not at all obsessed with race, but the fact that we are living in a country which has in the composition of its population the greatest diversity of races in the world, makes it the responsibility of all of us. We are proud of the fact that under the guidance of the National Party we have succeeded in effecting a grouping of the population groups—a race classification, if you want to call it that—in the face of this great diversity of races which in earlier years showed signs of our heading for chaos and for bad relations amongst the population groups; and we are proud of the fact that we have succeeded in effecting orderly development and peaceful co-existence. [Interjections.] The hon. member says we must leave it as it is, but in which direction would it have developed if we had merely left it that way in our urban areas? In which direction would it have developed in Johannesburg if those Bantu slum areas had been left alone and if a grouping had not taken place anywhere, a grouping which resulted in the various population or race groups being provided with proper housing in their various residential areas? The hon. member says: Leave it as it is. That is the policy of the United Party, the policy it inherited, the laisser-faire policy. That is not the policy of this side of the House. On a certain occasion the previous Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa said that that was the difference between us and the Opposition. They say: “Leave it as it is. Let these things develop. Let these things continue in this way.” We believe that a nation and a government has the responsibility to look the particular problems of its country in the face and to shape the future of that country, and to give constructive thought to its future, to effect order and to foresee future developments and to make provision for them, and to provide the necessary impetus for those ideals to be realized. We do not say: “Leave it as it is.” It is the United Party which says so. That is why, as far as the United Party is concerned, the electorate also said: “Leave it as it is.”

Now I should like to refer to what the Leader of the Opposition said in this regard. He often returned to the idea of a genealogical register which the Minister now wants to close off. The Minister now wants to remove that appendage. In this regard the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said—

In other words, he says that the Minister is now doing a very wrong and cruel thing. He now wants to close the door to a very fine form of continuous additions to the white group of South Africa, from the Coloured population group. In other words, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition admits that their real objection to this Bill is that a door which was formerly open, is now being closed. Where these people are able to get a foot in the door, they are gradually opening this door wider and wider, because what is happening? What will happen if acceptance and appearance remain the test? Many people have been allowed in precisely because the Act, as hon. members on that side have admitted, has been applied very sensibly and tolerantly. These are the people who have closer associations with people in the Coloured population group. In other words, it only needs a small number of people, who are of Coloured or of partly Coloured descent, to state that they accept those people in the Coloured population group as Whites. Then they help them across the line. Acceptance is a conclusive test. It was the original test. There were people who had, those associations and who mixed socially with those people. They pulled other people across the dividing line. They made use of every possible loophole in the Act to accelerate that process and to help more people across. According to the statement made by the Leader of the Opposition, that is actually what he wants. I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or, in his absence, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who is really their main speaker on this matter: Is it the policy of the United Party to keep that door open and to continue to help people to cross over from the Coloured population group to the white group? The Deputy Leader may also reply. Is it the policy of the United Party to keep that door open and to keep on bringing over people from the Coloured group to the white group? [Interjections.] In terms of the Bill, which the Opposition opposes, people are classified as Coloureds if one of their parents has been classified as a Coloured person. I am now asking that hon. member, who is also opposed to this Bill: Is it the policy of the United Party to keep that door open so as to keep on bringing over people, who have been classified as Coloureds, to the white group?

We do not classify people; we do not keep a genealogical register of people.

Well, we do. In other words, that is the policy of the Opposition. It is the policy of the United Party to keep on trying to classify Coloureds as Whites. That is their aim. They want to keep on bringing Coloureds across. The Leader of the Opposition has admitted it. The Opposition will not be able to run too far now. Without any reason he stated that he would like to retain this “fine form”, as he called it, of reinforcement of the white group. It is a kind of perpetual movement which must continue. When we reach this point, it is clear to me that there is no essential difference between the United Party and the Progressive Party in this regard. They are moving in the direction of integration. They want to keep the door open. The hon. member for Yeoville admitted that they did not want to classify people. They do not want to divide people into groups. They want to keep on bringing people over. What they really want to do is to circumvent existing legislation in respect of which they have stated outside that they accept it, and they want this door, which may be slightly ajar at present, to be opened wide. We on this side of the House accept this legislation. We accept it and we support it, because we realize that this task of classification must at some stage or other reach finality. We must put an end to it. We cannot continue dealing with an endless stream of cases, in this respect a stream which is gradually becoming stronger, for the purpose of trying to classify and reclassify people. If a person’s parents were classified as Coloureds on the basis of acceptance and of appearance, what objection will or can such a person have to being classified as a Coloured? The suffering which is the point at issue here and which was mentioned by that side of the House, is not as real as it is professed to be. What is more, instead of emphasizing this suffering and human cruelty, I want to say that we on this side of the House are convinced that this Government has not only given the Coloured population a new national personality and identity, but we have also created living-space for them. We foresee that very strong and competent leaders will arise amongst them, and that these people who may now possibly feel that they would be more at home if they were classified as White, will be able to realize themselves equally well amongst their own people because there is no one who has stronger associations with the Coloured population than those people who will now be classified. These will only be people who are in fact Coloureds by association and appearance, and who will be able to realize themselves in their own population group. Those people will really be able to develop qualities of leadership and they will help the Coloured population to foster an innate national pride and to render a worthy contribution to the development of the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is strange that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat regards the question of descent as of so little importance in this legislation. That, of course, is not the attitude adopted yesterday by the hon. member for Primrose. The hon. member went further and said that the fact that the United Party was opposing this legislation and the fact that a great deal of publicity was being given to it was going to do South Africa much harm. I want to say to the hon. member that what is going to harm South Africa is this legislation itself, and not the publicity we are giving to it. We have not introduced the legislation. The Government has introduced it, and it is going to do South Africa harm.

The hon. member has asked us whether we always want to keep the door open for Coloured persons to be reclassified into the white group. That is not what this legislation is about. This legislation deals with the doubtful cases. This amendment deals with those people who have been classified into one group and who think that that classification is wrong. As far as I am aware the Coloured people as a rule are not anxious to be classified as Whites. They want to remain Coloureds, but there is a group of people who do not know what they are. It is this group that we are concerned with, and not the Coloured people as a whole. No one wants to turn Coloured persons into Whites or Whites into Coloured persons. That is not what we want to do in this debate. Neither do we want to deprive the Coloured people of their leaders, as we have been told by the hon. member for Piketberg and the hon. member for Parow, whom I thought had more sense. Who ever said that? Surely there is no question of that? We are trying to step into the breach for those people who are doubtful cases, and not for the large body of Coloured people.

It is not a question of wanting to absorb them. We say that the existing Act is sufficient for handling those cases. If the Classification Board or the court says that a person must go to the one side or the other, that is fine—it does not matter to which side. Why do we want to tamper with that now?

The hon. member for Witbank referred to the unfortunate case of white parents who first had a white child and then a Coloured child, and then he asked: What about this Coloured child now? Should he be absorbed as a White? But surely the answer to that is obvious—if it can be proved that he is a Coloured child, he should be classified as such.

Mr. Speaker, what sterile arguments did we not have to listen to about this Bill in the past few days! From the hon. member for May fair, for example, we heard that the Almighty had set up dividing lines between the various races, but now, he said, we on this side want to break down those dividing lines. Here, surely, we are dealing not with the dividing lines set up by the Almighty, but with problems which we ourselves have created? That is what we are dealing with.

And which you do not want to bring to finality.

The hon. member for Primrose became very heated about this subject yesterday and alleged that we on this side were indifferent to this vital problem, as he put it. But surely it is not so vital a matter, because the figures that have been quoted over and over again in this House show that this is only a minor matter? The hon. member suggested that the United Party simply wanted to let things slide. Mr. Speaker, this is only a drop in the ocean, something so small that it is not going to make any difference whatsoever. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Witbank was very concerned about racial mixing. He alleged that we wanted to mix the races. But that is not so. There are laws which prohibit mixing. Admittedly there are people who contravene those laws, but the hon. member for Witbank cannot tell me that because one or two clergymen have contravened the law, all or many of them are doing it. It only happens in exceptional cases—as with the rest of us. These are the exceptions and as such are of minor importance.

I may tell you that the clergymen were not the only ones.

No, and I have said that.

But why do you choose clergymen in particular? You again want to cast suspicion upon the Afrikaans clergymen. I know you people.

Oh no, Mr. Speaker! For the information of that hon. member I want to say that those people who cause racial mixing are only a very small group. For that reason we say that this is not a matter of vital importance. After all, this is not the pattern of our way of life. The vast majority of Whites do not go in for that type of thing. For that reason I say that we do not need a law for that. After all, if we are well educated, we would not do this type of thing. The hon. member for Witbank went so far as to say that this legislation grew out of the people. But surely that is not the case? It grew out of the Nationalist Party, and surely the Nationalist Party is not the people, not by any manner of means. They represent only a section of the people.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Heilbron is not present. He made a shocking statement in his speech yesterday when he said that the hard cases would no longer crop up. But what is to become of them now? The hon. member for Turffontein also made a heated little speech. He reminded me of a Malay trying to conjure up ghosts but only succeeding, after a great to-do, in getting hold of a little frog by the hind leg, a frog with a tuft of hair on it, perhaps a rather frizzy tuft of hair, but in the last resort he still did not succeed in getting hold of anything worth while.

What I personally am concerned about is the question of descent. You see, Mr. Speaker, I belong to a family which has been in this country ever since 1699. So it has been a long trek with many out spans. I do not know what happened at those out spans. I think the hon. member for Prinshof is in the same position as I am; the same applies to the Minister— his family has probably been here longer than mine. I knew both my grandfathers and my grandmothers. They looked perfectly White to me, but I do not know what their predecessors got up to. The same applies to all the gentlemen on the opposite side—for that matter, who amongst us can beat upon his breast and proclaim that he is of pure white descent? But now we start this witch hunt. The hon. member for Primrose says that he cannot sleep even if he hears of only one single case. Well, once this legislation has been passed, many of us will lie awake for many a night. No, Mr. Speaker, I say that this is foolishness and that we must leave it alone. To-day a person can produce an identity card which indicates to which race he belongs. But 50, 60 years ago our forefathers did not even have baptismal certificates.

What I find very unfair about this legislation is that we are going to apply it to our own people, people who are not sure of their case, people who speak the same language as we do, who belong to the same churches as we do and who have the same way of life. They are the ones whose cases are now going to be investigated, and if they are fortunate, they will fall on this side; if not, they will fall on the other side. What is the hon. the Minister going to do in the case of all the immigrants coming into the country at present? There are many thousands of them. Of course, we are glad to have them. There are Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, Cypriots and others. Many of these people have darker complexions than I or the Minister or any of the other hon. gentlemen here. Some of them we shall have to allow to bleach first before we shall be able to accept them—as a matter of fact, if they become a little suntanned we shall have to leave them for a fortnight before trying to determine whether they are in fact White. What are we going to do with these people? Are we simply going to accept them merely because they are immigrants, while we are going to apply the legislation to our own people, people who stand with us? [Interjections.] Surely that is not right?

What has happened in the past? Hundreds, no thousands, of these people, including light skinned Coloured persons, moved to the Free State and the Transvaal. What happened to them there? There they were accepted by the Whites, they were accepted in our schools, in our churches, in the community … [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I hope you will afford the hon. member for Prinshof an opportunity to speak. As I say, they were accepted, and who has suffered any harm as a result of that? Who? They even appear on the Voters’ Roll and on top of that the vast majority of them are Nationalists. [Interjections.]

Why do we have to fight about that now? They ought to be glad. It has not caused any harm. If we leave the matter aside, if we leave it alone, it will never even be mentioned three or four generations hence.

We regret very much that this legislation has been introduced at this particular juncture. Our Prime Minister is helping to improve South Africa’s image greatly. Will this measure do the same? This Minister is torpedoing most of the good work being done by the hon. the Prime Minister. Therefore I ask the hon. the Minister rather to drop this legislation. I now want to make a plea to the Minister. It is not yet too late. Throw out this legislation. You know, Sir, when the hon. the Prime Minister came in here yesterday and sat down next to the hon. the Minister, I thought he wanted to take him by the scruff of his neck and throw him out the back door legislation and all. But unfortunately he did not do that. It is a great pity that he did not.

This legislation is unnecessary. It is cruel, and dangerous to all of us. One of the hon. gentlemen said here that this legislation was going to rake up old stories. Well, I hope that in that process they do not come up against some coloured ancestral spectres. And that can happen very easily. The old Act has been sufficient, and I hope we are not going to pass this measure. If we do pass this measure, we should not call ourselves Christians—we may call ourselves Nationalists, but certainly not Christians.

Mr. Speaker, I trust that the hon. member for North Rand will forgive me if I do not follow his line of reasoning immediately. It is obvious that we are dealing here with a very delicate but very important matter. We as white South Africans are in a unique and peculiar position in the world. The hon. member over there laughs. I do not know why. We are in a peculiar position as we are a white nation in a black continent. We are determined to maintain our identity here. It has been placed upon our shoulders to arrange and order the relationship in South Africa, with its multi-racial structure, between the different races and ourselves. This responsibility we inherited from the British through history. It is upon the National Party, who believe in and who have advocated a policy of separate development, or apartheid, or parallel development that this responsibility rests. It is fundamentally a policy where each racial group maintains its own identity. As I say, it is upon us that that responsibility has been placed, and it has been placed upon us by the electorate. As the hon. member for Parow said the other day, if we are going to have a society consisting of separate racial groups then it is absolutely essential that we have a population register. We are, of course, pioneers in this matter. A law was passed in 1950 to establish a population register, but as South Africa changed from a largely agricultural to an industrial country adjustments had to be made. Moreover clauses that were put in with the best intentions in the world have been used by the enemies of white South Africa and of South Africa as a whole, in an attempt to undermine our position. Those matters have to be put right.

The Bill provides that a person whose parents are classified as White shall be classified as a white person. I think that everyone will accept that without question. A person of whom one parent is classified as Coloured or Bantu shall be classified as Coloured. The Coloured group especially is given attention in clause 2.

What is a “Coloured" person?

Can you not read the Bill?

What is a “Coloured" person? Give me the definition of a “Coloured” person?

You have had plenty of time in which to read the Bill. This Bill is necessary to give the courts guidance as regards our intentions as a legislative body. It also provides the courts with certain definitions. Moreover, it is necessary to validate the groupings of Coloured persons into different ethnic groups. This has been done, and correctly done, but the courts have ruled them to be invalid.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard here over the past few days a lot of sentiment and, if I may say so, a lot of ignorance regarding the Cape Coloured people. I do not know much about the Bantu, and I do not know the Indian people, but as a man of the Cape I do know the Coloured people very well. Now, who are the Coloured people? Many people do not seem to realize that when Jan van Riebeeck came here there were no Bantu here. There were only a few Hottentots and Bushmen in the vicinity. The Dutch had slaves, and those freed slaves, together with the remnants of the Hottentots and the Bushmen, later coalesced. [Interjections.] Where are the Hottentots today? All these groups became one people.

What does “coalesce” mean?

I cannot give you an English lesson now. It is perfectly true that there are admixtures of white blood. It is also certain that a new people has slowly developed, just as we have developed from Dutch, British, German, etc. origin through historical processes to become the South African nation. There is now developing a new Brown nation in South Africa, and the foundation of that nation is the freed slaves of the Hollanders, together with the Hottentots and the Bushmen, combined with small admixtures of white blood and also later Bantu blood.

Now, what is the future of this new nation to be? It is clearly obvious that on the one hand the white people are quite determined to maintain their identity, whilst on the other hand the Bantu want to maintain their identity also. So provision must be made for the future of the Coloured people. The Coloured people are not one nation but they consist of different ethnic groups. If we read the history of Van Riebeeck’s time we will find that the people had a very great Christian evangelical zeal and most of the slaves were converted to Christianity. There were, however, slaves who came from Java and other places in the East who were Mohammedan and who wished to maintain their Mohammedan religion, and their descendants have remained adherents of Islam to this day. That is basically the origin of the Cape Malay. The other slaves were converted to the Christian faith.

What has that to do with this Bill?

Everything. I will come back to it just now. [Interjections.] Then we have the Griquas and the Indians.

What is a Griqua?

Order!

These Coloured people, and the Malays, are very keen to maintain their own ethnic identity. So, too, the Griquas. The same can be said of the Cape Coloured people. Unfortunately the courts ruled that this grouping was invalid, and by passing this amending measure that grouping will be made legal. In the course of my life in the business world I came into very close contact with Coloured people. I never spoke politics to them. But once a very intelligent Coloured person said to me, “Sir, you people believe in apartheid. Many of us, our cousins and members of our families, are helped by white people to become white. We know them and we despise them.” Another Coloured man said to me: “Sir, you are supposed to believe in apartheid. Why don’t you protect us against the Indians? You allow Indians to become classified as Coloureds in order to get business rights, and we resent it.” Sir, I had no answer to give that person, but this Bill provides the answer. This person’s case was this: “Why should I, who happen to be brown, remain classified as Coloured whereas my cousin or my half-sister or my brother is white enough to be classified as white?” That is a most frustrating thing. It seems to me that the Coloured people are blocked on the one side by Whites and on the other side by Bantu. This Bill provides them with their own identity. We have given these people tremendous economic assistance and education but man cannot live by bread alone; he must also be given something for his spirit. We are making provision for the Coloured people to develop in South Africa as a brown people with their own pride and their own identity.

What were they before this Bill?

You never gave them an opportunity.

In recent times the Coloured people have become frustrated and irritated because they have seen their leaders helped to cross the white line; they have seen Indians classified as Coloureds and they have seen Bantu classified as Coloureds with a view to obtaining business or residential rights.

Whose fault is that?

Who did that falsely?

We are now correcting this. We are making it possible for the Coloured man not only to advance economically but to find his own political soul and to become a man who can be proud of his own nation.

Which clause are you dealing with?

As far as the white people are concerned, people in my constituency and in other parts of the country, have expressed very great anxiety about the racial erosion that has been occurring by allowing Coloureds to be classified as Whites. The principal Act contained a clause which enabled a third person to lodge an appeal. That section was included in the Act with the best will in the world but I think it was wrong to make provision for third-party appeals. Surely if I were wrongly classified I would not wait four and a half years until a third party suggested that I should lodge an appeal. Provision is made in this Bill for the secretary to make a correction at any time if a genuine error has occurred.

That has always been the law.

There is no intention to institute a witch-hunt under this Bill. This Bill deals with classifications in the future. If a genuine error has occurred then the secretary can correct it, but I am absolutely certain that no normal person will wait four or five years until somebody suggest that he should lodge an appeal. Everyone knows what his race is.

What about the retrospective effect of this measure?

It is not of retrospective effect. This is for classification in the future. Those who have been classified will retain their classification unless there have been genuine errors.

Read clause 7.

Order! The hon. member for Durban (North) has far too much to say in this debate without getting on to his feet.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, my time is limited. There is great anxiety in the white community over what has been happening in the past. This anxiety has been expressed by several people in my constituency and elsewhere. Do hon. members opposite realize that by bringing a person across the colour line, you are setting the stage for possible human tragedies?

Which way?

I will explain it to the hon. member. Take the case of a person who by appearance is apparently white but whose mother in fact is coloured. That person goes to the Transvaal, passes as white and marries a white girl, and the girl then discovers that he has coloured relatives. You are merely setting the stage for human tragedies by allowing people to cross the colour line. Sentiment in this matter is no good at all. We must be realistic, and the only way in which we can solve these problems is by facing the realities of the situation and by means of goodwill. We in the National Party have a knowledge of the Coloured people and there can be no doubt about our goodwill, nor can there be any doubt as to our realistic approach in this matter. Sir, I listened yesterday to the speeches of hon. members of the United Party with a sense of shame. People can always differ on principle …

Why so upset?

I am not upset at all; the hon. member should be upset. As I have said, one can differ on principle, but is it necessary to impute the worse possible motives to your adversaries; is it necessary to accuse them of Nazism, of race obsession and of viciousness? Is it necessary to consider the Population Register in terms of a cattle stud book? We on this side do not think at that level. Sir, when I heard the speeches of hon. members opposite I felt a sense of shame because how would they sound in American ears, in British ears and Australian ears? Hon. members opposite do not hurt us but South Africa by saying these things. We represent the majority of the electrorate and we are concerned about the good name of South Africa. Sir, I often wonder whom they represent, because as I know the white electorate, I know that they want separation between white and non-white. I believe the United Party got thousands and thousands of votes at the last election under false pretences. I was told by voters in my constituency that they had decided after all to vote for the United Party. I ask them why, and they told me that a United Party canvasser had come to see them and had asked them why they were going to vote for the National Party. They replied that they were going to vote for the National Party because they believed in the Government’s policy. The canvasser then said to them: “You mean you want apartheid?” When they said “yes”, the canvasser said to them: “Don’t worry; you can vote for us then because we also believe in apartheid,” not separate development but apartheid. Thousands of people not only in my constituency but throughout South Africa voted for the United Party in the mistaken belief that the United Party also stands for apartheid when in fact they do not. They told us yesterday what they want; they want no colour line; they want to do nothing about this matter.

Is that clause 5 of the Bill?

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Under the system of classification and separation which this Bill seeks to achieve we want to keep South Africa a civilized, happy and peaceful country. If the United Party ever came into power, they have told us that they would repeal the Population Registration Act and they would abolish separation, and thereby they would abolish the civilization and decency we have in South Africa, and then we would have misery and hatred, but fortunately that will never happen because the voters of South Africa will see to it that the United Party is never returned to power.

I find it very difficult to follow the hon. member for Maitland and I hope he will excuse me if I do not travel around with him in his constituency, but I do want to tell him this, in regard to his statement that people should not have the right to appeal after three or four years …

I did not say so; I referred to third parties.

Does it really matter who appeals on their behalf? The hon. the Minister of the Interior, as far back as 1959, said that the door to an appeal is never closed.

It is still open.

The tragedy about this legislation is that it makes the future of the people concerned another political football. What should have happened after 1950 was that this matter should have been taken out of politics and should have been dealt with by people who could hear appeals from the people affected, and we should not have had debates year after year in this House affecting the people whom I call “no-mads”: people who do not belong to either the one race group or the other, but who are desperately endeavouring to find their home in one of those race groups. But they are never able to settle down in their quest because every time this Act is amended and there is no security for these people. They do not know where they are. Some of them are on this side of the border and want to cross; others are already on the other side of the border but are being chased back. These are the people who are affected. I want to say at once that the Coloured people are a proud race group. [Interjection.] The Coloured people do not try for White. There are certain people who try for White, but they are a special group; they are a small minority. I want to repeat the words of the hon. member for Peninsula when he said to the hon. the Minister: You have not disclosed the number of people affected. I want to say that the Minister, in my humble opinion, did not take the House into his confidence by telling us how many people are affected. The impression I have received from speakers opposite is that they are afraid; there is a fear complex about them, and I say that this legislation stems from that fear. I would like to say that any legislation which stems from fear is bad legislation. The Minister said in his speech, when he spoke about the intervention of third parties, that—

Sir, a whole 135 people are going to “verongeluk ons strewe”. I am going to ask the Minister in his reply to tell us what is behind this amending Bill and how many people are affected. I have absolute confidence that the figures quoted by the hon. member for Peninsula are not wrong. I would be prepared to say there are 100,000 people, which is an insignificant number compared with the total population of South Africa. But the Minister in his introduction has given no reason at all why the 1962 Act should again be amended. May I remind the hon. member for Maitland of what the Minister, Senator De Klerk, then said?—

That is in Col. 4440 of Hansard of 1962.

Order! I want to remind the hon. member that those words were quoted here twice yesterday. Hon. members should stop repeating now.

I thank you for your guidance, Sir, but I would like to say that in Col. 4442 the Minister said: “I want to give them an absolute assurance on the points raised,” and in the same column he said: “I made these people a promise.” So we had an assurance from the Minister, and we also had a promise from the Minister, and both the assurance and the promise are to-day being nullified by this amending Bill. In view of your ruling, Sir, I should like to quote from the Bill itself. The first clause of the Bill talks about a person who in appearance is obviously a White person. What part of his body must be obviously White? Only his face? I know of many people who are dark in their faces, but when you see them undressed their bodies are as white as those of anybody else. How can you judge appearance merely by looking at a man’s face? I want to say quite seriously that that is one of the points which worried the officials in the Roeland Street Office of the Department, and when I took people to that office I made them take off their jackets and their shirts and the officials looked at their faces and they were satisfied, in nine cases out of ten, that these people were White, although in appearance they might not have been regarded as White. The hon. the Minister has referred to the 1951 census and I want to say that that aspect of the Act of 1950 was so fully discussed in 1962 that the people affected were given the assurance that the 1951 census will never be used in race classification. That was the assurance given by the hon. the Minister Jan de Klerk. Mr. Speaker, you have said that I must not quote but that is so.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Parow says that that was the basis; that was the basis for the register. I agree, but after 12 years of experience the hon. the Minister said:

“We will not use it any more.” That was an undertaking and a promise given by the then Minister of the Interior who was in charge of the Bill, to the people affected. He said that that was his promise and undertaking. Why does the hon. the Minister now revert to the 1951 census? The hon. members who spoke here spoke as vehemently and as strongly in 1962 in support of the then Minister’s contention that the 1951 census must be removed as a basis. To-day they come back to it. The hon. the Minister has indicated an amendment to clause 3 with which I was going to deal but which I will now in view of the amendment leave until the committee stage.

Now I want to ask the hon. the Minister to reply to a few of the questions I will put in regard to the Bill. If a person shall be classified as a White person if his natural parents have both been classified as White. I should like to ask what happens if a mother or the father died before the 1951 census or before classification and only one parent is alive. Does this apply to both parents or only one? What happens if one parent is dead and he or she has not been classified? Will the one be sufficient?

Do you think nobody will know whether he or she was classified as a White or a Coloured.

The point is that there would have been no classification if she died before 1950. The mother might have died in childbirth. The father might be classified as White but the mother is not living. Who will know what she was? Must it be one or both parents? In the case of those people who only have one parent, will they be precluded in terms of this clause? The Minister must be fair and say whether he will accept one parent in respect of classification. After all, the Minister does not want a lot of informers. He will have to have a host of people travelling around asking whether anybody knew the late so and so. Surely that is not the intention.

The children themselves will have appearance, and acceptance and they have a parent.

With due respect I want to say that the Minister does not know his own Bill. I am talking about the fact that in terms of this Bill a child whose parents are both classified as White will automatically be White even if he has a mixed birth certificate.

How can he have a mixed birth certificate?

I should like to tell the hon. member for Parow that we who were in the legal profession have sufficient knowledge of these cases to know about them. I can give the hon. member several cases where the parents are classified as White but the child has a mixed birth certificate. Under what clause will that person be dealt with? Will he be dealt with under this clause which provides for both parents being White or under the clause which says that if you have a mixed birth certificate, you are Coloured? I was merely pointing out the inconsistency of this Bill and the difficulties which will arise.

Have you seen the amendment?

I think I should try to clarify this point for the benefit of the hon. member for Parow. The clause provides that if a person has a birth certificate which says “mixed”, he shall be Coloured in terms of the new amendment unless he can prove that he is not a Coloured man. The other clause says that if both his parents are classified as White, he is automatically White. I know of dozens of such cases where the persons concerned have mixed birth certificates but their parents have been classified as White. Under which clause would this be applicable? I shall leave the matter to be dealt with in the committee stage.

Mr. Speaker, a clause which has not been dealt with very fully is the new section 15 (1). This is what I might call the informers clause. People will come and complain about people who have had identity cards issued to them when they do not conform. The new clause 15 (1) provides:

Does the hon. the Minister realize that nobody in this country who has an identity card or who has an appeal considered by the department and not the Board is safe if somebody comes and informs on him and says, “I can prove that that man is Coloured and that he has got a white identity card”. The whole heresy hunt then begins. Is that what the intention is? I do not want to embarrass the Minister. There was an article in the Cape Argus which indicated that a considerable number of cards have already been recalled. I believe that it is not the Minister’s department but another department of the Government which is responsible. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister knows about it or whether it is sub-judice. I had people coming in to see me and saying to me, “My identification card has been called back”. I then made a telephone call to the department who had called them back and asked them what was going on. I was told that a number of cards had been recalled but that my people need not worry because they were classified by a board. What I am trying to show the Minister is this. Are we never going to have an end to the classification? Once a man is classified, leave him be in peace. Do not let him have the sword of Damocles hanging over his head because some informer might come along at a later stage and say that he can give information about that man. Will the Minister please tell us why he wants these powers? Why does he want a card recalled? I do not think that the Minister has given the House all the information in this regard. I am not going to press the hon. the Minister if he feels that it is not in the public interest to make this known or that the matter is sub judice. We have read certain things in the newspapers about people being arrested for fraud charges etc. If this is the clause in terms of which the Minister wants to rectify any case that comes to his knowledge, will the Minister give us the assurance—I do not know whether any assurances are valid because we have had so many in the past—that it will not be used for a witch hunt or become what I have called the informers clause. I will accept it.

Generally, I want to say this. The third party objection has loomed very largely in this debate. The Minister has made out no case at all because the Minister has indicated that from 1951 to 1961 there were no cases, but there was suddenly a rush of 135 applications, a tremendous rush, destroying the whole South African nation and polluting the Coloureds and the white people of this country! I want to associate myself with the appeal made by the hon. member for Peninsula and ask the Minister not to pursue that aspect. Let us accept the principle enunciated by previous Ministers that the door will always be open to people to appeal and to have their classification rectified. The Act deals with that. Let it always remain open. Let me point out to the hon. the Minister that even the previous Minister in 1959 admitted that people do not read about the right of appeal and some of them are ignorant of the right of appeal. If indeed somebody is satisfied that he has been wrongly classified, why should he not appeal? The mere fact that some of these appeals have succeeded, after the third party has intervened, is surely proof positive that there are certain people who have been wrongly classified and that the proof they produced was sufficient to have them reclassified. In 1962 the hon. the Minister pointed out that approximately 230 out of 290 appeals were successful. What would the hon. the Minister have done if this legislation had been of full force and effect before these appeals were heard? The majority of these people who succeeded in their appeals would never have been able to go forward. In other words it will be on the conscience of the Government that certain people who to-day have been classified as white would not have been classified as white had this legislation been in effect a year or two ago. This shows that there will always be people who will find that they are wrongly classified. Once a person cannot by law appeal, surely somebody should come to his assistance. The Government surely does not want to see injustice done.

He can go to the Secretary.

I want to say that I have the greatest faith in the present Secretary of the Interior, but he will not always be there. Mr. Speaker, in terms of the ruling of the Deputy-Speaker, who occupied the Chair before you, I am precluded from quoting something because he said that it had previously been quoted.

The hon. member is still precluded from quoting it. I was present at the time.

I want to tell the hon. the Minister that he must not worry about the Coloured people. He must not worry about the white people. All the Minister must worry about are these unfortunate people who ask for justice and fair treatment, and who ask that their cases should be investigated and that they should have the right to go into the race group which they believe they are justified to go into. I want the Minister to disabuse his mind and the minds of the members in this House and indeed the minds of the people of South Africa that there is danger of the white people becoming brown in this country. There is no such danger and there never will be such a danger. I say that this Bill is completely unnecessary. It is unjustified and it has made a complete mockery of previous undertakings by this Government. It has re-opened this most unfortunate question once more. It has brought uncertainty once more into the minds of the people who thought that they were now safe in regard to their classification. The Government is not only doing a disservice to itself but it is going to add more and more tragedy to an already tragic situation.

Mr.Speaker, I could not follow the hon. member for Boland very well as he did not address himself to me, but I nevertheless succeeded in catching a few of the things he said. I just want to reply to one or two of the matters he raised. He referred to the Act having been amended so often before. He said that every time the Act was amended there was less security for the Coloured group. Whether or not there is less security for the Coloured group is a matter about which the two of us may differ.

I did not say that.

The hon. member may read his Hansard at a later stage. It is my contention that it is a natural thing to do in the dynamic epoch in which we are living to amend Acts from time to time in order to adapt them to changed circumstances. That principle that we have to adapt to change is concerned in this matter to a large extent. The hon. member said that the Coloured group was a proud group. To that he added that they were not people who “try for white”. Did I understand him correctly?

Not the genuine Coloureds.

Yes, that was what the hon. member meant. Now I want to ask the hon. member: Is it a good thing if any Coloured person—and it is so often said that there are so few full-blooded Coloureds—is to be wronged by a third party which takes him in tow and wants to introduce him into a group of which he ought not to be proud if he is a good Coloured?

Then he is not a good Coloured.

The hon. member will have another opportunity of making a speech during the Third Reading.

As regards these third party objections, I find it very strange that when this Act was amended in 1962 the Opposition was opposed to third party objections. They thought that there would be “informers”. I recall that Field-Marshal Smuts said on 8th March, 1950 (Hansard, Vol. 71, Col. 2528)—

Mr. Speaker, that did not happen. On the contrary, the opposite happened. There were abuses in that other people took these people in tow and wanted to introduce them into the white group in underhand ways.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

Mr Speaker, I am now making my speech. I am not prepared to reply to questions now. This Bill contains an amendment to existing legislation. Here, to my mind, the attitude of the Opposition is once more revealing itself very clearly. On the previous occasion they received sound advice from the then Minister of the Interior. He said that he hoped that the 1962 Amendment Act would not be regarded from a party political point of view. To that he added (Hansard, Vol. 3. Col. 4447)—

Judging from what I have heard over the past few days, I believe that we are not so much concerned here, as far as the Opposition is concerned, with sudden objections to improving an Act which needs to be adapted to changed circumstances. I think what we are concerned with is simply the old resistance to race classification. They do not want to accept the fact of race classification and now, in their opposition, they are once again displaying all the bitterness they feel about the fact that an Act on population registration has been on the Statute Book for 17 years. I have already given the telling example of third-party objections which are now being abolished. They do not want them to be abolished. At first they were opposed to third-party objections. As regards this Act, and as regards essential amendments being effected to that Act, they are, to my mind, of the same mind as the Progressive Party. There is no difference, as regards this measure, between the view of the United Party and that of the Progressive Party. That is why the hon. member for Houghton said that this was an attempt “to define the undefinable” and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke of an attempt “to classify the unclassifiable”.

What about it?

Well, if it is true that they cannot be classified, if this is an attempt to define something which cannot be defined, if this legislation is going to be such a failure, why does the Opposition fight this measure so fiercely? In that case the measure will be a failure. I do not think that the Opposition is very sure of itself.

The hon. the Minister gave us a very good, chronological account of the events which had given rise to this measure, and for that reason I do not want to refer to them again. He said the main object of this Bill was to give closer definitions of the terms “appearance”, “acceptance” and “descent” in an attempt to put an end to this gradual but nevertheless, to his mind, dangerous integration of White and non-White which appeared to be the object of certain persons in this country. At the outset, the Government, in passing the original Population Registration Act, tried to create order from the chaos which it inherited from the United Party, from the old policy of laisser-faire, by means of legislation which the United Party nevertheless opposed. At the time it was fair in that it regarded acceptance by the community as being the most important standard. As the years went by—12 whole years—new problems revealed themselves. As the old ones died and others joined their ranks, these liberalists and people who would like to see integration found loopholes. I say. Sir, that this Government acted very fairly in the beginning by regarding the test of acceptance as the standard. Consequently there could not have been much grief, because, Sir, does it really cause a person more grief if he is not accepted where he would like to be, than it does him to be accepted where he himself ought not to be? In this regard the Government was fair. However, over the years the test of appearance was added because at times there were many people who were obviously Coloureds and who were nevertheless accepted as Whites. Therefore the position arose that if a person looked like a Coloured person he was not classified as a White person but as a Coloured person. That was contained in the amendment of 1962. In other words, the policy of the National Party adapted the standards of differentiation as the years passed. Then two loopholes appeared.

Order! I should like the hon. member to tell us something new.

Thank you, Sir, you are best able to tell me whether or not I am repeating. I am trying to submit to your ruling.

Well, the hon. member is definitely repeating.

I just want to say this. The more elderly people amongst the Coloured group have had 17 years in which to register themselves. In terms of the court decision which amounted to the period of 30 days not being mandatory, to the period in which they may register or be classified not being mandatory, some of them obtained reclassifications as late as five years and even longer after the time. Subsequently they changed their addresses and went to live somewhere else, and when they eventually came back they had been accepted as Whites for a short period and then they were Whites. These are the people who “try for White”, the people who, as the hon. member opposite said, do not exist. For that reason new standards were applied as time went by. We know that Dr. Dönges said 20 or more years ago that the question of descent would have to be taken into account in future. The question of acceptance would gradually become less important whereas the question of descent would constantly become more important. Who are now being wronged? At this stage it is not a question of descent to the very early ancestors but descent as regards the immediate ancestors only, and then merely on the grounds of the classification of the parents.

The Opposition spoke a great deal here of what grief would be caused in future. They placed excessive emphasis on grief. They virtually waxed lyrical in their melancholy. However, I think that much more grief would be caused if we did not amend this Act in order to introduce descent as a factor in determining a person’s classification. The South African national concept and our belief is separate development and no biological mixing. Surely the United Party accepts that. But now they simply do not want to accept the word. They are opposed to mixing. In essence this measure is aimed at preventing mixing even more effectively. Nevertheless they are opposed to this Bill. I want to ask them to abandon the old concept about race classification, to abandon the old philosophy which was based on race separation and to give their attention in future to the new idea of nations and relations between nations which has taken root in recent years. They must be prepared to accept that; then they will be able to see this matter much more clearly. However, relations between nations do not carry any weight with them. The duty of this Party of which I am a member is, if we believe in what we want to do, to take measures for carrying out our belief, and this is a measure which improves an Act in order to carry out effectively the mandate which we have repeatedly received from time to time.

The Opposition complained that the Secretary was getting too many powers in terms of this legislation. However, the Minister gave them the assurance that the classifications of people already classified would not be affected.

I do not know whether they want to accept that assurance, but that is the assurance which he gave them. As regards the powers of the Secretary, I cannot see how they can object to them, because the procedure followed, the procedure of appeal, is, as far as I am concerned, totally in accordance with the rule of law in connection with which hon. members opposite so often complain.

It was also a shock to me to read that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, “I think it is throwing away a very fine form of, shall we say …” My notes do not include the rest of his sentence. In any event he spoke in this trend, namely that because of this measure we were throwing away a fine opportunity of supplementing our population. Well, to me that was a shock. I think the United Party may as well accept this advice: Where race classification does exist and where it is necessary for us to come forward every time with legislation so as to adapt the principal Act—one may virtually say as a matter of administrative necessity—I ask the United Party to throw in their weight with us and not, particularly in view of the delicate situation in which our nation finds itself, to oppose race legislation time and time again with so much venom as they have been doing here over the past few days.

Sir, when I hear a speech such as that made by the hon. member for Gordonia at this late stage of the debate, the third day of the Second Reading debate, it makes me wonder whether hon. members on that side of the House have merely accepted the interpretation of this Bill as given to them by the Minister or whether they have in fact read the Bill. I very much doubt whether some of them have read it, particularly the hon. member who has just sat down. I think it is important therefore to realize that the principle of race classification is not in issue in this Bill. That issue was dealt with in the original measure. We have before us to-day not a Bill which has to do with the principle of race classification but a piece of amending legislation, and all that this House is concerned with to-day is the proposed amendments. If hon. members look at the Bill they will find that the proposed amendments have to do with a very small category of people; they do not have anything to do with the general measures for classifying people as White, Coloured, Bantu or what-have-you. These amendments have to do with just a certain category of people, namely the borderline cases, and not, as it was put by the previous speaker, with the try-for-white cases, which was the expression that the hon. member used in an obviously derogatory, slurring manner. The people who are affected by the amendments contained in this Bill are those who in many cases claim to be White but who are to be classified as Coloured or placed in some other race category either by the Government or by Government officials. They are people who claim to have the right to be classified as White, and it is time hon. members opposite realized this: These people claim to be Whites; they claim that they have the right to be classified as such and they object very strongly when the Government or a Government official seeks to classify them with some other race. Surely every member on that side of the House will concede that if a man claims to have the right to be classified as White, he should be entitled to state his case without having any slurs cast upon him, as has been done here by the hon. member for Gordonia and other hon. members opposite.

Sir, I want to deal with certain statements made by the hon. members for Primrose and Witbank. These hon. members and others on the Government side have said that the Government treats people in this category with the greatest sympathy. We on this side of the House say: “Let us look at your actions and then we can decide whether or not you treat these people with sympathy.” Sir, what do we find when we look at their actions? In the Bill which is before the House to-day, where is there one word indicating sympathy for people in this category? There is not. On the contrary every single proposed amendment will make it more difficult for those people who claim to be White and who wish to be classified as Whites, to be classified as such. Where is the sympathy which hon. members opposite claim to have for these persons? None at all!

Which Coloured people cannot appeal against their race classification?

I wish the hon. the Minister would listen to what I say. I have made it perfectly clear that my contention is that every single one of the amendments in this Bill will make it more difficult for those persons who claim to be Whites and who, according to the Government, are not, to be classified as Whites. I challenge the hon. the Minister to show when he gets up to reply to this debate that what I have just said is not true. Sir, there is no other way to describe the attitude of hon. members opposite except to say that they are hypocrites when they say that they have the greatest sympathy for this class of person. Their actions show the very reverse.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to refer to us as hypocrites?

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

Sir, is it your ruling that I am not allowed to say that hon. members opposite are hypocrites?

Yes, that is my ruling.

If that is your ruling then I must withdraw it. Let me say then that hon. members opposite, particularly the hon. member for Primrose, ought to know that the statement that under this Bill a sympathetic attitude will be adopted towards border-line cases is not true, and as a senior member of this House he ought not to make statements which he ought to know are not true.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to say that I have made statements which I ought to know are not true?

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

I now want to deal with other points which arise out of this legislation, and as we have not yet had a clear answer to some of these points, which I will now put again pertinently, I hope that we will get a reply either from subsequent speakers or from the Minister. First of all, the hon. the Minister has admitted, although some hon. members on his side have been doing their best to adopt a different point of view, that in terms of the amendments which are proposed in this Bill, descent now becomes a very important factor in the classification of persons, for the first time since the original measure was introduced, and despite the statements to which the House has already been referred by the hon. member for Peninsula and which were made by previous Ministers of the Interior to the effect that ancestry or descent would never be adopted as a test by this Government.

Read the Bill.

What I would like to know from the hon. the Minister is how far back he now intends to go, because there is no definition of descent either in this Bill or in the original Act.

It is not even mentioned in the Bill.

The Bill only refers to classifications.

Sir, the Bill does not only refer to classifications. I am amazed that the hon. the Minister should make such a statement, because if he really believes it then he does not know the contents of this Bill.

Read subsection (5) of section 5.

If the hon. the Minister will look at clause 1 he will see that descent becomes one of the most important factors in classification in terms of his own Bill, and if he looks at his Second Reading speech, which obviously must have been prepared for him by one of his officials, he will see that he says there that descent now becomes an important factor. I ask him therefore: How far back does the Government now intend to go in order to decide who is and who is not a white person?

Natural parents; that is the simple answer.

Sir, we will discuss this question in more detail when we come to the Committee Stage, but I merely want to say to the hon. member for Parow that he does not know what he is talking about either. I ask this question particularly in view of the statement made by the hon. the Minister about “volbloed-blankes” and the statement made by the hon. member for Mayfair about “suiwer blankes”. In view of these statements the public is entitled to a clear statement as to what is meant by a “volbloed-blanke”, and “suiwer blanke”. In other words, how far back does the Government intend to go in deciding whether a man is a pure White or not?

I now come to the definition of a Coloured person. I have never heard such nonsense as that uttered by the hon. member for Primrose when he referred to section 5 (5) as containing a definition of a Coloured person. It does no such thing. The definition of a Coloured person, in the Population Registration Act, is contained in the definition clause, section 1. There you have the definition of a Coloured person. What does it say? It says: “A person who is not a white person or a Native.” Sir, what a wonderful definition! It tells you absolutely nothing at all. This is the sort of thing that we have to put up with. We are told by hon. members opposite that everything is perfectly clear under this legislation and that it will be even clearer under this amending Bill. Let me deal with subsection (5) about which the hon. member for Primrose had so much to say. All that this says is that if the natural parents have been classified in a certain way, their progeny must be classified as set out in this clause. That is all it says. This is no definition of what a Coloured person is. How are they to be classified as Coloured persons? You have to go back to the definition then.

But you just said that the definition in the original Act also said nothing.

If the hon. member for Primrose does not understand the conclusion from the statements I have made, perhaps I can tell him clearly. It supports the contention that my hon. Leader and others on this side of the House have made, namely that there is a certain category of people in this country, generally called the boderline cases, many of whom are unclassifiable, and by trying to draw a straight line, as the Government tries to do in terms of this Bill, it will mean that some white persons, persons who should be classified as White, will be classified as Coloured, and that in addition a great many people will be humiliated and degraded and will have their self-respect considerably damaged.

Give us your definition for a change.

We have told the hon. members opposite ever since they introduced the Population Registration Act in 1950 that in dealing with those cases, they were trying to classify the unclassifiable. Surely the facts over the last 17 years have shown that. The hon. member asks what my point of view is about this. The Minister himself, in introducing the Bill, said that the number of people involved in this category is a very small one. So what on earth does it matter to the white race and to the South African nation … [Interjection.] It would make absolutely no difference to the status of the white man if a few people, and even a few thousand, whom the Government thinks should be classified as Coloured but who claim to be classified as White, are in fact classified as White. If this sort of thing will bring down the white nation in South Africa, then I am very sorry for the white nation. But I have a great deal more respect for the white nation than apparently hon. members opposite have. I do not think this sort of thing will damage the white nation in this country in any way. [Interjection.]

I come now to the powers of the Secretary in terms of this Bill. We would like a very clear answer from the Minister as to what this amending section is intended to do, because as we read it means to us—and I think in fact the Minister may already have conceded that our interpretation is correct—that other than those who have already been reclassified, or who have been classified as the result of an application to court—other than those two categories, all other persons are subject to be reclassified by the Secretary if at any time he thinks, or evidence is placed before him to suggest, that there has been an incorrect classification. This, to us, means that the whole question of classification, right back, is wide open, and to us this is a very sad state of affairs indeed. We want a very clear answer to this, and I hope that the Minister will give it. I may say that this is no reflection on the present holder of this office who, we believe, applies the very greatest sympathy to applications which come before him. It may also be that the same will be the case with future incumbents of that position, but that is not the point. Once you give the opportunity to have the whole thing re-opened by anybody who can place information before the Secretary, there is no longer security for anyone who has been classified under this Act.

I come now to these third party objections. The argument which has been advanced by hon. members opposite to justify doing away with this is that there has been abuse. They do not seem to appreciate the facts. Why is it that third parties are resorting to this? The hon. member for Parow ought to know that there is a time limit for a person who has been classified, to appeal, and a very short time limit. Many of these people are uneducated and do not know their rights. They tend to be a bit lax and do not do anything after their classification for a while, and then they go to an attorney and find they are out of time and nothing can be done unless the Minister is prepared to exercise his discretion. But that discretion has been exercised on very, very few occasions. In any event application to the Minister is limited to one year. There are not many of these people. How many people who are in the borderline category will know the law and will know that there is a right to ask the Minister to extend the period within which to appeal?

It just does not happen. So it is because they are out of time for their appeals that resort is now being made to this provision which enables a third party to object on another’s behalf. That is why it was done; there is no sinister motive behind it. There is no intention of undermining the white race in this country, as hon. members opposite have suggested. There is no intention of undermining the policy of separate development of the Nationalist Party, as other hon. members opposite have suggested. Sir, all this is a smokescreen to try and confuse people into believing that there is a justifiable reason for doing away with third party objections, whereas in fact there is no justification whatsoever. This, in fact, is another example of how this Bill, far from adopting a sympathetic and lighter attitude towards the borderline cases, makes it harder for them.

In conclusion, I merely wish to say that as regards this so-called creeping integration which this Bill is supposed to stop, here again, if that is the main reason the Government can find for justifying this Bill, then they have made a very poor showing indeed; because the number of cases involved is so small that there cannot possibly be such large-scale creeping integration which would undermine the position of the Whites in this country. So, in conclusion, I would repeat that this Bill is a tragedy because it will result in many Whites being classified as Coloureds. [Interjections.] In other cases it will lead to humiliation of a great many other people, and all for what purpose? That is the tragedy. There is no justification for it whatsoever, and for that reason, despite three days of debate, we are even more opposed to this Bill than ever before.

I have been listening attentively to the hon. member for Musgrave and I just want to tell him that he referred to the hon. member for Gordonia, who, as everybody knows, is a Van der Merwe, and now it is my turn to speak and, as everybody knows, I am a Van der Merwe too. But the hon. member for Gordonia has already made mincemeat of the hon. member for Musgrave. I have often sat listening in this House, thinking back to my student days, and I have actually sought the products of Nusas in this House. Up to now I have not actually been able to recognise any here; but when I listened to that hon. member I could see the link between that student group and find its results in our public and political life here this afternoon. It seems to me that the hon. member would feel much more at home next to the hon. member for Houghton, and when I return later in my speech to the hon. member for Houghton I shall deal with the two of them together. [Interjections.] It seems to me the hon. member for Musgrave is really a very worried man. I want to assure him that he need not really be concerned about his days on Mauritius, and he need not be concerned about his possible link with Buckingham Palace. I just want to return to one thing I said. He, together with his hon. Leader, stated that the National Party wanted to classify the unclassifiable, and the Opposition has been asked repeatedly what they meant by that and what they were going to do with those so-called unclassifiable people. The reply became very apparent this afternoon in the speech made by the hon. member, i.e. that they want to assimilate everybody in South Africa who appears to be unclassifiable into the white group. If that is so I want to refer them to the ideas and views of liberal geneticists and anthropologists who state that there is no race living in Africa which did not at some stage or another undergo a process of mixing. In other words, if one were to apply that principle consistently, one would, according to their view, have no classification here. But I want to ask the Opposition this. Sitting in their Caucus is a member who represents the Coloureds, and I want to ask this very simple question: Who does that member sitting in their Caucus represent? Who are the people he represents? The member who is going to speak after me must tell me whom that hon. member represents, and who the Coloureds are?

But I want to get away from the negative aspects and return to the positive. Sir, before you call me to order as you called my hon. colleague to order, I want to tell you beforehand what I want to discuss. In the first instance I want to reply to certain statements made by hon. members of the Opposition, and then I want to give particular attention to the amendments which are being proposed in clause 1 of the Bill. But by way of an approach for my speech, I want to say that I think it is necessary that every new member in this House should sum up the background in this way, i.e. that it is general knowledge that the principles of the sections, sections which are being submitted for careful amendment here, were accepted 17 years ago. During the course of these 17 years the provisions of these clauses have developed even more precisely. and not only that, but the voting public has also noticed to in increasing extent that it is only the National Party which understands the full significance of race and population questions in South Africa and that it is only the National Party which is trying honestly to convert them into legislation. The Opposition, on the other hand, has during those 17 years not yet learned how to learn.

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

Coming to the Bill, I want to reply to a few things which were said by certain hon. members of the Opposition, things which cannot remain unanswered. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and other of his followers have, during the past few days, given us another example of their typical laissez-faire, laissez-aller attitude. Amongst other things, they have said in regard to this amendment, that it is “vicious”, in other words, that they are malicious and spiteful. This terrible allegation was made by them without adducing any proof. They did not want to prove it because what they had said was said to support and strengthen those people who want to bring about the downfall of the National Party. But it was for other reasons, too, that they said it. I have a little book here, entitled Suid-Afrikaners onder die Soeklig—’n Wetenskaplike ontleding van hedendaagse houdings. One of the writers of this book is the hon. member for Hillbrow. On page 15 of the book there appears a table of events. Opposite the year 1950 the hon. member has said (translation)—

But, Mr. Speaker, this scientist proceeded in a very unscientific way. He did not test the effect of that Act against the political thinking of South Africans. Quasi-scientists use this type of speeches for the sole purpose of making the general public afraid of the National Party. At the same time they want to present themselves in a better light. But I want to come to the hon. member for Port Natal, my actual neighbour—in fact we can even co-operate in writing a book with the title “Sonde met die Bure” (Trouble with the Neighbours). But I want to reply to certain statements which he made. He and the hon. member for Sea Point allege that these amendments which are now being proposed, are un-Christian. But clause 1 surely has only to do with a closer definition of “descent” and “acceptance” when they are used as an acknowledged scientific criterion in a multi-national and multi-racial country where those people have to be classified for the sake of the accented norms and order of that country. Since these hon. members are now alleging that these amendments are un-Christian, I want to quote from one of the best known works on reformed ethics. If you would only afford me an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, I shall tell you later on how I relate this quotation with the provisions of this Bill. The work from which I am quoting is titled Gereformeerde Etiek by Professor Dr. W. Geesink. On page 528 he writes, inter alia—

But in order to refute their argument I do not want to dwell on reformed ethnics only. I also want to read a short quotation from the Roman Catholic world where a man such as Louis Luzbetak recently wrote a very modern book, a book which is accepted by the Roman Catholic Mission. The title of the book is The Church and Cultures. On page 1 of his preface to that book he states—

Does the Church support this Bill?

In other words, the acknowledging of diversity and the right of survival in diversity …

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member that he is arguing the principles of the original Act. Although it falls outside the scope of this Bill I have nevertheless allowed the hon. member to make the quotations dealing with churches and religious faith, but the hon. member must now return to the provisions of this Bill.

I just wanted to point out to the hon. member that his allegation that the actions of the Government are un-Christian, are unscientific and incorrect.

Order! But that hon. member resumed his seat very quickly.

Yesterday afternoon the hon. member for Sea Point held up the works of Mr. Hoge very theatrically, and in doing so reached a low-water mark in his speech. The hon. member for Sea Point gave himself out here as an authority in the field of genealogy, in the field of the history of South African families. During the course of that speech he made extremely ugly insinuations. But what work by Hoge did the hon. member hold up here? This writer published four works. I discovered from our library yesterday afternoon that we only had one of those works here, and when I wanted to borrow it I was informed that the book had already been taken out. I want to suggest that the hon. member for Sea Point never read that book, because if he had done so he would have known that that book is merely a very brief resumé of a much greater work written by De Villiers under the title Die Geslagregisters van ou Kaapse Families. There are more than 1.200 pages in that book. With that he did not even come to the work of Du Toit-Malherbe in which a few hundred thousand South African white families are dealt with. When one comes to the question of purity, I want to ask the hon. members to go and read those works. He did not even read the little book by Van Colenbrander, namely De Afkomst der Boeren, in which the following is said, inter alia, Mr. Speaker, you will have to call me to order again if I am wrong. [Laughter.]

The hon. member is out of order almost all the time.

I shall proceed. We come now to section 1. Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to have read it for the edification of the House, but I come now to section …

Read! Read!

When we come to section 1, as amended, then this side of the House wants to lay down the fairest and most justifiable criteria. Since we want to make use of appearance, acceptance and acknowledgement in respect of descent as guiding lines when deciding whether a person is White then it could perhaps be seen in a clearer perspective if we were to bear in mind that the interests—the clash between White, Black and Coloured in South Africa—is more than just a racial confrontation in the bio-genetical sense of the word; it also includes a fundamental difference in way of life, and consequently an outlook on life and humanity.

These problematical situations are situated in communities which ostensibly reveal a racially stratified appearance; merely because the bio-genetical differences between White, Bantu and Coloured, coincide with the already mentioned differences in way of life and race as the physically more easily identifiable qualities, it is the general section criterion which operates in daily social intercourse. In other words, when we come to these sections, when we want to classify the so-called unclassifiable, then we do not only make use of the somatoscopic, the somatometric or the osteometric methods. We accept these so called unclassifiable people in section 1 as purely physical biological beings. For that reason we will not, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, treat people as if they were animals. The National Party views the people in this amended section, mankind therefore, not as a physical biological being, but also as a cultural being. It also views him as a physical being. That is why all the criteria contained in these sections, contribute by implication to what we are taking into consideration that we have to deal here with cultural patterns and with the characteristics arising from patterns of life, and they are summarized as effectively as possible in this section in question. Section 1 (2) (a) for example is defined in greater detail by this amendment, by adding the physical appearance, the habits, education, speech, general demeanour and behaviour. In this regard I want to refer to the view of Professor Stanley Porteus, when he stated the following in his little article Ethnic Group Differences. I am reading these extracts from accepted scientific works of our modern times, precisely because the hon. member for Houghton intimated in a typically snobbish way yesterday that the National Party were old-fashioned, were going to work unscientifically and were not keeping abreast of modern scientific views. I shall return later to the hon. member for Houghton.

I never said it.

The hon. member for Houghton did say it. But I shall read to you from that article—

The following is important—

Hear, hear!

I am glad that you agree. Now I can proceed with my speech. I want to state very clearly to the hon. members that it is consequently very clear that before one wants to classify the unclassifiable (I am now dealing with section 1), and the criteria are those which are contained in this section, then what the National Party is concerned with is not racial superiority or racial inferiority. It makes no difference to us whether the one person is better or whether another person is worse. It is not our intention to condemn these so-called unclassifiables or to extoll them. What is at issue is separation for the sake of order and the stability of our country and our society. After all, classification or separation is for us not, and this is very important, the last step. It is not the terminal point of our activities as far as these so-called unclassifiables are concerned, because it is at this stage that the National Party and its policy commences its development of a great and fine national structure here in Southern Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton asked yesterday for scientific proofs. That question from the hon. member for Houghton was born out of political snobbishness, because her Party is a snob party, which disregards entirely a large section of society. They select only the so-called enlightened ones, the so-called civilized ones, the so-called intellectuals from each group. [Interjections.] If the hon. members of the Opposition, on the United Party side, take up the cudgels so fiercely for the hon. member for Houghton I am going to do more than merely accuse the hon. member for Musgrave together with this hon. member. I shall also classify the hon. member for Durban (North) with that hon. member.

Science is a product of man and is controlled by man. There is an intricate inter-reaction between community and science. Often the scientists are in the vanguard with their research. On other occasions, science with its research workers, has to take up the rear. There is a fine, delicate balance between science and community. It is not only the hon. member for Houghton and her Party who are scientists. There are many other people in South Africa, apart from Professor Tobias of the University of the Witwatersrand, who know something about racial classification or about genetics. There is an increasing stream of scientists in the modern world who have returned from the horrors of the Second World War to study in a sober, businesslike and empirical way the problems of race and population questions.

In conclusion I just want to say …

I want to point out to the hon. member again that he must return to the Bill now. He is dealing with fundamental matters affecting the principles of the original Act.

Mr. Speaker, I shall conclude with this and not give the examples I would have liked to have given, i.e. how, in America, after people had simply thrown various races together in the same schools, the best educationists are now beginning to realize that it is wrong to mingle even these so-called unclassifiables in communities, because by doing so one is doing precisely what the Opposition has accused us of doing. That is why I want to say that the amendments in this legislation are neither “vicious” nor un-Christian, and that they comply with all modern scientific requirements. But above all, it is proof that the National Party, even in the finest details, without turning its back on the problem—and that is why the young people of our country follow the National Party—is analysing every problem, is placing the solution on the Statute Book with the courage of its convictions and making it known to the entire public.

Mr. Speaker, if I had to follow the hon. member for Rissik, who has just sat down, I am afraid that you will rule me out of order. But there is one matter in regard to which I think I must answer him. The hon. member asked who the hon. member for Karoo—who is not here now because of illness—represents; the hon. member who represents the Coloured people and belongs to the United Party caucus. I would say that he represents the Coloured people in that area. The Coloured people are a group of people who have come into being over the last 300 years. Those are the people that he represents. But because of the fact that they have come into being over a period of 300 years, as a result of events which have taken place over the last 300 years, it is quite obvious that certain things must happen to that race. One of the things which the Minister must appreciate is this. These are people whose blood differs and as a result there must be persons in that group who cannot be identified either as Coloured or white people. I would say to the hon. member for Rissik that I would be very pleased to represent those persons from that group who consider themselves now to be white people. They can come into my constituency and I would be pleased to represent them in this House. It would be no disgrace to me, and I would not be afraid to represent them.

Hon. members on that side who have spoken in this debate resented the criticism which came from my Leader at the beginning of the debate. Well, I think he was mild in his criticism of this Bill. I would say that this Bill has done amongst others one thing: it has opened up wounds of uncertainty that were starting to heal. That is what this Bill is going to do—it is going to open up these wounds again. And it is going to open up wounds in a group of people who do not deserve to be treated in any other way except sympathetically.

Who are the people who have lodged appeals? Who are the people that have asked to be reclassified? They are people who are already unfortunate because of the circumstances that have arisen. They are neither Coloured nor White. They are the “doubtfuls”. But because of what has happened in the past I am sure that in their veins runs more white blood than Coloured blood. I am certain of that. It will not be very long ere scientists will be able to determine that point. They will be able to determine what runs in our veins —how much Coloured blood, how much Caucasian blood, how much Negroid blood, how much white blood we have. To-day the hon. the Minister must resort to guesswork. He does not take into consideration the findings of anthropologists, of haemotologists, of pathologists and other scientific people. He says that if a person’s classification is in doubt that person must be paraded and his demeanour and walk studied. Has he adopted the upright position already or does he still assume the crouching posture of those who are not absolutely White? This is not the way in which to treat those people. Therefore I think that it is a shame that these things are put in black and white into this Bill. I want to say to the Minister and hon. members on that side of the House: do not blame this side if South Africa gets a bad name. Do not blame us if we criticize these Bills. Do not blame us, do not say that it is because of our criticisms that South Africa gets a bad name. Blame yourself for bringing in this type of obnoxious legislation. If you did away with it, it would be to the advantage of South Africa and all its people.

This Bill does not make any Coloured person White. This Bill does only one thing, and that is it makes of a white person, a person who is accepted as White, a Coloured person. Is that fair? Is that reasonable? Why should a man have to go back to a group of people that he has left? What is worse, Sir, why should he not have the opportunity, if he is dissatisfied with a decision that is made departmentally, to go back to the court and fight his case there if he feels strongly about the matter?

What brought this Bill about? What brought this piece of legislation into this House? Only one thing, and that is the failure of the Minister to stop people winning cases in our courts of law. Because they won their cases, the loophole which found favour in the eyes of the law has to be closed up. More shame on us if we pass this Bill—more shame on us! Have we so little faith in our courts of law that we cannot trust them to decide whether a man is justifiably on the right side of the line? But we are making laws to put an end to that right, and that is what we on this side of the House do not want.

We are dealing here with a very delicate matter. We are dealing with the lives of people, their families and their future. We are dealing with people who have already adopted a certain way of life. They have their friends, they move in certain circles, perhaps their children are already going to white schools. Must all of that now come to a stop? Why is the Minister not generous? Why does he not at least say to those who are dissatisfied, whose cases are already on appeal but are delayed, “If you want to be White, then be White.” Is that going to cause any danger? Is that what the white man is afraid of? Must we always be walking with fear? Must we always be looking over our shoulder to see whether anybody is going to stab us in the back? Well, it will not be the Coloured person. The Coloured person has been patient for years and years. He has really been a model of patience.

Order! I think that the hon. member should come back to the Bill.

Thank you for giving me the liberty of going so far, Mr. Speaker. Let me say to the hon. the Minister that the criterion of descent as set out in the Bill is going to give him a headache in the future. I want to know whether he at any time has taken the trouble to study the Mendelian theory. Does he know what it means? Does he know what is going to happen in the future to persons of mixed blood. Does he know that some of us who are White are going to find that there is a throw-back in our family in some future generation—perhaps the next generation or in the second one? What is going to happen then when there is a throwback? What is going to happen to that child who may not look White but who is accepted as a white person? Surely if such a throwback is going to be accepted in future as a white child, then the same thing can happen now. Why should it only be allowed in, say, two or three generations’ time? What many of these people are afraid of to-day is the uncertainty of the future. I say to the hon. the Minister that if he is not going to be just then at least let him be charitable and let him give these people who are borderline cases the opportunity to choose whether they want to be on the white side of the line or whether they want to stay on the brown side.

This Bill does not deal with the principle of classification. That issue was settled 17 years ago. The question here is the proper implementation of the principle of classification, but if one listens to hon. members of the Opposition in this debate, if one hears statements such as those made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, namely that race classification is something alien to the Western world, and if one listens to the hon. member who has just sat down and who stated that this measure would not change a Coloured into a white man but would cause accepted Whites to be declared Coloureds, one comes to the conclusion that the point of dispute is the principle of race classification all over again. It is quite clear to me that hon. members of the Opposition have no clarity as to the reason why we have this Bill before us. What is there in this Bill to prove to the hon. member who has just sat down that this Bill is aimed at making Coloureds of Whites, and not the other way round? The hon. member alleged here that this Bill was an expression of fear of overwhelming on the part of the National Party.

Yes.

The hon. member says “yes”. I see no sign of fear in the Bill, and I see it on nobody’s face, nor do I see on the face of the hon. member that we are fear-stricken. What right has the hon. member, when we are dealing with legislation to create orderly co-existence of the various race groups in our country, to say that it is an expression of fear? Sir, with reference to the allegation made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that race classification is something alien to the Western world, I want to remind him of what his own Leader said some years ago in this House when similar legislation was being dealt with. On that occasion the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the following (Hansard, 1962, col. 4453)—

One-eighth.

Sir De Villiers Graaff: One-eighth, but my impression is that it varied from state to state.

Was it the Leader of the Opposition who said that?

Yes. Although we are also introducing the principle of parentage in this Bill, we do not intend going as far as the United States of America went by laying down percentages. Sir, cannot hon. members of the Opposition who have spoken here and who are lawyers simply take a look at this Bill? If they look at the Bill they will see that the question of parentage is introduced in this legislation only in so far as the parents of the person concerned are classified in a certain race group.

What about descent?

It is the same thing.

If the hon. member does not know the difference between descent and parentage, I have nothing more to say to him. Here we have one example in the leading Western country in the world, which examines a person’s parentage for purposes of their own. They also classify people, although not for the same purposes as in South Africa. In this legislation there is no mention of anything of the kind, and yet the hon. member for Bezuidenhout alleges that race classification is something alien to the Western world. One may quote many other instances of classification of people, apart from America.

Sir, I think it is also important to explain on this occasion what was in the minds of the National Party, the Government and the Minister concerned when the original legislation was introduced in 1950. The Minister concerned then said (Hansard, col. 2521, 1950)—

He then also referred to America, where the test of descent is applied.

So what?

It is true that the hon. member for Durban (North) has not spoken yet, but his colleagues advanced a lengthy argument on the question of descent; they wanted to know why we were dragging in the question of descent. I maintain that in this connection we are not going nearly as far as America has gone. We merely go into the classification of the parents of the person concerned—the classification of his parents, not their descent.

I have already said that this Bill deals with the proper implementation of the principle of classification, in an endeavour to close up loopholes which were discovered in the legislation in the course of time. In course of time loopholes are discovered in any legislation, and there are always people who are prepared to exploit loopholes. Pathetic stories have been told to-day and adjectives have been used ad infinitum to describe the suffering caused by this legislation and its supposed cruelty. But I want to raise this question: Was the suffering of which we heard in this debate not there before a Population Registration Act existed? Would that suffering not have become worse and worse if this legislation had not been on the Statute Book? The suffering that occurs is the result of human circumstances. I regret that we did not have this legislation years ago. because then there would have been less suffering in our country. In an attempt to demonstrate the suffering caused, the hon. member for Peninsula produced a newspaper cutting about a family which was allegedly divided into two. But the hon. member spoke against the legislation before us to-day. He did not tell us that that cutting was the result of loopholes in the existing Act. What did the hon. member try to prove? The test which has been applied until now was the test of appearance and of association, in other words, the test of the society in which the person moves. Persons with ulterior motives very soon discovered that it was not difficult to rebut this test and to obtain a different classification, and for that reason the Minister also said in his introductory speech that if there had not been Whites in this country who resisted the concept of separate development, there would perhaps have been no need to introduce this legislation. How easy it is to evade the law and to prove that a person associates with Whites, by looking for such a person in a different environment altogether and bringing him into contact with Whites periodically in order that he may mix with them socially, and then to say that he is associating with Whites.

The hon. member for Piketberg said that the loopholes were also used by people who wanted to profit by the situation. I may confirm that. I have knowledge of cases of people who acted on behalf of applicants, in their dozens, and who charged R250 a case to do so. In other words, these loopholes resulted in abuse and in the fact that avaricious persons profited, and for that reason I maintain, contrary to what hon. members are seeking to allege, that it is not only problem cases which have resulted in appeals. But why did those appeals not arise all these years, why have they suddenly arisen in recent times? I submit that it is due to the fact that people saw an opportunity to profit by this, and that they approached those people deliberately. [Interjections.] I want to go further. The hon. members said here that there were only slightly more than 100 cases, and what did that matter; how could that affect the white nation? But hon. members are taking a completely mistaken view of our motives. That is not the point at issue. What is also at issue is the fact that the Coloureds are deprived of their best people, and we are concerned with the exploitation of circumstances such as these. I envisage that those 150 cases, in view of the success they have achieved in recent times, would have increased to many more in future if the Minister had not introduced this legislation. It is my submission to-day that as long as there are loopholes in legislation of this nature there will be a price on the endeavours of people to change from one race group to another, because there are people who are prepared to exploit that. The Government has shown through this legislation and through its entire handling, administratively, of the legislation in the past, that it puts a price on the achievements of each race group within its own community and puts a price on service to one’s own community; and for that reason it wants to offer an opportunity to people who belong to a certain race group to progress and to be of service to that community.

I have referred to the heartrending stories of human suffering quoted here, and I want to reiterate that without the legislation before us and that which is already in existence, it would have been possible to rake up such heart-rending cases in abundance, and that the legislation before us is aimed at preventing that. Contrary to what hon. members on the opposite side have alleged, it will not aggravate the position. It will gradually reduce the number of problem cases. By the nature of matters this is not an easy task. It is difficult to come to grips with such a human situation. The hon. member for Umlazi may laugh, but the difference between the Government and the Opposition is the fact that the Government has the courage of its convictions and that it gets to grips with difficult situations, and does so in a humane fashion. If hon. members wanted to criticize, they should have mentioned instances of inhumane action by the Government and the Department. They should not hold up spectres of what this legislation will supposedly do and say that it will make Coloureds of Whites. What I regret most about this debate is the attempt by some hon. members on the Opposition side to assume the mentles of angels, so to speak, and to hawk about piety, in particular the hon. member for Sea Point. It is not fitting to take such a propagandistic line in these matters. In the line taken by those hon. members I see the motive of the Opposition, but they are not concerned with real human suffering but with raising as much dust as possible. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that it was unpatriotic of the Government to introduce this legislation, and other hon. members also said that; it was supposed to be legislation of this nature which harmed our country. The adjectives used to describe this legislation in the course of the debate had a very well-known ring to me, because 17 years ago I also had the privilege of listening to the debates here, and the words used by members of the Opposition, which were of the same tenor, found a true echo on the outside. [Interjection.] I say the members of the Opposition are to blame. I would rather ask the hon. member for Wynberg who is to blame for the fact that we have to introduce legislation of this nature today. I think she has a great deal to do with that. That is why I say: Measure the Government by its sympathetic treatment of problem cases, and if you can prove that the Government did not handle those problem cases sympathetically, then bring complaints of this nature, but do not in advance criticize the Government, in the most extravagant language, before the world.

One of the Opposition members asked how the Secretary of the Department, with the powers conferred on him by the Bill, would handle these cases. He is the head of a government department. It goes without saying that he will dispose of problem cases which are readily disposed of, and then there is no problem left. But the Bill provides for problem cases being referred to a race classification board, for the first time, a board which is virtually a court, presided over by an ex-judge or an ex-magistrate, who will go about matters in accordance with legal procedure and who will give each person a full opportunity to state his case—in other words, to decide in an independent, judicial way. This will relieve the Secretary of the burden so that he will not be exposed to irresponsible criticism. For these reasons I cannot refrain from expressing my support for this legislation, and I maintain that any person in South Africa whose intentions towards his own people are sincere, no matter to which race group he belongs, will welcome this legislation. Similarly, I believe the Coloureds will welcome this legislation, because one would do well to remind the hon. member for Boland in particular that on one occasion the Coloured Council adopted a resolution which called for action against this process, to which hon. members of the Opposition are amenable, and which has the result that the cream of their people is skimmed off and added to the white section. [Interjections.] The hon. member is completely out of touch with the people he represents, because he has no insight into the endeavours of the fair-minded Coloured who serves his own community.

In conclusion I just want to raise this question. In view of the impression given by members of the Opposition in the debate on this legislation, namely that they are not concerned about the continuation of the process of the inter-changing of groups, I want to ask them this question: What becomes of the United Party policy of race federation, in terms of which they provide for the representation of various races in Parliament on a racial basis? What becomes of that if they hold these views on the matter? I would also ask them: What becomes of the so-called policy of white leadership over the entire South Africa, as advocated by the Leader of the Opposition and his Party, if it is of no concern to them whether the White and the Coloured and the Bantu will continue to exist as separate entities?

Mr. Speaker, I suppose that the answer to the last question of the hon. member for Stellenbosch is perhaps that seven independent black states carved out of South Africa offer a greater danger to white leadership or white status or existence than perhaps 200 or 300 borderline cases that this Bill is alleged to be dealing with. When the hon. member for Stellenbosch or any other member on that side of the House starts to quote from the laws of the U.S.A. to justify a measure which we have here relating to race, then we are really getting somewhere. He says that we are not prepared to go as far as the U.S.A. as far as descent is concerned but does the hon. member not appreciate that in terms of this law someone who is now White, can be made a Coloured person? Does he not realize why there is so much concern and why so many people fall over themselves to try to help these people simply because of the circumstances in which they find themselves if they are suddenly reclassified? If they suddenly become Coloured people as has been so eloquently stated by hon. members on this side already, what happens to them? In terms of all the legislation we have such a person has to leave the area where he lives and go to some foreign part. He has to leave all his friends and his children have to leave the schools they were attending. That is what you are dealing with. You are dealing with human beings and human problems. The hon. member for Primrose said when he made his speech that he could find nothing in the Minister’s speech of 1962 where he gave the assurance that descent would not be used in the future. [Interjection.] Let me read to the hon. member what appears in Col. 4445 of the Hansard of 26th April, 1962:

That was for the purposes of the 1962 Act.

Yes, but that is what the hon. member said. He said that he could not find any speech of 1962 in which an assurance was given by the Minister. What is done in clause 1 is to tell us how we are now to determine how someone is generally accepted or how we are to determine what he is in appearance. We are dealing here with a fundamental statute. This is fundamental to the whole edifice of apartheid which is built upon it.

It also applies to race federation.

No. the hon. member must not get confused about this. We do not need and we have never needed a stud book of the human beings that live in this country in order to determine who belongs to one race or another. I think that the fact that we have had so many amendments to this fundamental statute indicates very clearly just how difficult it is to define just what a white person is. This is the sixth one. Every time there are more amendments. If I may say so, to coin a phrase, when one looks at this Bill, it can be described as being “malice in blunderland”. That is precisely what it is. It is a malicious Bill and it is a Bill which is taking this Department and this aspect of thousands of people’s lives into a blunderland from which I do not think anyone is going to be able to escape. I shall justify what I have said. Every clause contains an attempt—and not only an attempt; they actually do it—to nullify something that was decided in the courts. When the hon. the Minister spoke about this amendment —I think it was last year—he spoke about the courts having distorted this. He gave the impression that the courts had given a wrong impression and that he was now going to deal with the decisions they had given. One must remember that the courts are there to determine what the words that are passed by this Parliament mean. That is all their function is and that is what they do. What the hon. the Minister must remember is that the courts at the same time have the added advantage that we do not have here, namely that they apply the intention of the words that we pass into law, to the individual cases which come before them. That is an advantage which they have and which no one else has. The Minister can in this Bill try to meet every single case that will arise. He cannot do it because every single case, being a human being, is a different case and has different circumstances. If you do not leave anything to the courts, and if you do not leave the application of the law to the particular facts in each case, you will never be able to do justice to each and every person. What the Minister is doing in this Bill is to presume certain things that the courts have held, not as a matter of interpretation, but as a matter of fact and as a matter of law. These are not in fact the things that the Minister proposes to assume they are, as I shall indicate. This Bill makes the exercise of a discretion by a court almost impossible in many cases. Let us look at the new subsection (2) (d). Paragraph (d) reads, inter alia, as follows:

That means that he cannot be a white person if he so admits. Paragraph (d) continues:

1. (ii) In any form or return referred to in section 3 (that is census, Sir) or 9 (that is the application for an identity card) or in any application for an identity card completed and signed by him or by his spouse or his guardian in respect of him, there appears a statement to the effect that as far as his race is concerned, he is not a white person.

But the Minister is going to amend that.

Yes, he is going to amend the clause. I shall come to the hon. the Minister’s amendment in a minute. The Minister’s amendment is to sub-paragraph (iii) and not to the one I have read, which is sub-paragraph (ii). The hon. member who in fact read out what the hon. the Minister’s amendment was going to be, does not appear to know what it is. [Interjections.] No, I am sorry. He did not do so. It was his bench-mate.

I want to point out that what the court said in relation to these forms—I read now from May’s case—such as documents, census forms, identity cards, births and marriage certificates, was—

He went on to say—

One finds those reasons running through almost every case where this has occurred. What the court has in fact said is that this information is no indication, for the reasons that they give. It is stale information. It is something that happened a long time ago. But now the Minister proposes to make it a presumption of law that in fact this should be so. I want to know why. What are we dealing with? We are dealing with the question as to whether or not a person is in fact generally accepted as a white person. If the hon. the Minister wishes to find out whether in truth he is, surely that judgment should cause him to withdraw that part of the Bill. Or, Sir, is it to find out whether in truth he is accepted or is in fact to shut out as many people as he can from the Valhalla of the white man? This is the question—does he really in truth want to find out, to determine, whether someone is genuinely accepted or does he just want to shut them out? Looking at the Bill, the conclusion one comes to is that he wants to shut them out, because he does not want them to have a hearing—he assumes and presumes all sorts of things, things which no court or inquiry may look into. Not even the Secretary may look into it. Not even he can look into it if it is pointed out to him that a person at present classified as a White filled in a form at some time or another. In the application of his powers in terms of section 5 (3) he must reclassify him as a Coloured. He is presumed then to have made an admission and in terms of the amendment of 1962 if you have made such an admission you may not be classified as a white man. This is the situation we have got to and that also is the answer to the question asked by the hon. member for Stellenbosch, how can we say this Bill is going to make of people who are White, Coloured? But this is how it can happen. The Secretary has no option but to apply the law, and so have the boards and the courts. In doing that they have to presume something which in fact is not so but they have, nevertheless, to presume it because this Bill says so.

I should like to ask the hon. the Minister why he is using a census form, because what is happening in these cases? Is it that a person who fills in a census form is being duped into filling in a form for the purposes of this legislation? That is what it comes down to. The law gives protection to anyone who fills in a census form—as a matter of fact, the law goes out of its way to do so.

The Statistics Act.

Yes, but even the Census Act itself lays down—

anything to the contrary in any law relating to evidence notwithstanding.

I shall come back to this point in a minute. But on the census form itself, the census form which was used in 1951 and in 1964, there appear these words—

So, this is then a confidential statement. As a matter of fact, how on earth can one have a proper statistical census unless one has provision like this in the law? Why was it put in? It has been put in for this purpose. Without this statisticians will find it very difficult to compile any information at all. Consequently, the assurance is being given that no information will be divulged to anybody else, but now, all of a sudden, the hon. the Minister comes here with a Bill which says that if somebody puts on that form something like this that person will be assumed for the purposes of this legislation to be a Coloured person. What a scandalous thing to do. What a shocking breach of faith. And what a terrible blow to the Department of Census and Statistics. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has consulted that Department in this connection. I doubt it very much. Can the hon. the Minister, in this wonderland in which he seems to find himself now and seems to be driving everyone, tell me what is going to be the position if one of these cases comes before a court on appeal? What happens then and what will then be the position of section 17 of the Census Act where it is stated that such information may not be used in evidence in a civil action? And this is what it will be, a civil action. Will the position then be that the census form will be all right for the purposes of the board’s determination but when you go on appeal to a court you may not use it? I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has looked at that. I doubt it very much. But one hopes that he will have a look at a few more things because anomalies such as this appear right throughout this hotch-potch of nonsensical presumptions which are not based on facts but which the Minister puts in here to try and make people who are now White, Coloured. But the final madness of this measure is to be found in the proposed new section 5 (5), paragraph (b) of which reads as follows—

“Has been” and not “is”. But assuming that it means “is”, then how can the hon. the Minister put a thing like this in the Bill? Because he has a statute, of which he must be aware, namely the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 where the definition of a “white person” for the purposes of getting married is, according to section 1 (1) (ii)—

In a case like this any such marriage shall be deemed to be valid. This is exactly the same definition as we originally had in this Bill—general acceptance or obvious appearance, what he purports to be. Facts of the matter are that people get married in terms of this—persons who have not had their classifications changed. Accordingly you can find a person classified as a white man marrying someone who is classified as a Coloured— classified by the hon. the Minister’s Department. But when the test of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act are applied they can get married.

I have had cases like this myself. In fact, there are cases mentioned in the law reports where people have gone to court and have pointed out that they have these classifications but these classifications are wrong and, in any event, even if they are not wrong, the test under this Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act is whether they can get married. Very often during the year if you go to the magistrate court you will find persons telling the Chief Magistrate that although they are classified as Coloured they are not Coloured persons and, therefore, in terms of this Act they want to get married. They then produce the necessary affidavits to prove to the Chief Magistrate that they are entitled to get married and they accordingly get married. The law says they may marry and they get married, in fact, in terms of a statute passed by this Nationalist Government. Now, however, this Minister comes along and says that the children of such a marriage, a marriage solemnized because in accordance with this Act the parties are White, shall be Coloured. What absolute nonsense! What absolute inhumanity, what height of stupidity and nonsense! This then is the situation we can have. Here again the Minister presumes—it is not a question of fact—that they are going to be Coloured because his Department has classified one as White and the other one as non-White.

The hon. member for Piketberg spoke about the hon. member for Peninsula being a “regs-geleerde” and said that he ought to know better. Well, I then ask the hon. member, as an ex-“predikant”, whether the words in the marriage formula in all Christian churches as far as I am aware, namely, “Those whom God have joined together …” in parenthesis, Sir, with the consent of the Mixed Marriages Act, “… let no man put asunder” mean anything at all?

Surely the proper test is the test which we originally had in this Act, namely the test of general acceptance. Surely it is not necessary now to redefine all sorts of things and to assume and presume that certain states of affairs which do not, in fact, exist are, in fact, to determine whether one is or is not generally accepted?

While one is on the question of the family one is reminded that when the Supreme Court once gave a judgment that was approved of by the Department, the case of Otto v. Race Classification Board, the court said that one was not accepted generally unless one had cut oneself off completely even from one’s family. This was put down on forms which were renewed and sent to all sorts of persons who were inquiring about reclassification. As a result of that people cut themselves off from their families. Another case in point is Francisco’s case in which a judgment was also delivered by the full bench. The judgment was delivered by Tebutt, A.J., concurred in by Watermeyer, J. The judgment reads—

That is the new definition of 1962—

Does the hon. the Minister not agree with this? If he does not agree with this, is he aware of this case? I presume that he is. Paragraph (c) of the new subsection (2) referred to in clause 1 of the Bill, states that—

I do not know whether the words, “and any other person with whom he lives” refer to a member of his family. If so, and if this is a way of getting around Francisco’s judgment then this measure is even more shameful than I thought it was.

Yes.

The hon. member says “Yes”.

I said that all those facts are embodied in this Bill.

Well, how inhuman can one get? How ridiculous can one be? The hon. the Minister indicated in his amendment what the real purpose of this Bill is. The Minister has an amendment on the Order Paper which he proposes to introduce. He proposes to add at the end of clause 1, after the word “person” the words, “unless such person proves that he is in fact not a Coloured person.” In other words, this presumption may not do that. If he can prove that, in fact, he is not a Coloured person, then he can escape from that particular presumption. What does “in fact” mean? Does it mean the opposite of all the nonsensical presumptions that are made in this Bill? What does it mean? I think it means “in fact” “as opposed to what is here in this Bill”, which is not a fact. This is the situation that we are getting into now.

Now, a lot has been said about the humanitarians; a lot has been said about the liberalists; a lot has been said about hon. members on this side making all this fuss. Let me say to the Minister that I can think of nothing more degrading than having to take one’s family, as the law now reads and as one is asked to do, along to the officials in the department, people whose qualifications have nothing whatever to do with racial separation or the ability to judge people in that context, one’s family, one’s wife and children, have to sit down and be examined by one of these persons. That is the first thing. But now the question of deportment, of demeanour and speech come into it. Do they now have to deport themselves in front of this official? Do they have to put on a special sort of demeanour, a special sort of speech? One wonders what would happen to the hon. member for Primrose with his “ought to geknow het” as he indicated to us to-day. If the finding is to be based on these criteria, can the Minister tell me how on earth that man is ever going to appeal? Because in clause 4 of the Bill the Minister takes away the power of the court to inquire into and consider the matter. So the court is bound by the record. How then, if it is bound by the four corners of the record, does the court determine whether the findings on speech, demeanour and deportment were right or were wrong? I wonder if the Minister has thought about that one? I doubt it very much. This cannot be put down on the record, but the court is now going to be bound by it. One wonders whether the court is entitled now to make any finding of its own, independent of the finding of the board, on appearance.

Surely the question of general acceptance must be the test? It is the only test that one can have. So long as we acknowledge that some people are obviously White and some people are in appearance obviously not White, so long as there is that, then the only real, proper, decent, normal human basis upon which the matter can be decided is the judgment of society itself. And that must remain the test. That is indeed the test under the Mixed Marriages Act. The late Senator Fagan, when he was a judge of the Supreme Court here in Cape Town, said of the Mixed Marriages Act that “the Legislature had wisely refrained from drawing a dividing line where the Creator had blurred it”. As my Leader has said, that is the difficulty that we have, that is why the application of this measure is going to be impossible. Let us not make that mistake of trying to draw a dividing line where the Creator has blurred it, because the result of this is going to be a harvest of human tragedy which is not worth the small number of people who may trickle into the white camp.

Mr. Speaker, because, in terms of the Rules of this House, there will not be sufficient time left for me to reply to the Second Reading Debate, I move—

That the debate be now adjourned.

Agreed to.