I move—

When I gave notice of my intention to introduce this motion, it had become evident that the Government had decided to promulgate its Security Code, the main purpose of which is to facilitate the prosecution of the War effort, and to establish safeguards against the subversive activities of saboteurs and Fifth Columnists, of whom there are all too many in South Africa.

Especially over there.

It seemed to me imperative in the circumstances that so important a weapon as that of broadcasting should be placed under the control of the authority responsible for the direction of Military Operations and Intelligence in the Army of the Union, and the notice of motion proposes that course of action. The War Measures Act 32 of 1940 provides the Government with sufficiently wide power to adopt this course should it think fit. The member of Parliament for Chatham, one of the best informed authorities in the British Isles, as to the major importance in war time of the broadcasting weapon, has told the House of Commons a series of very interesting facts. He said—

And the speaker I quote proceeds to ask—

The authority whose views I have quoted, also dwelt upon the purely propaganda value of broadcasting, and in this connection he said—

The speaker moreover drew attention to the fact that Senator Pepper of the United States of America had stressed to him practically the same viewpoint. In contrast with the appreciation of the value and unlimited power of broadcasting which I have just quoted, let us turn to the deplorable state of affairs which is shown by published evidence to exist in the administration of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. I do not exaggerate, sir, when I describe the existing conditions as “a state of disorganisation, indiscipline and petty animosity pervading the administration of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.” This is the position clearly disclosed in the three-quarters of a million words of evidence that have been heard by a Commission of Enquiry which has been sitting since 25th November, 1940. Briefly summarised, the terms of reference require the Commission of Enquiry to investigate the manner in which the Corporation has conducted its operations in relation to the war in which the Union is involved, and whether such operations have been, and are being conducted so that the interests of the Union as a belligerent are adequately safeguarded; also what the relationship has been between the Corporation and its servants in respect of matters connected with the war. The Commission of Enquiry has attended to a bad pre-eminence among all other Commissions because of the slow progress of its proceedings. A Cape Town newspaper, in commenting upon the appointment of a Commission to enquire into the Rand riots, recently said—

The same newspaper, paradoxically enough, holds that it would be grossly improper for the House of Assembly “to survey the same field of enquiry without the information which is available to the commission, and without the Commission’s report,” which it supposes will reach completion “sooner or later.” I shall reply to that criticism in due course. I propose to show this afternoon that the Commission has chosen to exclude from its investigations a large body of evidence which is germane to its terms of reference, and I shall make some quotations which will show how the Broadcasting Board and the commission of enquiry have failed in their duty. I have before me a copy of the radio licence under which the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation is entitled to carry on its operations. Among the important conditions which, if disregarded, there is one which reads—

In total disregard of this condition, the Broadcasting Corporation employed, under contract for 15 months, Dr. Markus Timmler, a professional broadcaster from Zeesen. Those who have any knowledge of the Hitler propaganda machine, must have known how dangerous it was that Dr. Timmler should be allowed to appear weekly before the Afrikaans microphone long after the period of “Munich.” The German Minister Plenipotentiary in the Union strongly supported his engagement by the Broadcasting Corporation, and it is not denied that he was employed, notwithstanding the fact that the employment of any alien constituted a valid reason for the cancellation of the radio licence. Readers of the exhaustive and often irrelevant evidence recorded by the present commission of enquiry will fail to find a single word about this infringement by the corporation of one of the most important conditions of its licence in a matter affecting the war. The effect of the published evidence has been to convince the public of the incompetence, the blundering and inertia of the Board of Governors, and of the incapacity of their chief executive officer, the Director of Broadcasting, to make up in any way for the defects of his directorate, or to do more than make confusion worse confounded in the administration of the broadcasting system. Upon one of the most important questions ever determined by the Board of Governors, viz., the decision of the board to support the Government during the war, a resolution was adopted by the board on the 18th September, 1939. Professor Botha, chairman of the board, was asked by the commission whether he had taken any steps to communicate that important decision to the staff. His repeated reply was, “I took it for granted that the director had done that,” but he did not know whether it had been done. It was only in January, 1940, after disorganisation and animosity between members of the staff had arisen, through their ignorance of the corporation’s policy, that a circular was issued. And later, sir, when the Director of Broadcasting was asked whether he should have informed the staff of the board’s resolution, the director replied “No, my duty was to carry out the board’s policy: I do not see how I could have informed the staff; I do not see what the staff had to do with it.” Could any better example be quoted of the hopeless disunity existing not only between the board and the director, but also between the director and his staff, upon a matter which concerns the very existence of the corporation, and upon which the success or failure of the Government’s war effort largely depends? When this state of affairs began to reach the public in the Transvaal, a growing demand set in for the Government to take action. In January, 1940, the Transvaal Head Committee of the United Party—which at that time included the section supporting General Hertzog—passed a unanimous resolution at Pretoria, urging the Government to suspend the operation of the Broadcasting Act for the duration of the war, and to take over the control of the broadcasting system itself.

When was that?

In January, 1940.

They had broken away long before that.

The hon. member is right. I was momentarily thinking of January, 1939. I thank him for the correction.

You are equally sure of your other facts.

My facts are correct, and I challenge the hon. member to question any one of them. I should like the hon. member to point to any incorrectness. Although the Board of Governors had passed a resolution in September, 1939, to support the Government, by December, 1939, it had become evident that the policy embodied in that resolution was not being carried out. In special articles dated the 3rd and 10th December, 1939, Mr. George Heard set forth at some length the charges against the board, which are summarised as follows:—

Mr. Heard became the spokesman of the public’s dissatisfaction with the board, and he demanded an enquiry. Let us pause to examine the attitude of the board when confronted with Mr. Heard’s indictment. Instead of asking the Government to appoint a properly constituted commission, they themselves appointed a subcommittee of the board to investigate the charges made against the Broadcasting-Board. By this foolish action they tried to constitute themselves as judges in their own cause, and their subsequent contortions in connection with the proceedings of the committee of enquiry have served to expose them to ridicule. A committee of enquiry—unlike a properly constituted commission—has no power to compel the attendance of witnesses, or the giving of evidence, and it follows that witnesses testifying before such a committee are not protected by privilege. No effort was made to produce the evidence of such witnesses before the present commission, where they would have been protected under a Transvaal Ordinance of 1902. When the present commission of enquiry was appointed the Broadcasting Board endeavoured to claim that the evidence given before their committee could not be disclosed to the public. The effect of this was to treat as a closed book the proceedings at the enquiry into the serious charges that had been made by Mr. Heard against the Broadcasting Board. The Board’s counsel before the commission even tried to claim that the report of the subcommittee was confidential on the ground that “it formed part of the confidential records of the Corporation.” Such a contention disregards the fact that on the 21st December, 1939, the full text of the subcommittee’s report was published in the press, and a copy was subsequently laid upon the Table of this House, and on which there is no indication of its contents being confidential in any way. The report laid upon the Table states—

The inference is that if anybody doubted the veracity of the evidence they could refer to it. The evidence showed that Mr. L. M. Brown, the former studio manager at Johannesburg, had been subjected to a “witch hunt” by the board and the director of broadcasting in connection with a copy of the evidence before the committee which he was stated to have seen in the possession of some person unnamed. He was actually taken before a magistrate, for questioning about the document, and at a meeting of the board it was suggested that he should be a party to a plan for the seizure of the evidence from the person in whose possession it was said to be. After Mr. Brown had given evidence for 18 hours, answering many questions about the mysterious copy of evidence, the chairman of the commission ruled that the matter was of no relevance so far as the enquiry was concerned. Counsel for the board, however, returned to the charge six weeks later, when the chairman again reminded him that the commission had come to the conclusion that the point did not fall within their terms of reference. The great anxiety of the board to suppress this evidence has been made evident throughout the present enquiry. The evidence which has been treated with such secrecy was not given only by officials of the Broadcasting Corporation (who demanded that it should not be disclosed to the director for fear of victimisation), but witnesses from outside were included. One of the broadcasting officials was accused by five persons staying at the same hotel, with having been guilty of subversive statements, having gloated over the news of the sinking of British ships, stating that “the Germans will be here soon,” and with having spread a report on September 3rd, 1939, that the troops from Roberts Heights had mutinied and were marching to capture Gen. Smuts and intern him, and having stated that the German flag was the only one worth fighting for. It was also stated that this official had written in the occurrence book—

Quite correct.

The hon. member says “Quite correct.” I should like him to have listened to Mr. Churchill’s broadcast last Sunday night. The man accused had evidently proved himself an apt pupil of Dr. Markus Timmler, straight from Zeesen with whom he had been associated. I want to show what the attitude of the board was to this kind of thing. When Prof. Botha was giving evidence he was asked whether the report of the committee of the Board of Directors, which held the enquiry into certain allegations in December last year, stated, inter alia, that it came to the conclusion that a small section of the staff was animated by an anti-Government spirit. Prof. Botha said that that was so. When asked how het interpreted this passage, he replied—

When it was suggested that it did not mean that they were doing anything in their work counter to the Government’s war policy, Prof. Botha stated—

The public are at liberty to judge whether this anti-war attitude should have been so lightly excused by the chairman of the Board of Directors. The report of the sub-committee contained the following paragraph—

How does this paragraph contrast with the attitude of Prof. Botha towards the official whose case I have referred to?

Was not that official discharged?

Not for that reason. No apostle of Hitler could have shown himself more completely anti-Government than did the official in question. Yet the Broadcasting Board did not meditate his discharge until he was actually interned by the authorities. Then only did the Board decide that his absence from work only was to be treated as the ground for his discharge from their service. The attitude of Mr. Caprara towards the staff was described before the commission of enquiry as one in which he slandered the English-speaking officials to the Afrikaans-speaking, and vice versa. It was obvious from the evidence that he was trusted by neither section. One of the English-speaking members declared that the director had said to him—

Hear, hear.

[Inaudible.]

If you are anti-Afrikaans, I am sorry for you.

Does this statement afford substance for any kind of claim on the part of Mr. Caprara to be a supporter of the war effort of the Government? One has only to attend a debate in this House to learn what the Nationalist Party stands for in relation to the present war. It is fair to examine the attitude of the Director of Broadcasting towards a request that was made about the 21st January, 1941, to allow an Afrikaans-speaking member of the staff to undertake the Afrikaans commentatories of two films. One of the films was “London Can Take It.” Mr. Caprara, in evidence before the commission, made the following statement—

I ask every hon. member who is interested in the fair and reasonable conduct of the Broadcasting Corporation to listen to such a statement from the executive head of this important institution. When an official of his standing speaks of contempt of court in connection with a matter of this kind, he displays a profound ignorance of the ordinary everyday meaning of simple language, but his statement is a very serious one because the war effort, according to his phraseology, is not the nation’s effort, or Parliament’s, but the Government’s, and on this assumption he proceeds to hold that the South African Broadcasting Corporation, notwithstanding their resolution of September, 1939, can differ from the Government’s policy (and, indeed, a person will be guilty of contempt of court if, by translating a war film commentary, he does not conform to the indecisive and vacillating policy of the Broadcasting Board and its director). The public throughout South Africa have observed in the evidence the attacks made upon Mr. Heard by the anti-Government section, for his exposure of the actions of the Broadcasting Board, and the members of the commission cannot have failed to notice that Mr. Heard’s indictment had raised the rancour of Prof. Botha and others, but let me quote, with regret, a statement made by the chairman of the commission on the 28th January, 1941, which can only be interpreted as displaying the grossest prejudice against a witness, not yet heard by the commission, who has led the attack against the Broadcasting Board. It was suggested to the commission that Mr. Heard should be called, and thereupon the chairman of the commission made the following considered statement—

Hear, hear.

The hon. member says "hear, hear,” but does he not realise that if a magistrate were to make any such remarks about an unheard witness, it would be a strong ground for demanding that he should recuse himself?

I want to suggest to the hon. member that his motion, not being in the form of an attack on the commission, I hardly think it is proper that the commission should be attacked.

I will do my best to observe your ruling, sir, but it seems to me that it would be setting up an inconvenient precedent if I were to refrain from discharging the onus which is upon me of showing why I consider the Broadcasting-Board should no longer continue to hold office.

The hon. member misapprehends what I said, the hon. member’s attack is against the Broadcasting Corporation and the director. I take it that is his attack?

No, sir. If you read my notice of motion you will see it specifies the Board of Governors, and the director, whose actions I still propose to deal with.

The hon. member was attacking the commission, which is sitting, and I do not think he can do that. It is hardly relevant. In other respects I am not going to interfere with him at all.

Am I not entitled to show that any right-minded man would refuse to go before a chairman who said anything like this: “Do you include Mr. Heard among the people who know anything?”

The Chairman is quite right.

Wild horses, sir, would not drag me before any commission if the chairman were guilty of such an improper statement in regard to my knowledge of the facts upon which I sought to testify.

Unfortunately, I am not able to stop the hon. member, and I must leave it entirely to his good taste as to how far he will continue his attack on the commission.

I must be guided by the extent to which the public interest may suffer. Now is the time for effective criticism of any prejudice exhibited. I have been assailed in the Press on the ground that I am endeavouring to forestall the verdict of the commission without justification, and I think I am entitled to point to the defects of the commission, so far as they have proceeded with their work. I am not alone in this. I am going to quote the opinions of one of the most respected firms of lawyers on the Rand, indicating their view of the attitude of the commission. I maintain the remark of the chairman is interpreted by every right-minded person in the Union as an improper one, and one that should not have been made before the witness was heard, and if I had been in the place of that witness I should have declined to give evidence. The remark of the chairman of the commission is interpreted by every right-minded man as a declaration of his own incapacity to approach the evidence of Mr. Heard without prejudice. Another remark made on the same day by the chairman of the commission calls for criticism. Mr. Caprara was dealing with the case of Mr. Piet Meyer, of the Durban studio, who had made the following statement before the commission—

He added that he thought it was a matter of indifference to South Africa. Mr. Caprara indicated that the matter was being brought before the Board for consideration. The chairman said—

This attitude surely shows excessive tenderness for the openly-avowed Nazi, and if the Board were to be guided by it, it would mean that no Nazi agent (even though he might be a paid one) could be turned out of broadcasting during the period of the present enquiry. Major Page stated that Mr. Piet Meyer’s declaration was extracted rather than volunteered, yet in the Press it is clear that he made the statement without any provocation. At another stage of the enquiry, Mr. A. I. D. Brown, representing the Broadcasting Employees’ Union, referred to the comment by one of the broadcasting staff upon Mr. Churchill’s broadcast as a misdemeanour, but the chairman intervened to say that he did not consider it a misdemeanour. The attitude of Major Page as chairman of the commission has been noticed by legal men. One of the most prominent and influential firms of solicitors in Johannesburg, in writing to a client who had intended to appear before the commission, said—

I venture to say that if the Prime Minister were to peruse the evidence taken before the sub-committee of the Broadcasting Board, he would be satisfied as to the incapacity of the present Board to carry on the heavy task which they are called upon to perform. He would see there instances in which three members of the Board expressed as many different opinions on a single question of the loyalty or disloyalty of an employee towards the Corporation, showing that nothing but indecesion and pitiable weakness could be expected from such a body. As for Mr. Caprara, his qualifications for an administrative office have never been apparent to anybody but members of the Board. It is true that he was No. 1 clarionet player in the Cape Town Orchestra, but it has been well said by no less an intellectual giant than Walter Savage Landor that “skill as a musician may often co-exist with the intelligence of a pea hen.” Mr. Caprara, when asked whether he could not rely upon the loyalty of the English-speaking staff, replied, “I do not think that I have the personal loyalty of certain members of the staff to me in person.” This sounds almost like one of the lamentations of Jeremiah, for that distinguished prophet on one occasion said that the children of Israel had come to regard him only “as one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well upon an instrument.” The commission has served to proclaim the incapacity of Mr. Caprara to the four corners of the Union. I commend the motion standing in my name to the favourable consideration of this House and of the Government.

I second.

I wish to move the following amendment. I move—

I do not propose devoting a great deal of time to the remarks made by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). Any unprejudiced person listening to him would have got the impression that his main object was to put up a plea for the obnoxious anti-Afrikaans propaganda which is being carried on, among others, by a man like George Heard. I just want to say that it might be a good thing perhaps if the hon. member were to advise George Heard that if he wants to do something for the good of the Empire he should join the army and go and fight. The hon. member said that the motives which had induced him to propose this motion were principally that he considered the efforts made on the part of the broadcasting service to support the Government’s war effort were inadequate, and he further, so he said, made his proposition because of the subversive propaganda which was carried on in connection with the radio service. It is rather peculiar that such a motion should come from the hon. member for Illovo and that he should talk of subversive propaganda. We need only remind him of the fact that he is the man who said that he would have started a rebellion if the House on the 4th September had decided to remain neutral. In one respect I agree with the hon. member for Illovo and that is when he emphasised that the radio is a very powerful force. He also quoted an outstanding authority who said “the influence of the radio is immense and the propaganda value of broadcasting is great.” In that respect the hon. member for Illovo is quite right. We agree with him that the influence of the radio is immense and that, when it is used as a propaganda machine, it is a tremendously powerful machine. The radio service of South Africa is not being used in days like the present in the way the radio service in England is being used for instance; it is not being used in the same way as Daventry, or in the same way as Zeesen in Germany, but it is being used here particularly in order to make party propaganda for the Government. And the Government realises, and the Minister of Posts, with his “red-tab-parades” in his office, also realises the value of the radio service, in order to keep the Government of which he is a member in power. That is why the radio is being used to make propaganda. But there is one thing which they entirely forget while they are sitting there, and that is that the radio is a national institution, that it is not being paid for out of the Treasury, but that it is being paid for from the receipts of subscriptions by the Afrikaansspeaking section of the members. The radio service is maintained with the money that is obtained by subscriptions from the people, and yet the Government abuses it in order to make party political propaganda. It struck me that the hon. member for Illovo also referred to it, that there are members on the staff of the Broadcasting Service—just imagine—who dare have a personal opinion and be anti-Government. That, according to the hon. member for Illovo, is a heinous offence. If anyone dare have his own convictions and his convictions do not accord with those of the Government, it is a heinous offence. He is not allowed to have such convictions. It goes to prove that here again we have a case where they say that they are fighting for democracy, while in actual fact they are destroying democracy, because one is no longer allowed to have one’s own convictions—particularly if one is a member of the staff of the Broadcasting Corporation. The Minister of Lands smiles—I may be wrong, but I want to make a prophesy, and I think the hon. Minister of Lands will agree that my prophesy is correct. I prophesy that the Government is not going to accept this motion of the hon. member for Illovo. And the reason why they are not going to accept it is that they can tell the hon. member for Illovo in so many words “Just keep quiet, we already intend to make use of the radio service in the way you want us to.” The Government is only doing it a little more practically than the hon. member, the Government is doing it under the guise of democracy and so on. I prophesy that that will be the method which the Government will adopt, and, of course, it is more effective than the tactless method of the hon. member for Illovo. And now I come to the most important part of my amendment. The Radio Board was originally instituted in order to render service to the Afrikaner people as a whole. To-day, however, one is not even allowed to have one’s own opinions. The Broadcasting Corporation was not supposed to interfere in political affairs, but in September, 1939, the position was changed because at that time it passed a political resolution. The Broadcasting Corporation decided to support the Government in its war policy. The Radio Board was established as a non-political body, a body put there to serve the people as a whole, but it has abandoned that function, and it has now become an instrument of the Government’s in order to assist, the Government’s war effort. It decided to support the Government. I want to say that we are entitled to take it that that resolution, that decision, was inspired by the Government, possibly by the Minister of Posts himself, because if they had not taken that decision the Government would have been compelled to do what the hon. member for Illovo is now demanding, and the Government would have exposed itself to the criticism of the public if it had openly commandeered the Broadcasting service. The Broadcasting Board decided to support the Government’s war policy, and thereby place the Broadcasting service in the hands of the Government, without the Government openly commandeering it. That commandeering took place under false pretences, which is the case everywhere in regard to commandeering indulged in by the Government in all phases of social life. The Broadcasting Corporation has now become a war machine employed by the Government. Proof of that we find, inter alia, in the fact that in the same way as in all spheres of social life, the Broadcasting Service has become an instrument for the persecution of everything Afrikaans. Since the outbreak of the war the persecution of everything Afrikaans had assumed enormous proportions. I do not want to go into details because these facts had been mentioned here repeatedly, but I want to say that the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in particular is neglecting his duty by, perhaps deliberately, allowing those persecutions in the Broadcasting service to take place, persecutions which have become so extensive that a responsible official in the Broadcasting service eventually handed in his resignation and made a very sensational statement in the Press. What did he say? He stated that within the first week after the declaration of war an attempt was made forcibly to eject the Afrikaans-speaking staff, and to put a stop to the Afrikaans programmes throughout the whole of the country. A strong effort was made, and it was only due to the action taken by the police that this effort did not succeed. The help of the police had to be called in to save the situation. Now let us come to the basic principles laid down in the law under which the Broadcasting service was established in South Africa. Let me draw the attention of the House and of the Minister to clause 14 of Act No. 22 of 1936. In that clause the objects of the Broadcasting Corporation are laid down, namely, the Corporation shall frame its broadcasting programmes and carry them out, with due regard to the interest of both English and Afrikaans culture.

Quite right.

Yes, but in practice he has never yet given effect to this “quite right.” In practice it has always been “quite wrong” so far. I shall quote facts to show him that so far he has always been wrong. So far as I am concerned, however, this basic principle is of more importance, the basic principle on which the Corporation was established. In clause 14 there is a reference to the two cultures, the Afrikaans and the English culture, and those two cultures as a matter of fact represent the two streams of the country. Right throughout our history we have had a conflict between the two streams, and that is particularly so at a time of war. The one stream is that of Empire service, which wants to hand everything South Africa possesses over to the service of the Empire, and which wants to sacrifice everything on the Imperialistic altar; and the other stream is that which has an appreciation of our National self-respect. The Broadcasting Service, as a result of the resolution of the Broadcasting Corporation to support the Government’s war policy, entirely abandoned its function for which it was established, and it is not only supporting the Government in its war policy but it goes further and is creating in South Africa an atmosphere by which the spirit of independence of the Afrikaner people is being undermined, and along that course an effort is being made to Anglicise the people. So far as the Press of the country is concerned, we also have two streams. The one stream, the one direction, is the development and building up of our own “Nationship” of South Africa’s self-respect, and the other direction tries to propagate those things which have blown across from overseas, the British Imperialistic things. I notice that the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens (Mr. Long) laughs. He knows that that is the absolute truth, and he is one of those who have always been making Empire propaganda through the Press. The other section of the Press, and the fact is very noticeable, is now continually being exposed to the charge of acting in a subsersive manner, which charge comes from those who support the Government. The Broadcasting Service has forgotten its function—to see that justice is done to both sections of the population. It forgets its function of co-operating in the building up of our own National self-respect, and all it is at the moment actually is a propaganda machine for the Government and the Government’s policy. The Minister stated that it was perfectly correct that the Broadcasting Corporation should stand for equal justice and equal treatment, so far as both sides of the population are concerned. I shall give more details later on, but I just want to say this to the Minister, and he knows it, that the talks from Daventry, for instance, are broadcast by the South African Broadcasting Service on the Afrikaans programme and that the time of the Afrikaans programme is used for that purpose. Those talks are not broadcast in Afrikaans but in English. They are not broadcast in Afrikaans, and the time available for Afrikaans broadcasts is thereby curtailed. Now I want to ask the Minister whether it is not ample for people who want to listen in to Daventry if they can dial Daventry direct? Why should the rights and the time available for the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population be interfered with in order to repeat the Daventry broadcast, and to give it all over again? The Minister says “quite right,” but that curtailment of the rights of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population through the re-broadcasting of the talks from Daventry should be stigmatised as a flagrant violation of the basic principles on which the Corporation is established and which are laid down in clause 14 of the 1936 Act. Now I want to touch on another part of my amendment. The Minister will say, of course, that a referendum was taken. He will probably rely on that referendum. I want to tell him that that referendum which was taken in 1936 among the people is known outside as the “infamous” referendum. The Minister poses here as a moralist of “quite right,” but he does not give effect to the principles of the law; yet even if we take the infamous referendum of 1936 it appears from that that 25% of the Corporation’s revenue comes from the pockets of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population. They do not like anyone to put pertinent questions, but I now want to put this pertinent question to him, whether that is not a fact. He cannot deny that 25% of the revenue comes from the pockets of the Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaners while we also have the fact that only 9.5% of the total programme time is devoted to the Afrikaansspeaking section of the population. Let the Minister deny those facts. Now, no doubt the Minister will say again that there has been an improvement in that respect. He will point out that an “A” programme and a “B” programme have been originated. That will be the Minister’s answer, and he is already rejoicing at the fact that he will be able to give me that answer. But is that an answer? What has the position been since the “A” and the “B” programme have been introduced? At first there were eight English transmitters, and they were increased to ten. Those eight transmitters had a strength of 41½ kilowatt, and those eight were increased to ten with a strength of 44.15 kilowatt, an increase of 2.65 kilowatt. If my information is correct, there were originally two Afrikaans transmitters which were increased to four and those four have a joint strength of 10 kilowatt. That is the evidence which we have been given and it appears that a prominent official of the Corporation for some considerable time has had his attention directed to it. I am speaking of Advocate Marais. He repeatedly pointed out that the Afrikaansspeaking section of the population was being unjustly treated. It therefore appears that the English transmitters over the whole country have a kilowatt strength of five times as much as the Afrikaans transmitters. That is the relationship, an absolutely unequal position so far as the Afrikaansspeaking section of the population is concerned. Now finally I want to come to the charge which in this amendment of mine I make against the Minister and against the Government, and that is that in addition to their continually displaying a spirit of persecution they are also continually using the Broadcasting Corporation for the purpose of making propaganda. So serious has this persecution been that in consequence of it a member of the Corporation resigned and another member was innocently interned. He was released and it was acknowledged that he was innocent, but he was not restored to his position in the Service. That is just once instance of the persecution which is going on. Let the Government come forward honestly and say “I want to make the broadcasting service part of my war machinery”—which they are doing as a matter of fact in an underhand manner. That is just once instance of the persecution which is going on. Let the Government come forward and say “I want to make the broadcasting establishment out and out a part of my war machinery.” They are busy doing it and they are making it an “air arm” of Daventry, and that is what it is now. But my charge against the Government is that under the guise of equality and under the pretence of looking after the interests of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population it is using the services of the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation not only for war purposes but for propaganda for party political purposes in order to promote the Government’s cause.

What evidence have you of that?

Where is the evidence? All the hon. member has to do is to listen in any night and he will get ample evidence, and I am asking him whether he dare deny it. Will he deny that the service is being used to carry out the Government’s war programme?

Yes, but not Party politics.

The Government is in power to-day on one principle only, and that is its war policy. The different groups on the other side are brought together only on the war policy, and the Broadcasting Service is used in order to carry out the war policy and to promote it, that is to say the party programme, and the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) has admitted that now. I want to say again that we on this side of the House consider that the Government is guilty of a grave crime. The Government is not prepared to test the feelings op people outside so far as the war question is concerned, and it is now using the Broadcasting Service for the purpose of making propaganda, and in that way it is trying to cover its political nakedness. I am not afraid for one moment that they will succeed with their propaganda but the object of the use or abuse of the Radio for party political purposes is that because the other side of the House is afraid to hold public meetings and is afraid to face the test of being judged by the people, subversive party propaganda is being made by means of the Radio without anyone having the opportunity of answering or of putting his case. I also contend that apart from the subscriptions, the service should be a National service in the real sense of the word. And if it is a National Service then it should render National service to the people on the basis of the composition of our people, and that is 60 per cent. Afrikaans-speaking and 40 per cent. English-speaking. And furthermore, if it wants to be a National institution it must not be used for the purpose of conducting anti- and un-National propaganda, which is being allowed by the Minister in conflict with the provisions of clause 14 of the Broadcasting Act. The Radio is being used directly and indirectly for the making of political propaganda for the Party opposite, and that is in conflict with the provisions of the Radio Act. Let met for the information and possibly also for the eidification of the Minister bring another clause of the Broadcasting Act to his notice. Clause 36 reads as follows—

Has he ever, as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, complied with this obligation, which the Act imposes on him to watch and see that the Radio Corporation is giving effect to the law and the conditions of its licence. Has he ever given notice to the Corporation that it is doing an injustice to a large section of the population? No, he has not. In that respect he has grossly neglected his Ministerial duties. The law further provided that if the Minister notifies the Broadcasting Corporation that it must, within 14 days, make good the default, and if the Broadcasting Board still remains in default, the Minister can apply to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court can make an Order such as it thinks fit. Has the Minister ever considered going to court and getting an order from the court to compel the Broadcasting Board to give effect to the basic principles of the Broadcasting Act? I would advise the Minister to read the Broadcasting Act, clause by clause, and then to come and prove to us whether or not an injustice has been done to one section, and only after he has done that can he claim that he was right in the few words which he used here, namely “quite right.”

It is a great pleasure to me to second the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein), because it is an amendment which tries to restore to South Africa what belongs to it, and what should be restored to it. If there ever is a thing which the Afrikaner is entitled to be dissatisfied about, it is the broadcasting service in this country, which has been practically taken away from him. What is also striking to us in South Africa is that since the first Nationalist Government the Afrikaner has never yet had the privilege of having an Afrikaans-speaking Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in this country. I include the previous Nationalist Government. I include the United Party Government, and I also include the scratch Government which is sitting on those benches to-day. It is peculiar that the British Jingo always tries to cover up his own sins by pointing to the sins in the other man. He tries to cover himself by pointing to the same sins in the other man. He tries to cover himself by pointing out how bad the other man is. It is peculiar that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), who is the leader of the Dominion Party, and whose object is not to build up the Afrikaner people—it is peculiar that he should be the man to bring this motion before the House. We know that however decent the hon. member for Illovo may be as an individual, there is one thing he is animated with, and that is “the home country” and the “old country,” and everything he does is for the “old country.” I do not blame him. But why cannot people who love South Africa and who have not got a divided patriotism be allowed to serve South Africa? And he must pardon us if we tell him that however decent he may be as an individual, that policy adumbrated by him will shortly no longer exist in South Africa. I have never yet heard the hon. member for Illovo get up here and put up a plea on behalf of the Afrikaner. I want to show the hon. member how ridiculous the hews is which is broadcast over our radio, and I am also going to show him how one-sided and how partial it is, and how pro-Government the S.A. Radio Corporation is. On the 27th August, 1940, I put the following question to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs: “Whether he would ascertain why the S.A. Broadcasting Corporation in its daily broadcasts of the most important South African and overseas news included an announcement to the effect that the Prime Minister goes for a walk on his farm at Irene every morning, and omitted to mention the women’s peace procession in Pretoria and the refusal of the Prime Minister to receive a deputation of women?” I want to point out to the hon. member for Illovo that he, with his British Imperialism and Jingo spirit, which his heart beats so warmly for, even though their cause is already lost, is supporting a policy of suppressing on the radio such important news as the procession of the women, while the fact that this British—yes, he is a small British Prime Minister—Prime Minister takes a walk every morning is broadcast over the radio. A women’s deputation, women who have done a great deal for the building up of the Afrikaner nation, is not mentioned over the radio, but a ridiculous news item such as the Prime Minister taking a walk is broadcast. I think that even the British members opposite will admit that it is ridiculous to give that sort of thing in the broadcasting service of the country. Whether the Prime Minister takes a walk, or even whether he runs, makes no difference to the country. Things which are of real interest to the people are not mentioned, but the hon. member for Illovo has nothing to say about that. He takes more interest in the Prime Minister’s walks than in the procession of the women of South Africa, women who have played such a great part in our past. If there is one thing which the Afrikaner has every right to complain about, it is the radio service. If there is one thing which the Afrikaner is entitled to be thoroughly dissatisfied with, on account of the fact that it is being abused for political purposes, it is the broadcasting service. I further want to make a serious charge against the Prime Minister in this connection. We have in this country a body known as the Knights of the Truth, and I understand that the Prime Minister is their chief. The Knights of the Truth in South Africa collect money to see the war through, and they have sent out a circular letter. It is a secret circular letter in which they are asking for money to establish a secret transmitter beyond the Union borders. I make this charge against the Knights of Truth, that they have collected money for the establishment of a secret transmitter beyond the Union borders, and that they have established that transmitter.

What has that to do with this motion?

I shall come to that. I first of all want to make a prophesy. I believe that the next speaker in this debate is to be the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), and he is a man who perhaps comes next to the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) as a supporter of British Imperialism and Jingoism. I contend that a broadcasting station has been set up outside the Union borders with the money of the Knights of the Truth. The Prime Minister is the chief of the Knights of the Truth, and they have sent out a circular letter in which they have told the people that they require money for that purpose. The Government therefore knows about it, and then we find that the South African Broadcasting Corporation re-transmits the announcements which come from that station beyond the Union’s borders as though those reports emanated from the Freedom Station in Germany. They themselves—the Knights of the Truth—have set up a station outside the Union, and now the Broadcasting Corporation re-transmits the news which comes from that station as though it came from Germany. Even the hon. member for Illovo must admit that it is going very far if our radio is used for those purposes. If the Government does not know that that is going on, it should know, because the Prime Minister is the head of the Knights of the Truth, and that is the kind of propaganda which is being made for the Government sitting opposite. The hon. member for Kensington asked the hon. member for Boshof to give an instance of propaganda which was being made on behalf of the Government sitting over there. I should like to give an example, and again it is an example which is in black and white. I agree with the hon. member for Boshof that the radio transmissions in this country are direct and indirect propaganda for the Government over there, for that Government which acknowledges that it is there merely for the purpose of spreading that Imperial Home spirit which still inspires some people in this country. That is the only thing which this Government depends upon. If it has to stand by its domestic policy, it will break up in no time. We saw the other evening that the Government’s domestic policy was such that even the native representatives found it impossible to support the Government on the ground of that policy. I want to read another question which I put to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs.

And what about the domestic policy of your party?

I do not know whether the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) has ever heard the Broadcasting Corporation make propaganda on behalf of the Nationalist Party. There is no need for the radio to do so. Just give us a chance of a general election, and you will see who will be sitting on the other side of the House and who will be sitting on this side. On the 6th February, 1940, I put the following question to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs—

1. (1) Whether the attack by Mr. Oliver Stanley on the Leader of the Opposition (Gen. Hertzog) in a speech at Newcastle on Saturday, 3rd February, was broadcast by the South African radio?
   Is the influence of that nation so strong in this House that one has to wait until they have finished their conversations? I further asked:
2. (2) Whether such speech was broadcast with the Minister’s approval and consent?
3. (3) whether (a) it is still the policy not to allow political speeches of South African statesmen to be broadcast in the Union;
   1. (b) this policy also holds good for British statesmen;
   2. (c) he will take the necessary steps in order to ensure that no further speeches of statesmen from other countries, attacking a political party in the Union are broadcast, and if not,
4. (4) whether he will use his influence to have extended to the leader of a political party in the Union over our own radio the same courtesy and privilege extended to British statesmen, enabling such leader to reply to attacks made on him; if not, what are his reasons?

If hon. members opposite will study the Minister’s reply to those questions and will think over them, they will find that we have every reason to say that the radio is being used for political purposes. The Minister of Posts will also have to admit that his answer to my first question was an answer calculated to get out of the difficulty, and did not contain any real information in answer to my question. The Minister, in reply to my first question, said:

He further said that the reply to question No. 2 fell away as a result of his answer to No. 1. In other words, there was no need for him to say whether he approved of that policy or not. Instead of replying to my other two questions, he referred to answers he had given on previous occasions. A politician of another country is allowed to attack the leader of a political party in this country, namely, Gen. Hertzog, the Leader of the Opposition at that time, and I put it to the Minister whether he was going to give the Leader of the Opposition the same right, but the Minister replied that that part of my question fell away. The hon. member for Kensington made an attack on the political leader of this side of the House, and his attack again was broadcast, and I now want to ask the hon. member whether he is satisfied that we have mentioned an instance to prove that the radio in our country is being abused for political purposes? Propaganda is broadcast over the radio on every possible occasion in favour of the Government’s war policy, and this war is not a national war. It is not a national war. People outside have not yet had an opportunity of expressing their opinion as to whether they want this war or not. It is a Government war, declared by the Government opposite. This war which was declared against Italy and Germany is not a national war in South Africa. If it is a national war, then I ask the Minister to tell me whom the members on this side of the House represent? Are they not the representatives of the oldest and most settled part of the Afrikaans population, of that part of the population which has made South Africa a country fit to live in?

No.

One is not allowed in this House to teach a Minister the A.B.C. of love of their people. If we do not represent that section of the population, whom do we then represent?

What the hon. member is saying now is quite irrelevant and I must ask him to confine himself to the motion before the House.

I am trying to prove that this is not a National Government and if the Government’s war policy is proclaimed over the Radio then it is not a National policy which is being proclaimed but a Government policy. Now I want to draw the Minister’s attention to another point. Every evening when we listen in we have to listen to Mr. Wilson, the Government’s information officer. We always have to listen to his propaganda stories, and he is always talking about the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the Leader of a political party, or of that political group which constitutes the Government. We always have to listen to him telling us that the country is safe because Gen. Smuts and his Government are there. If anything happens in the country we are told over the Radio that the country may rest at ease because Gen. Smuts is at the head of affairs. I want to ask the hon. member for Kensington whether it is not a fact that when the Prime Minister’s name is mentioned we think of a political leader of a party, and if propaganda is made for the Prime Minister, propaganda is made for their political leader. I associate myself with what the hon. member for Boshof has said here and I want to make an appeal to the Afrikaans-speaking section of the country gets possible for them not to look at these things in a political light, to give their support to the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof for the simple reason that the hon. member for Boshof has proved that the Afrikans-speaking section of the country gets least and not most, as the hon. member for Illovo has said. I want to draw attention to this, that the hon. member for Illovo has come to a conclusion before the Commission has presented a report. He has quoted bits of evidence given by certain people. If we take a law case and we read parts of the evidence one may create the impression that a strong case has been built up, but when the evidence as a whole is considered the position is totally different, and possibly a totally different interpretation may be put on the Chairman’s action, totally different from the impression created by the hon. member for Illovo, and I want to ask hon. members opposite to support the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof until such time as the Commission’s conclusions have been announced.

The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) in supporting his amendment, said in effect that the Government was frightened to go out into the country and address public meetings, and so they are driven to put their political propaganda out to the country over the Radio. Now, sir, the last time a member of the Government made an attempt to address a public meeting was in Klerksdorp, and one of the Ministers of the present Government is on sick leave from this House because of going to that meeting. So that if Ministers do not care to face the terrors of the Ossewa-Brandwag and their licensed blakguardism in the countryside of South Africa, I do not wonder. The statement goes out from the hon. gentleman that the Government is putting its political propaganda out over the radio. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is a complete misstatement of the facts; the Government have on no occasion put forward any party political propaganda whatever over the radio of this country. When the hon. gentleman was speaking I challenged him to give instances, and you know what he said. He said the Government are, in fact, putting over pro-war propaganda over the radio. And because this is a pro-war Government any pro-war propaganda is Government propaganda. That is the hon. gentleman’s argument. Now sir, in that limited sense he is correct. This Government and this party stand for the successful prosecution of the war, just as my hon. friends opposite stand for the precise opposite, stand for thwarting our war effort in every possible way. Therefore, propaganda in support of the war does indirectly help the Government, and to that extent I admit he is correct. But I challenge him to give a single instance where our broadcasting has openly been used for party political advantage. He cannot do it. If my hon. friend the member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) ever came into power with his “New Order”—which God forbid—all pretence would be dropped, and following the ordinary accepted totalitarian usage, the radio would be used daily, day and night, for party political propaganda. But thank God we have not reached that stage in this country yet. This Government does not need to support itself by party propaganda over the radio, and I hope the day will never come when it will need to do it. Of course, we are in a war, and propaganda over the air is part of the technique of modern warfare, and it is right and proper that the Government should do a certain amount of war propaganda over the air, but I want to say that I congratulate them on the restraint they have shown in doing it; I congratulate them on the terms and the tone of that propaganda. Not a single member opposite will be able to produce in this House any instance of the misuse of that propaganda, once admitting that it is pro-war propaganda. Prominent South African citizens, who happen to agree with the Government and its war policy, have been invited to state their views over the air, and they have done so; but they have done so with dignity and restraint, and in a manner which I believe has brought conviction to a great majority of the people who listened to them. As for the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) I am sorry he has gone out. May I say this, he seems to have a King Charles’ head, a maggot eating into his brain, the maggot of anti-semitism, and he loses no opportunity in this House of insulting the Jewish population of South Africa, as a whole, and insulting the Jewish members of this House as individuals. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) happened to stop for a second to pass a remark with the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and that was sufficient to arouse the ire of the hon. member for Mossel Bay, and to cause him to hurl across the floor of this House an offensive remark which you, Mr. Speaker, properly ordered him to withdraw. Is is not time we stopped in this House hurling offensive epithets at each other, born of the race from which we spring or the blood which flows in our veins? Cannot we forget that sort of thing? Now I come to the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), and may I say that fundamentally I agree with him entirely in this, that having regard to the importance of radio propaganda, and the importance of broadcasting especially in time of war, it is unthinkable that the direction of our Broadcasting Corporation in South Africa should be in unfriendly hands, or that the directors or any important members of the staff should be persons whose loyalty is suspect. On that fundamental I agree with him, but I cannot agree with him in either his facts or the method of his motion this afternoon. I cannot help thinking that that motion is entirely premature; I cannot help believing that it is entirely a false move on his part to bring it forward as he has done, and I would add that although he started off with a fair amount of evidence to support his argument, he suddenly seemed to break off in the middle and leave his case, as it were, in the air— leave it to a large extent unsupported. I do not know whether that was because you called him to order in the middle of his attack on the personnel of the commission, but whether for that reason or any other, he left his case midway and presented this House with a very incomplete picture of the whole matter. What are the facts? The facts are that there has been a great deal of public dissatisfaction and criticism of the Broadcasting Corporation, more particularly in relation to its war efforts. It is true, also, that the public has been shocked by some of the revelations as to the goings-on inside that corporation, revelations as to the subversive activities or sympathies of many of the servants of the corporation. So that a point was reached finally when the corporation itself went to the Government and asked for an enquiry. They said, as it were, “put us through the hoop, and if we have gone wrong take the necessary steps.” With that in view, sir, the Government instituted an enquiry which is now being conducted, and the terms of reference of that enquiry are as follows—

1. (a) The manner in which the South African Broadcasting Corporation has conducted its operations in relation to the war in which the Union is involved.
2. (b) The question whether the Corporation’s operations have been and are being so conducted and controlled that the interests of the Union, as a country, involved in the war have been and are adequately safeguarded.
3. (c) The relationship between the said Corporation and its servants in connection with matters connected with the war.

To conduct that enquiry were appointed two very senior public servants of this country. The first is Major Maynard Page, chief magistrate of Johannesburg, and the second Mr. Andras Pienaar, formerly chairman of the Public Service Commission and of the Union Tender Board. Mr. Pienaar has just retired from the public service after a lifetime in that service. Major Page is at this moment a senior magistrate in the judicial service of this country, and is also on the eve of retirement. I have known both of these public servants for many years, and their loyalty is unquestioned, as is also their impartiality. I have known Major Page for over 30 years. He is a man whose loyalty to this country and loyalty to its war policy is beyond any question. He was in the Great War and rose to the rank of major. That was no honorary commission, but one that he earned in war service, and it would ill-become any member of this House—I don’t say that the hon. member did it—to call in question the loyalty, good faith or bona fides of either of these gentlemen. I can well understand the impatience shown by the hon. member for Illovo at the slow progress which the commission is making. I share that impatience, and I could wish that my hon. friend the Minister would convey to them that they should speed up their enquiry. This is a matter which we want to have accelerated as much as possible, and we don’t want them to spend six months over it. I saw with pain that they have now postponed their sittings sine die owing to the illness of one of the numerous counsel attending the sittings of the Commission. I cannot help thinking it is a mistake, and I feel I am expressing the view of this House when I say that we would like them to expedite their sittings. But even so, I think it is unwise in the extreme for a member of any party of this House, especially a member supporting the Government, to stage a motion such as this at present, to endeavour to forestall the report of that Commission, to discuss the evidence before that Commission long before it has had the opportunity of giving its findings and to go even so far, as the hon. member did, to attack and criticise the manner in which the Commission is conducting its operations. Let me deal point by point with some of the remarks made by the hon. member for Illovo. He says for instance that the board made a grave blunder, and in fact transgressed the terms of its licence, when it allowed the employment of one Markus Timmler, and he said that this was a matter which so far as he was aware had not been enquired into by the present Commission. The answer is a simple one. Let the hon. member write to the chairman of the Commission drawing attention to the terms of the board’s licence and to the employment of this gentleman; and let him point out that his employment was apparently a contravention of the terms of the licence. But if he does not do that, how can he stand up here and criticise the Commission? If he knows of facts relevant to the Commission’s enquiry he should bring these facts to the notice of the Commission. I say it is unfair, while the Commission is making its enquiry to withhold evidence of that sort and then criticise them. Then he went on to accuse the board of incompetence, of blundering and inertia, and he applied the same epithets to the manager, Mr. Caprara. Well, the board is on trial in this very enquiry. The very purpose of this enquiry is to find out whether the board is performing its functions properly or not. I refuse to anticipate the finding of the Commission. Why should we step in and interfere with a Judicial Enquiry and anticipate its findings? I would say this, however. If any new facts have emerged in the last month or so showing it to be a matter of extreme and immediate urgency, that action be taken, then it might be argued that, enquiry or no enquiry, commission or no commission, the Government should step in at once. But none of the facts mentioned by my hon. friend are new facts. Everything he said this afternoon he has said before. No case of urgency has been made out, nothing to show that it is imperative in the interest of the successful prosecution of the war that the Government should step in at once and hand over the radio stations to the military authorities. Such a step, I hope, will never have to be taken in this country, but if it is taken it should only be taken because of paramount war interest and certainly not on account of facts such as the hon. member has given this afternoon. Then my hon. friend read a number of extracts from the evidence laid before the present Commission of Enquiry, and asked this House to form certain conclusions on that evidence. No lawyer could have done that, no lawyer would have had the temerity to read a few extracts from a case pending and ask the House to come to a conclusion on them. When the Commission comes to a conclusion it will no doubt be on the evidence as a whole; it will not take snippets here and there or extracts. It will come to its findings on the evidence as a whole, and the question whether we may agree with those findings is not a matter which concerns us at the moment. The hon. member asks us to come to a conclusion on a few extracts from the evidence which no doubt he has taken from the newspapers, and which do not represent 1 per cent. of the evidence laid before the Commission. He spoke, for instance, of an employee of the Corporation who was guilty, it seems, of the most outrageously subsersive statements. I asked him “Is that man still in the employ of the Corporation?” and he said “No,” but the Corporation did not dismiss him because he had made those statements but because he was interned. That is only begging the question—he was interned because he made those statements and he was never again employed by the Corporation. This happened 15 months ago and it was discussed here ad nauseam at the instance of the hon. member for Marico (The Rev. C. W. M. du Toit). That gentleman’s name is Weisner. He apparently did make these statements and he was interned because of them, and he was never taken back into the Corporation’s service. I agree that it was rather weak for the Board to turn round and say “We dismissed him not because he made these statements, but because he was interned.” It would have been better if they had said “We dismissed him because he made these statements.”

They dismissed him because he was absent from duty.

Yes, I know. Any stranger in the galleries listening to the statements of the hon. member for Illovo would have been horrified because he would have concluded that this man was still in the employ of the Corporation while the fact is that he has not been in the employ of the Corporation for 15 months. And he was in fact dismissed because of these statements.

He would have been in their employ if he had not been interned.

His dismissal was a disgrace.

I agree that if he had remained in their employ although he had made those statements it would have been indefensible.

Why?

But what is the good of putting forward hypothetical arguments. He made these statements and that is why he was dismissed. We know of other people who have been guilty of anti-Government or subversive statements, who have been dismissed.

What was the finding of the Board?

May I say this also. I deprecate very strongly these attacks on Mr. Caprara. I think it grossly unfair that while that a man is facing his trial before this Commission, while the whole of his future is at stake, while his continuance as Director of the Corporation is a matter upon which the Commission will have to make recommendations, that my hon. friend, the hon. member for Illovo, should pick out exparte statements made by two witnesses to the detriment of Mr. Caprara and proceed to judge him on these statements. He quoted one of the witnesses as saying that Mr. Caprara’s attitude could be described in the following terms: that to the English-speaking members of the staff he ran down the Afrikaans-speaking members, and to the Afrikaans-speaking members he ran down the English-speaking members.

That is like the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow).

That is merely a statement against Mr. Caprara made by one of the witnesses. We have not had the court’s finding on that; the second thing he had against Mr. Caprara is that another witness, bitterly hostile to Mr. Caprara, said “The only loyalty which Mr. Caprara knows is to his job.” Those statements will no doubt in due course be weighed by the Commission, but I deprecate the House being asked to give a decision on them. And now may I strike a personal note? Mr. Caprara served under me in the last war. I know him probably as well, if not better, than any other hon. member in this House. I have no means of judging of his competence as Director of Broadcasting except from my visits to Broadcast House, when I was pleasantly impressed by what I saw there, but I will go to the stake for the actual personal loyalty of Mr. Caprara to the British cause. He has been pilloried because he was born in Mauritius and because of his parentage—because his father was Italian and his mother was a French-speaking Mauritian. I say again that, knowing Mr. Caprara probably better than any other member, I shall go personal bail for his loyalty. As to his competence, that is a matter for the Commission to decide, but I object to the way he was attacked here this afternoon. I object still more strongly against the way in which the chairman of the Commission was attacked. Major Page’s name stands beyond all reproach in Johannesburg and the Transvaal. He is one of the most valued civil servants we have. The other day we had the unedifying spectacle of the Leader of the Opposition grossly insulting the members of the Commission which sat on the Potchefstroom riots—a more ill-becoming attack I have never seen, but at least one can say that the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) made these attacks after these gentlemen had reported. In the case of the hon. member for Illovo, he makes these attacks while the Commission is still sitting, and these men are trying to do their duty. He is shooting the man at the piano while he is still playing. These gentlemen are public servants. They have to obey if the Government appoints them to hold an enquiry. The least we can do is to protect them and I think we must protect them from attacks by the hon. member for Illovo. Let me deal with one item of his criticism. The question was raised whether the evidence of Mr. George Heard should be taken, and this is what raised the ire of the hon. member for Illovo. The chairman said “The functions of the Commission are to ascertain facts—do you include Mr. Heard”? Now, the hon. member for Illovo seems to think that that was entirely unseemly—that that was a reprehensible remark for the Chairman of the Commision to make. Quite frankly I do not see it—as a lawyer of standing and as one who has persided over Judicial Committees of this House I do not see it. I think that all the remark meant to convey was whether George Heard would be called as a witness to express an opinion or to give evidence of fact. He could make the same remarks about the hon. member for Illovo. If the hon. member for Illovo had tendered evidence he could have said “Does that gentleman know anything about this matter, except what he has heard from other people,” and has said in the House?” That is all the chairman of the Commission meant. If Mr. Heard or any other person in South Africa can give evidence of fact he will be heard by the Commission. I have no doubt about that. But if he is merely going to air his views then he will be of as much use as the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) or the hon. member for Illovo or myself. We do not know the facts and the Commission has been appointed to enquire into facts, and so far from taking exception to that remark as my hon. friend over there has done, I think it was an entirely proper remark. On the one hand we have his criticism of the inordinate length to which this Commission is going—it has taken three-quarters of a million words of evidence. Yet when the chairman makes a remark like that in order to avoid unnecssary evidence, it is criticised.

How does he know that Mr. Heard can only give evidence, that he can only express an opinion?

I do not know. The point is that the chairman said: “The function of the court is to ascertain the facts, do you include Mr. Heard?” If Counsel had said “yes we do, because he knows such and such things,” no doubt Mr. Heard would have been called. But the chairman apparently knew Mr. Heard as a writer of certain comments and not as a purveyor of fact.

Would you expect him to go before the Commission now?

I do not share my hon. friend’s opinion that there was anything wrong with that remark. I do not see why my hon. friend should be so unnecessarily sensitive on that point. I can only say that while I share his views on certain general questions, I do not see anything wrong with this remark, and even if he did object to it, I deprecate this judging matters in advance while the commission is holding its enquiry and trying to prejudice, or rather creating prejudice, against their findings through a discussion of this kind, a discussion which is bound to have that effect. My friend said that one of the witnesses before the commission said frankly—

I take it that that is one of the things which the commission has to enquire into, whether in accordance with the public good we can allow people to work on the broadcasting staff who hold those views. I am not going to judge until we have seen the commission’s report, and until I know whether they took that remark seriously or whether it was extorted from an unwilling witness. Then one of the worst things my friend did was to quote from a letter which a firm of solicitors, unnamed, in Johannesburg, had written to a client, also unnamed, expressing an opinion unfavourable to Major Page and adverse to his conduct of the enquiry. I think that sort of thing is most unfair. Here we have a senior magistrate conducting an enquiry. A firm of attorneys writes a letter and says “I do not think you had better appear, the chairman of the commission appears to be against us.” Why that should be brought out in this House in order to create a prejudice against the chairman of the commission, I fail to understand. The hon. member for Illovo has many good points, but judicial feeling is not one of them. Surely he must recognise the impropriety of such a remark and of such a quotation. Now let me end by dealing with the general aspect of this matter. If this were a case in court, the hon. gentleman would not nave been allowed to move his motion at all, because rule 73 of our Rules of Order says that a member may not refer to any matter on which a judicial decision is pending. Now it is true that this is not in the narrower sense of the word a matter on which a judicial decision is pending, because it is not actually before a court, but it is a matter before a Judicial Commission. The Government appointed this commission by proclamation of the Governor-General, and in appointing this commission he gave it the powers of Transvaal Ordinance 30 of 1902. That Ordinance says that the commission, for the purpose of its enquiry, shall have the powers of the Supreme Court to summon witnesses, to call for documents and books, and it goes on to provide that any person summoned must attend and answer questions, and any person giving false evidence after having been sworn shall be guilty of perjury and liable to be prosecuted. And, therefore, although these are not the proceedings of a court, they are the proceedings of a commission which has the same powers as a court. I have tried to find out whether in the history of this Parliament, or of any other Parliament, there is a precedent for this kind of motion, for a motion brought forward while a commission of enquiry is sitting to deal with the very subject matter of that enquiry, and while witnesses are still being interrogated, and I can find no such precedent, and I hope this will be the last occasion when a motion of this sort is brought forward. I can imagine a case where a commission is appointed simply to stifle discussion and to put the matter into cold storage. If that were the case made by the hon. member, I could understand it, but this commission is appointed by the Government of which the leader of his party is a member. The Government must take the responsibility for that commission, and I did not hear the hon. member suggest that this was a stifling commission designed to put the whole matter into cold storage. What he did was two things. First he prejudged the matter by reading certain Press evidence, certain extracts of the evidence, and then he attacked the members of the commission. With both these things I disagree. I think his motion is premature and ill-considered, and I hope the House will not have to vote on it.

When the Broadcasting Corporation was established in 1936 the Government took the control of broadcasting services out of the hands of a private company and took it into its own hands. There was a fear at the time that the broadcasting service would become a monopoly of the Government, and the question was put whether it should take that form or some different form. The Government of the day thereupon decided in its wisdom to create a Broadcasting Board, and to place the broadcasting services in the hands of a utility company. The motive behind that action was to prevent the broadcasting services in South Africa being used by any party whatever for the purpose of making propaganda for its own cause. The idea was that the broadcasting service should essentially be a national one. Since the outbreak of the war it would appear that there has been a great deal of activity on the part of the Government to smell out people. The Government felt it incumbent upon itself to smell out people in every department of State, and also in utility companies controlled by the State, or at least established by the State. A campaign was started to find out what people’s politics were, also in the Broadcasting Corporation, and to smell out political enemies. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) is boiling over with war energy, and consequently one could expect a motion from him such as the one he has now introduced. He does not only want to see our broadcasting service used as part of our war machine, but he wants every movement, every individual, and every shilling to be spent for the sake of the war. That is why he came forward with this motion. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) has already stated quite rightly that this motion has come at an altogether wrong time. We on this side of the House feel that the Government should go out of its way to give effect to the original motive in establishing the Broadcasting Corporation. Immediately the Government diverted from the original object and from the provisions of the law, it got into a maze of difficulties. The cause of the difficulties in which it now finds itself is that it has diverted from the original object and intentions of the law. Clause 14 is the quintessence of the law, and although it is only a short clause it contains practically everything. It says:

That is perfectly clear. By implication the law means that equal treatment shall be meted out in every respect. Since 1939 that principle has been diverted from with the unavoidable result that the Government has landed itself in difficulties. The Government cannot argue away the fact that it has not taken due account of the demands of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the community. For that reason I feel that the only way out of the difficulty, for the Government, is to get back to the execution of that clause in word and in deed, and to carry out the spirit and the object of that clause. If it does so it will get on to the right course again. For that reason I move a further amendment—

I second. My party is unable to support the motion of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), firstly because, apart from any party political consideration, we think it is the duty of every member of this House, irrespective of party, to see that the effect of such a motion, if it were adopted, would be disastrous from the point of view of justice in this country. We have here a commission which has been appointed by the Government of the day, which consists of certainly the highest public officials in the land, officials who have always served the Government of the day as they were honourably bound to do. These public officials, whose record of public service dates back in some cases to forty years, have enjoyed not only the confidence of the present Government, but the confidence of the old Nationalist Party and of the United Party, and of Governments prior to that time. Where you have these senior officials, who in some cases are coming to the end of their honourable service, one cannot subscribe to a motion which, were one to endorse it, would mean that this House and this country has no confidence in these men because they are unable to overcome their prejudices, or because they lack the ability to do the job. Major Maynard Page as a magistrate has the highest reputation in this country, and I think it is just as well that those of us who are privileged to know and who have appeared before that gentleman should clear his name in this House and in the country this afternoon. I think the suggestions made by the hon. member for Illovo were in the worst possible taste, more so because those gentlemen are not here to defnd themselves. And more so because he probably will not be able to defend himself hereafter because if he does it may be construed as a consent to the proceedings of Parliament. The hon. member for Illovo and I differ on every conceivable subject. I think I may sum it up, I mean this attack of his this afternoon, by saying it is probably due to the fact that the hon. member for Illovo has never played the game that the people he so admires, the British people, always claim to have played, and that is cricket. It was not cricket to attack the members of the commission here this afternoon. Mr. Speaker, from that point of view we cannot support this motion, because there is no reliable information before this House upon which to judge. The commission has witnesses before it, those witnesses are being cross-examined, and the members of the commission, because they can see the demeanour of the witnesses, are in the best position to judge. I don’t think I can take the matter any further than to say, in no circumstances will my party support a motion such as this. Speaking as to the motion moved by the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) we have heard a speech this afternoon which, to my mind, lies at the root of most of the trouble in regard to broadcasting in this country. It is the outlook of my party that we ask nothing for ourselves that we are not prepared to give to the other man. Approaching this subject by this test, where you have two separate sets of listeners, where you have two separate cultures, you should do equal justice to both sections. I think it cannot be denied that the Afrikaans-speaking listener is not getting the same fair play in the programmes that the English-speaking listener is getting.

[inaudible.]

The hon. member differs, Mr. Speaker, but the hon. member is the worst judge. His remark is typical of that little corner on that side of the House, and the hon. member does not understand a word of Afrikaans. How can he judge? The Afrikaans listener has been told in the past that he could not expect to get the same treatment because, as a subscriber, he was in the minority, he contributed less money to the coffers of the Corporation, so in proportion to his contribution he must expect less service. That argument if carried to its natural conclusion would mean tyranny. If because you have a minority you are going to deprive that minority of its rights just because they are a minority, you are setting up a tyranny. You are not dealing here with an ordinary commercial proposition. I can understand a business man saying, “I look to my clients and to the man who gives me most I must give most service.” But here you have a national broadcasting service, and on a national basis the Afrikaans listeners are entitled to exactly the same share of service as the English. I can understand at the present time there are technical difficulties in getting the necessary equipment. It cannot be done just now, or indeed for the period of the war. But I do think that the Broadcasting Corporation, if they want to give satisfaction, should apply themselves particularly to this subject. It would be better for them to forget most of the criticism that is levelled at the Corporation, and lay down a policy of equality, and stick to it. If they do that in the end they will give satisfaction. It is because the Corporation has been too much inclined to listen to old women’s tales, such as we have had from the hon. member for Illovo this afternoon, that we have had all these enquiries. We have had a case presented to us this afternoon which is no case at all. I think the Government should accept this amendment of my party, which, as I say, cannot support the hon. member for Illovo. The hon. member for Illovo is very much like the old maid who saw mice under her bed, when there were no mice there. If the hon. member for Illovo continues with these motions, he will probably see more mice than he sees now, and perhaps he will see them coloured with the views that he presented to this House this afternoon. Those views were absolutely coloured, based on prejudice, and calculated to harm people who could not be in this House to defend themselves.

I want to say at the outset that I, like the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) have the fullest confidence both in the capacity and in the fairness of the members of the commission which is investigating the troubles of the Broadcasting Board. At the same time I cannot support, under present conditions, the amendment of the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen). Both he and my friend the hon. member for Germiston (South) (Mr. Quinlan) seem to have supported it on the assumption, and it can only be on the assumption, that there is not war at all at the present moment, and that the objects of the corporation have to be carried out on the basis of broadcasting services of equality to both sections. We have to remember that great issues are involved, that we are not at present in a normal position, and that the country is committed, rightly in my view, to seeing the present war to a successful conclusion. It is unfortunate that the resolution of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has been introduced while the commission is sitting. But I feel that there is not altogether a conflict between the resolution and the fact that the enquiry is going on, because the resolution is based on the assumption that the Broadcasting Board, in so far as the present war effort is concerned, is not carrying on as satisfactorily as many people would like it. The evidence in support of the resolution of the hon. member for Illovo is to be found in the action of the Broadcasting Board itself. When they found themselves in difficulty they proceeded to appoint a committee of enquiry consisting of members of the board. By appointing that committee to enquire into allegations that were being made, they admitted that they had to satisfy the public that everything was in order, and admitted that there was a case for enquiry. I myself have stated, with all due respect, that they acted foolishly in appointing their own directors to be judges of themselves as to whether they were doing the right thing or not, and I then suggested the need for a judicial commission of enquiry. The Board, having appointed a committee and that committee having made its report, after a period found that the difficulties and the unsatisfactory manner in which the work was being carried out were such that they felt obliged to come to the Government and ask them to appoint a commission to enquire into these matters. That, in itself, in my view, is an indication that things were not satisfactory, that the work that was being done, particularly with regard to the war effort, was not as satisfactory as it should be, and the board were forced to ask for that commission. If that is the position, then regardless of the fact that we have the utmost confidence in the fairness and capacity of the commission, there is a great deal to be said for the Government taking over the control of broadcasting. I say that, having regard to the fact that this country is at war. In Great Britain, in Germany, and in fact everywhere it is admitted by psychologists and those who know something about propaganda, that propaganda in support of a certain policy is a most potent weapon. Having regard to that, it is not altogether unreasonable to come along to the House and suggest that the Government should consider the idea of taking over broadcasting, at any rate during the war period. Then the Government will be in the position, much more effectively, to further its war policy. My point is that when a country is at war, broadcasting is one of the most effective weapons, and it is therefore right and reasonable to suggest that during the war period propaganda should be carried out in the most satisfactory manner in support of the national war policy. The best people to do that are those responsible for the war, and not an independent body. That is how I view the resolution. While I regret that it has been brought in during the period of the enquiry, the very fact that both sections of the population appear to be so dissatisfied is justification for the House considering whether under present conditions some other control should not be instituted. I don’t want to analyse the evidence given before the commission, but I want to mention two points which are involved in the evidence, without passing any judgment in connection with the matter. I take the evidence submitted to the board by Mr. Bagnall, who knows about propaganda. Mr. Bagnall was not hostile to the board, or suggest that anything was wrong. His criticism, as one who knows a great deal about propaganda, was that the board was not sufficiently definite in its policy, that it almost tried to be impartial and neutral in connection with the war effort. Obviously a body that is attempting to be impartial cannot possibly carry on a one-sided policy. At present under war conditions we must have that one-sided policy. Secondly, I want to refer to Mr. Caprara, and I want to say it is not a question at all of judging Mr. Caprara, or judging his loyalty. When he was being questioned in connection with the dismissal of Mr. Marais, the attitude of “Die Transvaler” came under discussion, and he was asked whether, in his opinion, “Die Transvaler” was an anti-English paper. Mr. Caprara said no, and even when he was being pressed in connection with the matter he said “Perhaps it was.” My friends opposite would be the first to differ from Mr. Caprara. “Die Transvaler” is probably to-day the most effective propaganda machine in South Africa against the war effort, and consequently is anti-British.

Why not?

Quite. I say without any disparagement to the English-speaking newspapers that they lag miles behind “Die Transvaler” in efficient propaganda, and that “Die Transvaler’s” propaganda is anti-war, and therefore anti-British. The point I want to make is that when Mr. Caprara was out to carry out a policy which the country has adopted, he had the naive simplicity to say, or try to prove, that the paper was not anti-British. What possible confidence can we have that the policy of supporting the war effort is likely to be carried out effectively when we read this? This consideration has caused a great deal of dissatisfaction and nervousness among those who are anxious to see the war policy carried out. Again, in connection with Mr. Weisner, they wanted to be gentlemen, and they said he was dismissed not because of the anti-war statements that he made, the subversive statements that he made, but because he was absent from duty. When we know that people like Marais, who on their own showing were anti-war, and were allowed to remain in office, were allowed to remain in their jobs, although they actually said to the board: “We are very sorry, but we cannot read this broadcast, because we do not agree with it” when you have people of that kind kept on by the board we are entitled to say that their work is not being done satisfactorily. I would say the same of any Government servant, whether a railwayman or a police officer, if he is indifferent or hostile or allows himself to be intimidated into hostility to the war effort he cannot effectively carry out the policy of the Government. While I regret that this resolution should be introduced while the commission is sitting, I do feel that it may serve a useful purpose. The report may be a long time before it is issued, and even then it may not deal with some of the issues with which the public are intimately concerned. Under these circumstances, I hope the Government, when they consider the recommendations of the commission, will at the same time seriously consider whether, during the war period, it is not essential for the Government to take over the corporation.

I have listened with a great deal of interest to the discussion on the motion of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). I am quite prepared to grant the hon. member the feeling that he has in connection with the matter, but all I can say is that I support the remarks of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) as to the inappropriateness of this resolution at the present moment. Hon. members know that during the last session of Parliament a great deal of criticism was levelled at the Broadcasting Corporation because they appointed their own committee to investigate certain things. Mr. George Heard was responsible for the agitation, and he refused to give evidence before that committee, and a demand was practically made in this House for a judicial enquiry. Matters moved fast, certain things happened, officials were dismissed, and the board felt that it was right and proper that what they had done should be examined at a judicial enquiry. They made representations to the Government, and the enquiry is now taking place. The terms of reference are as wide as they possibly can be, covering everything in connection with the war effort, and everything connected with broadcasting. Now the hon. member for Illovo has read extracts from the evidence, but they are extracts from the evidence published in the newspapers. But however excellent the reports in the daily press are, they are by no means complete. My information at the moment is only what has appeared in the newspapers, and no one is competent to judge of what is taking place at the enquiry unless they have the verbatim evidence before them. The hon. member referred to the chairman. Major Page has a record second to none in the civil service; he has spent a lifetime dealing with evidence, sifting and weighing evidence. Colonel Pienaar has an equally fine record, and I think the least one can do is to wait until those gentlemen have heard counsel. I must say that this enquiry has taken much longer than I anticipated when I appointed these gentlemen to undertake it, and they have given the widest interpretation to Clause 3 of the terms of reference, “the relationship between the Corporation and its servants in respect of matters connected with the war.” On the first two clauses very little evidence has taken place, although they have omitted no evidence that anyone wished to give. Reference has been made by the same hon. member to the director. I am not going into those details, nor am I going to quote evidence which I could do ad lib. in the opposite direction. Nobody in this House has made a statement that anything has gone over the radio since the war broke out that is of a subversive character. They have not done so because they cannot; nothing has taken place in the conduct of Broadcast House that anyone could take exception to from that point of view. Let me inform the House that the powers of the Government are very wide; we can take possession of Broadcast House, and everything controlling it, to-morrow if we wished to do so. Let me tell hon. members that the Corporation is available to the Government for all propaganda that it wants to put over, and we are putting over a great deal of propaganda, and those people responsible for that propaganda have not one word of complaint that that has not been carried out as they wish. I do not want, at this hour, to go into the question raised by the Opposition. No doubt there is something in what they say, because I think it must be acknowledged —I want to be careful in the language I use—It must be acknowledged that Afrikaans broadcasting is not as satisfactory as they would like to have it. But that has been due to circumstances over which the board has no control. They will have noticed that a plant was ordered twelve months ago, and should have been here nine months ago. I want to acknowledge, however, that there is something in the criticism from that side, but the position will be relieved when the new station is in operation. I move—

Mr. FRIEND seconded.

Agreed to.