It is with regret that I have to announce that a vacancy has occurred in the representation in this House of the electoral division of Pretoria West, owing to the death on 13 October 1974 of Mr. R. J. J. Pieterse.

Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Our deceased colleague was elected to this House on 3 April 1968, and he represented the electoral division of Pretoria West up to the time of his passing away on 13 October 1974. The hon. member was a quiet and modest person, who did not take part in the discussions in this House very often. He was so quiet and modest that one actually saw very little of him and knew very little about him. For instance, it was only very recently that I myself ascertained that he was a chess player of exceptional ingenuity and skill. Although he seldom took part in the discussions of this House, he was a person who rendered very good services to his people in his electoral division. This is also borne out by the fact that in the one by-election and the two general elections which he fought more of his opponents forfeited their deposits than has happened in the case of any other member who has ever been elected to this House. In spite of the fact that his health left much to be desired during the past years and caused him great concern, our former colleague faithfully remained at his post here until last week.

I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to invoke on behalf of us all God’s richest consolation upon his wife and his three daughters.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate myself and the United Party with the sentiments and sympathy expressed by the hon. the Prime Minister. As the hon. the Prime Minister has stated, the late hon. member was one of the quieter members in this House. We did not hear much from him but those who got to know him, respected and liked him. The hon. the Prime Minister has referred to the fact that he was a chess player. We on this side of the House knew him better as a cricketer who used to play for our parliamentary cricket team. The fact that he was re-elected on two occasions is proof too that his constituents had faith in him as their Member of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, we on these benches should like to be associated with the motion that has been moved by the hon. the Prime Minister, the motion of condolence upon the demise of our deceased colleague and the tribute to his quiet yet nevertheless sterling attributes. I think this is an occasion when we who are placed in this House as members of the highest authority in our country nevertheless become aware of a Higher Authority. We should like to be associated with the expression of sympathy that goes out from this House to the members of his family in their bereavement.

Motion agreed to unanimously, all the members standing.

Mr. Chairman, when the House adjourned on Friday, we had experienced the unusual spectacle of seeing the hon. the Leader of the Opposition acting as chief spokesman on that side in connection with sport and recreation. Of course, it was due to the fact that the hon. member for Simonstown had refused to accept this responsibility and, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition told us, the hon. member for Green Point was not present here. What is more, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition came along here with a brand-new announcement on the United Party’s sport policy. It was a fairly irresponsible announcement and one could not imagine that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was in earnest about it. He started off by saying, “A United Party Government will do this, that and the other”. I think that if a person starts off in that vein, he really cannot be very serious. As he did in April 1971, when he made a statement at the Kelvin Grove Club, he also pleaded here on Friday afternoon for sport to be controlled by sportsmen and clubs themselves. However, on Friday he went further than he did on that occasion. He again, as before, pleaded for mixed sport, but this time he pleaded for mixed sport down to club level and he immediately added that he would be prepared to amend both the Group Areas Act and the Liquor Act to make provision for mixed sport at club level.

Sir, immediately afterwards the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that he was not only speaking about competitive sport, but also about sport for recreational purposes; in other words, he was pleading for mixed sport practised purely for recreational purposes within the residential areas themselves. This applies to all forms of sport, including swimming, and he is prepared to amend the Group Areas Act in such a way as to eliminate all anomalies which might result from mixed sport. Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member for Sea Point is sitting on pins and needles. He must protect his wickets, and when he does so, he should not protect his wickets on the near side of the swimming-pool; his middle stump is floating in the swimming-pool already; he should protect them on the far side of the swimming-pool; he is verkramp, behind the times and old-fashioned.

Sir, that is the scope of the announcement made here by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The time at my disposal does not allow me to go into it any further. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition announced this policy because the sport policy of the National Party was allegedly so confusing. Sir, the sport policy of the National Party is not confusing at all. We on this side of the House subscribe to everything which underlies the sport policy of the National Party, and we differ basically with both Opposition parties. Sir, South Africa is a multinational country and the sport policy of South Africa is a multinational policy. In short this means that every nation is to practise its sport in its own sphere at club, provincial and national level. This is what it means, and it is spelt out in the sport statement issued by the Federal Council—

Sir, I am reading no further since time is catching up with me and I should like to make another point in connection with the last part of this statement. To be specific, I want to plead for organized sporting activities to be promoted on a larger scale, within this framework among all peoples in South Africa. Sir, I shall be quite honest with you. The sporting activities of the non-White peoples are not yet as one should wish them to be. As far as the Bantu peoples are concerned, a great deal of assistance is being rendered and a considerable number of facilities are being provided by mines on the one hand, and local authorities on the other. As far as the Coloureds are concerned, this attempt is less successful, and for that reason I should like to make a plea in this regard to the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation today.

Although we are aware of the fact that sporting activities among these non-White peoples are arranged, supported and encouraged by the Department of Bantu Administration and Development on the one hand and by the Department of Coloured Relations on the other, I want to plead for opportunities to be created for this specialized department, too, the Department of Sport and Recreation, so that it may ensure that development takes place in the sphere of Coloured sport and Bantu sport in their own areas, on their own fields, so as to help their own people to progress in the sphere of sport.

What about the Indians?

I am including the Indians with the Coloureds—in their own sphere. Sir, I am pleading for this because I believe that the Department of Sport and Recreation is the department which has a specialized department which knows how to do these things and which has undertaken these promotional functions very successfully up to now; because this department is the one which arranged international multinational meetings very successfully; because this department is the one which arranged major meetings at which soccer matches were played between different races.

Sir, it may proudly be said of the department that it arranged those meetings without one single incident taking place. I think this redounds greatly to the credit of the department and that we should congratulate them on it. Sir, let us compare this to what the United Party is advocating, i.e. mixed sport on a large scale at club level. What would happen in the Transvaal rugby league if one had Diggers and Vereeniging on the one side, and Wits with a mixed team on the other? Cannot the United Party realize that they would be throwing that whole league into confusion? Cannot they realize that with that policy of theirs they would wreck sport relations in the country? Sir, I want to plead for the Department of Sport and Recreation to be allowed to devote their attention to the promotion of sport among the non-White groups as well, among the Coloureds as well as the Bantu. I want to concede that the matter is somewhat more difficult as far as the Black people are concerned since the homelands also have to be involved in this and since a formula will have to be found for doing so. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to support my leader in his very excellent exposition of United Party policy last Friday. It is a policy which immediately shows that it has three major advantages, firstly that it is morally right, secondly that it is unambiguous and capable of implementation and, thirdly, that it enjoys the support of sportsmen throughout the country. Sir, implicit in the undertaking that the United Party will assist financially and otherwise to ensure maximum opportunities for participation in sport is in fact the recognition of the Department of Sport with its R1 million Budget and the valuable role that it plays. A few weeks ago the hon. the Minister disclosed that some R644 000 had been spent last year on money grants to 73 sporting associations for the White group. He further informed this House that assistance given in respect of other sporting bodies was done through the relevant departments. Mr. Chairman, when we look at the replies to questions, we find that the Department of Indian Affairs does not even have a Budget for sport but merely gave the sum of R9 200 over the past year to three sporting bodies. The Department of Bantu Administration has a R50 000 budget of which R24 000 was wound up in financial aid. Only the Department of Coloured Affairs really touched ground and gave some R137 000 to 37 major sports in the country. So therefore while this department is spending well in excess of R1 million on sport for Whites, other departments cannot scrape together even 1/6th of that amount to cater for the needs of the 17 million other people in this country. Because it is right the United Party believes in assisting in the creation of maximum sporting opportunities for all races, but this Nationalist Government is making but meagre efforts on behalf of sportsmen of colour in South Africa. It is time, Sir, that the department took action, by making available to non-White bodies on a far greater scale its expertise in administration, coaching and promotions. Furthermore, it should on a far greater scale make available its staff in an advisory capacity to the various Government departments in order to get sport off the ground for all races. Sir, we will never persuade the citizens of South Africa, let alone foreign Governments and sportsmen, that we are doing all we can while these gross discrepancies exist. If we say that there is equal opportunity in South Africa it is our duty to do more than just pay lip-service to that ideal.

Sir, my leader’s policy statement made it clear that we believe that the administration, including the determination of club membership of sport, the selection of teams, and participation in leagues should be left firmly in the hands of those who are most concerned, namely the sportsmen. Now this holds good for international sport as well, where we say that invitations and representative team selections are not matters in which the Government should interfere. Our policy is nothing more than a vote for normality in ordinary human relations. In any country other than South Africa under this Government, the policy of the United Party would not even create a stir. It would be normal, everyday human relations. But even here at home the Government’s policy as it relates to sport is stumbling far behind the thinking of the sportsmen of South Africa themselves. Mr. Boon Wallace, for instance, South Africa’s cricket chief, on 4 September 1974 was quoted as saying—

Mr. Wallace is clearly voicing the views of the majority of all cricketers in South Africa in that statement. Mr. Dirk Richard, the Nationalist Party editor, on 24 June 1974 urged that touring South African sporting teams should be chosen on merit. He is clearly voicing the view of all verligte Afrikaans-speaking thinkers. Dr. Dame Craven, chief of the Rugby Board, has on more than one occasion advocated a form of merit selection for rugby. Even the Federal Council of the National Party has reportedly given the green light to merit selection in rugby and yet Nationalist Party policy as it is reflected in this House is clouded, to say the least. Only recently the Qwaggas Rugby Club was refused permission to include one non-White player in an international team, for an international match, yet a South African Bantu soccer side was allowed to participate in the South African Games, which side comprised Zulus, Xhosas and others—completely cutting across the Government’s definition and policy of multi-nationalism.

Sir, the crux of the matter is that the Government’s policy is not understood by South Africans, by the foreign public or by sportsmen. Even the Government does not understand its own policy, as is evidenced by the embarrassingly ridiculous mix-up between the Minister and the Secretary for Sport over the very current Younis Ahmed incident. A later speaker on this side of the House will deal with that matter, but let me say this. Ad hoc relaxations of the rules for visiting non-White sports-stars may be expedient and may save the odd incident, but they will cut notice while our own Black citizens are denied opportunities in sport which are their right. Sir, sporting friendships are colour-blind. Contact across the sporting colour-line can only do South Africa good, and it is time that this simple principle of non-interference were adopted. As long as the Nationalist Government interferes in the field of sporting contacts, and rigidly controls sport as if it were one enormous secret society, with complicated rules, special exceptions, hurried relaxations and secret emissaries, so long it will be necessary to arrange sporting events, venues and competitors under a cloak of darkness. We say: Accept the simple, normal principle that sportsmen have the right to play and mix with whom they wish. Give every assistance, not for the sole purpose of seeing South Africa readmitted to the world body of sportsman, but because we believe in a nation in its entirety, not merely the Whites, being sound in body and mind, and because we believe in sportsmen making up their own minds on the issue of choice of association and sporting contact. Nothing could be simpler in principle than that. Sportsmen left on their own will advantageously sort out the future of their respective sports. The Nationalist Party policy is seen in the eyes of the world as being geared exclusively to the interests of the White man. Change that and the whole picture alters. Under an easily understood policy of non-interference, our sportsmen have a fighting chance of playing a major role in South Africa’s rehabilitation in the world community.

Last week the president of the Indian Lawn Tennis Association called for an assurance that apartheid would eventually be dropped in sport as a prerequisite for playing the Davis Cup final against South Africa. I say that the Minister should have given that assurance, and he should have given it publicly. If it has been given through a secret emissary, we should know about that and if the Minister has not given it, I challenge him to do so today. Allow the tennis bodies and the other bodies to settle their own affairs and to play against whom they wish, both in and out of South Africa. If the Minister does this, he will have done a deed which, firstly, will allow our sportsman of all colours to have respect for the rules under which they play and, secondly, which will put South Africa back on the road of international sport.

Mr. Chairman, I listened to this debate with great expectations because the hon. the Leader of the Opposition announced on Friday that the United Party felt that a new initiative had to be taken in the sphere of sport. We expected something more to come from that side of the House. The only new initiative I have detected so far, is that the United Party is going out of its way to narrow and, if possible, close the political gap between itself and the Progressive Party. The hon. member for Sandton, so I understand, walked around for a long time with his letter of resignation in his pocket. After the new initiative, aimed at narrowing this gap between them and the Progressive Party, he did not consider it necessary to hand that letter to his leader.

Do you not want to use it for the purpose of resigning from the National Party?

Unfortunately there is some wilfulness on the part of the Opposition in that they neither want to understand nor see in their true perspective the principles on which the National Party’s sport policy is based. That is why the hon. member for Sandton can come along and say, “The Government’s policy is not understood”. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition speaks of the chaos and confusion which exist.

You do not understand it either.

The reason why members on that side of the House do not want to understand the principles, is that they know that these principles are in precise agreement with the principles the National Party applies in every other sphere.

And you are going to explain it now.

Yes, I am going to explain it. I should like to explain to hon. members on that side of the House in a short and simple way what the underlying principles of our sport policy are, the principles on which we on this side of the House are in complete agreement.

It would have to be very simple for them to understand it.

I should like to say that the National Party’s policy is not compartmental in that we have a policy for sport, a policy for education and a policy for political development. The National Party is consistent since the principles from which it proceeds apply to all spheres. The principles which apply in the sphere of sport are, therefore, in agreement with the principles which apply in every other sphere. In linking up with the basic fact of diversity, the National Party wants to state as its first guide-line that every nation should be given the opportunity to be a full-fledged nation in every respect in its own national context. This applies to the political sphere where every nation is given the opportunity to develop politically into a full-fledged nation, and the same applies in the spheres of education and sport. In the sphere of sport it simply means that an opportunity should be given to every people to develop its own club and provincial pattern and to select its own national team. The Springbok team is the representative team, the national team, of the Whites, in the same way as the Protea team is the representative team of the Coloureds. The first leg of our sport policy is that sport in this country must be practised uni-nationally—in other words, that each nation should practise sport within its own national context.

The second guide-line, or the second leg next to the uni-nation aspect is the internation aspect. This aspect of our sport policy, too, correlates with the broad principles the National Party applies in all respects in every other sphere. This is applicable also in the political sphere as well as in all the other spheres. In the sphere of sport the second leg, the second guide-line, i.e. inter-nationality, means that various teams or individuals may compete, as representatives of their national groups, against the teams or individuals who are the representatives of the other national groups.

Is that your federal policy, Dawie?

This aspect has already been illustrated by the various meetings of this kind that have been held in South Africa. Contact, liaison, dialogue and, in the sphere of sport, also competition between representatives of the various national groups in South Africa, do not eliminate the first principle, that of uninationality, but underline it. The second principle, i.e. inter-nation competition, is the logical consequence, the logical outcome of the first principle, that of uninationality. The second aspect is often rightly referred to as multinational meetings. That is correct, although I would rather reserve multinationality for what I want to call the third guide-line or third phase of our policy. This applies to international competition. The policy of separate development makes it possible for the various nations in South Africa to develop eventually into politically independent countries and nations. Everyone will then, as a nation and a country in its own right, be able to take its place in the international world. The fact is, however, that for the present and up to and including the day on which nations in South Africa become independent, that nation, internationally speaking, will still form part of South Africa. What the international picture means …

What about the Coloureds?

The hon. member is welcome to make his own speech after I have made mine.

As far as the international world is concerned, the nations which up to this stage form part of this country are still a part of South Africa. For many years sporting ties and competition on the international front have taken place on a basis of States. The Olympic sports are a very fine example of this. Countries are affiliated to and participate in the Olympic Games. That is why an opportunity should be given to the best sportsmen from each of the affiliated countries to be included in such an international representative team. The National Party makes provision for that in the third guideline of its policy, i.e. that where international competition requires this to be done, a multinational team may be selected. The various phases of the policy are, therefore: Uni-nationality; inter-nationality; and, where required by international competition, multinationality as well.

As far as this international competition and the conditions attached thereto are concerned, we must, on the one hand, clearly distinguish between the fair and justified requirements for international competition which, traditionally and historically, are peculiar to the way in which the particular sport is practised internationally and, on the other hand, the demands and conditions made purely for political reasons in an attempt to sabotage and overthrow our internal policy and customs. One may call this multinational team a merit, a South African or a mixed team—you may call it what you will—but in the final analysis it is the opportunity the National Party’s sport policy is affording every sportsman in South Africa to compete, where that sport demands this in a fair way, at the highest level for South Africa, too, until such time as the nation to which that sportsman belongs will be able to take its place in this context in the comity of nations as a sovereign independent nation. This principle was recognized by Dr. Verwoerd back in 1962 when he granted his approval for a South African contingent, which was to have consisted of representatives from various nations, to compete at the Olympic Games in Mexico. This principle was eventually extended to tennis and golf, in respect of which international competition similarly takes place on the basis of country competing against country. It is, however, the position that different sports have developed along different lines. Different conditions for international competition and affiliation are imposed for different sports. In the development of the National Party’s sport policy regard has been had to these traditional, historical developments and the conditions for international participation which resulted from them.

What do the sportsmen say?

In the development of the sport policy the Government wishes, as far as it is practicable—there are many practical obstacles along the way—to remain true to the following guide-lines, i.e. uni-nationality at club and provincial level, abundant opportunities for inter-nation sport competition as far as the selection of national teams is concerned, and also, where international competition makes this necessary, multinational merit or representative South African teams. As far as these principles are concerned, there is no difference of opinion on this side of the House. I believe that the difference of opinion is sooner to be found on that side of the House. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I have seldom heard someone speak with so much enthusiasm and yet so much lack of conviction as the hon. member for Johannesburg West showed on the Government’s sport policy. He spoke as if the principles of the Nationalist Party’s sports policy are completely clear and apparent to every member on that side of the House and as if each one on that side understands it and knows exactly what it means. In fact, their policy has so many legs that it sounds like a centipede out of step with itself. The best evidence we have of the confusion on Government side is the hon. the Minister himself. As a new member of this House, I have noticed how withdrawn and quiet he is. This can be explained quite easily. The hon. the Minister has dissipated all his political drive in caucus fights and Cabinet squabbles over the question of sport. Let me give you an example of this.

That is wishful thinking.

The hon. member says it is wishful thinking. What does he have to say about these two reports? The hon. the Minister said:

Which newspaper is it?

The Cape Times of 27 September 1973.

*But the hon. member for Waterberg says the following—

†If it was so clear on the Government side what their sport policy was with all the different principles, why then do we get these contradictory statements in public? Why do they obviously not agree on a simple question such as representation at national or, as the hon. member would say, at international level? It is when we deal with the sport policy of this Government that we really move into a world of political surrealism and absurdity which, in a sense, would even make Salvador Dali seem like a normal growing boy. It is to the hon. the Minister’s credit that he tries to penetrate this world and force it back to reality, and we encourage him in this. We know of the battle he has and we hope he will be successful. But with some of his colleagues, I must say, I think he stands less an a sporting chance of really making it. Yet the world of sport, or what is left of it, goes on in South Africa. If we read the annual report of the Minister’s department we see that 1973 is referred to as a golden year for sport in South Africa. I want to read the following from the report—

You will notice, Sir, the language that is used here. Reference is made to “so-called sports isolation” and it is intimated that this is not really true. What is so imaginary about the Minister’s reply on 26 August 1974 to a question put by the hon. member for Johannesburg North? When he was asked from how many international sporting associations South Africa is at present excluded, he replied that there were nine and that during the past 14 months we had been banned from 10 international sporting events. The report tries to create the impression that at international level we have never had it so good. We talk about competing and participating at international level, but the fact of the matter is that we do not have any international competition in our major sports of any significance where we can say “South Africa versus this country” or “South Africa versus that country”. We all eagerly follow the career of someone like Fiasconaro when he runs for Italy at the Olympic Games, but we know he is not running for South Africa. The same is true for Danie Malan or Fanie van Zyl. They compete individually overseas, obviously at meetings of international calibre, but we can never say that South Africa, as a team, as a society or as a nation, competed at those events. We are isolated as far as port is concerned and there is no getting away from this fact. Let us take rugby. Can the hon. the Minister give us an assurance when we will see any major touring team in a test match at Newlands again? What about the Wallabies and the All Blacks? Even the French tour that is at hand is in the balance if we listen to the noise being made overseas. I think we have to agree that all this points to one thing and one thing only, namely that this Government is going to bluff nobody with multi-racial tokenism in sport, not even the people in this country. Unless there is a genuine and observable move away from racialism in sport, we will become completely isolated. What is meant by such a move? I would suggest at least three things. I want to mention them briefly and then discuss them more fully. Firstly, we must have selection on merit at a national level. Secondly, we must at the same time provide facilities for Black sportsmen in this country of such a nature that more and more of them can come into consideration for national selection if this is necessary. Thirdly, we have to take sport away from the politicians and give it back to the sportsmen. In this regard, I would like to compliment the United Party, who have also now moved into the age of enlightened thinking as far as sport is concerned. I think this is a very positive move, and I commend the fact that they have now eventually seen the light in this respect.

When I say that we must have selection on merit at a national level, I am not alone in saying this as a member of this party. I want to state quite clearly that this is the point of view held by the majority of people in this country. I can give hon. members some of the names if they do not want to believe me: Avril Malan, Tom van Vollenhoven, Gawie Carelse, Basie van Wyk—it sounds like a Springbok team—Eben Olivier, Tommy Gentles, Keith Oxlee, Tommy Bedford and Dawie de Villiers have all said it. This is also not a view of individual sportsmen only. [Interjections.] I have the clippings here. Hon. members can read them if they want to. Sporting bodies such as the S.A. Rugby Federation and the S.A. Rugby Board have asked for it. Furthermore, a survey was done by Rapport in which 50% of the White people questioned said they preferred selection on merit. In fact, the Nationalists that were questioned formed 35% of those who preferred it.

Next, we must provide adequate sporting facilities for the Blacks, so that they can come into consideration for selection at a national level. It does not help us in any way if we become proud of a Black man who reaches world status in sport, and we do not remove the obstacles in his way to getting there. I think it is to the incredible merit of Black sportsmen that they do succeed in reaching world status in their respective field of sport; but then we have to provide the facilities. In reply to a question, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development said that the Bantu Sport and Recreation Trust had an initial budget of R500 000, of which R32 000 had been allocated so far, and that it had been allocated by two senior officials in the department. Why cannot we have members selected by the various Black sporting groups serving on this committee and advising the Minister as to how to allocate this fund?

As regards the third point, namely the whole question of taking sport away from politicians and handing it back to sportsmen, I do not think there is any problem here. All the people have asked for it. They have asked for their clubs to be autonomous. They want to have the right to decide whom they will play with and against. In this respect I want to ask the hon. the Minister what his reaction is going to be, for example, to the statement in the newspapers that the University of Cape Town intend entering two soccer leagues next year, one in the White league and one in the multi-racial league. It is well within the law. It does not in any way transgress the law. It is within the framework of the legislation. They have decided that they are going to enter these two teams; one in the mixed league and one in the White league. Why cannot the Minister allow this as an experiment to see what the benefits would be for everybody in sport in South Africa? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is always interesting to see that members on that side of the House—I am including both the United Party and the Progressive Party—avail themselves of the opportunity when South African sport is faced with a dilemma, as we are experiencing with India at present, to create for themselves an artificial platform and be the so-called champions of the sportsmen of South Africa. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition chose the previous occasion on which we experienced unpleasantness with the cricketers at Newlands. He then came forward with a dramatic policy statement. Now that we are negotiating with India, the Leader of the United Party again comes along with a dramatic statement.

The Progressive Party is in a great hurry to follow suit. The hon. member for Rondebosch has just asked when South Africa was last able to say that we had played against another country. The hon. member has a short memory. We had the touring rugby team from Britain here this year. When we come to professional sport, we regard the participants from South Africa as being representative of South Africa against another country. What else did the fight between Pierre Fourie and George Foster mean but South Africa against the United State of America? When service has to be rendered to sport, when we want to develop sport, we must encourage our young players and athletes. Apparently the hon. member for Rondebosch in a speech at some meeting or other last week—I just happened to notice this in one of the Sunday papers—made reference to some of our athletes who were ostensibly going into retirement because there was no longer any competition for them. The hon. member for Rondebosch was a sportsman himself. Let him remember and let us give the following to our sportsmen and athletes as a guide-line: One’s most important opponent is always oneself and the most important test for the athlete is always the stop-watch. May it be true of our young athletes that they will always try to beat themselves and the stopwatch!

If we were to separate the two divisions comprising this department, sport and recreation, it would perhaps be logical that as a result of the competition and as a result of the drama and excitement of competition, the sport division would be more colourful than the recreation division. I think we would be doing the Department of Sport and Recreation a disservice in South Africa if we were to fail to appreciate the value of the recreation division of this department. I think conclusive proof already exists that there are serious misgivings about the fitness of South Africans. The tremendous cultural value of physical recreation, of sport in the shape of mass movements such as the German Turn movement which emphasizes the basic connection between sport and youth work and the cultural activities, has an inestimable influence on national sentiment and the patriotism of a nation. As yet this is not being done effectively in South Africa. If any benefit is to be derived from the exemplary objective of national fitness, the prevailing inertia must be transformed into dynamic action by the youth and the sporting bodies under the leadership of the Department of Sport and Recreation. This would seem to indicate that if we are in earnest in respect of productivity, preparedness and fitness, which crystallize from the national fitness scheme of the nation, it should be one of the primary tasks of the Department of Sport and Recreation to make people fit and keep them fit. Every country which launches a fitness campaign of this kind follows the procedure of making it a Government function which enjoys high priority. National fitness is a national problem which demands national action. The time has now arrived in South Africa for a long-awaited fitness survey at national level, followed by a high-level fitness conference. When we fail to appreciate the value of fitness and the service the Department of Sport and Recreation is rendering in making our people fit, we realize that we are dealing here with a division of a department to which insufficient attention is being given and of which insufficient use is being made as far as the services which are already being offered are concerned. I do not in any way want to detract from the value sportsmen and sportswomen have for South Africa’s image, for motivating our young people, for causing excitement and even exhilaration among the spectators. One should like to pay tribute to our athletes, our sportsmen and coaches, to this department and in particular to the Secretary of the department and the hon. the Minister for the bridges they have built through the agency of this department and for services they have rendered which have opened doors to us. On the other hand, however, when we have to cross these new bridges and enter through these new doors, with a nation consisting of people with drooping shoulders and flabby muscles, we are going to lose the fight. Then the sacrifice, the hours of hard work and exercise of our sportsmen will be in vain. It is true that the way of life in South Africa has changed and, to keep pace with day to day demands, we have unfortunately adopted a course of imitating the habits and customs of older nations which, in some instances, have become unfit in body and soul, and which, in some instances, have become unwell, not to use the word “sick”. For example, it has become second nature to us to entertain business friends to a luncheon lasting from 12.30 to 2.15, through which close on two valuable working hours are lost. It has become practice to stand anchored to the spot for two or three minutes waiting for a lift when one could simply have taken one or two flights of the stairs. I am afraid it has also turned us into a generation of clock-watchers; we anxiously watch the clock to see when the next appointment is due, when the bells are going to ring or when the office doors are going to be locked. I think it is necessary for us to realize once more that we should not fail to appreciate one of the cheapest forms of recreation. It can still be interesting to estimate the distance one has to go, to reach one’s destination, and to determine with metre-long paces how good one’s powers of estimation are. It is not necessary to take any notice if it is said of us “small things amuse small minds” when one knows how many steps there are between the various floors of a certain building. Sir, but when one thinks of the value physical fitness has for a nation as well as the dangers inherent in physical degeneration, we have and ought to have great appreciation for what the department is already doing in promoting fitness by means of regular participation in sport and regular activities aimed at achieving this end. A start was made with the national fitness scheme in 1970, and in this regard I want to quote to you the following statistics, which speak volumes: Almost 800 000 persons took part in the first phase, the Spring Walk; to date 37 600 persons have run along in the second phase, Run for your Life; in the third phase, Swim for your Life, the purpose of which was to promote fitness and decrease the incidence of drowning, 48 372 persons received awards in as short a period as 1½ seasons; in the fourth phase of recreational gymnastics, as many as 168 persons have been trained and as many as 89 clubs, with a membership of 3 247, are functioning. So, there are approximately 900 000 persons who do more than pay lip service to get themselves fit. Sir, the latest phase in particular, Walk for your Life, lends itself to participation by all of us. May we also make a plea in this House for our people to make use of this offer by the department. Sir, there are also many other spheres in which we can improve the fitness of our people through this department. One of the spheres in which, in my opinion, we have the opportunity, not only to become fit but to promote thrift, is cycling. We ought to make more use of the bicycle. In the same way as we spoke in the past of “Swim for your Life” and “Run for your Life” or “Walk for your Life”, we may perhaps use the term “Pedal and Save for your Life”, for if we use the bicycle, one of the healthiest means of recreation, we may render a double service to our people. But, Sir, we cannot forget that the demands of today have resulted in time becoming and always being an inhibiting factor, and in view of the fact that there are so many people who are bound by routine and office hours, people who do not have the opportunity to change for exercises, I should like to know whether an investigation cannot be instituted into the possibility of designing a recreational exercise for these people by means of which their muscles could be exercised for 10 to 60 seconds at an incline, followed by complete relaxation, so as to keep the muscles supple and promote the proper functioning of the various metabolic processes of the body. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Rondebosch described the Nationalist sports policy as a centipede with so many legs which are all out of step. I could not help thinking that this was very applicable to the speech that we heard from the hon. member for Johannesburg West, because his first leg, club level, is going to be segregated—in other words there is going to be apartheid. His second leg, provincial level, is going to have multi-provincial sides or national sides and his third leg, international level, is going to be a mixed or integrated side. Sir, if that is not a lot legs out of step, then I do not know what is; in other words, it is a mixed salad. Sir, the Department of Sport and Recreation has been very active in encouraging national fitness schemes and in trying to encourage international teams such as the Robins XI to visit South Africa; it has been very active in promoting tennis, squash, boxing and even model power-boating at international level. It has granted medals and made a lot of money available to local authorities—R1¼ million. I think that the department has had some measure of success in promoting general fitness; we have had some notable world-times and performances in athletics, and notable performances in golf and boxing. But it is ironical that all the efforts to make this bumper sports cake will fail until the baking of merit selection is put into the ingredients. Our problem is that colour selection denies a fully representative South African side as well as free and complete international competition. The latest Lions tour has shown us how quickly sports standards drop behind through lack of international competition. Now we have this position of uncertainty and I should like to refer to two clubs that come from my town, where we have a very fine sense of fair play and a great sporting tradition. The two clubs are the Aurora Cricket Club in the second division cricket league, and the other is the Collegian Harriers, which runs the Comrades Marathon. On 5 October 1973 Proclamation 288 was issued in an effort to prevent the Aurora playing multiracial cricket. This failed but Aurora has shown that colour can mix quite sucessfully on the sportsfield, as the All Black side showed and the French side showed when they brought out Bryan Williams and Bourgarel. Now, sportsmen are wondering about this hypocrisy. On the one hand there is every effort to starve the local talent in regard to Aurora for instance, yet on the other hand the Government is falling over backwards to allow overseas Blacks to visit South Africa. My second example is the Comrades Marathon where we have the greatest long-distance race in the world. A demand was made for the inclusion of Black entrants, and on 30 May, a day before the race, the Secretary for the department, Mr. Beyers Hoek, made a statement and said no objection would be made by the Government if the club applied to hold a multi-national event, provided more than two overseas competitors took part. However, this is the dilemma. One club went mixed and was whistled up, and the other club elected to stay White, and the Government immediately said, “Mix it”. This is like playing a game of rugby where everyone wears a different jersey so that you do not know who your opponents are. Sir, sportsmen have had enough of this hypocrisy and this inconsistency. Look at the latest move. Ahmed can now play cricket in our provincial Currie Cup League. Does this mean, as a corollary, that a provincial South African side can have a mixed team when it plays a national side? I think you will find it does not. We are reaching a crisis. If you look at the latest Press releases you will see that we are going to have a Pyrrhic victory in the Davis Cup and there is a rugby tour that looks to be in jeopardy. Here is an article headed: “Reds crash-tackle Boks”, and it goes on to say—

Take snooker. There was a report in the Daily News to the effect that the Irish billiard authorities have barred South Africans from participating in snooker championships to be held in Dublin early next month. Drysdale had to give up his South African passport. This man who has done so much for South Africa has had to sacrifice his nationhood because he is denied the opportunity to use his talents through this country’s race policy. Sir, sportsmen have suffered enough indignities from demonstrators. They have had to sacrifice their nationality and they are isolated from competing in the Olympic competition, and White and Black South Africans are being discriminated against by this race policy in sport. I feel, Sir, that the tide of history is ready to be turned. Let the generations of the future not condemn this Nationalist Government perpetually for the opportunities they have failed to take. Allow our sportsmen and women to write their names rightfully in the book of sporting history.

I want to tell the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg North that I can well understand that they cannot understand our sports policy. The United Party and the Progressive Party which, as the hon. member for Johannesburg has said, have narrowed the gap between them to such an extent that it is impossible for one to pass even a pin through that gap, see South Africa as an undivided unit, with one nation consisting of 22 million people, while this side of the House sees South Africa as a country consisting of various peoples. This side of the House wants to give the various peoples the opportunity to represent themselves and, consequently, South Africa, from the lowest to the highest level. That is why I do not want to pursue his argument any further.

I should like to put a few matters to the hon. the Minister which I believe are in the interests of sport as a whole in South Africa. During the past three years I have made various pleas for the creation of a paper for sport and physical education, and I want to ask whether the hon. the Minister can give us an indication of the progress that has been made in that direction.

I want to tell the hon. the Minister and his department that we have great appreciation for the tremendous task they have performed in the interests of South Africa. In the past year this small group of staff members attached to the Department of Sport and Recreation—I think there are 78—achieved a high level of productivity because of their love and enthusiasm for their work. In 1972, 649 and in 1973, 1 077 projects were tackled. In respect of the number of projects offered, this small group of people pushed up their productivity by 65,95%. The number of participants they involved in the projects they arranged, increased from 35 787 to 53 794, an increase of 48,64% in one year. It is especially in respect of this point that I, along with the hon. member for Bethlehem, want to submit a few ideas to the hon. the Minister. It is in the interests of South Africa for us to have as many people participating as possible in sport in South Africa. It is often said that we are a sport-crazy nation. Can this appellation be attributed to the enthusiastic participation of our people in sport, or is it based on the large-scale and enthusiastic way in which we attend sport festivals as spectators, or is it derived from the large measure of enthusiasm with which we read the sports pages of our newspapers and discuss the brilliant achievements of our sportsmen? I think I can say without fear of contradiction that as far as sport and physical activities are concerned, we have become a nation of spectators. In spite of excellent work done by the Department of Sport and Recreation, by sport administrators, coaches and physical training instructors to make our nation aware of the necessity for participation in sport and physical activities, there is at present a very small percentage of our nation which actively participates in sport. I think the time has arrived for every South African to ask himself to what extent he makes use of his very important body from day to day. Are our daily physical activities not limited to, inter alia, handling a knife and fork three times a day to fill our bellies, exercising only our jawmuscles, lifting our elbow when a glass of Boland culture is enjoyed, striking a match so as to draw nicotine instead of fresh air into the lungs, pushing a button to get to my office on the first or fifth floor, employing a pen or sometimes only my voice to perform my daily task; and getting into bed at night tired and exhausted? In the times in which we are living our father-land cannot afford weak-kneed South Africans. Permissiveness, inflation, terrorist onslaughts, coronary thrombosis and others are the fatal diseases to which South Africa is being exposed every day. A physically weak and powerless nation is the symptom, in each one of these diseases, which forebodes death. Sport and physical activity are the mightiest weapons today, which we in this country have at our disposal, to act as an antidote to these diseases which are seeking to destroy the healthy and strong body of a dynamic South Africa. Throughout the world today we find conclusive proof that sport and other forms of physical activity can be applied for the positive promotion of national pride, greater productivity, greater spiritual and physical preparedness and the improvement of national health in general. Since we are engaged in leading the various peoples to self-determination today, sport may be used as one of the mightiest instruments to cultivate a national pride of its own in each people. It has been indisputably proved that a small percentage of our population is physically strong and healthy. This is reflected very clearly, inter alia, in our production figures. How many man-hours do not go to waste in South Africa as a result of illnesses which result from a weak physical constitution? How much more production would not be rendered possible by a physically strong and healthy and, consequently, dynamic workers’ corps in South Africa? Surely sport and physical activity can be applied as one of the best remedies, to help combat, by means of higher productivity, the inflation malady in South Africa. In its fight against terrorism, South Africa needs strong, healthy, fit and motivated young men to guard the borders of our fatherland. Every man owes making his body strong and being fit and agile not only to South Africa, but also to his family and himself. “The survival of the fittest” is a centuries-old dictum from nature, a dictum which still holds very true in this day and age and which should be a warning to us. Sport and physical education can be applied as a remedy to ensure that a motivated, fit and agile South African population will be able to deal with the onslaughts of terrorism. Sport and physical education can also be applied as a remedy to ban from our national life the sick phenomenon of permissiveness, the use of drugs, and other evils. A person who is proud of a healthy body and derives pleasure from living and working without ills and ailments, will not pollute his body and embitter his life. Has the time not arrived, particularly in the times in which we are living, to take stock of our nation’s participation in physical activities? Has the time not arrived for us as a nation to determine to what extent we are participants in and not merely spectators at activities in which bodily and physical stamina, skill and endurance play a role? A happy, safe and prosperous future in South Africa demands a healthy, powerful, skilful and motivated nation with powers of endurance. For that reason I am asking the hon. the Minister and the Government to make a superhuman effort, through the agency of the department, to make the people of South Africa, old and young, participate in some sport or other or some form of physical activity. I want to ask for a penetrating investigation to be made into the place which sport and physical recreation should occupy in our national life. The results of such a scientific investigation could form the basis, the starting point which could serve to motivate our people to become a nation of participants—healthy, strong and skilful participants who may help to build a fine future for South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, basically I agree with many of the sentiments expressed by the hon. member for Kuruman. I think that especially his idea of the possibility of an inquiry into participation in sport with a view to encouraging it among all South Africans, is undoubtedly something the hon. the Minister may go into very thoroughly.

I really want to come back to my friend, the hon. member for Johannesburg West. Today the hon. member gave us for the first time, as far as I can remember, a summary of the basic policy of the Nationalist Party as he sees it. If I understood him correctly, he said that sport in South Africa should be practised compartmentally. He said there was a basic principle of separation and every nation should practice its own sport separately i.e. a Springbok team should represent the Whites, a Protea team the Coloureds and the Leopard team the Bantu. He says that sport should be practised uni-nationally. It is very clear to me now, and I understand his standpoint.

The hon. member then dealt with the second point when he spoke about multinational events. He said …

Inter-nation events.

He said there should be inter-nation events. Now, is there any difference between a multi-racial event, a multi-national event and a inter-nation event?

If the hon. member wants to understand it, there will be a difference.

The hon. member then said that some sports are developing rather slowly. I think this is correct, but certain colleagues of mine also develop rather slowly. I am not sure whether the hon. the Minister is developing a little too slowly or a little too quickly, because I have today’s Rand Daily Mail here. I pertinently wish to bring a certain article to the attention of the hon. the Minister.

†This is what it says—

That I can believe, because my friend, the hon. the Minister, is accustomed to making dramatic announcements and giving enthusiastic performances. Therefore it is not unusual that he could have given a dramatic assurance! The first dramatic assurance he has given is that if India sends a cricket team to South Africa, a multi-racial team of South Africans will be picked to oppose them. Secondly, he said that apartheid will disappear completely from South African sport.

*I want to ask the hon. member for Johannesburg West what the difference is between himself and the hon. the Minister. According to this report the hon. the Minister said that apartheid in sport should disappear completely and that if India sends a team to South Africa, South Africa will be able to choose a mixed team to oppose them. But what does the hon. member for Johannesburg West say? He says there should be apartheid in sport.

†He says that there must be the principle of separation or “skeiding”. Then he dealt with a second point, namely that you could have peoples of different colours in South Africa taking part in “tussenvolkige byeen-komste”, some in sports which are advancing faster than others. Does that mean, for example, that the Leopards can play against the Springboks?

That is right.

May I ask the hon. member whether it meets with the approval of the hon. the Minister and whether it is the official policy of the Nationalist Party that the Coloureds as a people can play against the Whites as a people?

Of course. It has always been like that.

The hon. member for Johannesburg West also said there could be competition at international level.

†He said that “staatkundig aparte lande” may compete against one another. He said that when the Transkei, for example, be came independent a Transkeian team can play against a Springbok team but that at the moment, because the Transkei is not yet independent, it cannot play against a Springbok team.

Not internationally.

So when it becomes independent, it can compete internationally?

Yes.

I think the hon. the Minister owes this House an explanation because the standpoint of the hon. member for Johannesburg West differs from that of the hon. the Minister. What is more, I notice that my friend, the hon. member for Waterberg, is not even here!

†I want to refer to the department’s annual report. In the report, mention is made of 58 applications for a total of approximately R1,25 million in assistance by way of grants-in-aid. Of the amount that was applied for, only R120 000 was made available to nine municipalities. I would suggest to the hon. the Minister that this is wholly inadequate. Municipalities are not in a position to provide those sport amenities that are required for all the various races that live in the municipal areas. The hon. the Minister must think a lot bigger than providing a mere R120 000 out of a total of Rl,25 million applied for. The provision of sufficient sport facilities is far beyond the capabilities of local authorities; so the hon. the Minister will have to think much bigger and give much more assistance.

I want to mention specifically to the hon. the Minister the cost of sports equipment. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to make representations to the hon. the Minister of Finance to see if it is not possible for some of the duties and sales tax on sports equipment to be lifted. I had to buy a cricket bat the other day; it cost me over R32.

Is’nt that the one you made a century with on, Saturday?

No, I used the old one against the Press! A cricket ball—we have to buy them for the Parliamentary Sports Club—can cost anything between R10 and R12. This is quite beyond the pocket of the ordinary cricket club and school and I think the hon. the Minister should make serious representations to the Ministers concerned to change this position. The Minister should not only make representations with regard to cricket but on behalf of the other sports as well. I do not have time to deal with the situation as regards the other sports. The cost of sports equipment in general is sky-high at the moment.

I want to commend the hon. the Minister for the assistance he has given to some of the maritime sports. In his report mention is made of the financial assistance rendered to help with the promotion of various sports, but I want to confine myself briefly to the maritime sports. I am thinking in particular about the S.A. Yachting Regatta which is supposed to take place at Simonstown early next year. There will be over 400 small craft taking part, but there is no harbour where they can moor. There is only an open anchorage. There are very few hotels in the area and the facilities available for that international competition are at an absolute minimum. There are inadequate slip facilities with which to launch boats. This brings me to another point I want to make to the Minister. It seems to me that there is a gap in the function of the Government in that the Department of Fisheries can build harbours for fisheries’ purposes and make some of the facilities in those harbours available for private yachtsmen or for boat fishermen, but there is no body at the moment that can provide small boat harbours as such for recreational and sports purposes. And yet we have 2 000 miles of coastline. There is no Government department I know of that is in a position either to build such a convenience or to provide the wherewithal for other departments to undertake this work. I would say that South Africa could become one of the foremost maritime sporting nations in the world if only this Minister—and I believe that it is this Minister more than any other Minister who can do it—would seize the initiative and work out some formula whereby his department could take over the financial provision for the maritime sports.

In November there is to be an international game-fishing tournament which will take place in False Bay and off Cape Point. The Minister himself has been present at some of those functions and I hope that he will be present at this one. I would say that the waters around our coasts offer greater opportunities than those of almost any other country of the world, for us to become a major deep-sea angling country. But we have the situation that we just do not have the necessary facilities and I think the Minister must seriously look into this matter.

Lastly, I want to commend the hon. the Minister for the provision of funds for surf life-savers. The various coastal provinces make available funds to assist life-saving organizations. These people do a magnificent job of work and they do it on the smell of an oil-rag. I am pleased to see that the Minister is at least making some funds available for their annual events and main competitions. I would commend to him an investigation into the whole of the life-saving and surfing framework of South Africa with a view to giving far more Government assistance than has been the case in the past.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Simonstown must excuse me if I do not follow up on what he said, but I shall refer to him in the course of my speech.

I have before me a cutting from Die Transvaler of 27 September 1974 with the heading: “Too much liquor at our sport.” I am not going to discuss this subject today, but I just mention it in connection with what I had to say about alcohol the other day during the discussion of the Social Welfare and Pensions Vote. I want to emphasize that the problem of alcoholism could be discussed under any Vote that might be discussed.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of the South African sportsman, or more specifically, the South African sport enthusiasts, is that sport enthusiasts are very good at choosing teams. After all, sport enthusiasts can choose better teams than the selectors can. Because I am a good South African and an enthusiastic sport enthusiast, I looked at the Opposition’s sport policy and tried to choose an Opposition rugby team. In spite of the fact that I am a good sport selector, in spite of my good qualifications, I experienced many difficulties here. Let us, for example, take the position of left wing. I think the hon. member for Houghton or even the hon. members for Bryanston and Bezuidenhout are strong candidates for the left wing, as far as the sports policy or any of their other policies are concerned. However, in that position I prefer to choose the hon. member for Yeoville and that is not only because we South Africans believe that there should be a Jew in the team. I choose the hon. member for Yeoville because then we have the de facto leader, the de facto captain, in the team. When I came to this House, I thought it would be easy to choose the right wing. At that time I had in mind the hon. members for Newton Park, Simonstown or Maitland. However, I now see that they are very ordinary, average centres and that we do not have a right wing among them at all. There is one aspect I find very striking about this new U.P. sports policy. It applies to other standpoints of policy of theirs as well. When I came here, we spoke about Black membership of trade unions. In answer to the question put to them then, as to whether the trade unions should be mixed or not, the United Party stated that “the workers must decide”. Then we came to the Publications and Entertainments Bill. They then said that there should be control but that “the publishers must decide”. Then we came to students who were causing trouble and they said that these people should be controlled, “but the universities must decide”. Now today we are dealing with the sports policy and the de jure captain of the United Party says: “The sportsmen must decide.” Is there really nothing, then, that the United Parry can decide for themselves and for which they themselves can accept the responsibility? Must every little group decide for itself? Fortunately it is true “that the voters must decide who is governing this country”.

However, I rose today to make a request. Names such as Joe Louis, Cassius Clay and Jack Dempsey are world-renowned. There are not many people in South Africa who know who Dr. Vilonel or, say, Jac de Villiers are; but if one talks about Pierre Fourie, Mike Holt or Tap Tap 100% Makhatini, everyone knows exactly who one is talking about. I mention these examples to show how great the impact and scope of sport really is. People are well-informed about sport and sporting matters. Sport has a definite effect and impact. I just want to make mention of a survey—I think someone else is going to deal with the matter more fully—made in Soweto in which certain questions were put to many of the inhabitants. It showed that a large percentage were of the opinion that race relations were improving. They were also asked what, in their opinion, the reason for the improvement was. 25% said that it was sport that was improving race relations; 14% said that it was “improved salaries, trying to improve wages and equal pay”; another 14% said that it was ascribable to the following: “can discuss matters, share ideas, listen more to the Black man”. Smaller percentages mentioned other factors as well. The sport factor however, is regarded as the major cause of improvement in race relations in this country. It is logical that the same is true in regard to the outside world. I want to mention one other example, one that has already been mentioned today, namely the Foster/ Fourie fight. Sir, I think this Foster/Fourie fight has done a great deal to improve relations for us, not only in South Africa, but throughout the world. I feel that if 40 000 or 50 000 people sing Die Stem together on such an occasion it does South Africa a great deal of good. This brings me to my plea. Of all the types of sport, I intentionally mentioned boxing in particular. Professional boxing is not a pure sport as is amateur boxing; it is a profession, a job. Like the mineworker’s, the professional boxers’ job involves certain occupational risks. Now, provision is made in terms of section 13 of Act 39 of 1954 for the possibility of a charitable fund for this purpose. If I remember correctly, provision is made for a benevolent fund of this kind under Regulation 31 promulgated in terms of that Act. In Afrikaans it is called a “Hulpfonds”. However, this fund does not come near to being strong enough. The income it receives is inadequate. Those boxers who are no longer able to box, sometimes as a result of their profession, cannot get sufficient support from that fund. That is why my plea today is for a stronger fund, for a larger percentage of the 6% of the gate-money which the control Board takes, to be utilized for this purpose because the boxers deserve it and they mean a great deal to their country.

I want to conclude with a final thought. I see that time is catching up with me. I want to refer to the Act I have just mentioned, namely the Boxing and Wrestling Control Act. I believe the original Act was adopted in 1923. Then there was the Act of 1954, which was a great improvement and which was amended again last year. I want to plead for a change in principle to be made to that Act. The Act provides for boxing and wrestling control boards, and lays down the principle that the people who are specifically involved in sport or who make money out of it, are excluded from those boards. I think that the very people who are involved in boxing and wrestling, viz. the public who pay so much gate-money, the boxers themselves, the trainers, the managers and the promoters should have representation on the boards. I feel that those very people who are involved should also serve on the control boards. I am pleading, therefore, for an entirely different method of appointment of the boards. I am pleading for the representation of those various people who are involved, on the boards, namely the provincial boards, as well as the national board.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Krugersdorp made an appeal to the hon. the Minister in regard to professional sport. I am sure that if the responsible Minister were to effect amendments to controlling those sports, we could consider them. The hon. member for Krugersdorp started off by trying to choose a rugby team here this afternoon. I want to tell him that if our Leader who is the de jure as well as the de facto leader of this party was to choose a football side, that hon. member would be chosen “right outside.” The hon. member spoke about race relations having been improved because of the sports relationship. If that is what he thinks, I want to tell him that it it time that he went outside and had a word with some of these people the relations with whom have been improved, according to him. I want to say to him that if race relations today are improved, I hate to think what they were like in the past!

The hon. member for Fauresmith who introduced the debate this afternoon—he is not here now—appeared to be the Chief spokesman in regard to these matters. He asked whether we of the United Party wanted to upset peaceful leagues and competitions. I want to tell him quite categorically that the answer is “no”. We are not going to dictate to sportsmen what they should do. What we have in effect said is that if the sportsmen want sport to be integrated, why should they not have it? This is a question which that hon. Minister and hon. members on that side of the House have not yet answered. It is also a question which the hon. the Minister is going to have to answer just now when he replies to the debate. The hon. member for Johannesburg-West said that the Nationalist Party sees different compartments for each segment of life, namely, for sport, politics, for education, etc. I want to tell him that our hon. Leader made it quite clear here on Friday afternoon that this policy which has now been enunciated, flows from the principle of the United Party that we believe in freedom of association for the people of South Africa. We believe that no one should be forced to associate with others and, in exactly the same way, that nobody should be prohibited from associating with others, if he should choose to do so. That is why we say, with due respect to the hon. member for Rondebosch, as we have said for the past 15 years, we will leave sport to the administrators of sport and if they choose to integrate, why should we interfere? That is the question which is before this House today.

The hon. member for Fauresmith also referred to a range of international multinational sport meetings that have been held without incident. Does he know that during the whole of last season we had a cricket team playing in the second league in the Pietermaritzburg sub-union, the Aurora team, and that we had no incidents in that regard either? What are they afraid of? Is this another manifestation of the inherent inferiority complex on the part of the Nationalist Party?

The hon. member for Johannesburg West said that where international negotiations required it, we could have a multi-racial team. Is that why the hon. the Minister gave that assurance to Mr. Pillay to take to India? Does it only apply to India? If Australia wants to come here and states: “We will play you if you have a multinational team,” will the hon. the Minister give that same assurance to Australia? Let us have an answer from the hon. the Minister. He sits there sphinx-like but I am afraid there are many questions he will have to answer this afternoon. I want to warn him now that the eyes of the whole sporting world are on him this afternoon, and those of India in particular, and their ears are listening. I want to start by saying that I deplore the way in which the hon. the Minister “Dropped” his Secretary for Sport. I must place on record the fact that Mr. Beyers Hoek merely stated Government policy in his reply to the Rhodesian Cricket Union, but, of course, now that it is expedient that Jounis Ahmed should be allowed to play cricket in South Africa, the hon. the Minister overrules his Secretary. I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on the decision he has taken, but I want to make it quite clear that he has taken it for the wrong reasons. If he had taken it for the reasons which were enunciated here by my leader on Friday afternoon, it would have been fully justified, but the decision he has taken is not justified by the reasons given by him; he hides behind the technicality of a foreign country, but I want to say to him that this is still a domestic competition; it is not a multi-national or international or inter-racial competition. Does it mean, Sir, that Rhodesia can now choose any team that they wish? Can they choose Rhodesian non-Whites to play in their teams? Can they choose them to play in our rugby Currie Cup competition as well, and can the Transkei now also enter a team before becoming independent, or will we only accept a team from them after independence? Will the hon. the Minister allow them to choose their own team; will he allow them to choose a multi-racial team? Sir, why can a foreign Black play here and not one of our own non-White South Africans? Why are our own South African non-Whites excluded? They are as Brown as these foreigners who are allowed to play here. Why should a foreigner have more privileges than our own South African non-Whites? Is a foreign Black really superior to our own South African Blacks? Because that is in effect what the hon. the Minister is saying to our local people. I believe that this is an insult to our South Africans. It is indicative of the sick society in which the Minister and his party move, or else I believe it is indicative of the inherent inferiority complex of the Nationalist Party who are not prepared to face up to competition from the non-White people. Sir, I want to put this to the hon. the Minister: When a Black man travels as a member of a South African side, whether it is called a Springbok side or whatever it is called, he travels with a South African passport; or does he travel with a passport which says that he is a Black man and a member of KwaZulu or of the Transkei or of Bophuthatswana? Is he not described on his passport as a South African, and are these people not proud to be representatives of this country of ours, South Africa? But every day that hon. Minister insults every non-White in South Africa who plays sport. Sir, I want to issue a word of warning to the hon. the Minister as well. I want to say to him that those non-Whites who are allowed by expediency by this Minister and by this Government to come and play sport in this country, are insulted by the fact that they are given honorary White status only when they come here; that they are not accepted in their own right as people; that they are given honorary White status only for expediency. Sir, I want to say to the hon. the Minister that they resent it, but in the interests of sport, in the interests of personal relationships and in the interest of international relationships, they are prepared to swallow their pride, and it is time that this Minister and the Nationalist Party also swallowed their pride. Sir, on the question of the assurances given by the Minister or the assurances which are alleged to have been given by him, I want to ask him whether he gave the two assurances which are quoted in this morning’s Rand Daily Mail? I want to quote other assurances from the Sunday Times of yesterday—

Sir, I think that this hon. Minister owes not only this House and not only the whole of South Africa, but the whole of the sporting world an explanation as to exactly what assurances he gave Mr. Pillay. I want to say to him that I sincerely hope that he gave Mr. Pillay those assurances, and I sincerely hope that he meant them. I sincerely hope that for the sake of South Africa and for the sake of relations throughout the world, the hon. the Minister is going to get up here and say that he accepts the statement of policy enunciated by the Leader of the Opposition here on Friday afternoon.

That will be the day!

Sir, the hon. the Minister should get up here this afternoon and say loud and clear that we accept multiracial sport in South Africa. Sir, the whole world is listening, but India particularly is listening. The Minister must accept the statement made by my hon. leader. He must stop what has been the position up to now where decisions have been taken on an ad hoc basis. There have been ad hoc decisions in the past; there have been exceptions and there have been adjustments and variations, on each occasion to suit a particular circumstance. Sir, I believe it is time that this hon. Minister and the Nationalist Government did justice to our own South Africans. They must do justice to our own non-White South Africans by granting them their status as human beings and by allowing them to practice their sport as human beings, just as he and I are allowed to do. He must remove the insult which is given to visiting non-White sportsmen who come here under sufferance with the status of temporary Whites. He must remove that from South Africa, and he alone has the power to remove from South Africa the stigma of being called the polecat of the sporting world. I believe that if the hon. the Minister has courage this afternoon to do what he would like to do, and to do what other hon. members on that side of the House, including the hon. member for Johannesburg West, would like to do, I believe that he will get up and take the necessary steps to do exactly what I am asking him to do, that he will accept the statement made by my leader here on Friday afternoon. In this way not only will he do justice to our own people in this country, but he will gain for South Africa readmission to the international family of sporting nations.

Sir, listening to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South, I could not make out whether I was listening to one of those lunch-hour services on the Parade or to an auctioneer on the Rhodesian tobacco market. All I said to myself was that it was high time that, in our so-called isolation, we should introduce another kind of sport into South Africa, and I think we should make a start in Natal. We should make a start there with bullfights because the hon. member would make a good bullfighter among the young bulls there.

A great deal has been said about isolation. When we talk about the problems that we in South Africa are facing at present, I think that there is one matter about which we should satisfy ourselves, namely the reason for people abroad being so venomous towards South Africa. I think that one of the cardinal reasons is the fact that a small group of liberal expatriates from South Africa, such as Peter Hain and his henchmen, are the agitators in England and in other countries. Then I ask myself this question: “What is the position of a party such as the Progressive Party in that respect? I think they should tell us where they stand as regards Mr. Peter Hain and his henchmen in England. They are the people who sympathize, who identify with so many of the enemies of South Africa, in the field of sport as well. [Interjections.] Yes, they were chased out of South Africa. The hon. member for Rondebosch who spoke on behalf of the Progressive Party, should tell us what their view is of Peter Hain and his henchmen and whether they approve or disapprove of the conduct of this man—who identifies himself with the bomb murder on Johannesburg station in England, Australia and New Zealand.

Of course we disapprove of it.

Then for once we know where we stand now with the Progressive Party and where they stand in regard to Peter Hain. But why does the former leader of the Progressive Party not say so too? [Interjection.]

The word “sport” is very prominent in everyday speech in South Africa today. In the nature of the matter, some people shout “Sport, sport” because in this way they try to force the South African Government to deviate and follow a course in conflict with the traditional course which the White voters have directed this Government to follow. To these people we have only one answer, namely that they are wasting their breath. This Government will make the necessary adjustments at its own time and when it thinks they are essential

Sir, since no one has yet congratulated and thanked the hon. the Minister, I think that I, as the last speaker, should do so. I think that the Minister has succeeded in satisfying all of us reasonably well because if one considers the interest in today’s debate, then it must strike everyone that everyone is reasonably satisfied. Even the people in the galleries looked reasonably satisfied with the Minister’s handling of sport matters in South Africa. But in the second instance there is a group of people who have fastened upon sport as a swear-word.

I say that there is a group of people in South Africa who have fastened upon the word “sport” as a curse against the Government because in fact they have discovered in it an emotional weapon, viz. the weapon against all change, all adjustments made by the Government from time to time in all spheres, because they see such adjustments as a threat to their own hidebound and verkrampte attitudes and view of life. Fortunately there are also those, and they are in the majority, for whom sport as such is what is important. When these people ask that the tempo of change be accelerated, that adjustments should take place at a faster rate, or when they warn against moving too fast, adapting too quickly, they mean well because they love sport and the youth of South Africa. They have no ulterior political motives. Since those people are in the majority, they are really the people who see to also moderate opinions being formed. As with anything else, one may never make an idol of sport, either. However, it would only be a fool who would deny that sport has a very important role to play in the existence of any vigorous people. We are very proud of our cultural and industrial growth, but as far as physical recreation is concerned, I fear that we have fallen behind to some extent. It has been clear from all of today’s speeches that all of us are concerned about the fact that only a very narrow upper stratum of our South African population is fit and healthy. However, we have masses of physically unfit people. We are progressing in virtually every field, but it is disappointing to find that when it comes to the ranking lists of world sport, we are in fact falling behind. In the field of athletics, other people run faster than we do, jump further than we do, throw further than we do. The white-legged English are better at tug-of-war than we are, the Lions beat us in rugby; in fact we are slowly but surely falling behind. The view that the physical well-being of the individual is the basis of the vitality of a people as such, is as old as the hills. When one witnesses the situation in South Africa, one is almost inclined to admit hesitantly that the age of the soft South African has dawned. This must necessarily have an influence on the productivity and the military preparedness of our people. That is why it is also essential for our Government, like so many other governments, to campaign for participation by the people in sport and physical recreation.

One could say that sport does not allow itself to be confined with ease. One could say that sport reaches across borders. I want to make a few remarks about sport as something that it is not easy to confine, whether by time, distance, language, or, sometimes, by colour. As far as time is concerned, we need only look at South Africa. Our own sport heroes have in fact become part of our history. There are men in our rugby such as Frik du Preez, Jan Engelbrecht and Bennie Osier whom we shall never forget wherever we play rugby. In our cricket there are men like Cheetham, Goddard and Adcock. As far as distance is concerned, where could one find a better example than in chess, when the world championship between Spassky and Fischer took place in Reykjavik in Iceland? Most of us did not even know where Reykjavik was. Perhaps most of us had never even played chess, but the majority of us listened to the latest result on the radio. I believe that more chess sets were sold then than at any other time. Sport reaches across distance.

Where could one find a better example of sport crossing the language border than here in South Africa among our English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people? For us as sportsmen it makes no difference whether the lock who falls in next to one is an English-speaking or an Afrikaans-speaking person. In this regard our rugby, our cricket, our golf and our bowls have playêd a far greater role in breaking down language prejudices and in bringing about a better relationship and understanding between English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa than we could ever have done politically.

I do not want to say much about the colour border, but I do not believe that any of us were not proud when “Pangaman” Sekopane and “Tap-tap 100%” Makhathini won their boxing matches. The average South African is very proud of the achievements of his sportsmen. The opportunities offered by sport in this regard of cultivating a national pride as well as a national sentiment which would be ready to sacrifice everything for what is ours, is a practical realization of “ons vir jou Suid-Afrika”. The feeling of being ready to defend the fatherland can and may not be underestimated. On the contrary; it is something that should always be developed.

I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister in his capacity as Minister of Sport on what he has already achieved and on the fact that in spite of the vituperation he has sometimes let himself in for and in spite of the fact that the English Press laps up everything he says with the aim of seeing whether they cannot drive a wedge into the ranks of the Nationalist Party somehow, he has acquitted himself so well of his task that up to now they have been unable to succeed. I want to congratulate him on following a difficult path, as we know it to be, with great skill and circumspection and on the fact that he has always done this in the best interests of our sportsmen.

Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to what the hon. member for Pretoria East has said. I want to say on behalf of my party that we have no time for Mr. Hain and that we have no time for boycotts or sanctions, but at the same time I think that it is important that the hon. the Minister and his Government should face up to the reality of what is happening to this country in the world of sport. One of the hon. members talked about the British Lions, but I should think that it is most unlikely that either the British Lions or any one of the four Home Rugby Unions will come and tour this country in the future unless the steps which I shall refer to are taken. It is no longer a question of a small articulate minority such as Mr. Hain and others; the fact of the matter is that there is almost a general majority in Great Britain which objects to the idiotic, biased and discriminatory sports policies which are employed in this country. As such it is no longer tolerable even for the individual sportsman who wants to come as part of a team.

If we want to go back to the place which was once enjoyed by this country in sport certain steps are necessary. Take rugby for instance. The All Blacks do not come and the French have considerable reservations and as I have said I doubt whether the Lions will come. I also doubt whether the Wallabies will come. This is just one practical example. Take cricket for example. The MCC do not wish to come and nobody outside this country can follow the tortuous reasoning of this Government’s sport policy. As the gentlemen on my right have said, it is a series of ad hoc decisions. I would say that it operates by exception. In another discipline to which I am accustomed there is a code of thought which talks about management by exception. The trouble with this Government’s sport policy is its mismanagement by exception.

The other point I wish to make in this connection—and the hon. members over there may laugh if they want to is that if we succeed in producing a world champion in this country everybody will be proud of him irrespective of the colour of his skin. Those gentlemen over there would be extremely proud if Jody Scheckter for example were not White and succeeded in winning the world championship. Do hon. members really think that they would refer to him as coming from the Transkei or the Ciskei? No, they will regard him as a South African. This is what this country must move towards. Is the hon. member for Johannesburg West any worse off because he played rugby against people of colour or played with them in his playing days?

Colour has nothing to do with it.

It has something to do with it. Nobody in the outside world can understand why they can play with them overseas, while they cannot do so here in South Africa.

I want to make one other point to the hon. the Minister. When he comes to accept that we have reached the end of the road, as this Government will have to accept sooner or later, and we come to accept merit as the only criterion for representing South Africa in sport, I hope the hon. the Minister will get on and take the cudgels on behalf of the Black and Brown sportsmen of South Africa because they will never get to the point where they can compete fairly and squarely with others unless the facilities which are long overdue are provided. The hon. the Minister’s colleague talked about the money that was raised from private industry. He said that the first goal was to raise R500 000 from private industry. How much has he managed to spend? R36 000. The hon. the Minister is not even getting to the heart of the problem.

Mr. Chairman, let there be no doubt whatsoever about two things, and these are firstly, that race relations can improve through sport and secondly, that we want to improve them through sport. Through sport we can and we want to make friends. I have said on more than one occasion, and it is absolutely true, that sport is in fact a God-given instrument which we must utilize for such an objective. I want to say at once that this is precisely what this Government, my department and I personally, are trying to do with the utmost sympathy and understanding as far as it is humanly possible. On this occasion I again want to make the policy of the National Party in respect of sport very clear. But before doing so I want to point out, if you will permit me to do so, Sir, how important sport really is in the entire question of human relations, not only in South Africa, but throughout the entire world. I have in my hand a report of an international research institute which is noted for its excellent research work. That institute undertook this specific investigation under the guidance of a very gifted and competent international researcher. The investigation concerns “Black/White relationships in Soweto”. What do they say in the report? They say—

If one considers the entire set-up, one finds a few very interesting facts of which the House and the country should take cognizance.

†Let me quote from the report—

Using educational criteria, very much the same trend was detected—

Using employment as a criteria, they found—

What is very interesting and relevant to the subject under discussion this afternoon is that when these people were asked what they believed to be the reasons why White/ Black relationships were improving, the following appeared to be the reasons. Those who supported certain reasons is expressed as a percentage—

In other words, 9% less believed that an improvement in wages was the prime reason for the improvement in Black/White relationship. Let us look at the other reasons given:

This as against 25%—by far the majority—who believe that the reason why White/ Black relationships are improving lies in the opportunities offered in sport. I do not want to play politics on this occasion and I am trying not to do so. I want to point out to members on the other side that it is due to the sympathetic implementation of this Government’s policy that this position has been reached.

*While I am dealing with this report now, I want to state another very important point to this House by way of introduction, namely that the Bureau for Market Research has just brought out a report on the subject “The activities and interests of urban Black men and women”.

†I found it very interesting to read the following there under the heading “Watching sport”;

Spectator sports favoured by men very interested in watching sport in Soweto: Soccer—88,9%; Boxing—19,8%; Tennis—4,9%; Golf—2,5%; Softball—2,5 %; Rugby—1,2%; Baseball—1,2%; Athletics—1,2%; Cycling—1,2%; and Cricket—less than 1%.

Soccer is at this stage of development, therefore, by far the most sought after sport in Soweto.

It is the poor man’s sport.

The hon. member must give me a chance. This is the result of proper and probing research, and it is not what I am saying. Bound up with this is an extremely important fact, viz. that when one discusses sport—this is the reason for my making this point—it is absolutely essential for the Government that has to accept responsibility that this matter is dealt with the greatest measure of knowledge and with the greatest measure of expertise. I want to mention an example. I was not aware of these facts. With the greatest of interest I helped the Robins XI to play in Soweto. Consequently they played against a Xhosa team in Soweto. I do not know whether this was correct, but the newspapers reported that fewer than 300 people went to watch that game. This was out of a total of one million people. We were all surprised and all that I want to say is that the hon. gentlemen on the other side who discuss this matter so readily are nowhere to be seen at any of the sport administrators’ conferences which I attend. Nor do I see them at the sport functions which I attend, and I attend a great many. When they discuss these matters so lightly, they must understand that one should at least get hold of the facts. One has to proceed with great circumspection, especially when one has to accept the responsibility, otherwise one finds oneself in very strange situations.

If we look back over the past year against this background, I can honestly say to this House that, although there were problems, there was also orderly progress and improvement in the development of the sports policy. There was successful progress. I can honestly say that this progress has been in the interests of all people in South Africa, and has been under good control. In addition, I can honestly say that there were no incidents at any of these international multi-national presentations. The Secretary to the department will agree with me that there were really very few problems.

An hon. member on the opposite side—I do not even want to mention his name—said here that we were isolated, and commented very sharply on that. I am forgetting his sharp comments now, for I assume that he did not mean them in that way. But what are the facts of the matter now? When I have furnished the facts now, that hon. member can decide for himself, when it is said that India’s eyes and also those of the outside world are turned on South Africa, whether he made a contribution in the interests of South Africa here this afternoon when he made those statements. These facts cannot be disputed. This is the year 1974. In 1973 we had the South African Games, which was a very important meeting. Some hon. members on the opposite side are speaking now of South Africa’s isolation. Visits to South Africa and the number of sports participated in here in 1972, was 37. In 1973 at the South African Olympic Games, it was 48. This was a record year as far as the statistics of South Africa’s participation in international sport is concerned. Then it was 48. This is supposedly the country which is so terribly isolated. Up till 31.8.1974 we had 41 visits from various sports teams to South Africa, and before the end of this year there will be at least another 14. Altogether there will therefore have been 55 different international sports teams which will have visited South Africa this year, as against 48 in 1973, when the South African Games took place. In view of this it is not very nice to speak as this hon. member did. For that reason I want to plead for a certain measure of understanding and realism in regard to this matter. Then we can make much further progress and do so more quickly, as I shall try to indicate to the hon. members in a moment when I shall try to help them to furnish guidance.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

I do not want to have my time wasted, but I shall give the hon. member one chance.

Will the hon. the Minister tell us, of all those visits by international teams, how many were fully-fledged international representative teams?

Sir, the teams representing all the different varieties of sport which came here to participate, were “fully-fledged representative teams”. Did those hon. members not see the Lions who played in this country recently? Is there anyone on the opposite side who now wants to say that this was not a “fully-fledged international rugby side”? Hon. members should not try to be funny now. You see, Sir, they do not hear the facts, but I shall furnish them with the facts. Teams representing 55 varieties of sport visited South Africa in 1974. Let us consider the number of countries. In 1972 teams from 36 countries visited South Africa; in 1973, with the South African Games, it was 44. Up to 31 August 1974, teams from 33 countries visited South Africa. Before the end of the year, at least another 14 will have been here. It will most probably be more, but I am mentioning only the minimum. This means that teams from 47 countries visited this country, as against 44 in 1973.

I come now to visits abroad. I had expected those hon. gentlemen on the other side to have told me by now that it is all very well that other teams come to South Africa, but that it is so much more difficult for us to visit other countries. What are the facts now? In 1972 there were 37 sports in respect of which visiting teams went abroad; in 1973, with the South African Games, the number was 43; at the end of this year it will be 44, more than in the previous year, when the South African Games took place. In 1972 visiting teams went to 21 countries; in 1973 the number was 25; this year it will be 28. Now, that hon. member talks about “fully-fledged representative teams” I do not find those hon. members, who speak so lightly, at sport functions. I do not find any of them there. I want to take them gently to task now for not doing so. I should like to have them there. It is pleasant and exciting and they will also enjoy it.

This year we presented five world championships in South Africa, “fully-fledged world championships”.

In what?

In trampolining, lifesaving, parachute jumping, motor sports and water skiing. For 1975-76, there is the prospect for South Africa of a further five world championships, “fully-fledged world championships”. I have here a complete list of particulars, but I do not want to take up the time of the House unnecessarily. I do, however, just want to quote to hon. members what countries are sending sports teams to South Africa. Up till 31 August of this year athletic teams from the following countries visited South Africa; Mozambique, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, Rhodesia, Switzerland, France, Austria, Italy, Portugal, New Zealand, Germany, England and Canada. I can read out four to five pages of particulars to indicate which countries sent sports teams. [Interjections.] We must be realistic. I cannot mention to hon. members opposite all the countries which sent visiting teams to South Africa to participate in sporting events here for world championships and international championships. They are too many. In addition, some of our people visited these countries. If an hon. member wants to do me a favour, he should please put a question to me on the Order Paper so that my department can compile a list of all these countries. I can give the hon. member the assurance that that list will be so long that it will not be possible for me to enumerate all the names verbally, and I shall have to furnish the hon. member with the names in writing. We must therefore be a little careful when we discuss these matters.

We want to know about official international sides.

I am coming to that. I have now proved, with the background which I have just sketched to the hon. members, that there has in fact been progress, indeed good progress under sound control and in the midst of problems which we do not deny. Hon. members opposite are experts in this sphere of problems, but so am I. The same applies to my department and to this Government. It is our task.

Why has this progress been possible? Because it rested on firm foundations, viz. on the foundation of multi-national development with the emphasis on multinationalism, which is a fact of South Africa—we cannot argue it away—but also with the emphasis on development. This is how it is going to be in future. I foresee excellent progress and development on this permanent basis of multi-nationalism. Whether those hon. members understand the sports policy of the National Party Government or not, is not my responsibility. In the second place, the sports policy of the National Party Government rests on firm principles.

So you keep telling us.

I think the sport policy of the National Party Government is simple to understand. I want to assure hon. members that according to my most pious, innermost conviction, founded on this basis of multi-nationalism, there is no sport situation, if we get away from discrimination on the grounds of colour or race—about which I shall have something further to say in a moment—which cannot be handled effectively, internationally and otherwise, within the framework of the policy and principles of the National Party. If it were otherwise, a country such as England would not be able to manage its sport matters either. On what other basis are its teams chosen if not on a national basis? America cannot but select its teams on a country-wide and a national basis. France, Germany and Russia and all the other countries in the world participate in sport on the basis and on the principle of nations and of countries. It is written into the Olympic Manifesto. It is written into world championship rules, and it is being applied in this way throughout the world. However, when we do precisely the same, our poor South Africa, then it is wrong. There is of course a misunderstanding here, and I should therefore like to deal with it again. I should like to stale the policy again briefly, and make it clear.

It is the standpoint of the Government that sound development of sport should be on a multi-national basis—as set out by the hon. the Prime Minister in 1967 and again in 1971—in the best interests of the development of physically and mentally healthy people and, in a country such as South Africa, in the best interests of peaceful co-existence of the various peoples within South Africa. Organized participation in sport on a multi-national basis also serves of course as a powerful stimulus to the physical and social development of each population group within South Africa.

When the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke on Friday—I do not want to go into the details or try to play politics here—I could not help wondering whether he saw what I saw happening last week during the international cycling tour when 300 000 people lined the road between Cape Town and Pretoria to watch the event. It was an international multi-national cycling championship, and it was wonderful to behold. I was there; I saw it, and I also attended the dinner given in their honour on Saturday evening. I want to congratulate them; it was brilliant. Sir, while the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was speaking here, I wondered whether he realized that if this had not taken place on the basis of multi-nationalism, it would not have been possible for a non-White team to participate in that competition because the non-Whites have not yet achieved the standard necessary to be able to do so.

Hon. members on that side may perhaps say now that that is my fault. My reply to that is that it is not my fault; it is not the fault of anyone in South Africa; it is owing to historic circumstances which no one was able to prevent. For that reason we say that the policy is one of development—development of the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians and, along with it, the Whites as well. Hon. members on that side who made a policy statement so easily and so lightly here, should bear in mind that the Black people themselves will tell them that that policy of the Opposition is not in their interests. I should like to know what Thabe would have to say about it. Sir, you must remember that there are 5 000 registered Bantu soccer players in South Africa. The Bantu Soccer Organization of Thabe is the biggest sport organization in the whole of Africa. I should like to know what they think of this new policy of the United Party. Sir, the Government believes the development of sport within an individual national context is a prerequisite for sound sport relations among the various population groups of South Africa, because it recognizes in the first place the identity and the characteristic qualities of each nation, and takes into account the fact that South Africa is a multinational country; secondly because it affords each sportsman and sportswoman in South Africa an untrammeled opportunity of climbing to the highest rung in sport; thirdly, because it prevents possible friction arising because of the nature, the customs and traditions of each nation; fourthly, because it affords an opportunity of competing with the best sportsmen and sportswomen of other nations in South Africa and in the world and, fifthly, because it affords an opportunity, through achievements in a national context, of building relations with organized sport bodies elsewhere in the world. Therefore the standpoint of this Government is that this pattern arises out of the natural desire of the various nations in South Africa, and that any attempt to change it, as a result of pressure from outside South Africa, or as a result of pressure with political objectives within South Africa, can lead only to harm being done to the development of sport itself and to sound national relations in South Africa, and we must guard against that. Consequently the standpoint of the Government is, firstly, that sport should be practised and administered by the various population groups on all the various levels within a national context. Sir, hon. members will observe that I have not used the word “colour” anywhere.

What about the Indians?

I shall come to that in a moment, if the hon. member will give me a chance. First let me state our policy.

Do not run away.

No, I shall not run away. The standpoint of the Government, as I have already said, is firstly that sport should be practised and administered by the various population groups on all the various levels within a national context. Sir, these nations are very proud of being able to do this. Have those hon. members ever heard of Lesotho, Botswana or Swaziland, which are independent, asking for the right to send a sports team overseas in conjunction with us? No, they are not asking for that. Why not? They are proud of their own sportsmen. Sir, I can remember how proud these Coloured nations were at the multi-national soccer match. It was contagious, and wonderful to see. Sir, secondly it is the standpoint of the Government that the national sporting bodies of the various population groups, each on the road to self-determination, should be able to enter into their own relations with similar sporting bodies of other nations; thirdly, that individual sportsmen and sportswomen should be able to rise to the highest international level; fourthly that within South Africa as well full opportunities should be afforded for inter-nation and international competition, taking into consideration the customs in South Africa.

Sir, we had international multi-national competitions in 15 sports this year. In addition there is the fact that we had seven international multi-national golf championships. We are to an increasing extent affording all these people of our country full opportunities on the basis of this principle. Fifthly: Organized participation in sport within this framework should be encouraged among all nations in South Africa. I agree with those hon. members opposite who pleaded for us to do more to establish sport facilities for the non-Whites. We are trying our utmost to do so. But I want to return the ball to their court and ask them what they are doing to contribute something to that. I want to pay tribute today to the sponsors for what they are doing in this regard. We on this side are trying to do our best, but I want to advocate that the Opposition parties on the opposite side should not merely talk about these things, but should also co-operate and assist, so that we can establish more sport facilities for the non-Whites.

Sixthly: Co-ordination on the highest administrative level among the sporting bodies of the various population groups in South Africa should be brought about. This is when one has a general umbrella body on which all the various nations are represented and their representatives are on that body to regulate international relations. I can tell you that it works very, very well indeed for all the sporting bodies which have it. They have not yet been able to accomplish this in regard to cricket and rugby, but the moment when they succeed in doing so, it will contribute a great deal to solving the problems as far as these sports are concerned as well. Then, seventhly: The development of organized sport which has to be related to the social and the political development of the respective population groups. For otherwise, even if it is with the best intentions in the world, we would in fact be hurting non-White sport which we had intended to promote. They are after all in the best position to tell us what their needs are, and they are doing so through their sports bodies, while we then have the necessary liaison and coordination through the central body, the umbrella body.

Then leave it to them.

Then, further, it is the standpoint of the Government that all the Olympic sports, as was decided by the Government of Dr. Verwoerd in 1962, may select an inter-nation team on merit, consisting therefore of the best individuals of all the nations in South Africa, to represent South Africa under the South African flag until the non-White nations become independent and then conclude their own sport relations, as Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana are already doing.

And the Coloureds?

The same applies to the Coloureds.

Can they consequently become independent?

I shall return to that again in a moment, but basically I say that the same applies to the Coloureds. We already have the Proteas, a Coloured rugby side. They may be afforded every opportunity, and all I want to say at this stage is that as long ago as 1962 it was laid down as the policy of the National Party Government that all Olympic sports in South Africa could select an inter-nation team on merit to represent South Africa, and this includes Coloureds, Bantu and everyone. This decision was taken in 1962 because the Olympic Manifesto provided that only an independent country could be a member of the International Olympic Committee—and please note, not a nation, but only a country, and because all the inhabitants of such a country should be eligible for selection to represent their country on a merit basis. This is the policy in respect of all the Olympic sports.

Then the next point in regard to policy. Of all the sports out of the 76 South African national sports in which participants compete in bona fide world championships, for example, tennis, i.e. the Federation for Women and the Davis Cup for men, and golf, i.e. the Eisenhower Cup (amateur) and the P.G.A. world championship (professional)—in all these sports in which participants compete in bona fide world championships, it is similarly possible to choose an inter-nation team on merit to represent South Africa, as the hon. the Prime Minister announced here in 1967 and in 1971, and this will be the position until those nations have become independent and have concluded their own sport relations in order to participate as independent countries in a world championship as its constitution requires, or in the Olympic Games in accordance with the manifesto of the Olympic Games. And in world sport precisely the same provision applies, that only independent countries may obtain membership while all the inhabitants of such a country “must be eligible for selection to represent such a country”.

Now, another point of policy. There are still the two remaining sports out of the 78 which are being practised. Hon. members must remember that I set out the position in respect of our policy. I think the policy is very simple. As far as Olympic and world sports are concerned, in regard to which inter-nation teams from South Africa may be sent abroad, there are only two sports out of the 78 which remain. The one is cricket and the other is rugby. As a result of the historic developments of these varieties of sport, relations in regard to them have to be maintained by the White cricket association and the White rugby board with the associations of the various ruby and cricket-playing countries, as has always been the case. The various non-White nations then have to conclude their own cricket and rugby relations. If the hon. members had been listening very carefully row to what I had said, they would be able to help themselves and help us to solve the problem in regard to cricket and rugby. But what is the basic problem? The basic problem, in its historical perspective, is that in regard to cricket and rugby the White cricket board and the White rugby board have relations with countries which play cricket and rugby. It has not yet been possible to establish a coordinating body, not for cricket nor for rugby.

May I ask a question?

You may ask me in a moment. The Government will do everything in its power … [Interjections.] May I just state my point, please? I shall then give the hon. member a chance to put a question. The Government will do everything in its power to help the South African sports which are being denied international competition to regain and to retain such competition.

†In regard to cricket I wish to state emphatically that both the department and myself are, naturally, well aware of the problems confronting our cricketers in their endeavours to gain re-admission to international cricket. I make no bones about the fact that I would love to see them back in international cricket. I have been doing my level best to assist as far as it is humanly possible; and I shall continue to do so. However, the problem is not all that simple. One cannot solve the problem simply by drawing a few lines and by saying a few magic words. If I could do that, I can assure hon. members I would have done so long ago. With regard to cricket, I have personally discussed these problems with Lord Caccia, president of the MCC, who it has been my honour to have as a guest in my home on more than one occasion, and with Sir Donald Bradman, the immediate past-president of the Australian Board of Control, who it was also my honour to have as a guest during their visit to South Africa earlier this year. I appreciate the difficulties our cricketers are experiencing. However, we are not the only people experiencing difficulties in cricket and rugby. They are also experiencing difficulties in their respective countries.

In what way?

Has the hon. member never heard of that? I say that I appreciate the difficulties our cricketers are experiencing and I would, therefore, welcome a joint discussion with the leaders of the three national associations with a view to resolving their problems. I believe their problems can be solved and I extend a cordial invitation to the three of them to come to see me so that we can see if we can resolve their problems.

Which are the three you are referring to?

The Bantu Cricket Union, the Coloured and Indian Cricket Union and the South African Cricket Association.

Talking is not enough.

I have proved that I am not only a talker.

May I ask my question now.

Yes.

I wish to deal with two aspects. One relates to cricket and the other to rugby. Would the hon. the Minister allow a visiting cricket team to play in South Africa against a fully representative side chosen in South Africa? Secondly, will he allow multi-racial, or multi-national if he prefers, or representative trials to take place in South Africa in so far as rugby is concerned?

I shall answer the last question first. In terms of what I have already explained to the hon. member and his colleagues on that side, the fact of the matter is that we have multi-national championships. Those multi-national championships can be regarded as trials, if you want to call it that, where a merit-selected side, as the hon. member wish to call it, can obviously be chosen. That is the manner in which the tennis championships were held the other day and that was the manner in which it was done in other sports as well.

And rugby?

In rugby the fact is that the Quaggas can play against the Springboks tomorrow if they want to. The Coloureds can play against the Springboks tomorrow if they want to. In soccer they play against each other and of course they can do this in rugby as well. It is in terms of our policy. There are other problems, however, why we have not had that up to now in rugby.

What are they?

Go and ask the Rugby Board. I do not want to interfere in their private affairs but there are certain problems.

But you are interfering.

While I am about it, it is the biggest nonsense to say that my department is interfering in sport. We are assisting in sport; we are a service organization. There is no specific law regulating sport in South Africa.

If I understand you correctly …

Stand up if you want to ask a question!

Order!

The hon. the Minister promised he would reply.

I shall give the hon. member another opportunity to ask a question. What is the question?

I want to ask the hon. the Minister …

Stand up!

There were two parts to the question which I put. One related to cricket, which the hon. the Minister has not as yet answered. The first part related to rugby. I merely wanted to get it quite clear that with respect to rugby the hon. the Minister will allow multi-racial games in South Africa from which a representative side could be picked.

In cricket?

In rugby.

As far as it concerns rugby I have explained the position and I am not going to repeat it. The hon. member can go and read my answer afterwards. I have explained the position already.

*As far as rugby is concerned …

What about cricket?

I have already dealt with cricket. We have certain requests from the Cricket Associations, and we are considering these. For that reason I want to repeat that I invite the bodies concerned to come and discuss the matter with me so that we can see whether we can assist them. If I have not yet satisfied the hon. member after I have finished speaking, he can put a question to me again. I shall reply to it with the greatest of pleasure. I do not want there to be any unnecessary misunderstanding.

May I repeat the question relating to cricket to the hon. the Minister? I asked the hon. the Minister whether he would allow a visiting cricket team in South Africa to play against what is called a representative side or a multi-national side or a multi-racial side—depending on how he looks at it—in South Africa, that side being selected in South Africa to play a visiting team? I have already asked the question but he did not answer it.

I have already replied that certain requests were made to me by the S.A. Cricket Associations and that at this very moment we are looking at it. I am not in the position this afternoon to make an announcement about it. As I have said, we are looking at it and, I repeat, that is the reason why I have invited the three bodies to come and discuss their problems with me. What can be fairer than that? Does the hon. member get my message now?

You have not answered my question.

As far as rugby is concerned, the Government will assist as far as possible, where international competition exists at the moment, to retain it. I want to make it very clear that the Government must do what will be in the best interests of posterity. I have no doubt at all that the Government will in fact do this. I must point out, of course, that sport is important, but that there is a price which is too high to pay for international competition. There are interests which are deemed to be higher than sporting interests, and the Government will not be prepared to make these higher interests for South Africa subservient to secondary interests. There should be no doubt whatsoever about this. On the other hand, when I say this, I realize of course—no one realizes it better than I do—that we owe it to our young people to open up wider horizons for them as far as this is possible within limits and within the framework of principles and policy. Within the framework of the policy of multi-national development it is possible to establish a wonderful future for our young people, for all the young people of all the nations in South Africa, White and non-White. We are asking all our people for their cooperation on this score.

As an example of this further development of the sport policy of the National Party Government according to the principle of multi-national development, I want to announce that the soccer association of South Africa has applied for the introduction of a champion of champions league. As is generally known, the Soccer Association of South Africa (the Whites), the S.A. National Soccer Association (the Bantu), the S.A. Soccer Association (the Indian body) and the S.A. Soccer Association (the Coloured body) all have their various separate league competitions in which, in the case of the Whites for example, Hellenic, Cape Town City and others participate. The application entails that each of these separate autonomous sport controlling bodies will, after completion of their league competitions—this applies to Whites, Bantu, Coloureds and Indians—designate a champion team which will then participate in the champion of champions league on a knock-out basis. The idea is that these matches will be held in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. The Cabinet has agreed to the introduction of such a league by the Soccer Association of South Africa which will arrange these matches in the closest co-operation and consultation with the Department of Sport and Recreation.

Then I should like to say something about Mr. A. S. Pillay, in regard to whom there were certain newspaper reports yesterday, and to whom certain hon. members on the opposite side referred. I was asked to react to that, something which I would have done in any case. I was informed that Mr. A. S. Pillay would to go India. A meeting with him was then arranged. On that occasion I enlightened him on South Africa’s sports policy and indicated that he could say in India that our policy in South Africa, as I indicated again this afternoon, is not based on discrimination on the grounds of race or colour. I have also told him that if Mr. Khanna means by apartheid in sport discrimination on grounds of colour or race, I can give him the assurance that apartheid is disappearing and will disappear from sport in South Africa.

Was that being honest?

Of course it is honest; I am not a dishonest man.

I did not say you were.

During a telephone conversation which I had with him yesterday, I told him that I gave the requested assurance to Advocate Blen Franklin, the president of the S.A. Lawn Tennis Federation, who will transmit it through the proper tennis channels by cable to Mr. Khanna and that I intend making a similar statement in the House of Assembly on Monday, 14 October 1974.

† Therefore I now wish to state that the policy of the South African Government is based on the acceptance and recognition of the various peoples living in South Africa. The whole basis of our policy, as it applies to sport, is to give all peoples the opportunity to compete in international sport regardless of race or colour. What is more, where discrimination on grounds of race or colour might still apply, the stated basis and object of our policy is to move away from it. This statement I asked Adv. Blen Franklin to transmit today to Mr. Khanna in India.

Now what is dishonest about that?

Yes, the hon. member may well ask. After the hon. the Prime Minister had, on 22 April 1961, declared himself in favour of the possible construction of an international sport centre, voices were raised from various quarters in this regard, infer alia, from the Federation for Youth and Sport. Such a centre, which would have to comply with international standards, would meet a very great need in South Africa, for when one analyses the position there are in reality few facilities in South Africa which comply in all respects with these requirements. With these great plans in mind, a committee was then appointed in 1972 under the chairmanship of an officer of the Department of Planning and the Environment to institute an investigation into the matter of finding a suitable site for the construction of such a sport centre. In the consideration of such a matter such factors as the population density of the various centres, the availability of land and the suitability thereof, the availability of water with a view to water sports and the maintenance of the grounds, as well as the accessibility of the centre by rail or by air transport, have to be taken into account. A representative inter-departmental committee subsequently went into the matter, and also investigated the availability of the recommended site, the cost of purchasing the site, and the estimated overall costs of the construction of such an international sport centre. The committee proposed, however, that a feasibility study in regard to this project ought first to be made. The Cabinet considered the matter and decided last year that an amount of R40 000 should be appropriated in the present financial year so that this proposed feasibility study could be made before a decision was taken in regard to the principle of the matter. The committee, under the chairmanship of the Secretary for Sport and Recreation, has already made considerable progress with this investigation, and it is anticipated that the committee will submit the necessary report to us in the very near future, so that this very important matter, the need for which is increasing all the time, may receive further attention.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? If the South African Cricket Board were to decide to invite a team from India to visit South Africa, would the Minister’s reply be that they would be welcome, and would he allow a South African team to be chosen on merit?

In the past South Africa had no cricket ties with India. However, if India wishes to conclude cricket ties with us, we shall consider the matter with the greatest sympathy. There need be no doubt at all about that. However, if someone were now to ask me to give a firm undertaking here that they will be able to play against a so-called “multi-racial” team in this country, this is a matter which has to be considered by the Cabinet first and a matter which could receive the necessary investigation and attention first. Surely I made this matter very clear a moment ago, in reply to a question put by the hon. member for Yeoville. This matter is under consideration with reference to a request made by the South African Cricket Association. There are certain real sport problems which first have to be ironed out. These are at present engaging the necessary attention of the Government. More than that I cannot say. The same would also apply if such a request were made by India. We shall then look into the entire set-up very sympathetically. As I said at the very outset, we do after all want to make friends and not enemies. We want to try to promote sound relations.

What does “regardless of race or colour” mean?

Precisely what it says. In what fashion is Germany, for example, practising its sport? As a country and as a nation. In what fashion is the United States of America practising its sport? As a country and as a nation. Foreman is after all the American champion. Of what? Of a country and a nation. Of what was Max Schmelling champion? Of the German nation and of Germany. So I can continue ad lib. Unfortunately I cannot remember the Russian top people. But now I say that in South Africa we have nations. We have a Zulu nation which is proud of being a Zulu nation. If “Tap-Tap Hundred Per Cent” Makhathini, who is a Zulu—one must not forget the “Hundred Per Cent”; it is very important—can become world champion, I would agree with all those hon. members when they say that the whole of South Africa would be proud of him. But, Sir, Tap-Tap Makhathini is a Zulu, and he fights as a member of the Zulu nation. The Zulu will be ten times prouder of him than any United Party man could ever hope to be, for he is a member of their nation. If other nations do the same, it is all right; but if South Africa does it, it is all wrong. For that reason I made it clear that we are moving away from colour discrimination. We have after all shown evidence of this. Now the hon. member must say to me: If “Pangaman” Sekhapane, who packs a good punch and can use either fist to equally good effect, boxes against a White person, on what basis does this take place? Where does colour enter the picture now?

But how can …

I wish that hon. member would give his brain a chance. He keeps on talking. [Interjections.] On what grounds are they boxing? Surely there is no colour discrimination. Or is there? It is then a Black man and a White man who are fighting one another. If they were to play league soccer now, would it be on the basis of colour? The Bantu are then playing against the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indian? Where is there discrimination on the grounds of colour? So I can continue ad lib. If the German nation does the same thing against the English nation, it is all very well, and if the American nation does this against the German, the Russian or the Chinese nation, again it is all very well. However, if my nation does the same thing, it is all wrong. What I like least of all is that those hon. members curry favour with these people. After all, that is not fair. They want to mar relations here in South Africa in an atrocious manner. Hon. members now want to throw open the clubs. If that hon. member for Yeoville of skin bartering fame can be blackballed by his club, in what way would this, according to the Leader of the Opposition, improve race relations in South Africa if these non-Whites were “white-balled” by other clubs? Surely that would cause race relations to deteriorate completely. All that I am advocating is that there should be a certain measure of realism in regard to this matter. Then we would make good progress in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, before the Minister sits down, may I ask him one question?

As long as you don’t refer to skins.

This is not a matter of racialism. The difficulty is that when a Black man fights in a boxing match or plays in a tennis game, we have to be able to assure the world that he can also become the champion of South Africa for so long as South Africa is one country. Can he?

Of course. If “Panga-man” Sekhapane becomes world champion, which I hope will be within the next 12 months—and I find myself in good company, because that is what Archie Moore told me was quite possible—he would in the first instance do it as a representative of his people in that weight division. But obviously, he could also be the South African champion in that weight division and the world champion at the same time.

Could I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

Yes.

Before “Tap-tap” Makhatini becomes champion of the world, can he become champion of South Africa in the same way as Joe Louis became champion of the United States?

The position is that they fight their matches within their own national context. He may become champion in his own weight division as member of that nation. That is how the Americans do it; that is how all the other nations do it, and that is also how the White nation in South Africa does it. If the possibility then exists that a White can be champion in that same weight division—this is as far as a world title is concerned—and a Bantu can also be a champion in that weight division—whether he is a Tswana, a Xhosa or a Zulu—and they fight in a boxing match against one another, there can only be one winner. Whoever wins, is then the champion.

Of South Africa?

Yes, of course. This will be the position until such time as these Bantu nations have become independent.

Hon. members will forgive me if I do not go into the questions which they put to me in detail. I have great appreciation for those questions. I can give those hon. members who put the questions to me the assurance—I am thinking for example of the hon. member for Simonstown who put questions in regard to water sports to me—that this will receive our positive attention. There is also a commission in this regard which will submit its report in the very near future. I shall give my personal attention to those questions. I thought it would be far better if I discussed policy on this occasion rather than go into details.

I want to conclude by expressing thanks on two counts. I should very much like to thank my department, specifically the Secretary to the department and his staff very sincerely for the dedicated and hard work which he and his officials are doing in the interests of South Africa. They are a small group of people who are with great sacrifice performing a Herculean task in the interests of South Africa. I want to convey my personal thanks and appreciation to him and to all our officials. I am proud of having such an excellent team to perform these tasks. Sir, you will also permit me, because this is to me a heartfelt need, to thank the Press and the Radio very sincerely for the way in which they have dealt with sporting matters during the past year. In general they did so with great responsibility. I know that this matter is not always an easy one, and that is all the more reason why I appreciate their having tried to do this in such an excellent manner in the interests of South Africa.

As far as the department, the Government and I are concerned, we will try with the utmost sympathy and understanding to deal with the entire matter of sport in the interests of South Africa. We foresee excellent progress on the road ahead, through which our sportsmen will really have the channels to be able to compete in this country and internationally.

Vote agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

This short Bill, in terms of which sections 79, 84, 86 and 92 of the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act, 1973, are being amended, merely seeks to legalize the increased pensions which, in terms of a Government Resolution, are being paid to certain beneficiaries under this Act with effect from 1 May 1973 already.

The increases in monthly pensions by the amounts indicated by clause 1 refer to White miners who have contracted pneumoconiosis in the various degrees specified by the section or who have contracted pneumoconiosis along with tuberculosis or tuberculosis alone, respectively, whereas clause 3 refers to the pensions of Coloured persons suffering from these diseases. I do not consider it necessary to take up the time of this House in giving an exposition of the various degrees of disability to which these increases have been linked, for they have been clearly recorded in the Act and we know what they are.

†Clasue 2 refers to the pensions payable to the widow of a deceased miner and every dependent child of a deceased miner, whereas clause 4 refers to a pension payable in the case of a widow of a deceased Coloured person and every child of a deceased Coloured person.

Because the various increases provided for in the Bill have been paid since 1 May 1974, clause 5 provides for the retrospective coming into operation of the proposed statutory amendments.

*Mr. Speaker, in connection with his Bill I should, in addition, just like to refer to the Budget speech delivered by the hon. the Minister of Finance on 14 August 1974, in the course of which he announced that social pensions would again be increased further with effect from 1 December 1974. To the pensioners to whom reference is made in this Bill, I just want to say that they will not be forgotten and that it is my intention to go to the Cabinet with their case as soon as possible in order to see what may be done for them in the form of further pension increases, since it has become customary also to increase the pensions in the pneumoconiosis section when social pensions are increased.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister has indicated that this Bill gives legislative effect to certain increases which have been granted with retrospective effect to 1 May 1974 to those persons who are receiving pensions as beneficiaries in terms of the Occupational Diseases and Mines and Works Act of 1973, which repealed the Pneumoconiosis Compensation Act of 1962 and the various Acts which amended it. We on this side of the House supported the provisions of the 1973 Act, and we certainly support the Second Reading of this Bill which provides for increased pensions for those persons who qualify for pensions by virtue of the fact that they were receiving the pension prior to the date on which the 1973 Act came into force, namely 1 October 1973. Sir, there are certain observations that we on this side of the House would like to make in regard to this legislation. In terms of the 1973 Act, the pension of a miner who is suffering from pneumoconiosis in the first stage was increased to R50, and provision was also made for increases in the other categories. This Bill increases that pension to R55 per month in addition to other small increases. We are pleased to hear from the hon. the Minister that further consideration is to be given to the position of these pensioners, particularly in view of the fact that social pensioners are to receive an increase in their pensions from 1 December 1974. Sir, the other aspect which the hon. the Minister referred to was the position of widows. In terms of clause 2, White widows are to receive an increase from R70 to R75 per month, and provision is also made for an increase from R29 to R32 per month for every dependent child. Sir, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to the position of these widows. We know that in terms of the 1973 legislation their pension was increased from R63 to R70 per month, and that their pensions are now to be increased to R75 per month. Sir, as the hon. the Minister is aware, these people are specifically excluded from qualifying for a social pension in terms of the regulations promulgated under the Social Pensions Act. Although the income limit under that Act is R82 per month, if the persons concerned are receiving compensation or a pension in terms of this Act, they are specifically precluded from qualifying for any further pension under the Social Pensions Act. My request to the hon. the Minister then is that their pensions should be enhanced to at least the income limit which appertains to social pensioners. It seems most unfair that these widows should be discriminated against. If a widow receives a private pension of R70 per month, she can qualify for an old-age pension of R24 a month, and as from 1 December another R5, a total therefore of R29 per month in the form of a social pension. But if she happens to receive a pension under this Act, she is specifically precluded from obtaining any social pension whatsoever. The hon. the Minister has indicated that he intends placing this matter before the Cabinet with a view to bringing greater alleviation to this group of beneficiaries. I hope that due regard will be had to the fact that these widows are at present being unfairly discriminated against. I believe that they should receive a pension which would be equivalent to the social pension ceiling of R82 per month. Even taking into account this new amount of R75 a month, the person who is getting a pension from a private pension fund will still qualify for an old-age pension of some R23 a month, whereas these widows are not allowed to qualify for any pension at all under the Social Pensions Act.

The other two clauses, clauses 3 and 4, deal with the pensions payable to Coloured persons. We heard earlier this afternoon about the question of discrimination and we heard the Minister refer to the fact that they are moving away from race and colour discrimination. That is why it is surprising to see that in terms of the legislation before us, this discrimination is to be perpetuated; indeed the gap is to be widened between the pension paid to a White person and the pension paid to a Coloured person. If one looks at clauses 3 and 4 and compares these figures with the figures set out in clauses 1 and 2, which appertain to Whites, one can see that they will receive 50% of what is being awarded to White persons. Indeed, the increase which is being granted in terms of this legislation still keeps to the difference of 50%. This in effect means, on the passing of this legislation, that in actual fact the gap or the difference between the amount of pension paid to a White person and the amount of pension paid to a Coloured person will indeed be greater. If we look at these provisions we see that the White widow is now to receive R75 a month, and the Coloured widow R37-50 a month, a difference of R37-50, whereas previously in terms of the position prior to 1 May, the White widow received R70 and the Coloured widow received R35 a month, a difference of R35 between the White widow’s pension and the Coloured widow’s pension. Now the difference will be R37-50 between the amount received by the White widow and the amount received by the Coloured widow. I hope that the hon. the Minister, in considering further amendments and in considering the position of this particular group of people who do not qualify for the compensation paid in terms of the Act passed in 1973, will at least give due consideration to narrowing the gap between Whites and Coloureds as far as these pensions are concerned. We have heard from the Government on many occasions that it is their intention to narrow the gap, and indeed the Minister of Finance in his Budget speech referred to the narrowing of the gap between pensions as far as civil pensions are concerned, and also a narrowing of the gap between social pensions paid to the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians and the Bantu. I therefore hope that the hon. the Minister will give due consideration to the narrowing of that gap rather than to see the gap increased, as will take place as the result of the passing of this legislation.

We on this side of the House support the Second Reading of this Bill because it will grant an increase to these people and it will assist them in these days of rising costs, when tremendous inroads are being made on their savings and on their standard of living as the result of inflation.

I should like to thank the Opposition for supporting this measure and to assure the hon. member who has just spoken that I shall give due consideration to the requests that he put to me. I would be delighted in both cases if I were able to accede to those two requests, which are aimed at assisting the widows better. We shall certainly give consideration to that. If we can close the gap between the Whites and non-Whites in regard to these pensions, I shall be glad. I may say that we looked at this on a previous occasion, but there were certain problems and that was the reason why we could not do better than the figures in this Bill show, but I sincerely hope that by next year we shall be able to come to this House with a better proposition in this regard.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In 1968 legislation was passed by this House to separate the Post Office from the rest of the Public Service and to place it on an independent footing in order that it might be more efficiently administered as a commercial enterprise of the State.

In that legislation—the Post Office Readjustment Act—the Post Office was given an independent financial dispensation, and in regard to its staff as well the Department was separated from the Public Service by the creation of an independent statutory Post Office Staff Board which was to perform the functions formerly performed by the Public Service Commission in respect of the Post Office.

The Public Service Act remained applicable to the staff of the Post Office, but in its implementation the Post Office Staff Board took the place of the Public Service Commission in every respect as far as the Post Office was concerned.

From the administrative as well as from the legal point of view it is desirable that the service legislation of the Post Office, which is at present contained in the Public Service Act and the Post Office Re-adjustment Act, be embodied in a separate Service Act for the department. This is what is being proposed by the Bill which is now before the House.

Much more important than the aspect of having separate legislation, however, is the fact that, after mature consideration, it is now being proposed in this Bill that the present staff body, which is an external one, be replaced by a staff management board, composed of the management of the department itself.

Doubt existed from the outset as to the efficacy of the dispensation of 1968, when the powers of the Public Service Commission as the central staff authority for a large number of departments, with widely differing responsibilities and functions, were transferred unchanged to another statutory body, to be exercised in respect of the Post Office as a single organization and as a commercial enterprise.

In fact, it soon became clear in practice that this dispensation was not functioning satisfactorily and was continually giving rise to problems.

Accordingly, both my predecessor and I appointed committees to investigate the role and functions of the Post Office Staff Board, and to recommend more satisfactory arrangements. Both committees came to the conclusion that the existing dispensation contained inherent flaws and should be revised.

It was clear to all who went into the matter that the basic cause of the problems was the conflict between the legal powers vested in the Post Office Staff Board on the one hand, and the management of the department on the other.

The primary aim and function of the Post Office Staff Board is the protection of the interests of the staff and the prevention of grievances.

In terms of the Public Service Act, however, the Post Office Staff Board is vested with much wider powers, by which it is not only enabled, but actually forced to intervene in matters relating purely to management, and which, in terms of the Post Office Act, should be handled by the Minister and the Postmaster General.

It is obvious that problems must inevitably arise where two authorities exercise overlapping powers in respect of the same organization.

Accordingly, both of the committees to which I have referred made recommendations aimed at eliminating this contradiction. The committee appointed by my predecessor reported as far back as 1969 and made recommendations to the effect that the Post Office Staff Board should be retained as an independent statutory body, but that its legal staff protection powers and management powers should be separated and that the latter should be transferred to the department. These recommendations were not carried into effect, because it was felt, on the one hand, that changes of this nature, so soon after independence had been attained, could undermine the staff’s sense of security, and, on the other hand, that it would reduce the functions of the Post Office Staff Board to such an extent that there would hardly be any reason for its existence.

The second committee, which I appointed in 1971, recommended in the main that a board be created within the management context to replace the independent Post Office Staff Board. This board was to be vested with certain statutory powers in regard to staff protection.

At that stage I decided that those recommendations, too, should not be taken any further, because I was not quite convinced of the desirability of the change. In particular, I had resolved, in a matter in which the interests of the staff were so deeply involved, to err on the side of caution rather than to incur the risk of acting rashly. In this decision I was also guided by the conviction of the present Postmaster General that only a process of evolution could eventually show whether any changes would be desirable and would serve the interests of the department and its staff, and if so, what form these changes should take.

In an interview with the managements of the four Post Office staff associations last year, I came to the conclusion that the staff no longer regarded the Post Office Staff Board as the protector of their interests. I gave critical consideration to the question of how the staff really felt about the matter. In view of the fact that the Staff Associations had a part in the recommendations made by the committee of 1971, I no longer doubted that the staff wanted the present dispensation to be changed and did not desire the continued existence of an independent statutory Staff Board. The Government considered the matter in the light of this, and decided that there was justification for the abolition of the Post Office Staff Board.

The internal Staff Management Board provided for by the Bill will consist of the Postmaster General and the Deputy Postmaster General. The existing three posts of Deputy Postmasters General are being increased to four with effect from 1 November, which will mean that the Staff Management Board will consist of five members.

The new board is in the main being vested with the powers at present exercised by the Post Office Staff Board in regard to staff matters. The decisions of the internal board will be subject to approval by the Minister and the Minister will also be able to reject these decisions or to substitute other decisions. In cases relating to a particular person, however, the rejection or substitution of the decisions will also have to be confirmed by the State President and mentioned in the board’s annual report to Parliament. This is in line with the present legal arrangements in regard to decisions made by the Post Office Staff Board and the Public Service Commission.

While the establishment of the internal staff management board will undoubtedly promote the efficient functioning of the department because it will eliminate the existing conflict of authority in matters relating purely to management, I want to emphasize that in dealing with matters which affect the interests of the staff, the question of whether the new arrangements would be more convenient or more streamlined than the present arrangements was of quite minor importance to me. The interests of the staff remain a primary consideration and the Bill therefore provides that the board is the function according to a fixed pattern laid down by regulation.

My view of the Staff Management Board is that in its function of staff protection it will be an authority which, by its active involvement in all matters where the interests of the officials are at stake, including matters which may outwardly seem to be of minor importance, by its visible and invisible adherence to the letter and the spirit of the fixed rules by which it is governed, and by its balanced and consistent actions, will inspire new confidence on the part of the staff and gradually consolidate this. There is close consultation with the staff associations concerning the regulations that are to be made, and I shall make sure that the staff associations are satisfied that the regulations will ensure the adequate handling by the Board of all matters in which the interests of the staff are at stake.

†Mr. Speaker, in conjunction with the establishment of the new internal Staff Management Board, the Bill contains other safeguards designed to ensure the adequate protection of the interests of the staff. The most important of these are the appeal provisions, which separately cover the main areas in which prejudice of the interests of individuals is possible. These areas are matters of discipline, promotions and the minor grievances which inevitably arise in the administration of staff matters.

Firstly, as regards discipline, specific provision is made in clause 18 for the manner in which minor service irregularities should be dealt with. In transferring the existing provision for the treatment of these irregularities from the Post Office Act to the service legislation, the Bill incorporates arrangements that afford the staff better protection in these matters, as well as a right of appeal to the Postmaster General which is not at present provided for. Secondly, adequate provision is made in clause 31 for appeals to the Staff Management Board and the Minister against findings of inefficiency or misconduct. The existing provisions of the Public Service Act on inefficiency and misconduct have been included in the Bill in substantially unaltered form. In both the existing and the proposed legislation, allegations of inefficiency or misconduct are subject to essentially judicial inquiry procedures which afford the staff the fullest protection.

In the field of promotions full provision is made in clause 41 for appeals to the Staff Management Board and the Minister, while clause 42 provides for appeals on the other minor matters about which individuals may feel aggrieved.

As regards conditions of service, clause 37 requires that these be laid down either in the regulations or in the staff code. Provision is made in clause 43 for formal consultation between the staff associations and the department on the provisions of the regulations and the staff code. As indicated in the explanatory memorandum which I laid upon the Table, the provisions of the existing service legislation remain as far as possible substantially unchanged in the Bill. Where the Bill differs from the existing legislation in providing for an internal staff management board and concomitant safeguards for the staff, there is no doubt in my mind that in its practical application the protection afforded the staff by the new legislation will prove to be at least equal to that which they enjoy under the existing legislation.

*Mr. Speaker, I believe that the finer details could more profitably be discussed in the Committee Stage, and I do not think I need elaborate on them any further now.

Finally, I should like to assure the House extensive consultations were held with the four Post Office staff associations on the measure, and that it has the wholehearted support of all four associations.

Mr. Speaker, the United Party supports this legislation. This Bill is most probably the final step which has to be taken by the Department of Posts and Telecommunications in order to be quite independent of any other Government body. Consequently we welcome this step, more particularly because it seems to be legislation which has resulted from an intensive study by the officials of the Post Office. It seems to be legislation which is desired by the officials of the Post Office, and if this is the case, I do not think that we in this House could have much fault to find with it. At first glance, the establishment of the Staff Management Board does not seem to be a desirable step, but when one compares the old Post Office Board with this Staff Management Board, one perceives at once that the latter will most probably be able to do much more for the staff than the old board was able to do. It is not possible to tell at this stage when the full board will meet, since there are only four persons at present who qualify as members, i.e. the Postmaster General and the three Deputy Postmasters General. However, the intention has been announced of appointing an additional Deputy Postmaster General, so that five persons would then serve on this board. This board has a membership of seven, but we have not yet been told when the additional members are to be appointed. An interesting feature of this Staff Management Board is the fact that the appointment of the members is subject to their appointment as Deputy Postmaster General or as Postmaster General. It follows from this that they will only be able to serve as members of this board while they are occupying those positions. When they have ceased to occupy those positions, they can no longer be members of that board. Here one asks oneself whether the possibility of victimization could exist in regard to this Management Board. The previous Post Office Board consisted of three members appointed by the State President. There were certain rules in connection with their appointment which gave them a certain degree of independence. Now this Staff Management Board is dependent on the Minister and if he does not like them, he can discharge them. However, a closer study of the Bill shows that this could only happen in specific cases. I do not believe that the hon. the Minister would discharge any of the members of that board without good reason.

One of the novelties in this Bill relates to the decisions of the Staff Management Board. This seems to be the first time that it will now be possible for these decisions to be taken by written consent of all the members. It will be possible to do this by circulating the decision. It would seem to me that these are decisions that have to be taken every day and that the board finds it very difficult to meet on any particular day. As a result of this, the board will find it much easier now to deal with everyday matters by means of this written consent.

†Mr. Speaker, one of the matters that does trouble us, is the fact that all the decisions taken by this board are subject to the approval of the Minister. The Minister has already told us that he will not lightly interfere with these decisions and that if he does interfere, and changes them, he will then have to report to Parliament in that connection every year. So there does seem to be a safeguard. I believe that it will be worthwhile to see whether this system is going to work before we damn it out of hand.

One of the matters that struck us is the fact that the staff associations do not have direct representation on this Staff Management Board. It seems strange that this should be the case. It is self-explanatory when one realizes that no member of this Staff Management Board may be a member of any of the staff associations. However, one believes that the Staff Management Board is composed of men who have had a very thorough grounding in the field of posts and telecommunications, particularly as regards the problems of the staff, and will be able to deal with those matters and have a very sympathetic way of dealing with questions affecting their officers and other employees. In this case, too, we on this side of the House would like to give this legislation a chance to see how it works. We are not absolutely satisfied that it is going to work in its present form. There may be quite a number of amendments necessary; but like anything else, when it is started, one has to give it a chance to see where it falls short of what one had hoped for it.

One of the matters I would also like to raise in this regard is the question of the staff code. The staff code is going to be drawn up by way of regulation. One just hope that this staff code is going to be properly promulgated to all those people whom it affects, so that they will know when they are exceeding their powers.

Finally, there is the rather odd position of the members of the present board which is going out of existence at the end of this month. As far as one can make out, one of the members of this board is now going to be reappointed in the service of the Administration. The other two are apparently going to retire. It is not clear on what basis they are retiring. It is also not clear whether they have arrived at a pensionable age, and what the pensionable age in fact is. The present legislation provides for the retirement of these persons at certain ages. I believe that there is some reference to that in this Bill before us. It will give those officers an opportunity of retiring at a better rate of pension than would have been the case had some provision not been made for them. However, I do believe that the hon. the Minister owes us an explanation in this regard. He should tell us what is going to happen to these officers, because we would hate to see them being retired prematurely without proper safeguards. On the other hand, if they are employable by the department, one would like to see them re-employed by the department and not retired prematurely.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that very good things occur fairly slowly and gradually. In all the years I have been sitting here, this is the most fruitful debate the Opposition has conducted in regard to the Post Office. I want to thank the hon. member for Wynberg for his positive approach and for the calm way in which he approached the matter. I think the hon. the Minister and his Post Office officials deserve the unanimous support they receive from this House. The hon. member for Wynberg touched on a few matters which I shall deal with shortly.

In the first instance I think that we should take cognizance of the good service rendered by the old Post Office Staff Board to the Post Office as such and to South Africa. This board was established on the adoption of the Post Office Readjustment Act in 1968. Although, as the hon. the Minister told us, the Public Service Act applied, owing to the fact that the board existed, a great deal of spadework was done. The Post Office Staff Board and the department did a great deal of fine work to draw up a Service Bill for the Post Office which, for the most part, does not differ very much from the old Public Service Act. Improvements have been effected and we now have this new dispensation, namely, this new Staff Management Board that has now been introduced. As far as the three members of the old Post Office Staff Board are concerned, the hon. member for Wynberg will note that one will retire, one will be taken into the service of the Post Office and the services of the other will be utilized elsewhere. These people will not retire. We are very grateful that their services can in fact be utilized where they are so necessary. In the report of the Post Office Staff Board for 1973-’74 the changes that have occurred in the establishment are mentioned. This establishment changed by only 1,37% in the course of that year. This Bill before us today is merely a continuation of the fine work which the Post Office and all its officials have done. If we consider the percentage by which the economy of the country has grown, then we know that the services provided by the Post Office, bearing in mind the scope of the work and the quality of the work that is done—apart from the shortage of 90 000 telephones; there must be shortages, too— are outstanding and we can see that the progress that has been made with this minor improvement in the staff, is an achievement. We are grateful that the four Post Office Associations that have come into being in the Post Office have made their positive contribution. I should like to mention them by name. There is the Post and Telegraph Association of South Africa, which sees to the interests of the clerical, administrative and counter staff, the S.A. Telecommunications Association, to which the operators and technicians belong, the S.A. Postal Association, the postmen, and the Post Office Engineers Association. After the thorough study made by the two committees, these four staff associations unanimously requested the hon. the Minister that these amendments be effected in order to place the Post Office on a proper and effective business footing. This fact, and the fact that in addition, they want to manage the Post Office as they would like it done, speaks volumes. No business enterprise can be properly managed if it still has a separate body of this kind appended to it. It is very clear to me that when they came up with that request, the Post Office Staff Associations stood with both feet on the ground and soberly considered their own welfare and the service with which they want to provide South Africa. As far as they are concerned there is only one important desire and that is that they want to be happy employees. They want to be satisfied. They want to see progress in their service. With that feeling of satisfaction in their own minds they can provide a good service with these associations embodied in the Bill before us. Reference has been made to the fact that there is an appeal to the hon. the Minister. Apparently the Opposition has some misgivings on this score. I myself have no misgivings in this regard. I think it is a very good and essential thing. In the first instance, the hon. the Minister is responsible for the entire Post Office. If he accepts that responsibility, as he does, then he must have the final say. He must have the power to veto or change or whatever it may be, the decisions of this Staff Management Board. But that is not the end of it. This safety factor which is being introduced for the staff cannot get bogged down when it is passed on to the Minister. If the Minister were to be unreasonable and refuse a request with which the people were not satisfied, then there would still be the right of appeal to the State President. This solves the problem of the hon. member for Wynberg, because it would not stop there; it would go much further yet. There is another point to which the hon. member for Wynberg referred and that is that the Minister has the sole right to appoint those four members of the Staff Management Board. This is so, and it must be so, because the Minister is primarily responsible for that, and if any of them are not satisfied, or if they object to any of their conditions of service, they can appeal through the Minister to the State President. I think that this is a very major safety factor.

I think it would be a very good thing if we were to look at clause 7 of the Bill, which provides for approval, rejection or amendment by the Minister and the carrying out of the decisions of the board. I want to emphasize subsection (7) in particular, which I should like to quote—

The matter would not, therefore, end with the State President. Over the years hon. members of the Opposition have always fought, and they are still fighting, for certain boards to be subject to the audit of the Controller and Auditor-General so that those people, on the basis of the annual reports submitted here, can be cross-examined before a Select Committee. In this case, if anything happens, it must be reported in the annual report as in the past. The report is then submitted to this House of Assembly and any member of this House then has the right to put questions in this House and discuss the matter under the Vote of the Minister; it can even be hammered out further in the Select Committee. I do not believe that we could have any safer and better system than that.

I want to let these few words suffice. I have said that we are very grateful that this matter has progressed so far. In conclusion I just want to refer to one aspect. The hon. member for Wynberg said that the staff do not have a say in this management board. It is a fact that the staff are in fact given a say under clause 43, because the Staff Relations Council is established in terms of that clause. Before 1968, before the Post Office Re-adjustment Act, the officials concerned served on an advisory committee and addressed appeals to the Public Service Commission. Since that Act came into operation, although it was not laid down as such in practice, each of the four postal associations has always had a representative who discussed the matter. What has in fact happened now is that this old custom has been recognized and is now stipulated in the Act. I think that this is to the benefit of the Post Office Staff and also to the benefit of the entire Post Office. For that reason I think that we can only convey our sincere thanks to the hon. the Minister and the Postmaster-General and all his staff for this fine piece of legislation they have brought before this House.

We in this party will support this Bill. We believe that it does in fact set the framework within which the Department of Posts and Telecommunications should be able to operate in accordance with the best business and management traditions, which one knows is the ideal of the Postmaster-General, however short they may on occasion fall in regard to this idea, and one knows for what reason. We believe that the creation of this Staff Management Board to take the place of the Post Office Staff Board is a logical and a sensible step in the development of this policy. We are not very happy with the veto powers given to the Minister in this context, but since he has to come to Parliament and tell us what he has done, presumably we will have to be satisfied.

I have just one firm suggestion to make in connection with the Staff Management Board. I believe that this House should make it obligatory that one of the six places on the Staff Management Board should go to an appointee of the four recognized staff associations. Sir, I know that this may sound a little radical—I would hate to say it sounds liberal, because that would finish it—“Klaar”—but I believe it is in line with the best modern traditions today. Everywhere in enlightened circles, in business management and at the universities, management is drawing closer to labour, i.e. it is growing closer to the staff all the time, and the voice of the ordinary employee is insisting to be heard, and I think should be heard. I believe that here is an excellent opportunity for this great Department of State to give to the rank and file Post Office workers a feeling that they are sharing in the administration of the Post Office, that they have some responsibility and some say. It will give them, I believe, a sense of identification not only with the decision-making processes, but with the broad general direction in which this department is moving. It could, I believe, make a very real difference to the general attitude and approach of the average Post Office worker.

I would also like to suggest that provision be made on the Post Office staff relations council for the voice of people of colour. There are tens of thousands of non-Whites working for the Post Office, and it is quite obvious from what we have heard in this House during the last couple of weeks that the role these people are going to play is going to become increasingly important. I believe that it is not only fair but psychologically important, too, that not only the four existing staff associations should be represented. The voiceless and often the most under-privileged people should also have a specific voice and should be seen to have some kind of a voice in these matters, and feel that they are rot being neglected and overlooked. I hope in this regard, if I may say so, that the Post Office management will do whatever they possibly can to encourage the establishment of staff associations for people of colour and to give recognition to a body of this nature. This seems to me to be something which will become increasingly important in the years that lie ahead.

There is just one provision which worries me and that is the one which lays down that only South African citizens will be appointed permanently to the staff of the department. One can understand the broad trend of this, but I am just wondering what effect this will have on the recruiting campaigns which the Postmaster-General is sending overseas, and rightly has to send overseas. Has any assurance been given to people who have been brought to this country about permanent employment, or have they been told that they will not be appointed permanently to the staff of the Post Office unless they become South African citizens? Well, this is fair enough, but we know that it takes years for this to happen. Is this not going to have some kind of effect on people still to be recruited? What is more important, is it fair on those people unless, as I say, some assurance has been given before they came here? There are one or two smaller matters, but I believe that they can be left to the discussion in the Committee Stage. But in broad outline we believe that this Bill is one which should be welcomed.

Sir, as the hon. member for Wynberg has said, we fully support this Bill. Having been through it, I cannot find anything which is disturbing. However, I have had complaints from members of the Post Office staff. Perhaps I should not call these complaints, but signs rather of disquiet and worry amongst the staff about the way in which it is proposed to deal with the three members who are now retiring from the board. We have noticed from the Bill and the explanatory memorandum that one of the members is being appointed to a post in the department, and I presume, since nothing else is said in the explanatory memorandum, that he is being appointed in probably a higher capacity in the department; he might even be appointed as another Deputy Postmaster-General. But it is in regard to the other two members of the board that there seems to be a sense of disquiet. It appears that these two gentlemen are now going to be prematurely retired. As far as I can understand, neither of them has reached the age of 60 years. This means that they will have a few extra years’ service credited to them for pension purposes, and I suppose that any general increases in pay which are granted in the meantime would also be credited to them for pension purposes. Sir, one wonders why they should get this special treatment. Section 8 (11) of the Post Office Readjustment Act, No. 67 of 1968, provides that if a member is not re-appointed as a board member, he can be re-appointed as an officer in the department at such salary as the State President may determine; so it seems rather strange that these gentlemen cannot be reemployed. The State President has the power to re-employ them in a lower capacity or a higher capacity or in any capacity for that matter, and I wonder why these gentlemen if there is no work available for them in the Post Office Department, cannot be transferred to another State department, where they could perhaps be given an equivalent grade or salary. They could even be transferred to the Public Service Commission in view of their experience of this sort of work. Sir, when I did raise this matter of preferential treatment for pensioners under the Vote of the Minister of Social Welfare, when I raised the matter of the “Old Guard”, as they call themselves, that is to say, those men who went on pension before 1969 as opposed to men who went on pension after 1969, the Minister told me that I was being unreasonable to expect the department to treat those who had signed up under the previous pension agreement differently from those who had signed on since. He said that I could not expect the Government to discriminate between pensioners, and that the Government had to pay these old pensioners extra money to which they were not really entitled. But now there seems to be a complete reversal, a complete somersault. I know that the Minister may argue that he is empowered to add four or five or six years to the pensionable service of these gentlemen, but if he is empowered to do so, it does not say anything about it in the Bill. I shall be glad, therefore, if he can tell us why they are suddenly feeling so solicitous about these two gentlemen. It is rather strange. One can only presume that they have given exceptional service to the Post Office and that therefore they are being treated differently. One wonders whether they have been exceptionally good or exceptionally bad, with the result that they cannot be re employed. It is rather amusing when you come to think of it that if a man gives exceptionally good service or exceptionally bad service, he is given an exceptionally good pension. If the hon. the Minister could elucidate this little point, we would have no problems at all in supporting this Bill.

Sir, the hon. member who has just spoken put certain questions to the hon. the Minister concerning the retiring members of the existing staff board. The Minister will of course reply to the hon. member’s question himself.

Sir, I just want to deal with this amendment bill for a few moments. It is illuminating that under the Post Office Re-adjustment Act of 1968, the position of the Post Office within the broad framework of the Public Service was revised and it was placed on its own two feet as a State-owned business undertaking as far as its content and its management was concerned, as opposed to the ordinary Government department. Under the Re-adjustment Act of 1968, machinery was established under which the entire postal structure of the Post Office could move away from the pattern of the rest of the Public Service and eventually establish its own postal structure that would fit in with its needs as a business undertaking. This has in fact been done under this particular Re-adjustment Act. Now, a number of years later, we find that a number of events have occurred in the sphere of the Department of Posts and Telecommunications. We see that the old staff board of 1963, which was not an autonomous board, was replaced in 1968 by the existing staff board, which was an autonomous body. Already this was a forward step in the development of a more effective management of a post office moving towards independence. Under this amending Bill, a new management board is now being introduced. What we have here therefore, is a further streamlining of a new autonomous staff board for the purpose of extending the autonomous management of the Department of Posts and Telecommunications. Sir, this amendment bill is really a logical consequence of the extension of the scope of the activities of the department. The assets of the Post Office have doubled over the past five years. Its operating expenditure has doubled: the telecommunications trunk line network has tripled; telecommunications maintenance has more than doubled; capital expenditure has shown a five-fold increase; major additional services have been added: e.g. planning, maintenance of buildings and the television network, and since the establishment of the existing Post Office Staff Board, buildings to the value of more than R6 million have been bought over the past five to six years. In other words, the scope of the activities of this department has also increased and expanded tremendously. We find that the most important characteristic of this Bill is the very fact that all the relative provisions of the existing Public Service Act are included, retained and adapted in it. The Post Office is becoming an autonomous department which no longer falls under the Public Service Act, and the existing external Post Office Staff Board which has become ineffective, is being replaced by the more streamlined Staff Management Board which consists, basically, of the top management of the department. In this whole process we find that all the existing conditions of service and privileges of the staff are not only retained but are in fact being extended. I believe that this Staff Management Board will function extremely effectively for the very reason that it is made up of the top management of the department, those people who are concerned with the basic key decisions that affect the whole essence of the department and its management. Here, then, we have a top management consisting of top internal officials. There can no longer be friction between this specific management and an external body, no overlapping can take place and there need be no division of forces. What we have here is a management that has in fact been established at the request of the staff associations, and we are dealing here with a Bill that meets with the approval of the staff associations. In other words, in essence, it meets with the approval of the huge and comprehensive staff of the department. We are also dealing here with members of the management board, which consists of top officials, who will be able to perform the necessary functions of this board in the normal course of their activities and their duties. I think it is very illuminating that the powers of the existing Post Office Staff Board in regard to staff matters are being taken over as they stand; not reduced, not affected, but in fact extended through the more comprehensive protection afforded by the establishment of more comprehensive systems of appeal for the benefit of the staff. It is for that reason that clause 31 is of great importance. Apart from all the protection against findings of inefficiency and misconduct under the Public Service Act of 1957 which the staff enjoy at present, additional provision is being made so that an official whose appeal is, perhaps, dismissed or only partly allowed by the board may now appeal to the Minister in the prescribed way. The hon. members for Wynberg and Parktown said that they feared that the Minister’s powers in this regard may be too wide. It is quite right that virtually all the decisions, with a few exceptions, have to be approved by the hon. the Minister. The Minister is also able to delegate the majority of his powers of approval, but there are also certain important decisions in regard to approval that have to be taken by the Minister and in respect of which delegation is entrenched, in other words, where he alone can take the decision. It is of importance, too, that where decisions are taken by the board in regard to a specific person and rejected by the Minister the matter does not just end there. The position must also be confirmed by the State President and after that the board must submit a report to Parliament as well. In my opinion we have here the very maximum protection the staff could ever ask for. What is also important, is that this management board cannot just do as it likes, either. That is why this Bill provides for a very wide set of regulations to regulate their actions, their activities and their way of doing things. Specific procedures are laid down in accordance with which these decisions have to be taken and under which action must be taken. We know, too, that in our top management we have people with the ability and the integrity to perform this task in the sole interests of the department and its management. We know, therefore, that the decisions which the top management of this management board must take are determined by the prescribed regulations. Nor can these regulations be summarily approved. They are promulgated by the Minister, the State President must approve the regulations and the House of Assembly and the Senate must also grant their approval to the tabled regulations. The former chief spokesman of the Opposition, the former member for Orange Grove, made an important statement in that year, i.e. 1968 (Hansard, Volume 23, Col. 4537). He objected in the strongest terms to the fact that—

That is the existing staff board—

He objected to the Minister having to approve this in consultation with the Minister of the Interior. He then continued—

Here the Opposition said in that very year, viz. 1968, that this was one of the big weaknesses in the legislation, viz. that two Ministers had to give their approval. What they wanted was that approval should have to be given by one Minister only. That is precisely what is being provided for in this Bill.

In the second place, the hon. members for Wynberg and Parktown felt that the staff associations had no direct representation on this Staff Management Board. I believe that the solution to this is given very clearly in clause 43, in the establishment of the Staff Relations Board. On the one hand we have the management board and on the other, the staff associations. How is one to have a link between the two? Here we have the solution in the form of the Staff Relations Board, that is made up of nominees of the board as such and nominees of the staff associations as such. This Staff Relations Board that is being established, has extremely important powers. They have to make recommendations and furnish advice in regard to conditions of service that apply to the entire administration. They are the people who have to furnish advice in regard to the proposed regulations and they are the people who can suggest provisions of or amendments to the proposed code relating to conditions of service. In other words, these people have a cardinal interest in the establishment and the development of the whole structure in so far as it affects the protection of the interests of the department.

To conclude, that is why I believe that we have before us a Bill that is a major advance and that can only be an asset to the department. We have here a summary and a consolidation of the existing service legislation, with the streamlining of the board, its method of action and its effectiveness, with the retention of the existing staff privileges plus the inclusion of additional protective privileges in favour of the staff, and a Bill that is in the interests of the department.

Mr. Speaker, it is pleasant to rise during moments of sweet reasonableness and on a point where we all appear to agree, namely, the establishment of the Staff Management Board. I concur wholeheartedly with my colleagues on this side of the House, but I must say that I do not concur with the hon. member for Parktown. Before I proceed further, I trust that the hon. member for Durbanville will forgive me if I do not reply to what he has had to say although there is a comment which I shall make a little later.

I too am very conscious of the people of colour, but I feel that we must be factual when we start giving figures. The hon. member for Parktown said that there are tens of thousands of people of colour working for the Post Office, but I want to say to him that we do not even have one ten thousand. As at 30 June 1974 there were exactly 9 047 non-Whites working for the Post Office and I believe this is more or less the position now unless the hon. the Minister has made some dramatic changes since then. I merely say this because I want to disprove the point the leader of the Progressive Party made by saying recently at a meeting in Durban that the United Party representatives elected in Natal were below average in the last election …

Order!

Anyway, that is neither here nor there, but he should have a look at his own party averages.

In regard to the Staff Management Board, we recognize that it is obviously going to serve all staff members, both Whites and non-Whites, of the Post Office. The current situation—I am a great man for playing with percentages—as regards the staffing as reported in the last Post Office Staff Board report is that there has been an increase of 1,375%—the hon. member for Sunnyside also referred to it —over the year. This merely proves how small an increase there has been in the number of personnel while we all recognize that an improved service was rendered to the community over the year. I should like to highlight a few pertinent facts, however. In the administrative area the percentage increase in the number of Whites was 5,2% while that for the non-Whites was 30,2%. In the clerical area the increase in the number of Whites was 0,16% whilst it was 164,6% in the case of the non-Whites. The increase in the staff in the professional division, who we assume are all Whites, was 4,4%. I do not want to bore the House with figures, but I merely want to say that, across the board, the number of White personnel increased from 41 699 to 41 795, an increase of 96 persons or percentage-wise, an increase of some 0,02%. The non-White increase, however, went from 8 453 to 9 047; in other words an increase of 594 people or percentagewise an increase of 7,03%. So when one looks at the increase of 1,375% in the overall pattern, it can be a little misleading. We must break it down into the White and non-White groups. This is obviously a trend that will continue and it is indeed gratifying to know that these people are going to be looked after under the conditions resultant upon and appertaining to the establishment of the Staff Management Board.

I would like to deal briefly with clauses 47 and 48. It is reassuring to read clause 47, in terms of which “the Minister may, on the recommendation of the Board, make regulations relating to” the matters mentioned in the various paragraphs of clause 47(1). In other words, the onus is not placed on the Minister alone. He obviously accepts the fact that he will make these regulations only on the recommendation of the board which he has established. In paragraph (h) the Bill speaks of—

In paragraph (j)—

And in paragraph (k)—

There are many more matters in connection with which the Minister may make regulations, but only on recommendations of the Board.

Clause 48, however, causes a little concern. It states—

Then again various paragraphs follow. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this code is going to be published in good time, whether all employees will be told of this code and what it will mean to them, and how the hon. the Minister intends promulgating this code. I feel that these are questions the hon. the Minister could possibly reply to at this stage of the Bill. I do not query this with any measure of disquiet because I am sure the hon. the Minister has answers for us, but it is just that we would like to hear what he has to say in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation for the special support this measure has received from both sides of the House. This is really encouraging for the staff who worked on it and for the staff associations who gave it their attention. The hon. member for Wynberg, who was the Opposition’s chief spokesman, referred inter alia to the fact that in terms of this Bill, the board that is referred to must consist of seven members. Here the idea is to make provision for further expansion in the future. As I have already said, the board will consist of the four Deputy Postmasters-General and the Postmaster-General himself. That is five members altogether. With an expanding post office one does not know what the position might be in the future and this Bill makes provision for seven members so that it will not be necessary for me to ask for an amendment to the Act later on in respect of a single point such as this. In the meantime we shall let the present number suffice.

The hon. member also referred to the aspect of possible victimization. Whereas the previous staff board was appointed by the State President, the position is now that the Minister has the power to retire the members. He can, of course, only retire them after ordering a proper investigation. As you will see, such an investigation must be undertaken by a magistrate. This would be a matter which would also be thoroughly discussed in this House. At the moment, therefore, a number of checks are built into the Act. One has the protection of public opinion and of this Parliament in that regard. In my opinion the elements of Parliament and public opinion ought to have an effect on any Minister sufficient to ensure that he will not lightly abuse his powers.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, both the hon. member for Wynberg and the hon. member for Umhlanga referred to the question of the staff code. As a matter of interest I could just mention that the staff code serves as the department’s handbook as far as staff administration is concerned. Both the code and the regulations will be finalized and announced after consultation with the staff associations. The code is not published in the Government Gazette, but it is circulated within the department. The staff associations, of course, have it at their disposal. The regulations lay down the procedure of the board; they will be drawn up in the light of the experience we have gained with regard to the board. In other words, they will not be drawn up immediately. We shall first have to see how the board operates and on that basis will be able to take the necessary decisions. But those regulations, too, will be drawn up after consultation with the staff associations.

Then the hon. members for Wynberg and Parktown referred to the non-representation of the staff associations on the management board. In fact the hon. member for Parktown pleaded for representation. Sir, it is not desirable to comply with a request of this kind, and this is so for two reasons: Firstly, the participation of the staff associations in the management board would mean that they themselves would become part of the management, something that is certainly not compatible with normal good administration. The second is a practical problem. This is that there are four staff associations, and it would be a question of determining which one should be given representation. One could perhaps reach a compromise by alternating the representation annually. However, the continuity would then be broken. Hon. members will realize that it is important that there be continuity on such a board. The members of the board sit with the top officials of the department, who know their work. If new members were to be appointed every year, I fear that for that reason they would not be able to hold their own. The need expressed by the hon. member, namely that staff associations should be able to participate to a greater extent in these joint discussions on these matters pertaining to management, is in fact satisfied by their participation in the Staff Relations Board. As the hon. member for Durbanville has indicated, the latter board is the body in which the staff associations can play their part. It is provided in the Bill that the Staff Relations Board will consist of equal numbers of official representatives and staff association representatives, and will have the task of advising the Minister and the management on all staff matters. In that respect, therefore, the staff associations do in fact have every opportunity of talking and thinking matters over with the management with regard to recommendations and deciding on them.

However, then the hon. member for Parktown also asked that non-White staff members, of whom there are 20 000 in the department, should also have representation on the relations board. The position is, in the first place, that up to now they have not asked for this, because the channels between them and the management operate exceptionally effectively. However, I want to concede that as they develop—some of them are still very much in the beginning stages as far as staff associations are concerned—this question of their participation in the relations board will in fact have to be given thorough consideration.

The hon. member also referred to the question of immigrants who, in certain respects, are excluded from immediate appointment.

Permanent appointment.

Yes. This of course is entirely in accordance with the Public Service Act, which provides that an immigrant must first be naturalized before he can be permanently appointed. This measure is therefore fully in accordance with that Act. I can give hon. members the assurance that we inform our immigrants fully about this position. They do not come here under a misapprehension about the fact that they must first be naturalized before being given a permanent appointment. However it will interest members to know that these immigrant workers, although they do not receive permanent appointments, share all the other benefits and privileges. For example, they even share in the housing benefits of permanent officials. Practically speaking, therefore, they are on the same footing as the ordinary officials. However it is a requirement of the Public Service that they have to be naturalized before receiving a permanent appointment.

There is therefore no discrimination in this regard?

No, because if that were so, we should not have got them and they would perhaps have returned to their country of origin.

The hon. member for South Coast put questions in regard to the three members of the Staff Board, e.g. in regard to what was to become of them and how we were treating them. I now have pleasure in providing the necessary information. At the moment Mr. Venter is still chairman of the Staff Board and is retiring on pension with five years added service, which means that he can count on the maximum pension which such an official is entitled to. In addition, he can receive his full leave gratuity which can be as much as 365, if he is entitled to it. Lastly, and this is probably also the most important point, the Government has appointed him as chairman of the South Atlantic Cable Company to replace Mr. Botes who is retiring shortly. From 1 November, then, Mr. Venter will be chairman of this cable company, which, as it happens, is holding a congress here in Cape Town next Wednesday. Mr. Jordaan, the other member of the Staff Board, is becoming the fourth Deputy Postmaster-General. Mr. Dreyer, the third member of this board, was also offered a deputy post-master-generalship, but turned it down and chose to retire on pension. Five years of additional service are being granted to him, too, which means that he, too, gets his maximum allowable pension. As far as the leave gratuity is concerned, the same applies to him as applies to Mr. Venter. I can only say that these three gentlemen accept the situation with the fullest understanding and in a very good spirit and that the Post Office takes its leave of them in a very good spirit.

The hon. member for Sunnyside referred to the importance of clause 7, which provides for staff protection in that if the Minister were to reject, amend or substitute a decision of the board, it would have to be reported to the State President and mentioned in the annual report. It could then be critically examined in Parliament. This aspect of staff protection touched on by the hon. member for Sunnyside, which affords the Port Office officials the widest protection, is in fact one of the outstanding characteristics of the legislation. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say this this is really a foundation stone of the structure of confidence between management and the staff associations.

In conclusion, I want to express the conviction that this legislation is really the product of a good understanding and cooperation between the management and the staff associations. As such, I believe, this legislation will in fact become known in the course of time as model service legislation. I want to express my sincere thanks for the contributions and the support which the whole House has given this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Could the hon. the Minister clarify the position in regard to the six members who will be appointed to the Staff Management Board? They are six senior men but I notice from the Bill that the board shall not delegate the powers delegated to it …

Order! The hon. member may only ask a question.

Sir, I am merely asking a question. Does the hon. the Minister not think that as the board may not delegate its functions, the carrying out of the work of the board will interfere with the normal work of these senior officials? Does the hon. the Minister not think that he is overloading these staff members with work?

Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is a question of overloading them with work. These are the ordinary personnel arrangements which they have at present. I can only say that it is not a question of six members, but five since it will be the Postmaster-General and the four Deputy Postmasters-General. They, of course, will arrange their own programme while I as Minister will only determine the first meeting of the board. Thereafter they will be the people who will have to arrange their own schedule as to future meetings. As they are efficient men, I think we can credit them with the ability of being able to arrange matters in such a way that there will not be an inordinate overloading.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, the speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister in introducing this Bill some days ago did not take us much further than the explanatory memorandum. I do not think that he gave the House any more information than we already have had from the explanatory memorandum. The hon. the Deputy Minister gave us some detailed description of the clauses of the Bill but that was as far as his speech went. I listened very carefully to the analysis of the Bill by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. As I understood him, his main objection to the Bill was that it is an omnibus Bill, “a hotch potch of a Bill”, if I may quote him, encompassing amendments to some 13 different Acts. He felt that the Bill could more conveniently have been divided into four or five different Bills, each of which could have had a readily identifiable principle which could then have been accepted or rejected at Second Reading. Mr. Speaker, I sympathize with the hon. member’s views; I sympathize with him in the dilemma in which he finds himself, although I must say that I do not find it quite as traumatic as he does, and this is mainly because I have become used over the years to rejecting Bills like General Law Amendment Bills which have been introduced year after year and against which I have voted year after year even though they have contained many clauses amending many Bills and perhaps no one identifiable principle. But, Sir, if one makes it a rule to object to the Second Reading of a Bill because it contains even one clause which is so objectionable as to make the rest of the Bill unacceptable, then I think one is able without very much difficulty to reject the Second Reading of a Bill such as the Bill we are now discussing. I remember voting year after year against a General Law Amendment Bill put to the House towards the end of each session and which contained many clauses which were perfectly acceptable, but which contained one clause which as far as I was concerned made the Second Reading completely unacceptable and that is the famous Sobukwe clause, which appeared year after year in a General Law Amendment Bill. I remember that in 1966 and 1967 we again had Bills which contained amendments to many existing Acts but which again contained one objectionable clause, and one therefore voted against it. The most notorious example, of course, was the 1963 General Law Amendment Bill which amended very many Acts but which contained a 90-day detention clause and therefore one voted against the Second Reading. I am glad to see that the official Opposition is now adopting the same tactics on a Bill which is an omnibus Bill and which, as the hon. member pointed out, is amending at least 13 different Acts. Because three or four of the clauses of the Bill are repugnant, they are now going to vote against the Second Reading, and I must say that I fully agree with these new tactics. They are tactics which I personally have followed over the years. I suppose this is part and parcel of the whole new regime of the United Party; it is part and parcel of their new sports policy and their new labour policy. I heartily welcome the change of tactics. I think hon. members of the United Party will find that it pays in the long run to vote against the Seconded Reading of a Bill even if there is only one really objectionable clause in it. The hon. member did say that this was an omnibus Bill; that it was very difficult to decide what was the principle of the Bill, but that there were several objectionable clauses and that therefore they were going to vote against it at the Second Reading. [Interjections.] Well, I have his speech here.

Read it again.

The whole of it? No, it was not that good.

Order! Will the hon. member please come back to the Bill?

I will do so, Sir, to the great relief, I am sure, of hon. members of the United Party. As I have said, I shall oppose this Bill at the Second Reading and I shall oppose it without any of the trauma evidently felt by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana on behalf of the United Party.

Where is your dynamic opposition? [Interjection.]

Sir, I have a good half-hour and I am going to make use of every minute of it. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana found clauses 3, 8, 16 and 25 to be objectionable, and he was uncertain about the acceptability of clause 23. I want to say right away that I agree that these clauses are objectionable and that they should be opposed, with the exception of one which I will come to in a moment where I am not quite so certain about the reasoning of the hon. member.

Clause 3, which is the banishment clause, was of course, and has been, a long-existing power which the Governor-General and later the State President could exercise under the Native Administration Act of 1927. Under this power the Governor-General, and later the State President—which means of course the Executive-in-Council, which is the Cabinet—could banish either tribes or individuals from any area and remove them elsewhere. Now, although this is a long-existing power, the manner in which is has been used in practice has changed very considerably over the years. It used to be used very circumspectly. It used to be used to remove tribes from water sources which they were perhaps destroying or selling, but of recent years it has been used for a different purpose, and that is to remove politically troublesome people from their tribal areas and banish them to remote areas. Over the years many people have in fact been banished, some for as long a period as over 20 years, and some have died in banishment. But I am very glad to say that this power appears to be used less and less frequently now, and at the present stage, according to an answer given to me by the hon. the Minister, there is only one person who is left technically in banishment. His order has not been withdrawn but has simply been suspended, and this is the only person we now have in banishment under the 1927 Native Administration Act.

Now, the amending Bill proposes that instead of this power being exercised by the State President, i.e. by the Executive, the Cabinet, it is now to be exercised by the Minister only, and I am not about to vote in favour of giving the Minister this power. I cannot of course comment on the original powers taken under the 1927 Act, but I certainly am not about to give the power to the Minister to use against individuals whom he might find troublesome in the tribal areas. I doubt of course whether the Cabinet ever went through the formality of examining these cases in great detail. I rather imagine that the Minister used to arrive at a Cabinet meeting and place the names before the Cabinet as a matter of formality, but I do not think we even ought to remove this semblance of formality surrounding the very serious step of banishing a man from his home area.

I agree that clause 8 is an objectionable clause, because this gives any officer the power to implement the far-reaching Urban Areas Act which governs every waking, and I might say sleeping, hour of every African living in an urban area in South Africa. The hon. member for Sandton, I think it was, when he spoke on this Bill, mentioned some of the wide powers that are governed by the Urban Areas Act, and therefore it is not necessary for me to repeat any of these examples. The White Paper talks of the delegation of routine powers and duties under this clause, but this amendment in fact allows for the delegation of all the wide powers and duties which are presently exercised by the Minister, and if this amending Bill is passed they can be exercised by any officer in the department acting under the Minister’s authority. I do not believe that that is desirable.

I am not quite as worried about clause 16 as the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. This is the clause that allows an entrepreneur investing in a homeland to be indemnified by an investment corporation in respect of damage against which he could not be insured or recover losses in a court of law. I do not think that this necessarily advertises, as the hon. member said it did, that there are certain unsafe areas for investment. I think maybe it does just the contrary. I am not sure, and I am open to conviction either way, but it could equally be interpreted as meaning that if the Government is prepared to take this risk, then therefore the risk is not very great indeed. This is simply an interpretation of the clause. It may be objectionable. As I say, I am not as concerned about it as the hon. member. He was also worried that it could be construed as an encouragement to nationalization. I am not sure that I can go along with him there either.

I am concerned about the clauses relating to citizenship. I believe that citizenship should be entirely a matter for the homelands Governments, but in fact clauses 18 and 19 when passed will take this decision out of the hands of the homelands Governments and will lay down certain rules whereby the right of citizenship in the homelands can be governed in the future. Therefore I agree that these two clauses are objectionable.

Finally I want to say, as someone who has long been concerned with prison conditions in this country, that I am worried about clause 23 which allows the transfer of prisoners from Republican prisons to homelands prisons. It may well be that conditions there, as the hon. member for Umhlatuzana pointed out in his speech, are worse than conditions in the Republic and that the regulations are not the same. I cannot give the same unqualified praise to the Republican prisons that the hon. member for Umhlatuzana was able to give, but since the Leeuwkop case he, too, might have changed his mind in this regard. Although I have seen the inside of several Republican goals, I have not seen the inside of any of the homelands goals and for all I know they might very well be inferior. What bothers me is the ability of relatives to visit people who are imprisoned and who have been transferred to homelands goals. They may, for instance, be a long way from relatives in urban areas, more particularly if the person concerned is a permanent resident of the urban areas. Secondly, I am worried too about the effects of this clause in that under the Urban Areas Act section 10(1) an African can lose his right of residence in the urban areas if he has been convicted of an offence which carries with it a sentence of imprisonment of more than six months without the option of a fine. What worries me is that if such a man has been transferred to a prison in the homelands, and is then released, and if it is found that he has in fact lost his right to be in the urban areas, he is going to find it even more difficult to reenter the urban area where his family may still be living. These are matters which the hon. the Minister might be able to clear up when he replies to the Second Reading.

Because this Bill contains a number of clauses which we find objectionable, and not many clauses of which we can wholeheartedly approve, we on these benches will oppose the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the essence of the argument advanced by the hon. member for Houghton also amounts to the objections raised by the official Opposition in this regard. What is striking, of course, is that when one examines the legislation, it is clear that this legislation is aimed at streamlining matters. The purpose of the legislation is to bring about better administration and more rapid development of the homelands and to stimulate the economy in the homelands. It is surprising, however, or perhaps not so surprising, that the hon. member for Houghton does not see any of these positive aspects in the legislation, but that, in her customary manner, she merely makes a negative contribution in pursuance of a few ideas she tried to set out here. It is so striking that, while in the normal course of events she makes a fuss in every session about all the evils and the unsatisfactory conditions in our prisons here in the Republic, she is now objecting to the transfer of prisoners to the homelands. This actually goes to prove that conditions here are not really so bad.

I want to draw attention to a few clauses, and in this regard I refer to clause 4 of the legislation before us. In his legal system and in his code, the Bantu is only aware of natural persons. In his set-up, the other type of juristic person is quite unknown. That is why the judgment which was pronounced by the Supreme Court in this regard was quite correct. The fact is, too, that law-suits between a juristic person, as is being created here, and a Bantu, or a natural person, have to be conducted in our courts in the Republic because no machinery exists in the Bantu legislation, as we have codified it, in terms of which an ordinary person may address a juristic person, or vice versa. This also applied in respect of Bantu estates, fixed property and assets in Bantu estates. This meant that it sometimes took a long time before a Bantu estate could be satisfactorily administered, merely because the one could not address the other and almost no legal procedure existed in terms of which this could be done. In my own experience it has sometimes meant that fixed property which was registered in the names of Bantu could not be administered and was sold in execution, to the detriment of all involved. Consequently it is essential for a measure of uniformity to exist in respect of Bantu administration of justice. From the legal point of view there is a tremendous difference in some respects between the Bantu legal system and Roman-Dutch Law as we apply it. I want to point out, for example, that there is no such thing as prescription in Bantu judicature. A claim may be followed up after 50, 60 or even after 100 years while, according to our administration of justice, the Roman-Dutch legal system, it becomes prescribed after a certain period of time. I also want to point out that there are other points of difference. According to the Bantu code is it possible for a Bantu to take more than one wife while, as hon. members know, this is not allowed by our Roman-Dutch legal system. Aspects which then arise are the solemnization of such marriages, their dissolution and the implications arising from this. This also applies in respect of indemnification and jurisdiction, because it is normally accepted that the Bantu Commissioner is competent to determine any amount, without any restrictions. For that reason I believe that the clause which makes provision for this, clause 4, is necessary in order to achieve uniformity in these matters, so that action may be taken against Bantu, and not only against natural persons, but also against juristic persons such as companies, etc.

I also want to refer to clause 11. This clause deals with the sale of Bantu beer. I want to support this measure wholeheartedly because the position up to now meant that prescribed areas around local authorities sometimes extended over a distance of up to 20 miles. This created an untenable situation since it created a vacuum in that area in which no Bantu beer could be distributed. It therefore resulted in a great deal of illegal smuggling in Bantu beer in these areas. For that reason I think that this is a useful clause.

If we consider the official Opposition’s standpoint in connection with this legislation, it is clear that as far as the merits of the legislation are concerned, there is in fact very little objection. The main objection as confirmed by the hon. member for Houghton, is that, according to them, the legislation contains various principles which are being presented in one piece of legislation in Parliament. I want to point out, however, that all the principles contained in this measure deal with Bantu affairs. I want to point out that all the clauses deal exclusively with Bantu administration, that they are therefore related to one another and properly grouped and subdivided into what is in fact a suitable form of presentation. I think it would have been far more confusing if this legislation had been presented in the form of 26 pieces of legislation, as suggested by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. When one considers the objections of the official Opposition, it means briefly that we should not waste the time of Parliament with 26 pieces of legislation. In actual fact the objections of the official Opposition are chiefly aimed against clauses 3, 8, 16 and 25. Clauses 3, 8 and 25 all deal with the question of delegation. If we consider the provisions of clause 3, we see that they do not amend the existing legislation in any way. The existing legislation will remain firmly in force as it has been since 1927. All that is being done here, is that instead of the discretion or power being left in the hands of the State President, it is now being transferred to the Minister. I do not think this could cause any problems. I think the Minister is in fact, the proper person to whom this power should be delegated. He is the person who deals with this every day. In fact, even if it should be left in the hands of the State President, it would still be task and responsibility of the Minister to take action in this regard. I therefore think that this objection is not properly motivated. The reference that has been made here to the so-called “banishment clause” and to “civil rights”, as the hon. member for Sandton has done, is, in my opinion, merely an attempt to wrest the whole position totally out of context. I cannot see why such a fuss is being made about it. As far as clauses 8 and 25 are concerned, these merely deal with the routine powers which are being entrusted to the Minister in this regard, powers which in my opinion are appropriate for the hon. the Minister to have.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana also raised certain misgivings in respect of clause 16. He said in that regard: “It may be an open invitation to be careless.” However, I think that this statement is unfounded. I think that this clause in fact ensures better control. The provision specifically states that it is subject to the Minister’s approval, that it only applies in respect of a risk which is not insurable, and that it only applies to a right in respect of which no compensation could otherwise have been recovered. It is always subject to the judgment of the Minister, and only the actual loss in terms of a provision laid down by law can be recovered in this regard. So I think that this clause will in fact improve the position, that it cannot have any adverse effect whatsoever. I cannot see that there can be any objection to corporations receiving this right. Corporations are, in any event, subject to comprehensive control in terms of the provisions of Act 46 of 1968, as well as the South African Bantu Trust.

I do not want to say much about the question of citizenship. Clause 24 relates to the transfer of powers. Much was made of the delegation of powers. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana objected to the transfer of transport certificates and pointed out that it might possibly result in problems in our relations with a neighbouring state. However, this cannot cause us any problems whatsoever, because we have exactly the same position at present in respect of our relations with our neighbouring states. Motor transport licences and vehicle licences are issued and respected on a reciprocal basis, for example between Swaziland and South Africa. It can therefore cause us no problems.

For that reason I think that this is good legislation. I do not think anything can be said against it. It will stimulate the economy and promote the smooth administration of the homelands. I therefore take pleasure in supporting it.

Mr. Speaker, the two speakers before me, the hon. members for Houghton and Ermelo, dealt with certain aspects of the Bill. The hon. member for Houghton dealt with those aspects which she found objectionable and told us why she was going to vote against the Bill. The hon. member for Ermelo, on the other hand, told us that he thought the Bill would bring about better administration, an improved economy and greater development for the country.

I would like to tackle this Bill from a completely different angle. I have grave doubts that we should be debating this Bill in this form at this moment in time. I think that, if one really needed proof that this Parliament is in fact completely losing touch with what is going on in the southern tip of Africa, one only has to listen to the way in which we have in fact been debating this Bill. In my opinion, it is nothing short of incredible that in this day, when events around us are changing with such rapidity, when the attitude not only of the world but of our own Brown and Black people, the people in our own country, is hardening against us, we, the Whites, are so insensitive to these circumstances which in fact are going to determine our very future, that we calmly debate, as if it were our own divine prerogative, what in fact is a matter which concerns the Black people exclusively. Not only is it incredible, but I think that we are in the process of endangering the credibility of the White man by doing this. As such, of course, we also endanger our own security in South Africa. By this thoughtlessness and insensitivity, we are in fact alienating those moderate Black leaders whose goodwill and co-operation are so important to us in these times. If we legislate for farmers we take the trouble of finding out how farmers in fact feel about such legislation. If we legislate for doctors, for pharmacists, for publishers, or for any other recognized group or community, we find out what their opinion is. But when we come to legislate for Blacks we literally have a black-out. Suddenly we assume that what we feel is right is in fact all that matters. We are in the process of debating a Bill which exclusively concerns Black South Africans. This Bill deals with vital matters concerning the Blacks, for example, their citizenship, personal freedom and freedom of movement, who will have the power to exercise vital decisions which affect their everyday way of life, but it appears that nobody has even bothered to ascertain what the Black man feels about all this. The hard facts are simply that the days when Whites can take it upon themselves to debate among themselves and decide among themselves the future of the Black man, are in fact over. If we carry on doing this we do it at our own peril, because the Black man is no longer prepared to accept being excluded from the decision-making machinery which determines his future. Not only is he no longer prepared to accept it, but he in fact resents it bitterly. He resents the fact that every aspect of his life is determined exclusively by this White Parliament: Where he may live, what job he may do, what he must go to gaol for and how long he must stay once he is there, what he may read and whether he can see Last Tango in Paris. Every facet of his life is decided exclusively by this White Parliament. Here again, with this Bill, this is exactly what we are doing. We are making decisions which are going to concern him deeply.

I think it is time that we understood what the attitude of Black leaders is to the laws which we make in this way. Their attitude is very simple. In their opinion, if Whites make laws to impose upon Blacks and if Blacks have no part in that decision-making, those laws are laws designed by Whites for the benefit of Whites and any benefits that they as Blacks get out of those laws are purely side benefits for which they owe the White man nothing. They feel no moral obligation to abide by those laws or to be thankful for any benefits they might derive from them. They are our laws as they see them and not theirs and they resent the imposition of them. We on this side of the House have continually warned of the dangers of making laws for people and not with people. This principle has been a major plank in the policy of this side of the House and it is therefore necessary for us, in the interests of all South Africans, and most of all in fact, those of the Whites, to express our grave concern and displeasure that the Government has seen fit to come to this House with a far-reaching Bill concerning the intimate affairs of the Black people without in fact having canvassed their support for these measures and then coming to this House explaining what their feelings are about these provisions.

There is much in this Bill which we on this side of the House believe is in the interests of the Blacks, but that is not the point. The point is, who are we to assume that it is in the best interests of Black South Africans? What right have we morally to take it upon ourselves to decide in a total vacuum what is right for Black South Africans? The fact that we are today in the process of doing exactly this, is in my opinion a disservice to White South-Africa. It is a step which nullifies any benefit or goodwill that we could get from Black South Africans as a result of some clear, desirable measures which we are debating here today. The tragedy is that whilst the opportunity has already been created by the Government to consult with Black leaders over the formation of a practical form of machinery which could be used to advise the Government and this House on measures such as the one we are debating today, the Government has not found this either necessary or desirable. How different would it have been and how beneficial for all of us if the hon. the Deputy Minister could have come to the House with an endorsement of his Bill by a body formed on the initiative of the Government which had the confidence of the Blacks. We could then have talked meaningfully and intelligently about the Bill instead of having to grasp in a vacuum.

When will you stop reading and start making your speech?

In these times South Africans of all colours must strive to find each other. Understanding and sympathy for the other man’s aspirations and prayers is a prerequisite for stability in South Africa. [Interjections.]

Order!

This can only be achieved by meaningful consultation and the resultant consensus that will come from it. I think the Government is going about this business in totally the wrong way. I think that the hon. the Deputy Minister should, in fact, seriously consider withdrawing the Bill at this stage in order to find out what the opinions of the various Black governments to the various clauses contained in the Bill. He will then be able to bring it to this House and tell us what the feelings of the people are who are going to be governed by the Bill. If the Government does not do that, or if the hon. the Deputy Minister finds that impossible as he probably will, he must realize that every clause we oppose and every clause we support and every amendment we move is moved in this vacuum because we do not know what the people concerned in fact feel about the legislation we are dealing with now.

This Bill deals with certain issues which are very, very vital to the Black people, issues like citizenship. Citizenship determines a person’s identity and we are being asked to decide upon vital matters without knowing what the Black leaders themselves think about them. When we talk about citizenship, we are dealing with something which I think can become a very emotional and a very sensitive issue in the not too distant future. I think it is an issue in respect of which the Government certainly does not have the wholehearted support of the Black leaders. There is no doubt in my mind that whilst we in this House can decide who is going to be a Xhosa, who is going to be a Zulu, what political rights a Xhosa is going to have, what political rights a Zulu is going to have, we are doing this at our own peril to a certain extent because the Black leaders themselves have great distrust in the motives of this Government for bringing about this legislation. Many of the Black leaders feel that this legislation is being brought in by the Government in order to … [Interjections.]

Order!

Many of the Black leaders feel that this legislation is being brought in by the Government in order to divide them on the basis of “divide and rule” in order to give them an identity which they feel is not relevant in their own political and social sphere so that they can be denied what they feel is their just right, viz. to be called citizens of South Africa. We have statements by various Black leaders decrying the right of this Government or Parliament to decide in what political set-up each man must find his identity. I should like to quote an article which appeared in the Rand Daily Mail—

I would like to put it to the Government as follows: If there is such distrust in the ethnic groupings which we are deciding in this Bill, if the very leaders of the people see these as a means of oppression, surely we can only expect tremendous problems in the future. I would like to put a couple of questions to the hon. the Deputy Minister and get his reaction to them. Let us assume that when the Transkei takes independence, thousands and thousands of people who, according to the laws which we are deciding tonight, are Xhosa citizens, do not want to forfeit their Xhosa citizenship but wish to retain their South African citizenship. What is his reaction going to be to that? Because those people will not find themselves bound by any clause that we may pass here today. Sir, let me put another point to the hon. the Deputy Minister. If at some future stage a Xhosa Government takes the decision …

Order! The hon. member must become more relevant.

Sir, I am talking to clauses 19 and 20 of the Bill. If some future Xhosa Government were to decide that all those people who are in fact not resident in the independent Transkei would in fact cease to be citizens of the Transkei, in terms of their law, what would the hon. the Deputy Minister do with these millions of people who are living in our urban areas? [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must stop interjecting now.

Sir. I do not think that this is a theoretical argument because I think that the moment independence comes this is going to become a reality; I think the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to find himself with thousands of people who are not prepared to accept the political limitations that this Bill which we are debating here will place upon them. Secondly, I think he may find, if a Government like the Transkei Government finds at some stage in the future that it cannot look satisfactorily after these people because they are domiciled in our urban areas and because their children are here and their children’s children are going to be here, that they will decide that as they cannot be responsible for them, those people will no longer be citizens of the Transkei or that they will not give them citizenship because they are not citizens in terms of the rules which they will apply.

The hon. the Deputy Minister may then find himself with millions of absolutely stateless people here in South Africa without any policy at all to deal with them. Sir, I think the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Government must think twice before they decide in Pretoria which Black man is going to belong to which community, and that they must first of all sort this matter out with the various Black leaders, and, having sorted it out with the various Black leaders, then come along to this House and show us that the Blacks themselves have confidence in the way in which this law is being brought about and that they are prepared to accept that in terms of this law people are what the law says they are. If he does that, then I think this law is meaningful, but as it is now I do not think it means anything and I think it is going to create tremendous problems for us in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I move on now to my third point, and that is clause 16, in terms of which the Government offers guarantees to indemnify people against losses which they might suffer. I do not think that the hon. the Minister will find us on this side of the House unreasonable in going along with him on this. I think we feel that at the present moment the provisions are a bit wide. For instance, the clause talks about “loss”. What actually is “loss”? Is he thinking of safeguarding people against capital loss or against capital loss plus the loss of potential profits? How does he define the word “loss”, because it could have a very wide meaning? Secondly, what exactly is he thinking of giving protection against? Is it financial risk or political risk? What kind of risk has he in mind? I think if he could come to us with provisions which are needed for the development of these areas he would not find this side of the House unreasonable.

Mr. Speaker, there are a few other points that I would like to touch on. The one is the principle which is contained in this Bill of devolving power from this body, which is basically a White Parliament, upon other bodies which are Black Parliaments. This is a principle which is absolutely in line with our thinking on this side of the House and it is something which we absolutely support. We do not believe that this House can continue for ever to hold powers of “baasskap” over people; we believe that these powers should be devolved upon other bodies, and we are very pleased to see that this process is in fact starting here, albeit in a small way.

Even in this respect I think it is important that in doing this, just like all the other things, he should be able to come to the House and tell us that certain things are going to be done at this stage and other at some future stage. He should let us know how this development is being planned not only for now but for the future. We on this side of the House would in fact be very pleased to see within the foreseeable future many of the powers that we have in this House, our powers of baasskap and domination over other race groups, devolve from this House onto the other relative authorities.

Sir, we are making tremendous progress. The hon. member for Randburg, who has just resumed his seat, told us that he subscribed to clause 24. This clause provides for the transfer of certain legislative and administrative powers to the homeland governments. This is tremendous progress. Some time ago I read the debates which took place in this House in 1971 on the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act. The Opposition fought that Bill tooth and nail, fought it so vehemently that they moved “that the Bill be read this day six months”. The hon. member for Randburg comes along tonight, however, and tell us that he subscribes to the transfer of these powers to the homeland governments. The hon. member for Randburg built the major part of his speech around one matter, and that one matter was a false premise. The hon. member proceeded from the assumption that no consultation had taken place with the Bantu. Tonight he comes along and states here that we are making legislation for people instead of making it with them. But the assurance was nevertheless given here that the amendment of the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act, which the hon. member opposed, was subject to consultation with the Bantu.

Who said that?

There are a whole series of measures in clause 24 in connection with the transfer of certain powers. The homelands governments were undoubtedly consulted in connection with the transfer of these powers.

Which homeland governments?

All of them. Sir, I want to tell you that I find the action of the Opposition absolutely amazing. When we came to this House two-and-a-half months ago, there was only one cry which resounded like a refrain in the debates, and that was change and renewal. The hon. member for Houghton set the example and the hon. member for Randburg and the Young Turks followed that example and set the pace in the United Party, whence the cry issued. Now, one should not like to say so out loud, but it even seems to me as if the Government took that refrain to heart, for in looking at the Order Paper here, I see a whole long series of measures, and each one of them spells renewal. In this Bill no fewer than 13 old Acts are being amended. There are renewals and adjustments. The Government had a look at those old Acts and decided that we were living in the year 1974 and had to adapt ourselves to new situations. Sir, you will not believe me, but the Opposition that raised this cry are the people who come along here tonight and ask for the old ways and tell us that measures which were drafted by their fathers in 1927 are good enough for us today. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Sandton referred to delegations, the transfer of powers. There are two categories of these transfers, i.e. transfers from the State President or the Cabinet to the Minister, and transfers from the Minister to a lower level, to senior officials.

Do you agree?

Yes, I agree. The hon. the Deputy Minister who introduced this Bill told us that there were 133 matters which were now being delegated to a lower level, some in terms of existing legislation, others in terms of certain amendments which are being effected to regulations, and still another group which will be amended if this Bill is approved. The Minister of Bantu Administration and Development does not have 133 tasks he has to give attention to. If this were the case, we would have rendered him unemployed tonight. He does not have 1 033 tasks to give attention to; he has infinitely more. Since I have been a member of this House, I have been greatly impressed by the magnitude of the task this hon. Minister has. When the hon. the Minister took over this portfolio some years ago, barely half a dozen departments were being managed by homeland governments. Today there are 60. This afternoon we spoke about mining and sport, but in the case of the homelands all aspects of this nature are dealt with by this hon. Minister. What is more, they are multiplied eight times over. When one has such a comprehensive task, how does one cope with that task? One copes with one’s task by working harder. A few days ago I spoke to a senior official from this department. He did not mention it for the sake of boasting—but he told me in passing of the beautiful sunrise he had witnessed that morning. He sat there in his office watching the sun rise. I know that the sun rises fairly late in the Cape, but I asked him whether he had been at the office at that early hour. He replied, yes, he had been at the office fairly early that morning. He was at the office as early as 5 o’clock. He said, however, that he was not at the office quite so early every day. Normally he only reaches the office by 7 o’clock. I told him that ordinary people are never at the office by 7 o’clock. He then said that they had a Minister who set the pace and they had to keep up. However, there comes a time when one cannot work any harder, when one’s day contains no more than 24 hours. Then it is physically impossible to do any more and then the answer is: Delegate. What this Bill lays down, is that the Minister is being placed in a position to acquire ten men to do his work instead of his doing the work of ten men. I cannot understand the opposition of the United Party towards this transfer of powers. The vast majority of the powers that are being transferred, are being opposed by the Opposition. I cannot altogether understand their argument.

I am not surprised.

I cannot understand their argument in respect of the transfer of powers from the State President to the Minister. The hon. members on the opposite side told us that this hon. Minister is unacceptable to them. The hon. member for Sandton spoke the week before last. Let me just say in passing—I am speaking to him as one back-bencher to another—it is not in good taste when a back-bencher speaks in those terms of a Minister who has already proved his worth.

Poor thing! [Interjections.]

I think the hon. member for Durban Central, who is also a mere junior in this House, is exhibiting the same questionable taste. As a junior I want to tell him that we as back-benchers should know our place and know how to conduct ourselves towards our seniors.

Stop trying to make yourself a good boy with the Minister.

That applies to Harry too.

However, I come back to the argument. They say this hon. Minister is unacceptable and every other hon. Minister is unacceptable, but now the decision of one unacceptable person is unacceptable to them, while the collective decision of 18 unacceptable persons is quite acceptable to them. The power of the Minister to delegate to a lower level, a senior official … [Interjections.]

Order! If hon. members do not exercise more self-restraint from now on, I shall be obliged to call them to order individually.

… has also been opposed by the Opposition. The same Minister who was a moment ago unable to handle certain delegations from the State President, has now become quite able to handle matters and is no longer permitted to delegate matters to senior officials. The hon. member for Sandton raised two arguments. He said it might be that there would be some officials who did not display the necessary discretion and would take a wrong decision. By implication, the hon. member is suggesting that the hon. the Minister will take the right decision. I want to say that the hon. the Minister, knowing him as I do, does not appreciate this compliment at all, for it is a calculated insult to his officials. The hon. member for Sandton also told us that he could not accept these delegations since the senior officials who could take the wrong decisions were not sitting opposite them in this House to answer for their wrong decisions. Surely this is no valid argument either. Surely the hon. Opposition knows that if the most junior official in, say, Koekenaap, takes a wrong decision, it does not prevent the hon. members from raising the matter in this House and calling the hon. the Minister to account.

Then the Minister will resign, as happened in the Agliotti affair.

In regard to the Agliotti affair I may just tell the hon. member that the relevant Minister at that time did not say once that his officials had been responsible, but that he accepted responsibility as this hon. Minister will accept responsibility for every action of every official of his department from the Secretary down to the tea-boy.

Where is the Minister?

Order! The hon. member for Port Natal must not allow himself to be side-tracked.

In conclusion, let me say that the Bill embodies the message that the Bantu peoples are irrevocably on the road to a destination of sovereign independence. In this Bill we are taking further steps in the evolutionary process of the gaining of independence of the Bantu peoples. We held this in prospect in 1971 with the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act, and now this Government, in consultation with the Bantu peoples, has decided that the time has come for further steps in that process. Hence this Bill which extends the 1971 Act. As the Transkei Constitution Act from the beginning, in the sixties, and as the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act, this Bill is a further logical development of the policy of this Government to give to the Bantu peoples an increasingly greater say in their own affairs. As certain legislative and executive powers were granted in the 1971 Act, so this Bill is a further extension. It grants them the powers, a long list of which are mentioned in clause 24. This Bill tells us that no people is good enough to govern another people, not even a National Government.

Where does it say so in this legislation?

This Bill tells us that every people on search is conscious of its own identity and has an urge for self-realization.

On your horses, men!

This Bill tells us …

Where does it say so?

Clause 24 tells us this. This Bill tells us that the Bantu peoples have an inalienable right to decide on their own affairs. The hon. member for Randburg made an amazing statement when he spoke about “the identity is not relevant”. Since when have we decided that a Xhosa is a Xhosa? They decided for themselves and they are proud of it.

Take the urban Bantu and you have another story.

We on this side have made many mistakes already …

Hear, hear!

… but there is one sin we have not yet committed: We have never failed to recognize the identity or the nationhood of people. This Bill is a recognition of that nationhood. Whoever fails to recognize this and denies the Bantu that most inalienable of all rights, is playing the most dangerous game possible. This Bill takes us back to the reality of multinationality and the right of the Bantu peoples to govern their own people in their own areas. I support this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Port Natal who has recently received advancement on the side of the Nationalist Party, who has recently been elevated to that dead end to which most members who are not going to make their mark are shunted anyway, who has recently been elevated to the Bantu Affairs Commission and in whose tender hands we have now placed 20 million Blacks, has regaled us for the last 20 minutes with the type of speech he has been making for the last 15 or 20 years.

How do you know?

It was a speech without content as far as this House is concerned and certainly without effect as far as we on this side of the House are concerned. The quality of his speech left much to be desired. When he talked of the Xhosa people and said that the Xhosa will decide whether he is a Xhosa or not, I want to say that the was about the only bit of wisdom that we heard from him in those 20 minutes, but is that not the very point which has been made by speakers on this side of the House over and over in this debate? Where has he been? Why has he not been listening? It is the very point we have made over and over again in connection with clause 19 of the Bill. I want to say that my hon. friend in the back bench behind me made that point very well.

He said exactly the opposite.

Since we are not going to be associated with the Blacks, what is the good of hon. members on that side of the House deciding what a Black person’s nationality shall be and which territorial authority he should be associated with? The hon. member for Port Natal admitted that the Black man should decide for himself, that both the Xhosa and the Zulu will decide for themselves. However, the hon. the Deputy Minister does not agree with the hon. member for Port Natal because he has said that he will decide with his officials what that Black man is, to which group he belongs, where he may live and where he may exercise the civil rights that the Government is going to allow him. I think we must get some consensus on that side of the House. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister agree with the hon. member for Port Natal?

Zip!

The hon. the Deputy Minister must not sit there sphinx-like.

I want to go further with this particular clause, seeing we have started with it. I asked earlier as did other members on this side of the House what consultation was carried out before this was drawn up. I was referred to the speech of the hon. member for Lichtenburg who also received promotion a little while ago; he became chairman of this Bantu Affairs Commission. I read his speech. I admit I was not here when he made his speech. Unfortunately I was in the Transvaal.

Why “unfortunately”? What is wrong with the Transvaal?

I read his speech and the only reference I found to any question of consultation with any of the homeland Governments before this Bill was drawn up was this sentence:

He is referring here to the amendments to the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act.

Who informed him, “M.C.”?

That is a very good question. Who did inform him? Unfortunately the hon. member for Lichtenburg is not here at the moment to tell us who informed him and what form this consultation took. I want to say that I am very skeptical of whether in fact any consultation did take place. We have here an explanatory memorandum on the Bantu Laws Amendment Bill, W.P. 1 of 1974. Surely if some consultation had taken place, mention would have been made of that fact in this White Paper? Is it not the aim of a White Paper to advise us and tell us the background to any piece of legislation and the reasons for it? If it had in fact been requested by one of the homeland Governments, why is it not mentioned in the White Paper? How does the White Paper read?—

By whom is it considered undesirable? By that Government, that hon. Minister and that hon. Deputy Minister. There is no mention here of any homeland Government. Which homeland Governments requested this? Which ones were consulted? The hon. the Minister is very studiously engaged in some other activity. I wonder if he could tell us which homeland Governments were consulted.

In connection with this Bill, all of them.

And in connection with the other one?

Also, as is customary.

They were consulted by writing a letter and telling them what the Minister was going to do?

You are talking nonsense.

I am not talking nonsense. I am seeking information from the hon. the Minister.

You have the information, but you do not believe me.

I am asking the hon. the Minister, what form did this consultation take?

We give it to them; we discuss it with them; we hear them; we inform them, etc. [Interjections.]

And when they are informed, what happens?

I shall reply to you under my Bill.

That is the consultation. That is the consultation we hear about out of the mouth of the hon. the Minister. They are “informed.” Sir, let us have another look at this White Paper. The White Paper goes further:

Which territorial authority asked for that? I wonder if the hon. the Minister could tell us.

What is wrong with that?

There is nothing wrong with it at all. I did not say there was anything wrong.

Why are you raising the point then?

What is the hon. member so sensitive about?

I am just asking you, what is wrong about it?

I never said there was anything wrong about it.

Order! The hon. member for Pretoria Central must restrain himself.

Mr. Speaker, with all respect, I never said there was anything wrong with it. I do not know why the hon. member for Pretoria Central is so sensitive about it. All I want to know is which of the territorial authorities requested this.

Make your speech.

That is all right. I will continue to make my speech. That is fine. However, it appears that the hon. the Minister either will not or cannot tell us which of these territorial authorities requested this measure.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? [Interjections.]

Order! Does the hon. member want to answer a question?

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Speaker, may I just ask the hon. member whether he wants to say anything or whether he only came here to ask something?

Mr. Speaker, with respect, now you wonder that I do not want to answer questions from that hon. member! He has never got anything sensible to say anyway.

The hon. member for Port Natal, who has now disappeared … [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must now restrain themselves. From now on I shall have to name individually any members who are troublesome. The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Sir. The hon. member for Port Natal also took my colleagues on this side of the House to task for suggesting that the Minister was incompetent to carry out delegations. He called it “delegations”, because he claimed that certain powers which had been held by the Governor-General or by the State President now, are being passed over to the Minister, or as he put it, “delegated to the Minister.” Sir, I want to put it to you this way: It is not a question of the competence of the Minister to exercise these powers. We know that the Minister has a degree of competence, and we are prepared to respect that. However, it is a question of onus and responsibility. In the past, when regulations have been made by the State President, and when decisions have been taken by the State President, these have, in effect, been Cabinet decisions, and there has been a Cabinet responsibility. The responsibility was on all the members of the Cabinet. Now, Sir, what is the effect of the amendments proposed in clauses 2, 3 and 15? It is to shift to the Minister the sole responsibility, in clauses 2 and 15, for making regulations, and, in clause 3, to issue an order concerning a person convicted of inciting hostility between the races. We have always opposed the granting of these sorts of powers to an individual Minister. We believe that this should be undertaken by the State President, which means the Cabinet as a whole. We have recently had an example of why we feel that such responsibility should not be given to one Minister alone. I refer to a proclamation which was made earlier this year by this very Minister, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, wherein he shifted the onus of responsibility of proof of certain facts in criminal cases from the State to the accused. Certain members of this House are aware of the fact that I am utterly opposed to this principle. There have been repeated occasions when members of this side of the House have opposed this type of legislation when such presumptions are drawn by legislation of this House. We have opposed it when it was being done as the wish of this House. But row we have the situation where that hon. Minister, on his own, without even having to refer to the Cabinet if this amendment goes through, will pass these sorts of regulations. He alone will have the power to pass such regulations. We have had an occasion recently when he shifted the onus of proof from the State to the accused person, which we believe is totally contrary to all legal precepts in this country and which we will oppose at a later stage when it comes before this House for consideration. In exactly the same way clause 3 deals with the banishment of a person, which is done in terms of the Bantu Administration Act, which we believe is a serious matter which should be discussed by the Cabinet and be subject to a full decision by the Cabinet, and not to the decision of one person.

There are provisions in this Bill which are not so bad and which we can approve of and accept. I refer particularly to clause 11 which extends the area in which a general dealer can be licensed to sell Bantu beer. [Interjections.] If the hon. member will allow me, I will continue to make my own speech. I want to issue a word of warning to the hon. the Minister in regard to this, namely that more and more Black people today are taking exception to the overemphasis on the provision of liquor outlets for Blacks. I personally feel that I can only support this provision today because it refers only to Bantu beer, because I have always considered Bantu beer to be a food for these people which in fact it is. Where families are living together, it is shared by the whole family and the whole family benefits by it. But, of course, we have a provision here which has a hidden motive, namely to regularize the situation which pertains in most of the country today, where certain licences have been granted in areas which should not have had licences until this amendment was approved.

I now come to clause 16 which is possibly the most contentious of all the measures in this Bill. I want to introduce a new thought to the hon. the Deputy Minister. This is the clause which provides indemnification of certain businessmen who enter into agreements with any corporations for development in the so-called Bantu homelands. He has heard our attitude from this side of the House and I do not want to repeat all the arguments as to why we are not happy with this sort of provision at all and why we are in fact opposed to this type of provision. But has the hon. the Deputy Minister thought of tying the initial liability to the homeland Government concerned? In the clause as it stands the liability or responsibility is that of the Government of the Republic to guarantee the debts of the corporation concerned. The greatest fear, however, is that of nationalization. I wonder if it would not be the greatest deterrent to nationalization by any particular homeland Government or territorial authority Government if we could in some way tie the first liability or responsibility to them. Let the Government of the Republic guarantee it as a second guarantor or in whatever way we want to do it, but I believe that the hon. the Deputy Minister should investigate this matter with his legal advisers and see if it is not possible in some way to tie the responsibility to the Government of the homeland concerned.

I now come to clause 24, the one about which the hon. member for Port Natal was so boastful earlier and which provides for the handing over of power to the various territorial authority Governments. I think it is only logical that they should now receive the power to control trading licences for all people who are trading within their areas and not only for their citizens. Having said that, I wonder why, in terms of the new item 7A which is to be inserted into Schedule 1 of the Act, the provision of financial assistance to farmers in the area is restricted to citizens whilst the control of licences applies to all the people who are resident in such an area. This new section reads—

What is meant by “farming operations”? Most Bantu in the Bantu areas today are on a postage-stamp sized piece of ground which has been allocated or allotted to them by the local “induna” or chief. I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister really means that this is farming. I am sure that he is aware of the problems of the homelands. The biggest problem, perhaps, is the fact that too many people are farming on too small areas. What should happen and, in fact, has been asked for by certain of the homeland leaders already, is that a number of these people should be taken off the land and that those that have the true ability to farm, those who have the potential of being true farmers, should be given land on which they really can farm. I do not believe that anybody can really farm on these small pieces of land which are allocated to them. There is another aspect to this. If the Government is going to advance financial assistance to these farmers, what collateral is it going to demand from them? Does it imply land-ownership which can be bonded to guarantee any assistance given by the homeland Governments? I wonder if the hon. the Deputy Minister will be able to tell us, before we come to the Committee Stage, what exactly are his thoughts in this regard and exactly how he is going to carry it out. It is no good the hon. the Deputy Minister saying in reply that we know that those powers were given to the Transkei a few years ago. I know that, but I do not know how those powers have been carried out in the Transkei; in fact, I wonder if they have been carried out. Can the hon. the Deputy Minister tell the House whether those provisions have been applied in the Transkei and if so, how have they been applied?

I ask these questions in all seriousness because I believe that we are moving in the right direction by giving these Governments control over their own affairs, over their own people in their own areas. It fits in fully with the federal concept of this side of the House. The provisions which we are going to oppose are those which we feel impinge upon the rights of the Bantu people, in respect of which the Bantu people have not been consulted and wherein we see the growth of bureaucracy and the empire-building of this particular Minister.

Mr. Speaker, in looking back at the debate conducted on the legislation before this House, I can at least say that we have not had much evidence of emotion but rather of an attempt at advancing arguments, and to me this is something rather exceptional in that in the past we more often came up against emotion than against real argumentation on what was relevant.

Mr. Speaker, I shall try to reply as fully as possible, without indulging in wordiness, to the arguments advanced by hon. members on that side of the House. These arguments have already been replied to in part by hon. members on this side of the House, and I want to thank those hon. members for their support and interest. It also became apparent that hon. members opposite did not always listen attentively when hon. members on this side tried to inform them better.

†Mr. Speaker, I want to start off with the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, who made some points. The first point that he made was that this was, as he put it, an undesirable way to deal with legislation. He said that we had 26 clauses here without a common theme and more than 26 principles and that this Bill amended 13 different Acts. He then went on to say that this made a mockery of Parliamentary proceedings and that this was totally undesirable. I think that is more or less a summary of what the hon. member said.

*Sir, it is possible for us to advance lengthy arguments on this type of thing, but what is being done here is nothing new. The arguments advanced here by the hon. member are by no means new either. On previous occasions we came to this House with Bills amending various Acts. There are very good reasons for such legislation. What is more, there is nothing strange about the Minister of Justice, too, introducing a Bill here, at least once a year, in order to amend a variety of Acts. But I want to tell hon. members that the main object here is to effect amendments in a manner which is not unnecessarily time-consuming. These amendments are contained in one Bill because we are actually dealing with one department, although the department has a large number of different branches. Of course, this Bill could have been divided up into different measures. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana said we could perhaps have introduced three or four Bills instead of one, and the hon. member for Houghton also made mention of this. But even if we had divided up this Bill into different measures, it would have been very difficult for those Bills to contain one basic principle each. I think the discussion conducted here illustrated that hon. members were able to cover a very wide field and that they were in fact able to enter into detail. If we had had to deal here with legislation containing only one particular principle, hon. members would have found it much more difficult. But, Sir, let us be practical. The main reason for the introduction of one Bill is that we are dealing here with one department in which all these matters are dealt with. Hon. members will concede that we are dealing here with minor amendments concerning various branches of the department. As it is, we have before the House this year two Bills amending Bantu legislation, and I really do not think it would be practical to divide up the amending measures to an even greater extent. Hon. members could perhaps hold up the West-minister type of democracy here as the ideal, but I think they will concede that that can be exaggerated, too, with the result that we would unnecessarily be wasting time in this process. I do not think that we should waste any more time in this regard. One must draw a line somewhere and decide what is effective and what is cumbrous. If we had brought more Bills before the House in order to deal with these matters, it would have bordered on cumbrousness and would also be a time-consuming way of dealing with these matters. Hon. members may disagree with me on this point, but our standpoint in this respect is that we are aiming at efficiency and saving of time without restricting the liberty of hon. members to such an extent that they cannot conduct a good discussion here. I really think that a good case has been made out for our having to divide this Bill up into different measures. We already have the position that two different measures on Bantu legislation are before the House at the moment.

The second point made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, a provision about which he does not feel happy, is more specifically concerned with the question of the contents of the legislation, and in this regard he referred to the handing over of authority, the delegation of power. I made it clear in my speech and in the explanatory memorandum that basically the point at issue here was efficiency. This is a big department with many branches, and to channel a large number of decisions back to the Minister and to the State President requires a great deal of preparation by each of those branches. I know some of these things go through me with a recommendation to the Minister, and some go to the Minister through my colleague, the result being that there are a large number of processes, and every additional person who comes into the chain inevitably takes up some time. This is a point on which we get a great deal of criticism, the efficiency of the Public Service. On several occasions we have heard people saying that our Public Service is too big. And now, when we come forward with an approach aimed at reducing the work and bringing about greater efficiency in disposing of matters, we find the other side raising the objection that powers may not be delegated. Delegation is involved in clauses 1, 2, 3, 8, 15 and 25. With some of them hon. members have more problems than with others. There is the case to which the hon. member for Houghton referred. I think she referred to clause 3 and said she felt that in this case, i.e. where a person was being banned, the matter should not be in the hands of the hon. the Minister. Then again other hon. members referred to other clauses and said they felt they should actually be dealt with on higher authority. I can tell the hon. member for Houghton that her interpretation is not altogether correct, and that we are not using this particular provision in this way. It is a different section which she actually had in mind. Therefore I do not think that what she said was applicable here. But I really think that her concern is with the principle, i.e. that a person can in fact be restricted and that the decision in that regard is not forwarded to the highest authority. I think this is the point at issue as far as she and also most of the hon. members opposite are concerned. In any case, Sir, our concern is, as I put it and as it is stated in the explanatory memorandum, with the question of efficiency. There are many cases which investigations revealed can successfully be delegated to lower ranks. The responsible authority, i.e. the Minister, has to decide how important these various things are before he delegates them. I can tell you that this question of delegation, of the transfer of powers of decision to lower ranks, is not simply disposed of lightly. Unfortunately it is true that we refer here in the Bill to the Secretary or any other officer. This is what certain members have misgivings about, i.e. our being unable to mention the specific rank of the officer in question. But the position is that if ranks are specified in a piece of legislation and a reorganization of the department in question takes place and other designations are introduced, then that legislation is no longer applicable and one has to go and amend a whole series of Acts again. However, I want to give the hon. members the assurance that this question of delegation goes up to a high level. If my memory serves me correctly, the lowest rank to which powers will be delegated with be that of Under-Secretary. We do not easily delegate important decisions of officers holding lower ranks. One must realize that one cannot have efficiency and dispose of matters quickly and promptly if a mass of the work of the department has to be forwarded to the highest authority, i.e. to the political head, namely the Minister and if a great deal of it also has to be forwarded to the State President. The preparation of each of these submissions to a higher authority, eventually to the Minister, takes a great deal of time. In many cases it is desirable to dispose of the work on a lower level; it is merely a question of efficiency. Of course, the Minister lays down the guide-lines and consequently delegations are not carried out injudiciously. This explanation ought to be acceptable to hon. members. One cannot be efficient and indulge in too much red tape at the same time. The essence of democracy is unfortunately that it is not easy for one to take shortcuts; one has to consult people as far as possible, and as far as possible the responsibility must rest with the highest authority. On the other hand, to reconcile this rather cumbersome method with efficiency, one has to use one’s sound judgment to strike a happy mean. I think this is what is envisaged by way of this Bill. The speech made by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana dealt mainly with criticism of the question of delegation. He arrived at the conclusion that there were five clauses which dealt mainly with the question of delegation and which were going to be opposed. He also said they wanted more information on four clauses. On 17 of them there was actually no comment. I merely mention this with reference to his speech as proof that out of these 26 clauses there are only five about which misgivings really exist. I hope that I shall be able, as I deal with the arguments advanced by hon. members, to furnish them with the required information. They will find then that it was in fact appropriate and fitting to combine so many different changes in one piece of legislation. I also mention this to show that there was not really such a need for a broad discussion as hon. members thought at first. Actually, in seventeen of these clauses the principles are not being questioned.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana referred to clause 11 and wanted more information about it. In effect, this clause merely facilitates the distribution of Bantu beer in certain cases. Owing to certain circumstances, things did not function very effectively in practice.

†He said he was worried about illegal hawking and contamination due to containers. I want to point it out to him that the question of containers lying around rests with the Department of Justice and the local authorities. Therefore it does not really have a bearing here.

*Then we come to clause 16, which deals with indemnification. This was touched upon by most of the hon. members. They felt that they wanted more clarity in this regard as it was not put satisfactorily in the legislation. There is probably no difference of opinion as regards the development of Bantu homelands, the establishment of industries as well as investment in general in the homelands by people from outside. The arguments to which I had to listen last year and this year again, both in this House and in the broad politics outside this House, amounted to the fact that the homelands had to develop. With this type of development we find that there are certain practical problems. In cases where we agree that development must take place and that development is in the interests of both Blacks and Whites, I do not think that we should do anything to complicate or delay such development. This legislation is aimed at inspiring more confidence. The hon. members said—the hon. members for Pietermaritzburg South and Umhlatuzana specifically said this—that homeland governments should be involved in something of this nature. I can tell hon. members that it goes without saying that those governments have been involved in the matter. In conjunction with the corporations they enter into an agreement with any investor who wants to make an investment there or establish an industry. They have therefore been involved in the process already. Unfortunately it is true that we are living in a time in which people talk about state interference. We can look, for instance, at the recent election in England. A great deal of reference was made there to state interference and nationalization, so much so that this became a basic issue. We know the history of the development of Africa in recent years, and we know that there have been a great deal of storm and stress, change of government and state interference. I want to give hon. members the assurance that this Government, in its co-operation with homeland leaders and in its approach to this problem, is very confident that it is going to place these people on a road to self-realization by way of its evolutionary methods. We are very confident that these people will benefit by the experience and that they will not take irresponsible action in respect of investors. On the other hand, however, as a result of the psychosis that is found amongst business people, it is necessary for the Government to prove its confidence by saying that in cases where there are abnormal risks they should be eliminated. There are hon. members who referred to poor administration since this, too is not an insurable risk. Of course, such a risk is not covered. Those risks which the hon. members think may exist are being eliminated by this Bill, and in this way we are telling the outside world that we have so much confidence that we are joining the corporations and the homelands governments in endorsing the fact that investors need not be afraid to make investments. I want to point out, furthermore, that clause 16 very clearly provides the fallowing, and I quote—

And so forth. The matter is therefore discussed very thoroughly beforehand. The hon. the Prime Minister announced the other day that certain of these matters would in future be in the hands of homelands governments. We have always had the restriction, for the sake of the Black people, that contracts should be entered into for a certain period, but now we want to introduce some more flexibility in this regard, where possible. We want to leave this to the homeland leaders so that they themselves may decide about it. The basic desire on the part of these people is—and this is important—that later on they themselves would like to own and maintain these industries in order to obtain proper control over the economy of their own countries by these means. This is the reason why there has always been a restriction. We felt that any industrialist could be given the opportunity to operate an industry for 20 or 25 years, on condition that he would by that time have trained some of these people so that they themselves would be able to carry on with that industry. However, it was felt that we as a Government, as a White Government, ought not to take that decision. Hence the announcement by the hon. the Prime Minister that they are now to take this type of decision themselves. Seen as a whole, we unfortunately have the problem that there are still people here and there who feel somewhat uncertain as a result of the instability in world politics as a whole and as a result of examples in Africa in particular, and for that reason it is necessary for this White Government, which is known for its soberness and stability, to provide some moral support by telling the industrialist that we are prepared to endorse the fact that over and above the normal risks problems will not arise so easily. I want to say that, in the interests of homeland development and of the Black people in the country, they must know that the opportunities due to them are being dealt with in a responsible manner. For that reason I want to ask that we should not be unnecessarily petty about these issues.

The other matter which called forth a great deal of discussion and which was raised by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana as well as other hon. members was the question of citizenship. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South asked us to state who asked for the legislation. I want to tell him now who asked for it. The hon. member for Randburg was very worried, and perhaps I should dispose of this first. I noticed that the hon. member for Umhlatuzana was slightly embarrased and looked over his shoulder at the hon. member because that hon. member had chased up a hare here which would not run. I cannot take this amiss of the hon. member, for he is aware that we have said here time and again that we do not come to this House with legislation without having consulted the various homeland governments properly. The hon. member for Randburg, therefore, based his entire argument on a wrong presumption. He said, to be specific, that we were making laws for the Black man and that the Black man was not being consulted about them at all. However, I want to give him the assurance that this is very definitely being done. Every clause of this Bill was referred to every homeland government for their comment.

Were the urban Bantu consulted as well?

The urban Bantu’s political representation is in the homelands. The urban Bantu have very proper liaison there. We do not group the Bantu politically as being urban Bantu and homeland Bantu. They have their liaison with the homelands, and this works very effectively. I think this is a matter which has already been debated here very incisively, so much so that at the moment I do not wish to enter into detail in this regard once again. We are not going to consult them as separate groups, and that was not done in this case either. [Interjection.] The hon. member is aware, of course, that some of the urban Bantu are amongst the political leaders of several of these homelands. Therefore I do not know what the hon. member meant. The position is that the political leaders of each of these homelands discussed these matters. Some legislative assemblies discussed them as well, but I do not know whether all of them did so. However, I know that the various cabinets did discuss these matters.

Now I come to the point I want to make with reference to the specific question put by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. Chief Magope of the Tswanas specifically asked for this legislation in connection with citizenship. It was subsequently discussed with him and explained to him in very great detail. After that it was referred to the other homeland governments. Therefore I want to emphasize once again that we do not introduce legislation here of which these people have no knowledge, but that they are consulted in very good time. As far as these two clauses are concerned, they were in actual fact requested by one of them and were subsequently discussed with all the others, who expressed their concurrence in the matter.

Did all of them express their concurrence?

Yes. No objections were received from any of them.

Then I want to refer to clause 23, which deals with the transfer of wider powers to homeland governments. In this regard the hon. members for Umhlatuzana and Houghton raised certain misgivings about the take-over of prisons. I may just tell them that the standard of prisons is, of course, the same as that of prisons elsewhere in the Republic. Since we are still providing the manpower on the higher level, the same standards applying in the White area apply there as well. When I talk about the “Republic”, I refer to those White areas which do not fall under homeland governments as yet. Concern was also expressed about where prisoners are released. If a person was sentenced in a certain area, the practice is that when he is released from prison, he is taken back to that area and released there. That will also be the case here. This is, of course, a provision which is already found in the Transkei Act and works quite satisfactorily there.

Clause 24 deals with the question of road transportation boards. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana wanted to know how these arrangements would work. I may just tell him that they already work very effectively in the Transkei. They asked the same question a few years ago, when these particular powers were transferred to the Transkei. At the time we almost had a misunderstanding in that I have handled the legislation and had to go away and the then Minister of Transport, Mr. Schoeman, said that the road transportation boards would still retain a certain say in the various homelands. On a later occasion he told hon. members that he had made a mistake, that this would not be the case since the homelands had their own particular boards of control, but that there was nevertheless close collaboration. I may just tell hon. members that in the case of the Transkei there is smooth liaison between these Black bodies and the boards in the White area. Apart from that there are no particular objections as far as this matter is concerned.

I think I have now paused at each of the various arguments advanced by hon. members and have tried to reply to them as succinctly as possible. If there are any hon. members who should perhaps feel that they did not receive as much attention as they should like to have had, they should simply accept that the arguments they used probably do not require any further attention. However, I think that I have, albeit briefly, dealt with all the points. I see the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South has disappeared somewhere.

He received a telephone call.

In that case hon. members will just have to inform him. He referred here to 20 million Black people for whom this Parliament was allegedly making laws, and said that we were simply acting on their behalf and not even consulting them. In the first place, we do not really have 20 million Black people in this country. Although the hon. member is fond of drama and putting on a show—I do not take this amiss of him—he must at least display some perspective as well.

How many are there?

There are just over 16 million.

But nobody knows exactly how many.

Yes, but, in any case, it is not 20 million. We had a census in 1970.

That was four years ago.

In any case, I merely mention this to indicate that one should not dramatize things unnecessarily as far as these matters are concerned. I think that I have now dealt with all the matters that have been raised, and I want to content myself with this. Once again I want to address a word of thanks to hon. members on this side of the House as well as that side of the House for the fact that I have never witnessed as little emotion in regard to Bantu legislation as we have had this time.

Question put,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—85. Albertyn, J. T.; Aucamp, P. L. S.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, M. C.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Wet, M. W.; Diederichs, N.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Kotze, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Lloyd, J. J.; Loots, J. L; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Morrison, G. de V.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Nel, D. J. L.; Niemann, J. J.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Pienaar, L. A.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. W.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Treumicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C. (Maraisburg); Van Wyk, A. C. (Winburg); Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Vlok, A. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, A. van Breda, C. V. van der Merwe and W. L. van der Merwe.

Noes—37: Aronson, T.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven (’t Hooft), R. E.; Hickman, T.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Miller, H.; Mills, G. W.; Mitchell, M. L.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Von Key-serlingk, C. C; Waddell, G. H.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.

Tellers: E. L. Fisher and W. M. Sutton.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Over and above the explanations furnished in the explanatory memorandum on the Bill, I want to explain certain aspects of the Bill further.

I want to refer, firstly, to clauses 1 and 10. I have received requests from certain homeland governments for them to be enabled to take action, where necessary, against organizations presenting a danger to public safety, public peace, order and good administration. The Government has appreciation for this objective and has decided to enable homeland governments themselves to take action in their areas against elements presenting the said danger. All the homeland governments were consulted, not only about these clauses but about the whole Bill.

Side by side with the responsibility of homeland governments to ensure safety and order in their territories, my Government has a responsibility in respect of the entire Republic to preserve safety, peace, order and good administration. The provisions of this Bill have therefore been worded in such a manner that an authority of the Republic will still be able to perform its duty in respect of the entire Republic, the homelands included.

Because there will now be more than one authority over this matter, it has become necessary to co-ordinate executive action so as to prevent action from being duplicated or statutory impracticalbilities from being created through various kinds of action taken by more than one authority. Consequently it is being regulated that any homeland authority’s executive action should be taken in consultation with the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development.

Clauses 2, 4 and 8:

Homeland governments already have statutory authorization to negotiate loans, but because private and foreign moneylenders may require guarantees for the repayment of such loans with interest and charges, and because my Government would like to see that no obstacles are placed in the way of the borrowing powers of homeland governments, provision is being made in these clauses for the necessary statutory authorization to the effect that guarantees may be provided by the State.

Clauses 3 and 7:

At the moment legislative bodies, such as provincial councils, still have the legislative power it had in the areas of jurisdiction of homeland governments which have a legislative council or assembly in terms of Chapter 1 of their “constitution”. Since this situation causes unnecessary overlapping and confusion, it is being provided here that the legislative power of such a provincial council in the territory of homeland governments shall be eliminated.

Clauses 5 and 9:

As the Acts in question read at present, all competitive legislative powers in a self-governing territory shall be eliminated as from the commencement of the Act in question. Because a territory does as a rule become self-governing after it has, for a while, had a legislative assembly or council in terms of Chapter 1 of the Act, and also because different territories become self-governing on different dates, this provision unfortunately causes anomalies at times. It is now being regulated in the Bill that competitive legislative powers in self-governing territories shall be eliminated as from the date on which a particular homeland territory becomes self-governing.

Mr. Speaker, this is a short Bill, and I have now clarified all its aspects. I hope that it is clear to the House and that it will meet with general support.

Mr. Speaker, I find it a little surprising that the hon. the Minister should have been able to deal with an important measure of this kind in about three minutes flat of which one or two minutes was occupied in dealing with clauses 1 and 10 which we regard as the most important part of the Bill. Indeed, clauses 1 and 10 really constitute the whole of the Bill. The other clauses do not deal with measures of importance and I imagine that in a little more time than three minutes, I shall have something to say about those two clauses. I should say at the outset that this Bill will be opposed by the official Opposition at Second Reading because it embodies clauses 1 and 10 which introduce in respect of the legislative authorities of the various Bantu areas most of the powers set out in the Unlawful Organizations Act, 1960, as passed by this House. Clause 1 introduces such powers in respect of the Transkei and clause 10 in respect of the remaining Bantu legislative authorities. The attitude of the official Opposition in respect of security and the maintenance of law and order is well known. If one goes far back as the Act of 1960, the Unlawful Organizations Act, a Bill passed through this House 14 years ago, one will see from Hansard that it had the support of this side of the House. It had that support, in the words of the Leader of this party, who spoke when that legislation was introduced, because at the time there was what amounted to a state of national emergency. There was a degree of unrest of that order, not only in the country generally, but on the very doorsteps of this building. The attitude of this side of the House was that whilst we may have differed profoundly on the causes of the situation and on the manner in which the country was being administered by this Government, we regarded it as a first priority to restore law and order so that these other matters of dispute could be dealt with in a proper manner.

There are two aspects relating to banning powers of the kind which are set out in clauses 1 and 10 which I believe have to be dealt with. In the first instance, we believe in a free society, not only for the White people. We believe that the concept “free society” should be engendered in the legislative authorities which are being developed in respect of the Black people by this Government. Secondly we believe in the rule of law. It is a well-known concept which runs parallel with the concept of a free society. A belief basic to this concept is that a person should be able, in advance, to ascertain what his rights are and to regulate his conduct accordingly. He should be able to so regulate his conduct that he knows in advance whether or not he will fall foul of the law. The rule of law also embodies the concept of offences being adjudicated upon by independent courts of law as opposed to the exercise of a discretion by an executive authority such as a Minister. Whilst these concepts are the hallmark of the rule of law, the rule of law also recognizes that there can be a legitimate invasion by the executive authority in this field in two respects. One is in time of war and the other is when there is a state of national emergency. The attitude adopted by the United Party in the Unlawful Organizations Bill, which was put through this House in 1960, was four-square within the terms of the rule of law as it is recognized in the classical authorities who deal with it. I wish to emphasize that to maintain and uphold the rule of law is not to tie one’s hands in times of war or in times of national emergency so that the executive power responsible for the maintenance of law and order in those circumstances, cannot exercise its functions. We recognize that there are legitimate times when those principles can be put aside. In 1974, however, at this time in South Africa, no one can pretend that there is a state of war and no one can pretend that we are passing through a time of national emergency, neither here nor in the homelands of South Africa. Whilst it is the point of view of this side of the House that in respect of White South Africa there is no need for legislation of this kind, likewise in respect of the homelands our attitude is that there is no need for legislation of this kind.