THE ILLUMINATI - THE RISE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN REICH

South Africa's Nuremberg Laws

A people that fails to preserve the purity of its racial blood thereby destroys the unity of the soul of the nation in all its manifestations. -- HITLER in Mein Kampf

Nationalist legislation has been aimed, on the one hand, at preventing all forms of integration which might lead to the establishment of a united South African nation with a common citizenship and loyalty irrespective of race; and, on the other hand, at promoting the 'separate development' of the various races and ethnic groups ' in their own areas '. There are eighteen million South Africans, but the Nationalist government does not envisage that they will ever constitute one nation. On the contrary, it plans to unmix what has already been mixed, to separate one section from another, to enforce isolation and difference, to establish a rigid caste system backed with all the force of law. If the Nationalists have their way, South Africa will, economically, take the form of a pyramid, with the Whites at the apex, the Coloureds and Asians in the middle, and the Africans at the bottom. Politically and socially, however, the various groups will never meet, being separated from one another by impenetrable legal barriers as well as physical distance and the imponderable force of custom. (The Nationalist claim that under 'parallel development' the Blacks will be able to rise to the top in 'their own areas' shows few signs so far of being substantiated in practice.)

Here is a brief list of the laws, set down in the years of their passing, by means of which the Nationalists hope to have laid a secure foundation for the apartheid state.

1948 SESSION

Asiatic Laws Amendment Act. Withdrew Indian representation in Parliament.

Electoral Laws Amendment Act. Made more stringent the conditions for registering Coloured voters.

1949 SESSION

Citizenship Act. Lengthened the period of residence to five years for British subjects and six for aliens before South African citizenship could be obtained. The Act also provided for the withdrawal of acquired citizenship by the Minister of the Interior under certain circumstances.

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. Made marriages between Whites and non-Whites illegal and placed the onus of deciding the race of any person on the marriage officer himself. If a person domiciled in South Africa entered into a mixed marriage outside the country, the marriage was to be void in South Africa.

Asiatic Land Tenure Amendment Act. Strengthened existing measures against 'penetration' by Indians of urban areas in Natal and the Transvaal, and prevented Indian 'penetration' of the Cape. (By law no Indians at all are permitted into the Free State or South-West Africa.)

Unemployment Insurance Amendment Act. Excluded from the benefits available under the Act all those whose earnings did not exceed £182 a year (the majority of African workers) and all migratory workers irrespective of their earnings. The minimum earning level was raised from £182 to £273 a year by a further amendment of the Act in 1957.

Native Laws Amendment Act. Created special labour bureaux for Africans. These bureaux are designed, not primarily for the benefit of the workers, but to restrict the flow of African workers to the towns so that an abundant supply of labour is always available for the mines and the farms.

South-West Africa Affairs Amendment Act. Provided for the representation of South-West Africa's White citizens in the South African Parliament.

1950 SESSION

The Population Registration Act. Established a racial register of the population to be compiled as soon as possible after the 1951 census. The population was to be classified into three main groups - Europeans, Coloured people, and Africans -with the Coloured people and Africans classified as well according to their ethnological section. Ultimately everyone would have to carry an identity card on which his race would be indelibly stamped once and for all. The crossing of racial boundaries by the so-called 'play-Whites' would become impossible.

The racial group of an individual was to be determined by his appearance and by general acceptance and repute. But in practice classification procedures have sometimes been crude in the extreme. A pencil shoved into the hair of a person under interrogation has been taken to demonstrate racial origin - if it remains fixed, he is African; if it falls out, Coloured, because the hair is smoother.

In a country where racial origin is the passport to success or failure, this Act has brought disaster into thousands of homes. White families have been declared Coloured at the stroke of a bureaucratic pen, with all the tragic consequences. At the beginning of August 1966 it became compulsory for every South African over the age of sixteen to be in possession of an identity card, yet there were still approximately 150,000 'borderline' cases to be settled. The Act, of course, has created at least as many problems as it has solved. Nature cannot be trifled with so easily. There are dark-looking people who have been classified as White, and light-skinned people who have become officially non-White. As a means of keeping the White community White, the Act must inevitably fail.

This was admitted by the Minister of the Interior himself. Speaking in the House of Assembly on 15 September 1966 he said: ' I cannot accept that there will be borderline cases for all time. If that is so, then the position is in reality so complicated that this legislation is not workable.' He added that his aim was ' to close the gate so that we cannot continue indefinitely creating new borderline cases as rapidly as we deal with the already existing cases'. By the following session of Parliament he had been compelled to amend the Act, because he had still not found himself able to close the gate. But if anything the amendment will make confusion worse confounded.

Suppression of Communism Act. Outlawed the Communist Party and much else as well.

Immorality Amendment Act. Prohibited illicit carnal intercourse between White and non-White (the original 1927 Act prohibited intercourse only between White and African). No Act has done more to injure the reputation of South Africa in the eyes of the world, for thousands of people, ranging from visiting seamen to Dutch Reformed Church dominees and the private secretary to a Prime Minister, have fallen foul of its provisions and been sent to jail. Over 6,000 people were convicted under this Act between 1950 and June 1966, according to figures given by the Minister of Justice in Parliament. By the very nature of the offence, the means of securing evidence is always distasteful, based on snooping and informing, the flashing of torches into motor-cars at night, the bursting into of private homes. No reasonable system of morality, furthermore, can tolerate the ethics of the Immorality Act, which condones immorality between people of the same race, but converts it into a criminal offence from the moment that the race groups are different.

Group Areas Act. Provided for the establishment of racial ghettoes in which ownership and occupation of land would be restricted to a specified population group. This immensely complicated Act, which cuts across all property rights, has been amended on innumerable occasions and is still in the process of enforcement, with many areas of the country not yet demarcated for the ownership or occupation of any group. Although in the 1962 session of Parliament the Minister of the Interior refused to supply any figures, trends so far indicate that the vast bulk of the country will be reserved for White ownership and occupation. To achieve the racial separation which is contemplated by this Act, hundreds of thousands of people will have to give up their homes and move to other areas; and as might have been expected, the majority of sacrifices will be made by non-Whites.

The general purpose of the removals is to exclude non-Whites from the central areas of all towns and cities, in some of which they have lived for centuries, and to resettle them in newly developed, totally segregated areas on the outskirts. In many of these new areas the inhabitants find that their standard of housing may in some cases have improved, but that they are generally now faced with a total lack of amenities, plus a huge increase in the cost of transport and sometimes even in rents. The following are brief details of the way in which the peoples of the main centres have been affected.

Cape Town and adjoining areas: The total numbers of people affected by Group Areas proclamations up to March 1961 were: White, 7,731; Coloured, 94,148; and Asian 4,658. Subsequently, in terms of Proclamation 43 of 11 February 1966, the most controversial area of the city - and, despite its poverty and squalor, one of the most cohesive and human - District 6, was set aside for White ownership and occupation. According to figures given by the Minister of Housing in June 1964, there were at that time about 800 Whites, 61,000 Coloured people and Malays, and 600 Indians in the area. The estimated market values of properties there were 17 million Rand for White properties, 6 million Rand for Coloured, 5 million Rand for Indian, and 7 million Rand for municipal and state. The Minister said in the Assembly that about 5,700 families would be involved in the removal; but the likelihood is that, at the end of the ten years which he indicated as necessary to complete the operation, there will not be a single non-White left residing in the area.

Durban: According to a statement by the Minister of the Interior on 5 August 1958, a total of 1,000 Whites, 75,000 Indians, and 8,500 Coloured people will eventually have to be moved, together perhaps with 81,000 Africans. In terms of proclamation;, up to that date, Indians would lose property in Durban with a rateable value of £5,548,620, while Coloureds and Africans would have to give up property worth £55,480 and £20,340 respectively. Indians maintain that the market value of their affected properties is nearer £20 million. If the central working areas of Durban are zoned to exclude Indian residence, and Clairwood declared an industrial area (as the City Council is planning), an additional 54,000 Indians, 6,000 Coloureds, and 44,000 Africans will be affected.

Addressing the annual general meeting of the Natal region of the Institute of Race Relations at Durban in 1964, the chairman, Mr D.C. Grice, estimated that within the next thirty years about half of Natal's present non-White population would have to move because of the policy of separate development, including 300,000 Indians and up to one million Africans.

In 1963 the coastal town of Isipingo, in Natal, was proclaimed Indian, necessitating the removal of 1,800 Whites. The Indian population of the town at the time was about 20,000.

Johannesburg: A survey conducted by Muriel Horrell in 1966 showed that, of the 119,700 Coloured and 99,000 Indian people of the Transvaal, only 15.01 percent of the former and 7.50 percent of the latter were unaffected by Group Areas proclamations up to that date. In Johannesburg alone, the 450,000 Whites have been allocated 400 residential areas, while the 714,000 Africans have 46 areas, the 67,000 Coloured people have 7 areas, and the 38,000 Indians none. Their future home is to be the new town of Lenasia, beyond the municipal borders and twenty-two miles from the city centre. By 1966 some 17,000 Indians had already moved there, and the rest were being induced to move by prosecutions and devices like the cancellation of all facilities, including schooling, for Indians in the urban area. Despite the request of the Johannesburg City Council, the government has steadfastly refused to sanction the zoning of an area within the city limits for Indian occupation and ownership.

Durban and Cape Town are the most racially mixed areas in South Africa, but a similar pattern results from Group Areas proclamations in other centres. Perhaps the most vicious application of the Act, indeed, has been in some of the country areas, where local authorities have put forward plans which would result in the dumping of the Indian population on bare veld some miles from the centre of the town and the site of their previous businesses. Such moves would result in the total ruination of the Indian communities concerned.

There have already been several cases of suicide by non-Whites whose homes and savings have been threatened by the Application of the Act.

The writer Alan Paton has described the Group Areas Act as the greatest sin which the White people have committed. In a number of areas, leaders of the Indian community have refused to obey removal orders served on them under the Group Areas Act; the former chairman of the Transvaal Indian Congress, sixty-nine-year-old Mr Nana Sita, completed in December 1967 his third jail sentence for refusing to leave the Pretoria home in which he had lived for thirty-seven years.

Privy Council Appeals Act. Abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council from the South African courts.

1951 SESSION

Separate Representation of Voters Act. Provided for the removal of Coloured voters from the common roll.

Bantu Authorities Act. Provided for the establishment of tribal, regional and territorial Bantu Authorities in the reserves and abolished the Natives' Representative Council set up under the 1936 Representation of Natives Act. Bantu Authorities are not popularly elected but are appointed - and dismissed - by the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development.

Native Building Workers' Act. Permitted the training and registration of Africans as skilled building workers, but for work in African areas alone. Under this law, Africans are prohibited from working as odd-jobbers in urban areas, while Whites are prohibited from placing any contract with an African builder.

Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act. Prohibited anyone from entering upon any land or building, or any African location or village, without permission. Under this law, countless so-called illegal squatters have been ordered to remove themselves, and the structures or buildings erected by them have been destroyed.

1952 SESSION

Criminal Sentences Amendment Act. Provided that persons under fifty years of age convicted of certain offences, including robbery and house-breaking with intent to commit an offence, should be sentenced to a whipping not exceeding ten strokes, with or without imprisonment, though courts were empowered to suspend the sentence in whole or in part. The effect of this Act has been staggering. In the twenty years between 1942 and 1962, about 1,000,000 strokes were administered to 180,000 offenders; and 850,000 of these strokes were administered after the 1952 Act was passed. In the year ended 30 June 1963, a total of 17,404 offenders received 83,206 strokes, and in the following year 16,887 offenders received 79,038 strokes, according to figures given in the House of Assembly by the Minister of Justice. The comparable figures for 1942 were 2,000 offenders receiving 12,000 strokes. But although the number of whippings had increased eight-fold in two decades, it had no effect whatsoever on the incidence of crime, which continued to mount at a greater rate than the increase in population. Eventually, after an inquiry, the Minister of Justice inserted a clause in the Criminal Procedure Amendment Act of 1965 in terms of which compulsory whipping was scrapped, and the discretion over the imposition of corporal punishment once again restored to the courts.

High Court of Parliament Act. Passed to assist in the removal of Coloured voters from the common role.

Natives (Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents) Act. Provided, despite its fanciful name, for the consolidation of passes into a single document to be known as a reference book and issued to all Africans over the age of sixteen. Pasted in front is the identity card issued under the Population Registration scheme; and there are pages for entries relating to labour bureaux and influx control, the signatures of employers, poll tax receipts, any taxes imposed by Bantu Authorities, and other particulars. As the books are issued, finger-prints are taken and recorded in a central bureau.

Unlike the identity card of other races, which must be produced within seven days of demand, the reference book must always be carried on the person of the holder and produced on demand, failing which the offender may be arrested on the spot.

Under this Act African women have been subjected to the pass laws for the first time.

Native Laws Amendment Act. Provided that no African would be permitted to remain in an urban area for longer than seventy-two hours without a permit unless he had been born and was permanently resident there. Exceptions were to be made only in the case of those who had worked in one area continuously for one employer for not less than ten years, and for more than one employer for not less than fifteen years. The use of labour bureaux was made compulsory, so that no man might seek work without the permission of the local authority.

The main aim behind this law is to prevent the migration of Africans to the existing urban areas and the establishment there of a potentially dangerous black proletariat. Side by side with the regulations preventing migration to the towns are other regulations providing for the expulsion from the towns of all Africans surplus to requirements. As far as possible, the government wants all African labour in the urban areas to be migratory, coming from the homelands for a definite contract period, and returning there when the contract is ended.

Defending the migratory labour policy in an address to the annual conference of the Institute of Administrators of non-European Affairs, held at George in November 1967, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, Mr Blaar Coetzee, declared that Africans were only temporary sojourners in the White areas -temporary in the sense that the African should be allowed to live in White South Africa uninterrupted only while he sold his labour. The moment he was no longer fit for labour or became surplus to labour needs, it was expected that he would return to the territory of his birth or to the territory of the national unit in which he ethnically fitted.

In this way he thought of African aged, widows, women and children who did not qualify for residence in the White areas and the African handicapped. For the purposes of this policy African businessmen, industrialists, lawyers, doctors and other professional men were considered 'unproductive' and they should gradually move to the homelands (Star weekly edition, 11 November 1967).

Coetzee was merely amplifying the policy laid down by his Minister, Mr M. C. Botha, in the House of Assembly on 13 October 1966: 'The Bantu in the White areas are here for the work we have to offer them and which they also need. ... They are not here to anchor themselves. ... We must help the Bantu to maintain their national ties ... with their homelands and their families, even if they were born here in the Whites areas.' It is under this law that tens of thousands of Africans have been 'endorsed out' or summarily evicted from urban areas because their presence has been considered undesirable. Husbands have been separated from wives, parents from children, in order to ensure that the White-dominated economy gets its labour when, where, and how it wants it.

The Minister of Bantu Administration told the House of Assembly in the 1964 session of Parliament that a total of 464,726 Africans had been 'endorsed out' of the twenty-three major towns in South Africa during the period 1956-63. The following year he supplied figures showing that approximately 85,000 men and 15,000 women had been endorsed out of the nine main urban areas in 1964. On 12 August 1966 the Minister said 66,303 men and 19,883 women had been endorsed out of the nine main urban areas in 1965. But on 27 January 1967, asked the same question that he had been prepared to answer before, the Minister answered: 'I regret that I cannot reply to the Hon. Member, as statistics in this connexion are not kept, and the information can only be obtained by extensive inquiries and a large volume of work.' A Memorandum on 'the Application of the Pass Laws and Influx Control' published by the women's protest organization the Black Sash in 1966 states:

For thousands of Africans these laws result in broken families, in unemployment, in poverty and malnutrition, insecurity and instability, and in a state of hopelessness.... Millions of Rands are spent in administering these laws, and millions of man-hours are wasted in the attempt to enforce unenforceable laws. The real cost must be counted in terms of human sorrow, bitterness, suffering, and tragedy on a vast scale.

The migratory labour system has been condemned by all the South African Churches, including the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk, whose general assembly in October 1966 adopted a report from its Cape Synod condemning migrant labour and declaring that 'the system is partly responsible for the collapse of African family life'.

The Athlone advice office of the Black Sash calculated that, in the African township of Langa (Cape Town) there were on 30 October 1967 about 33,000 Africans. The proportion of men to women was more than ten to one. Of 25,000 men housed as so called bachelors in the barracks, sixty-eight percent were married - forced to live apart from their families. In a statement released at its national conference in October 1967, the Black Sash said: 'There is no record of even chattel slavery anywhere having produced so impossible a social situation - such a zoological experiment with human beings is historically unprecedented' (Evening Post, 11 November 1967, and Star 19 October 1967).

What happens to the Africans - men, women, and children who are endorsed out of the towns because they do not qualify to live there? Many of them wander from town to town, seeking admission, but constantly being refused because they do not qualify and are not required for labour there. Some find on return to their so-called homelands, which they may not ever have seen before in their lives, that they do not qualify for residence there either, and there have been cases reported in the press of homeless Africans being brought before the courts because they have no legal right to live anywhere at all in South Africa, the land of their birth. (Typical cases are reported in the Star of 9 August 1966 and 28 June 1967, as well as in the Black Sash memorandum already referred to.)

In recent years the government has been constructing transit camps for displaced Africans in the so-called homelands. In 1967 there were twenty-four of these camps, housing over 49,000 people: the tens of thousands 'endorsed out' of the urban areas the aged, and infirm, and women who can no longer serve the Whites in the urban areas; discharged political prisoners and their dependants; ' illegal ' squatters removed from White farms. The camps are sealed off from the press and from all Whites other than officials, and the information which the government is prepared to release on them is scanty. In one typical camp described by a former inmate the inhabitants live in one-roomed shacks of corrugated iron or wood, with no ceiling or proper floor, no piped water, and no sanitation apart from filthy communal lavatories. They have no access to the land, and the only work available is on road or dam construction and repairing, at a wage of 16 rand 50 cents a month (at that time, the equivalent of £8.5s.). For the old people, said the author, the camp was 'perhaps their last hell on earth before the grave' (Welcome Valley by Mahlubi Livingstone Mrwetyana, published by the International Defence and Aid Fund in July 1967).

This opinion was confirmed by Mrs R. M. Johnston, national secretary of the Black Sash, in a speech to a Progressive Party forum in Johannesburg in June 1968. Describing the resettlement villages as 'hell holes', she said Africans forced to live in the government's 'transit camps for displaced persons' existed in conditions unheard of in any civilized country (Rand Daily Mail, 19 June 1968). According to replies in the House of Assembly during the 1968 session of Parliament, the number of resettlement villages had grown to thirty-nine.

In the Transkei, the Chief Minister, Chief Kaiser Matanzima, has on more than one occasion protested against the dumping of surplus Africans from the urban areas in his Bantustan. Addressing the fourth annual congress of his National Independence Party in Umtata in April 1967 he said that he had several times made representations to the government on this point, as there was little or no work in the Transkei for 'deported' Africans. Accusing the government of 'wielding a kierie' against the African people, Matanzima added: 'We cannot allow this to go on.' At a public meeting in Duncan Village, East London, on 16 October, Matanzima repeated: ' I do not agree with the Urban Areas Act. We want our people to work in towns because we have no work in the Transkei. I never made the influx control regulations, which I do not agree with.' One week later he said, at a meeting of his party in East London, that the Urban Areas Act was a burning issue for Africans. 'We are no beasts. A man slaughters his beasts any time he wants to, and we are not allowed to work where we want to. We have to depend on the dictates of petty officials' (Rand Daily Mail, 18 April, and Star, 16 and 23 October 1967).

Linked with the pass laws has been the scheme -operated jointly by government departments, the police, and private farmers - whereby Africans who could not get work in the urban areas, and those convicted of petty technical offences, have been contracted out to farmers, often against their will and without knowing that they had the option of appearing in court. A series of court cases in 1959, which exposed the whole scandal to the public, led the African National Congress to launch a potato boycott (the worst excesses were committed on the potato farms of the Eastern Transvaal), and eventually the government was forced to appoint a commission. But despite the exposure, and the extraordinary success of the boycott, which spread like wildfire through the country, the practice seems to be continuing, although on a smaller scale.

On many farms, labourers are forced to wear sacks as a working uniform, and are locked up at night in filthy, vermin-infested quarters; their bedding consists of sacks on bare concrete, and sanitation is of the primitive bucket type. Labourers are forced to work from sunrise to sunset on a diet consisting almost exclusively of mealie meal; and brutal assaults by 'boss boys' and farmers are an everyday occurrence.

Farmers do not attract labour in the ordinary way, because they refuse to pay an adequate wage and provide decent living and working conditions. Many accordingly fall back on forced and convict labour as their main source of supply, for convict labour can be obtained at a cheap rate from the numerous farm jails in South Africa.

On 7 February 1964 the Minister of Justice told the House of Assembly, in reply to a question, that there were fourteen prison out-stations in the Cape, ten in the Transvaal, and one in the Orange Free State. Whereas in 1950 such out-stations had housed a maximum of 923 and a minimum of 657 prisoners, by 1963 the maximum number of prisoners had risen to 9,582 and the minimum to 8,537. Answering a similar question in the Assembly on 4 April 1967, the Minister said that there were thirteen prison out-stations in the Cape, nine in the Transvaal, and one in the Orange Free State. The total number of prisoners which could be accommodated in these outstations, he said, was 6,217. Either the two out-stations closed between 1963 and 1967 had housed about 3,000 prisoners between them, or there had been gross overcrowding in 1963, as the two sets of figures are otherwise irreconcilable.

In his statement on 7 February 1964, the Minister said that no wages were paid to any prisoner, but that they received a gratuity in terms of Prisons Service Regulations. The amount of the gratuity was not specified.

On 18 February 1964, in answer to another question, the Minister told the House that all prison out-stations are used for prisoners employed on privately owned farms, except for a limited number 'used for departmental purposes'.

Asked what amount per day was paid by employers of such labour, the Minister replied: 'In view of the fact that they are exclusively responsible for the provision of modern accommodation for both personnel and prisoners in accordance with plans and specifications laid down by the Department, as well as for the maintenance of the buildings, the employers are charged a reduced rate of 15 cents.' Thanks to the farm jail system, farmers in South Africa can get labour for 15 cents (about IS. 4d.) a day - servile, or at any rate docile, labour under armed guard, at a rate at least five times lower than the lowest rate they would have to pay on the open market. No wonder the practice has been condemned as a violation of its statutes by the International Labour Organization, from which South Africa withdrew in 1964, during the session at which its apartheid policies were described in a unanimously approved declaration as 'degrading, criminal and inhuman '.

Convictions for offences under influx control regulations and 'laws and regulations known as the pass laws' were:

1955 - 337,604
1956 - 356,812
1957 - 565,911
1958 - 396,836
1959 - 413,639
1960 - 340,958
1961 - 375,417
1962 - 384,497

In 1965-66 just under 700,000 Africans were sent for trial for offences against the pass laws, labour service contracts and tax regulations. The Native Services Levy Act. Laid down that urban employers of male Africans aged eighteen years and over should pay to the local authority a levy of 2s. 6d. a week for the provision and maintenance of water, sanitation, lighting, or road services outside an African township. In certain circumstances, the levy may also be used for subsidizing African transport services or for making loans and grants towards the provision and maintenance of services within an African township.

1953 SESSION

Bantu Education Act. Transferred Bantu Education from the provinces to the Department of Native Affairs.

Immigration Regulation Amendment Act. Provided that the wives and minor children of Indian men permanently resident in South Africa should no longer be permitted to come from India to join them, except by special permission.

Reservation of Separate Amenities Act. Permitted any person in charge of any public premises or public vehicle to reserve such premises or vehicle for the exclusive use of any race or class. Such action was not to be ruled invalid (as had been done by the courts) on the ground that provision was not made for all races, or that the separate facilities provided for the various races were not substantially equal.

In other words, the doctrine of 'separate but unequal' was enshrined in South African law.

Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act. Outlawed strikes by African workers and established a complicated machinery for the settlement of industrial disputes involving Africans.

Criminal Law Amendment Act. Prescribed very severe penalties for the breaking of any law as a political protest.

Public Safety Act. Provided for rule by decree in an emergency.

1954 SESSION

Natives Resettlement Act. Provided for the establishment of a Resettlement Board to undertake the forcible removal of 57,000 Africans from Sophiatown, Martindale, Newclare, and Pageview, the so-called 'black spots' in the western area of central Johannesburg, to Meadowlands and Diepkloof, over ten miles south west of the city. Sophiatown was one of the few remaining areas in South Africa where Africans enjoyed freehold land ownership rights. Such rights would not exist in the new townships, and furthermore all Africans were to be segregated there along tribal patterns. The population of the western areas was overwhelmingly opposed to the move, which had to be undertaken on military lines at gun-point. To mark their conquest of Sophiatown, the Nationalists later renamed it 'Triomf'.

Native Trust and Land Amendment Act. Removed the obligation on the government to find alternative land for displaced squatters. It was estimated that at least one million squatting labour tenants and other squatters would be affected if the Act were rigidly enforced.

Riotous Assemblies and Suppression of Communism Amendment Act. Removed the onus on the Minister to give a hearing to any person he proposed to ban, and rendered all 'named' Communists ineligible for election to Parliament or the Provincial Councils.

South-West Africa Native Affairs Administration Act. Transferred the administration of African affairs in South-West Africa from the Administrator of the territory to the South African Minister of Native Affairs.

1955 SESSION

Departure from the Union Regulation Act. Laid down that no South African over the age of sixteen years should leave the Union unless in possession of a valid passport or permit, and empowered the Minister of the Interior to withdraw a passport at any time. This Act has been used as a weapon of widespread political intimidation. Not only is it exceedingly difficult for a non-White, particularly an African, to get a passport, but even prominent White opponents of the government such as Mrs Jessie MacPherson, Chairman of the Labour Party, and Alan Paton, author and Liberal Party leader - not to mention all those to the left of them - have had their passports withdrawn because they dared to criticize aspects of government policy.

Appellate Division Quorum Act. Enlarged the Appeal Court and qualified its right to pronounce on the validity of Acts of Parliament.

Senate Act. Enlarged the Senate to facilitate the passage of the Separate Representation of Voters Bill.

Criminal Procedure and Evidence Amendment Act. Empowered the police to enter and search premises without a warrant. In the debate on this measure the Minister of Justice made it clear that the Bill was aimed at the extra-parliamentary political opposition.

Natives (Urban Areas) Amendment Act. Prohibited owners of buildings in an urban area from allowing more than five Africans to reside in any one building at any time except with special permission from the Minister of Native Affairs. The Act was aimed at the so-called 'locations in the sky' - the increasing number of domestic servants housed at the top of blocks of flats. It was estimated that up to 20,000 Africans in Johannesburg alone would have to move out of their quarters and be obliged to pay increased rent and transport costs.

Motor Carrier Transportation Amendment Act. Gave the National Transport Board or local boards the power to enforce apartheid on transport services. The general manager of Johannesburg's municipal transport department estimated that if the policy of apartheid were abandoned Johannesburg could make a profit of £500,000 a year on its bus and tram services instead of running them at a loss.

Criminal Procedure Act. Extended the powers of the police to kill someone suspected of committing an offence who was fleeing or resisting arrest.

1956 SESSION

Industrial Conciliation Act. Provided for the splitting of the trade union movement on racial lines and for the reservation of jobs on a racial basis.

Native Administration Amendment Act. Permitted banishment orders to be served without prior notice to the person concerned.

Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) Act. Laid down that, when an African was in receipt of a removal or banishment order, no court might issue an interdict which would have the effect of suspending execution, or suspend the order until the outcome of review proceedings or an appeal. The African - even if he were the wrong man and had had a notice served on him by mistake was to remove himself first and argue his case afterwards, even though irreparable damage might have been caused to him and his family in the meantime.

Natives (Urban Areas) Amendment Act. Empowered an urban local authority - if it considered the presence of any African under its jurisdiction to be detrimental to the maintenance of peace and order - to instruct such an African to leave the area within a specified period and not return except with the local authority's permission. The Act was specifically aimed at so called 'political agitators'.

South Africa Act Amendment Act. Revalidated the Separate Representation of Voters Act of 1951.

Riotous Assemblies Act. Consolidated the laws relating to control of riotous assemblies and provided, inter alia, that persons found guilty of intimidating others to stay away from work or to join any association or society (such as a trade union), by certain forms of picketing, by jeering at people or blacklisting them for work, or by breaking a contract of employment in an essential service, would be liable to a maximum penalty of a £50 fine or six months' imprisonment or both.

1957 SESSION

Native Laws Amendment Act. Contained inter alia the notorious 'church clause', in terms of which the Minister of Native Affairs was empowered to direct that the attendance of Africans at any church service in a White area should cease. Involving as it did the freedom of worship, this clause aroused widespread opposition, and the Christian Council of South Africa issued a statement declaring: 'If this clause ... becomes law, we shall be forced to disregard the law and to stand whole-heartedly by the members of our churches who are affected by it, and, if necessary to suffer with them as our brethren in Christ.' With typical obstinacy the Nationalist government insisted on placing the clause on the statute book, but it was so impressed by the opposition that it has not invoked its powers against the churches yet.

In addition to placing further limitations on the right of Africans to enter and remain in an urban area, the Act made it an offence for any non-resident to enter or remain in an African location, village, or hostel without the permission of the managing official.

Group Areas Amendment Act. Prohibited members of a disqualified racial group from attending a public cinema, or partaking of refreshments in a licensed restaurant or refreshment room or tea room or eating house, or visiting any club, in a particular group or controlled area except under permit.

Native Laws Further Amendment Act. Gave the Minister power to deport so-called 'foreign natives', whose presence in South Africa was considered by the Minister not to be in the public interest.

Nursing Act. Provided for the introduction of apartheid into the nursing profession. Separate registers and rolls were to be kept of White, Coloured and African nurses, while the Nursing Council in control of the profession was to consist of White persons only.

Immorality Act. Increased the maximum penalty for illicit carnal intercourse between Whites and non-Whites to seven years' imprisonment, while making it an offence not only for a White and a non-White together to commit an indecent or immoral act, but also to solicit one another to the commitment of any such act.

1958 SESSION

Criminal Procedure Amendment Act. Empowered the Supreme Court to apply the death penalty in cases of robbery or attempted robbery where the accused was proved to have inflicted or threatened to inflict grievous bodily harm, as well as in cases of house-breaking where the accused was proved to have carried a dangerous weapon, or to have committed or threatened assault.

As with other Nationalist legislation that has increased penalties for specified crimes, this Act has had no effect on the incidence of serious crime, which has continued to mount at a greater rate than the increase of population.

Electoral Laws Amendment Act. Extended the franchise to White persons over eighteen years of age.

Natives Taxation and Development Act. Provided that every male African of eighteen years and over should pay basic general tax at the rate of £1.15s. a year instead of £1 as previously. Men earning over £180 a year would pay increased amounts on a sliding scale, while African women were made liable to pay general tax for the first time.

1959 SESSION

Bantu Investment Corporation Act. Established a corporate body known as the Bantu Investment Corporation of S.A. Ltd to promote and encourage the economic development of Bantu persons in the Bantu areas, by the provision of money, technical, or other assistance, and expert advice. The affairs of the corporation were to be managed by a board of directors appointed by the Minister and consisting of Whites alone.

The Bantu Investment Corporation has a share capital of R3 million, owned by the S.A. Bantu Trust. In addition, according to a report in the Rand Daily Mail of 7 December 1966, the Corporation had by that date obtained R7 million from the government and R15 million from Africans, mostly Bantu Authorities. Between its inception in July 1959 and 15 June 1966, the Corporation granted loans to 'approved African applicants' in the Republic, the Transkei and South-West Africa totalling R2,653,126, for the establishment of small-scale businesses like transport services, retail trading companies, cafes, butcheries, brickworks, and furniture manufacturing, plus loans totalling R260,387 for individual housing (Minister of Bantu Administration, House of Assembly, 9 August 1966).

This must be compared with the development of the so-called border industries, in which some R300 million were invested by Whites between 1960 and 1965, according to a report by the Afrikaner bank Volkskas, quoted in the Cape Argus of 25 February 1967. Clearly the expenditure of the Corporation in the Reserves is negligible in relation to their economic needs. Meanwhile, the development of an African middle class in the urban areas is discouraged, with Africans told that they must look to their homelands (the Reserves) for their economic expansion.

Criminal Laws Amendment Act. Provided for 'week-end' periodical imprisonment and laid down minimum sentences for certain categories of offence.

Prisons Act. Made it an offence to sketch or photograph or publish a sketch or photograph of a prison or prisoner, or to publish false information about a prisoner or ex-prisoner or the administration of any prison, with the onus placed on the publisher to prove that he had taken reasonable steps to ascertain the veracity of his story. The effect of this Act has been to discourage the Press from exposing jail atrocities.

During 1965, three articles were published in the Rand Daily Mail based on interviews with a former political prisoner, Harold Strachan, who had just been released from jail after serving a three-year sentence under the Explosives Act. Strachan alleged brutal treatment of prisoners by warders, including torture and assaults, as well as inefficient and corrupt administration, unhygienic conditions, and widespread homosexuality in the prisons in which he had served; and these allegations were supported by later articles in the Rand Daily Mail and the Sunday Times, based on interviews with, and affidavits by, Mr J.A. Theron, a head warder at Cinderella Prison in Boksburg; warders G.F.C. Prins and G.J. van Schalkwyk from the same prison; and two African ex-prisoners, Mr Filisbert Taimo and Mr Isaac Setshedi.

The Minister of Justice, Mr Vorster, declared that he was not prepared to call for an inquiry or to appoint a commission. The best way to test the allegations was in the courts of law, he said. But it was not the alleged offenders who were subsequently brought to trial; it was those who made the allegations themselves who were prosecuted, under the Prisons Act. The State case was based on evidence by a host of warders, prisoners, prison doctors and prison officials (in the Strachan case, no fewer than fifty-six) who swore that everything the accused had said was a pack of lies.

Van Schalkwyk was sentenced to three years, reduced on appeal to eighteen months; Taime and Setshedi to six months each; Strachan to two and a half years, reduced on appeal to eighteen months; and Theron, after a long case on twelve charges, to a total of sixteen months. Prins was fined 100 Rand, with the alternative of ninety days' imprisonment.

At the conclusion of the Theron case, the State moved in to attack the Press itself. The editor of the Sunday Times, Mr Joel Mervis; the editor of the Rand Daily Mail, Mr Lawrence Gandar; a Rand Daily Mail reporter, Mr Benjamin Pogrund; the managing director of South African Associated Newspapers, Mr L. Walton, and the legal adviser of S.A.A.N., Mr K. Stuart, were arrested on allegations of having published false information about prisons. In January 1968, proceedings against Mr Mervis were withdrawn; but at the time of writing, the case against the others was still being pressed.

Extension of University Education Act. Provided for the exclusion of non-White students from the hitherto open universities and the establishment of segregated colleges on ethnic lines for the various non-White races.

University College of Fort Hare Transfer Act. Transferred control of the college to the Minister of Bantu Education, to change an open university of high academic standards into a tribal college of low ones, with a staff carefully purged of all liberal elements.

Industrial Conciliation Amendment Act. Gave the Minister of Labour power to outlaw strikes in the canning industry.

Motor Carrier Transportation Amendment Act. Enabled Transportation Boards to enforce apartheid in taxi services throughout the Cape and Natal. In the other two provinces such discrimination already existed.

Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act. Abolished African representation in Parliament and outlined procedures for the establishment of so-called 'self-government' in the Reserves.

1960 SESSION

Factories, Machinery, and Building Work Amendment Act. Empowered the government to order the provision in factories of separate entrances, clocking-in devices, pay offices, first-aid rooms, protective clothing, crockery, cutlery, and work-rooms for the various races. The government already possessed such powers in relation to the provision of separate sanitary conveniences, washrooms, changing rooms, rest rooms, dining rooms and work places where the employees of different races worked in the same room.

Referendum Act. Provided for the holding of a referendum on the establishment of a republic.

Reservation of Separate Amenities Amendment Act. Provided for the enforcement of apartheid on beaches.

Senate Act. Reduced the size of the Senate, which had been enlarged in 1955 to facilitate the passage of the Separate Representation of Voters Bill, from eighty-six to fifty-four members. In the new Senate the government has thirty-nine representatives and the opposition, fifteen.

Unlawful Organisations Act. Empowered the Governor-General to ban the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress. In addition, the maximum penalties for 'intimidation ' laid down for strikers or boycotters in the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956 were increased tenfold, to a fine of £500 or five years' imprisonment or ten lashes or a combination of any two of these.

1961 SESSION

Defence Amendment Act. Empowered the Minister of Defence to order any person or class of persons to evacuate or assemble in any particular building or premises or area in time of war or during operations for the prevention or suppression of internal disorder. To avoid the suspicion that he was aiming at the establishment of concentration camps, the Minister limited the period for which such an order can remain in force to four days, though the order itself may then be renewed.

Defence Further Amendment Act. Extended the period of military training for White youths selected by ballot.

Police Amendment Act. Provided for the recruitment of a White police reserve.

General Law Amendment Act. Provided for detention without bail for up to twelve days.

Indemnity Act. Laid down that no proceedings, whether civil or criminal, arising from acts committed during the 1960 state of emergency, could be brought in any court of law against the government and its officers. It had been announced in the Press that in consequence of the disturbances at Sharpeville 244 claims had been instituted against members of the government for a total of £450,000 - made up of approximately £250,000 for compensation on account of the death of breadwinners, £150,000 for personal injury, and £50,000 for alleged unlawful arrest. As a result of the Act, none of these claims could be pursued.

Liquor Amendment Act. Removed all restrictions on the purchase of alcohol by Coloured people and Asians for off-consumption, and empowered holders of off-consumption licenses to sell liquor to any African aged eighteen and over.

Republic of South Africa Constitution Act. Established the Republic, headed by the State President, and outside the Commonwealth since the Prime Ministers' Conference of March 1961 .

Urban Bantu Councils Act. Permitted an urban local authority to establish an urban Bantu Council for any African residential area under its jurisdiction, such council to consist of elected and selected members, with the number of selected members not exceeding the number elected. Urban Bantu Councils were to be vested with civil and criminal jurisdiction and with a limited control of finances. Designed to replace the advisory board system, the councils are intended as a substitute for the direct representation of Africans on the urban local authorities themselves, a practice contrary to government policy.

By the beginning of 1968, only a handful of Bantu Councils had been set up, most of them in the smaller centres. Then, later in the year, a Johannesburg Urban Bantu Council, consisting of seventeen selected and forty-one elected members, was established. Representation is on an ethnic basis, with separate representation for Zulus, Xhosa, and so on. Great disillusionment resulted, however, when the members of the new Council were told that they could not make representations to the authorities on behalf of individual residents of the township, as the former Advisory Board members had done. 'What other function is there for us to perform?' they complained to the manager of the City Council's Non-European Affairs Department. (Rand Daily Mail, 17 April 1968).

1962 SESSION

Coloured Development Corporation Act. Established a Coloured Development Corporation to encourage and promote the economic development of the Coloured people in 'their own areas '. The Board of the Corporation is to consist only of Whites. The Corporation itself has a share capital of R1,750,000, with all the shares owned by the government, according to a speech by the Secretary for Coloured Affairs in February 1966. In August of the same year, the Minister told the House of Assembly that between 1962 and 31 July 1966 the Corporation had made loans totalling R1,282,479 to eighty private Coloured businesses.

General Law Amendment Act. The so-called ' Sabotage Act ' laid down a minimum penalty of five years and a maximum of death for sabotage, and provided for the placing of government opponents under house arrest.

General Law Further Amendment Act. Provided that anyone who painted slogans on walls should be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months in lieu of or in addition to any other penalty which might be imposed under another law. This was the government's answer to a political slogan painting campaign which had flourished in many centres during 1961 and 1962.

National Education Advisory Council Act. Provided for the establishment of a National Education Advisory Council, to consist of not less than fifteen members appointed by the Minister of Education. This measure was a preparatory step towards centralized control of education by the government, finally established by the National Education Policy Act in 1967.

1963 SESSION

Aliens Control Act. Provided, inter alia, that foreign Africans not in possession of the required documents may be detained and deported without trial. Pending deportation, such Africans may be held in custody and made to perform work as required.

Constitution Amendment Act. Provided for the recognition of African languages as additional official languages in the proposed Bantustans.

Explosives Amendment Act. Increased maximum penalties prescribed in the principal Act of 1956. Anyone convicted of causing an explosion which endangers life became liable to a minimum penalty of three years' imprisonment. (The 1956 Act was purely a consolidating measure.)

Higher Education Amendment Act. Provided for the transfer of Indian university education from the Department of Education to the Department of Indian Affairs.

Liquor Amendment Act. Provided that liquor could not be supplied to employees as part of their wages, but that any employer could supply liquor free to any African employee over eighteen for his personal consumption.

Rural Coloured Areas Act. Amended conditions for the occupation of land and provided for the establishment of advisory boards in Coloured reserves.

Extension of University Education Amendment Act. Provided for Ministerial control of staff appointments at Fort Hare university college.

Births, Marriages and Deaths Registration Act. Provided for compulsory registration of African births, marriages and deaths, to take effect when proclaimed by the State President in the Gazette.

National Film Board Act. Provided for the establishment of a National Film Board to produce propaganda films for the government.

Defence Amendment Act. Enabled members of the Citizen Force and Commandos to be called out in support of the police to suppress internal disorder.

Better Administration of Designated Areas Act. Provided, inter alia, for the mass removal of population and the elimination of freehold land ownership rights for Africans in Alexandra Township, near Johannesburg.

General Law Amendment Act. Provided for the detention of persons without trial for the purpose of interrogation.

Bantu Laws Amendment Act. Restricted Africans' rights of residence in the urban areas - should be read together with the Bantu Laws Amendment Act, 1964.

Transkei Constitution Act. Provided for so-called 'self-government' in the Transkei.

Coloured Persons Education Act. Surrendered the control of education for Coloured persons to the Department of Coloured Affairs.

Publications and Entertainments Act. Provided for the censorship of newspapers, books, films, stage shows, and art exhibitions.

1964 SESSION

Bantu Laws Amendment Act. Tightened restrictions on Africans' rights of entry, residence and employment in urban areas.

Bantu Labour Act. Consolidated the laws relating to the recruiting, employment, accommodation, feeding and health conditions of African labourers (No changes in principle involved.)

Coloured Persons' Representative Council Act. Provided for the establishment of a Council to come into being after the planned abolition of Coloured representation in the central Parliament.

General Laws Amendment Act. Tightened up security laws, providing inter alia that anyone refusing to give evidence in a criminal trial can be jailed for up to twelve months, and that alleged accomplices can be compelled to give evidence, even if they incriminate themselves in the process.

1965 SESSION

Bantu Homelands Development Corporations Act. Empowered the Minister of Bantu Administration to establish a development corporation in each African homeland to promote economic development. The management will be in the hands of Whites, appointed by the Minister. All the shares will be in the hands of the Bantu Trust, but the Corporations may borrow money from Whites. The Corporation will concentrate on the development of secondary and tertiary industry, as distinct from the Bantu Investment Corporation, established in 1959, which aids Africans to establish small-scale retail concerns. The Bantu Homelands Development Corporation Act was interpreted as an admission by the government that the Africans in the homelands could not themselves raise the capital required for economic development - something stressed originally by the Tomlinson Commission but at first rejected by the government as contrary to the policy of separate development.

Criminal Procedure Amendment Act. Provided that State witnesses in political and certain classes of criminal trials could be detained without trial for repeated periods of 180 days, and that accused in such cases could be refused bail.

Community Development Amendment Act. The Group Areas Development Board was renamed the Community Development Board and provided with additional powers.

Suppression of Communism Amendment Act. Prohibited the publication of speeches or writings by banned persons who had left South Africa, and empowered the State President to ban any publication deemed to be a continuation, whether or not under another name, of one already prohibited.

Constitution Amendment Act. Increased the number of seats representing White voters in the House of Assembly from 150 to 160 (making a total House of 170 seats, with six seats for the White voters of South-West Africa and the remaining four for the White representatives of the Coloured voters).

Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act. Laid down that the Coloured representatives in the House of Assembly would hold office for five years from the date of their election. Previously, elections for Coloured representatives had to be held not less then eight days from the polling day fixed for Whites. The Minister announced that the aim of the Bill was to make it clear that the views of the Coloured voters need not be taken into account if Parliament should be dissolved at any time for the purpose of consulting the White voters.

Group Areas Amendment Act. Made the Minister of Planning responsible for the planning of group areas for Whites, Coloureds and Asians, and for permit control up to the time that group areas are proclaimed. After proclamation, the development of the areas and permit control fall under the Minister of Community Development. The Act empowered any policeman investigating a suspected offence relating to ownership or occupation of land or premises to inspect them without warrant at any time of day or night, conduct any search and question any person (powers wider than those of a policeman investigating a serious criminal offence).

Official Secrets Amendment Act. Made it an offence to communicate or publish any information relating to any military or police matter in any manner or for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State. Under pressure during the debate, the Minister agreed to add that a 'police matter' should mean any matter relating to the preservation of the internal security of the State or the maintenance of law and order; but it was still widely felt that the effect of the Act would be to prevent any investigation of the affairs of the Security Police. The President of the S.A. Society of Journalists, Mr G. D. Oliver, commented: ' As I see this measure, it is an instrument that could curtail the freedom of the Press drastically.'

Police Amendment Act. Empowered any policeman, at any place within a mile of the South African border, to search any person, vehicle or premises without a warrant. The Minister of Justice declared that these powers were needed to combat the infiltration of saboteurs from abroad.

Prisons Amendment Act. Tightened up the restrictions on the publication of information about prison conditions and prisoners.

Indians Education Act. Transferred all Indian education from the Department of Education to the Department of Indian Affairs.

Copyright Act. Empowered the State President to authorize or prohibit the publication or presentation of any work or production. The Act was designed to overcome the boycott of South Africa by overseas authors and artists, an increasing number of whom were prohibiting the production of their works before segregated audiences in South Africa.

1966 SESSION

Bantu Laws Amendment Act. Laid down that no person other than a citizen of that territory could enter or live in any self governing Bantu territory without permission. Whites, Coloureds, Indians, and Africans belonging to other ethnic groups were thus barred from the Transkei unless the Minister gave his consent.

Rand Afrikaans University Act. Provided for the establishment of an Afrikaans university in Johannesburg. The 'conscience clause' guaranteeing freedom of religious belief was omitted.

Civil Defence Act. Gave the Minister of Justice sweeping powers over persons and property in the event of an emergency or the threat of an emergency.

General Law Amendment Act. Extended the Sabotage Act to South-West Africa and provided for the detention without trial of 'terrorists' for fourteen days.

Suppression of Communism Amendment Act. Contained the annual clause authorizing the continued detention of political prisoners who have completed their sentence. To date, only P.A.C. leader Robert Sobukwe has been detained under this clause.

Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act. Extended the term of office of the Coloured representatives in the House of Assembly to 27 October 1967.

Industrial Conciliation Amendment Act. Provided for the compulsory deduction of trade-union dues from workers' wage packets. One clause of the Act was designed to facilitate the formation of a separate union and the collection of dues by White workers who did not wish to belong to a mainly non-White union.

Industrial Conciliation Further Amendment Act. Prohibited strikes and lock-outs for any purpose unconnected with the relations between employers and employees.

1967 SESSION

Terrorism Act. Created the crime of 'terrorism', punishable by a minimum of five years' imprisonment and a maximum of death, and provided for the indefinite detention without trial of suspected 'terrorists' or persons in possession of information about terrorist activities.

Training Centres for Coloured Cadets Act. Provided for compulsory registration and training on military lines of Coloured males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. The Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, Mr Blaar Coetzee, said that the compulsory work training camps, if successful, should provide the necessary Coloured labour to replace Africans who were being endorsed out of the Western Cape in terms of the government's policy of separate development.

Suppression of Communism Amendment Act. Prohibited persons listed or convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act from practising as advocates or attorneys.

Border Control Act. Tightened up the provisions on entry to and departure from the Republic.

Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act. Extended the term of office of the Coloured representatives in Parliament to 30 October 1969.

Defence Amendment Act. Abolished the ballot system of recruiting for military training. All White youths who turn seventeen will in future be liable for service in the Citizen Force during the following ten years, and in the Commandos during the following sixteen years. The period of training was extended from nine months to a year. The Act made it an offence to publish information about military matters either in peace or in war, save with permission from the Minister of Defence.

National Education Policy Act.Gave the Minister of Education the power (previously held by Provincial Councils) to determine the policy to be followed in the education of White children at schools. It was laid down in the Act that the general policy applied by the Minister should be within the framework of Christian National Education.

Educational Services Act.Laid down that the Department of Education would control education for Whites in universities and technical colleges.

Physical Planning and Utilization of Resources Act. Gave the Minister of Planning unfettered control over future industrial development, and the power to veto the establishment or extension in urban areas of industries based on African labour.

Mining Rights Act. Gave the Minister increased control over the granting of mining rights in African reserves.

Pension Laws Amendment Act. Provided pension increases for all races, and increases in war pensions to Whites, Coloureds, and Indians. During the debate the Minister declared that African ex-servicemen were not entitled to war pensions as they had not served as armed members of the forces. The Johannesburg Star pointed out in its issue of 8 November 1967 that 133,500 Africans had enlisted for service in the two world wars. A total of 1,700 Africans had been killed in the Second World War alone. Many Africans had won military awards for bravery in both wars.

Population Registration Amendment Act. Made descent the main factor in determining race classification. Introducing the Bill, the Minister said that the new law was necessary because, in spite of previous legislation, there had been a 'gradual, but nevertheless to my mind dangerous, integration of whites and non-whites '. The opposition pointed out that the laws of nature could not be altered by legislation and that the new law would prove just as ineffective as the old.

General Law Amendment Act. Extended the detention of Mr Robert Sobukwe on Robben Island for a further year.

Immorality Amendment Act. Tightened up the provisions of the Immorality Act.

Foreign Affairs Special Account Act. Provided for a fund to be used for 'services of a confidential nature' by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Minister said that a vote for secret services had been placed on the estimates for his department first in 1965, when R500,000 had been voted. A similar amount had been voted in 1966. The money, he said, would not be used for any form of espionage or for any undermining activities in other countries; the stress would fall on cooperation with other countries in matters where secrecy was desirable. The Tanzanian newspaper The Nationalist commented: 'The likelihood is that the sums are intended to buy sympathy from African countries of dubious loyalty to the cause of African liberation. The other likely object would be to align South Africa's neighbours to it, so that they may prove impervious to the surge of freedom fighters into South Africa' (9 March 1967).

Go to Next Page