Mr. Speaker, as regards the business of this House after the Easter Recess, I wish to announce that the hon. the Minister of Finance will reply to the Second Reading debate on the Appropriation Bill on Tuesday, 13 April. The Vote of the hon. the Prime Minister will come up for discussion on Wednesday, 14 April.

For the rest, the House will follow the Order Paper, as printed.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we saw how much the PFP were enjoying the showdown between the ex-members of the NP and the NP members, and this is understandable. The PFP are delighted when problems arise in the NP, as they will never be able to come to power by way of the ballot box. They are eagerly waiting to see whether a rift is going to develop within the NP. If one examines what people of colour are seeking in the political sphere in our country, it is clear that they are not interested in the PFP. More than 80% of the Black and Coloured inhabitants of the Republic are interested in stability and work opportunities. They refuse to go the way of Africa with its famine and disaster. They realize how important it is to have a stable Government, a Government which seeks solutions to the problems. Otherwise one would reach the stage which the PFP want. According to their policy, we cannot but tread the path of eventual chaos in this country, in the sense that the Whites will no longer be able to take the lead until full development has taken place. That is why some of the hon. members of that party collude with the ANC.

Yes.

I am saying that there are some of the hon. members of that party, and I wish to place this on record, who collude with the ANC.

Who are they?

They know who they are.

But tell us then, [Interjections.]

I know there are a few, and I am thinking specifically of the hon. member for Pinelands now.

He colludes with the ANC?

Yes.

Repeat that outside this House if you are not a coward. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: May the hon. the Minister state in so many words that I or any of my colleagues have accord with a banned organization?

What did the hon. the Minister mean by that?

Mr. Speaker, I clearly stated that there were some of them who colluded with the ANC. [Interjections.]

Order! What did the hon. the Minister say with regard to the hon. member for Pinelands?

He colludes with the ANC.

The hon. the Minister must withdraw that allegation.

I withdraw it, Sir.

I challenge you to say it outside. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The hon. member for Bryanston said that if the hon. the Minister did not repeat those words outside this House he was a coward. Is he entitled to say that?

Order! What did the hon. member for Bryanston say?

I said that if the hon. the Minister was not prepared to repeat the words which he used against the hon. member for Pinelands outside this House, he was a coward.

The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Sir.

I should now like to deal with what happened in this House yesterday. I have always said that it would be a tragedy if people who agree with each other 99% of the time, should come to blows. However, a number of untruths have been uttered in this country during the past three weeks, and I should like to refer to these untruths. We are now in a time of emotional upsurge among certain small groups. Yesterday the hon. member for Pietersburg referred very emotionally to what President Paul Kruger had said. Whenever anyone quotes him, there is a feeling of compassion within all of our people towards President Paul Kruger. Why did the hon. member have to drag him into this debate, while every leader, from President Paul Kruger to the present Prime Minister, governs according to the guidance which he receives in the time in which he governs? In the Transvaal President Paul Kruger gave White land in White areas to the Blacks under title deed, land which we have to buy back at a high price today under our consolidation programme.

Including Pageview.

If one wishes to make such an allegation, one should be consistent and not sow confusion. In the ranks of the PFP there is talk of a rift in my party. There was no rift here. There were 142 National Party MPs. Sixteen of them walked out. Of the more than 150 National Party MPCs in the country, only five left. A head committee meeting was arranged in secret by the hon. members of the CP behind the back of my present leader and also behind the backs of the executive committee members. The hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs said yesterday that we had to hear by way of a radio report that such a meeting had been convened. With what purpose was this done? They wanted to catch us with our pants down, and they were secretly convinced that they were going to take over the Transvaal head committee. And then they speak of integrity, honesty and Christianity? Sir, you can imagine how shocked I was when I heard about these things. At that meeting 172 votes were cast against 36. Is that a rift? It is merely a flaking off of a small group of people, However, who are their bedfellows? That is the big question. [Interjections.] It is being asked why these people walked out. They did so for two reasons, reasons which will be demonstrated in future, and they are a tremendous inner fear of the HNP, and an inner frustration. These are the reasons why they left. After all, I had contact with them, and during the last election I still said to some of them that they should not be so mortally afraid of the HNP. I said to them that some of the election results were merely the result of the confusion which had arisen in connection with the Information scandal and various other elements which had played a role. I maintain that those who voted for the HNP in the last election, are not HNP supporters from inner conviction and some of them are already returning to the NP. However, who are the bedfellows of the CP? The AET. And who are the AET? They are people who were not prepared to co-operate with the NP. They are the so-called academics, impractical politicians. This does not mean that I have anything against academics. But I know those little groups of people, i.e. the HNP, the AWB, the CNP, in fact, all we need now, is the KWV. [Interjections.] If I try to ascertain what the Kappiekommando is, and try to analyse those people, I come to the conclusion that I am grateful that all those people are covered by one umbrella. I could mention some of those people by name. There is, inter alia, a Mr. Bingle who is still the organizer of the AWB today. He issued a pamphlet in the Newcastle constituency with the following introduction—

The first name was that of Dr. Connie Mulder. I loyally supported the leader of that party and, as every good supporter of the party tries to support every leader, I supported him as well. However, I am so shocked today that I predict that the leader of the CP is eventually going to be Connie Mulder. [Interjections.] The other names which were mentioned in the pamphlet were those of Prof. Alkmaar Swart and Mr. Willmer, and then he said that there were also members of the NP present in the Skilpad Hall, as well as members of Arbsa and members of the HNP. Only then does he mention Dr. A. P. Treurnicht, former leader of the NP in the Transvaal. Then the pamphlet also went on to state—

These are the people whom they received eagerly and with open arms at the founding of a party and who tell me today that they are conservative, not I.

Power-sharing is a nice word. When I hold a nice public meeting in a certain area where there are inherent problems with the borders of the province and, say, Botswana and Mozambique, then power-sharing is a nice word. If I wanted to be irresponsible, I could incite an audience into giving me a standing ovation … [Interjections.] … but that is not my way of practising politics. However, what did we do in the 1977 election? We fought that election together, and in that election, Mr. Vorster said that Coloureds and Indians would not only be given a voice but also a joint say in matters of mutual interest. In that election, Dr. Connie Mulder said—

This is the man who is with them today, a man who fought an election with us at that time and who made that kind of speech, and I heard him make that kind of speech.

In this emotional situation this group of people are also going to shout: Back to Verwoerd! I know that. It is already being said. Dr. Verwoerd governed according to the guidance which he received, as does the present the hon. the Prime Minister. Dr. Verwoerd said that he would give the people of colour in this country an education. He said that he would educate and develop them, because it was his ideal to uplift them. Consequently they are being uplifted now; they have developed, and one cannot therefore kick them in the teeth now, because it is the desire of this party to uplift people of colour. However, Dr. Verwoerd made certain statements which I no longer agree with today. If Dr. Verwoerd was alive today, he would say that we should decide as we have, in fact, decided according to the guidance which we are receiving. He sacked Dr. Tomlinson because he wanted to use White capital to invest in the development of the Black man in the Black homelands. Today I can only say that I sorely regret that we did not begin to get White capital to make the homelands viable 25 years ago. If Dr. Verwoerd was alive today, he would have said that we should do it that way. Dr. Verwoerd also said that no Maori would be allowed as member of a rugby team to South Africa. I was in our caucus when Jaap Marais founded a party because of the presence of a Maori in a rugby team. [Interjections.] I was there. This was the issue at the time. [Interjections.] Every time we make a decision, this hon. Prime Minister asks: Does this affect the continued existence of minority groups, especially the Whites in this country? If we say that Bourgarel may play in a French rugby team against us today, are we sacrificing our future? However, Bourgarel was an issue. At one stage, under other Prime Ministers, it was said that a Japanese was not allowed to be a jockey. [Interjections.]

I think that was an AWB man.

Yes, that man is now with the AWB. [Interjections.] Since then, we have done certain things because we have seen the light. I was a member of a party which said: Never, but never will we relinquish work reservation in this country. However, as our country developed, we, as practical politicians, all felt that the building costs of houses would go through the ceiling if the 4,5 million Whites had to do the brick-laying in White areas on their own. We said that we would have to act according to the circumstances. Equal pay for equal work …

30 years later!

Dr. Verwoerd’s standpoint was that equal pay for equal work would make things so attractive in White country, that the Blacks would not return to their homelands. However, when we sit around a conference table with people from the trade unions, the Railway people, as a trade union, ask us to give the Black man exactly the same salary as Whites earn. This is what the workers of this country are asking for, not that it is not the policy of the Government. Do the hon. members know what the reasons for this are? When this kind of thing happens, I want to ask the splinter group on that side, if they agree that, when one is governing a country, one has to make certain adjustments. When the Transvaal leader of the NP asked the hon. member for Waterberg yesterday why he did not inform Hendrik Schoeman, he replied: “Ask him. I did inform him.” Dr. Treurnicht did speak to me about what Dr. Jan Grobler had written in Nat. ’80s. He told me it was troubling him. After we had discussed the matter, my reply to him was: “It is a problem; all I ask is: Can one have two Governments in a country? Suppose we gave the Coloureds their own Government and the Coloured Government decided to abolish sales tax or to do away with sales tax on bread. Then I would buy all my bread on the other side of the fence where the Coloured shopkeeper was selling his bread without tax. One cannot govern a country with two Governments. Let us be practical.”

When are they coming into the House?

I attended the Transvaal congress, and during the last election and afterwards I attended political meetings where Dr. Treurnicht sold the 12-point plan with acclaim and enthusiasm. I am not speaking about something I read somewhere, but of what I heard with my own ears. The 12-point plan clearly states “the division of power”. We can divide or share. There is a difference. [Interjections.]

Two plus two is five.

It says here: “The division of power between South African Whites…

Is this healthy division, Hendrik?

… South African Coloureds and South African Indians, with a system of consultation and co-responsibility where mutual interests are concerned”. We said that we would resolve these matters together. Not once did the hon. members of the CP express their dissatisfaction when the hon. the Prime Minister stated frankly, I am often almost sorry that the hon. the Prime Minister is so honest, because he is out of place in this company: “I feel my conscience as a Christian troubles me when I think oi this group of people who have no other homeland, but who are part of South Africa. I ask: Let us devise a plan to give these people a voice somewhere.” Today the Coloured does not even have a say as to whether his sidewalk may be weeded or not.

Who threw them out… [Interjections.]

What about the Blacks?

I am sorry that the hon. member for Bryanston does not understand my language. He therefore does not understand my soul.

I understand your language very well. It is your logic I do not understand.

I wish to put a question to the hon. the leader of the CP. The first time I heard he was going to leave, was in a caucus meeting where we were dealing with a motion which did not cover this matter. He came to that meeting with a prepared speech and threw down the gauntlet. That is where I heard for the first time that there were people who were going to leave. But in the meantime, by whom were the hon. member for Losberg and some of the newcomers to the House lobbied, one by one, some of them for two hours, without any other member of the Cabinet or my knowing about this? Can that party hold meetings in the country on the basis of Christianity and appeal to peoples’ honesty? One does not stand the slightest chance of being successful with such ulterior motives.

With such a concept of morality.

The hon. the leader of the new party spoke for half an hour yesterday, and I sat here eagerly waiting to hear what his policy on the Coloureds would be. However, when I asked him when he was coming to that, that he should not read English prose to me, but that he should tell me what his Coloured policy was, he replied that there would be sufficient time for that during the discussion of the Vote of the hon. the Prime Minister. However, if we were to have asked him what his policy is during a 10 minute speech, he would have said that he did not have sufficient time.

Where is your policy? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member for Bryanston entitled to a make a constant stream of interjections to disrupt the other hon. members’ speeches? [Interjections.]

He simply cannot breathe quietly! [Interjections.]

I merely want to know what the NP’s Coloured policy is.

As far as the PFP are concerned, a Coloured policy does not exist.

The only thing Horace understands about Black people, is their medicine! [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Waterkloof had the audacity to ask in this House that there should not be bitterness. He then referred to the hon. member for Randburg as a Prog. He then went even further, puffed his chest out, and asked where Louwrens Muller was today. I can only say that I listened to a speech of Louwrens Muller in which the bile was dropping from his lips. It was so bad that I wondered whether it could be true that a person who had been a member for a party, who had received his funds from widows who contributed R1 a month, could so utterly disparage that party out of bitterness. All I can say is that that man belongs with that splinter group of the CP. However, the hon. member for Waterkloof does not ask where former Ministers Daan de Wet Nel, Hilgard Muller, M. C. Botha, Johan van der Spuy, P. K. le Roux and others are. They are the people who built this party. May Heaven save me from disparaging this party I have so far helped to build, the day I walk out of this Parliament. I wish that the hon. members on the other side would read the book Growing Old Gracefully. It would make them realize how one should deal with matters. [Interjections.]

Hon. members of the CP maintain that we drove them out of the NP. With what? Why do they say this? I know that it was because they thought that they would form a majority group. However, when they realized that they were merely a voice crying in the wilderness, they came to light with the allegation that we drove them out.

Mr. Speaker, I was a member of the NP’s executive committee in the Transvaal, one of the three deputy chairmen who pleaded with some of those hon. members to come to their senses. The hon. the Prime Minister said in the caucus that they were being given eight days in which to reconsider. He asked them to reflect, to speak openly about their problems and to wait for the President’s Council to report. However, what do the hon. member for Waterberg and the hon. member for Lichtenburg do? Those are two hon. members who sat with me in the Cabinet. In the Cabinet they had the opportunity of helping to prevent us from going wrong, if that was what we were doing. I want to tell the voters of Waterberg and Lichtenburg that if something were to have gone wrong, their two hon. representatives could have remained in the highest authoritative body in the country, the Cabinet, to help rectify matters should we ostensibly have acted incorrectly. However, what did they do. On the quiet and in the dark …

They plotted and schemed.

… they went and founded a little political party, without informing me beforehand of course. They say nothing of this to me and my fellow executive committee members and my fellow head committee members. They speak to us in a friendly and pious manner. I was genuine. So far, however, I have been dealing with people in politics who stabbed me in the back. I am absolutely convinced that truth will prevail in the end.

If growth takes place in the CP, there is something wrong with the judgment of my people.

Mr. Speaker, while listening to the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs I got the distinct feeling that he was rehearsing for the party congress which the hon. the Prime Minister has called for July. He has just rehearsed in order to get his lines right for when he has to appear before the Federal Congress. He made a number of snide remarks about the PFP, and it is quite clear why he did that. He had to do that in order to try to retain credibility with the vast number of Treurnicht supporters who are still lurking in the NP caucus. That is why he had to attack the PFP.

I must say that I found it very amusing when the hon. the Minister told us how he had seen the light and how the NP had seen the light about issues like job reservation and the need to remove that, and also about equal pay for equal work; all this, when for 25 solid years the NP sat in this House attacking anybody who ventured to suggest that job reservation should go, that equal pay for equal work should be introduced, etc. Those who dared suggest any such thing were attacked and accused of trying to undermine the White worker in South Africa.

Then Sir, we have had this interesting little difference between “deel” and “ver-deel” and I must tell the hon. the Minister that he sounded exactly like the old United Party trying to be all things to all men. [Interjections.] I also want to tell him that that was not the only familiar thing that was brought to mind. I had a distinct feeling this afternoon of déjà vu because this is not the first occasion on which I have listened to what has happened when parties have split. Some years ago I listened to it when the Bailey Bekker group split from the United Party and I listened to it again when the Progressive Party split from the United Party. I was a member of that group. Then we had the Hertzog-Jaap Marais split from the NP. Of course, this is now laughed off as a joke although it was really the beginning of the end. Now we have had the latest split where the Treurnicht CP has split from the NP. It is the same act; it is only the actors who are different. We have had the same sort of recriminations and the same sort of accusations and counter-accusations, the same revelations about what everybody said to everybody else in the caucus and so forth. I want to tell the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs that he was quite right in one regard,—spitefully—and I speak only for myself—I enjoyed the spectacle of watching all this. As an uninvolved and completely disinterested spectator one cannot help but enjoy the sort of verbal internecine warfare that is being conducted at the present time.

Who is the Judas in your caucus?

One thing I have not yet discovered, however, is what this split is all about. I have listened very carefully to the speeches made by hon. members of the NP and to speeches made by hon. members of the CP but I have not as yet discovered the fundamental issue that has caused this rift.

I do not know yet either. [Interjections.]

As I say, Sir, I cannot yet see the fundamental issue. I really do not think it can be the use of the expression “power-sharing” or even “healthy powersharing”. I do not think it can be anything else but the manifestation of deep personal antagonisms or else it is just what I call the “last straw” syndrome; in other words, it is the eulmination of a large number of grievances and the fact that finally breaking point has been reached. That is the only conclusion I can come to. Whatever the reasons for the split, however, one thing emerged very clearly from the speech made yesterday by the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs as well as other Government speakers and that was that nothing is really further from the minds of hon. members of the NP than real reform. Nothing is further from their minds. If it were not for the almost tangible mutual dislike between hon. members of the CP and the NP one might really wonder whether the journey across the floor of the House of the 16 hon. CP members was really necessary. I say this because nobody, either on the CP or on the NP side, has thus far in this debate even mentioned or touched on the major issue that faces South Africa. We have heard talk about sharing power with the Coloured people and questions asked in regard to the policies of the various parties in respect of the Coloureds, but nobody has said one word about the major issue and that is the citizenship of the Black people of this country and how one shares power with the Black people. [Intejections.] It is quite obvious that nobody intends to touch this matter.

To come back to the budget, I think it is common cause among all of us here that South Africa has entered a very difficult economic period. To some extent I admit that this is due to factors beyond our control but I must say, simple housewife that I am, I cannot imagine what the Government did with all that lovely lolly that it received from the gold mines when the gold price was at its height. What has it done with that money?

You wouldn’t know.

No, I do not know and I do not think the hon. member knows either. What I should like to know is why the Government did not have the foresight to put away some of that money for the lean years. That would have been the obvious thing to do. I would not ask this question if I could see around me some proof that this money had been spent on vast housing schemes in the townships, if at long last the lights had been switched on in Soweto and if there had been general improvements in the standard of living and the services offered to the entire population of South Africa. I would have said the money was well spent, but I do not see any signs of any improvements and I think everybody has to admit that, if anything, services have deteriorated in South Africa over the last few years.

Whatever criticism one can offer about past mistakes, I think the important thing now, is to do everything possible to promote economic recovery in South Africa, and I believe to do this, there are two essential factors involved. The first is to restore and then maintain confidence in the stability of this country and the second is—I say this very specifically—to avoid all provocative action which might encourage (a) punitive measures against this country and (b) would jeopardize ongoing good relations with Western allies such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

As far as the first is concerned—i.e. confidence and stability—I believe that sound industrial relations are the key to this and absolutely basic. I believe that many of the labour reforms which were introduced a couple of years ago by the hon. the Minister of Manpower had as their objective the promotion of peace at the work place. Collective bargaining, I would say, is the best example of “healthy power-sharing”. It is the best example I can think of. Those Western economies which indeed had the highest growth rates and sustained growth rates after World War II, countries such as Western Germany and Japan, are the countries which succeeded best in the collective bargaining process.

All of them have, of course, plural societies.

The emergence of trade unions catering for Black workers gives both management and the State the opportunity of involving Blacks in economic decision making, and that is very important for industrial peace in South Africa. A lot of people, both here and overseas, see the emergence of the yet small and still divided Black trade union movement as one of the most hopeful signs in the last decade.

Of recent years, however, the ever-increasing activities of the Security Police—I hope the hon. the Minister of Law and Order is listening—against Black trade unions and against persons involved in trade unions, the raids on trade union offices, the banning of meetings, the harassment of trade union leaders and the detention and banning of individuals have led to a growing suspicion of collusion between the Security Police and the Department of Manpower.

You know you are wrong.

I say that over the past year or so over 30 people who fall into the category of trade union worker or leader have been detained under the security legislation. The hon. the Minister of Justice or the hon. the Minister of Law and Order can deny until the cows come home that the detentions have anything to do with their trade union activities; nobody believes that and nor do I. I must say that the apparent apathetic attitude of the hon. the Minister of Manpower and his department towards the activities of the Security Police in this regard is dangerous, because I believe that co-operation between workers and employers inside the factory and confrontation between the Government and workers outside the factory, is an extremely dangerous thing; it is an invitation to anarchy at the work place. I believe too that orderly bargaining structures can only be established if employers are able to deal with the leaders that the workers choose, and not with the leaders who are chosen with the approval of the Security Police, because that will not work at all.

You are talking nonsense now.

I want to say that unless the department can in some way curb the activities of the Special Branch among trade union leaders, we are not going to have peace at the work place.

You are absolutely irresponsible now.

The hon. the Minister can reply later, but I can tell him that nobody believes the stories that these people are arrested irrespective of their trade union activities. The coincidence is far too great. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that the death in detention of the trade union organizer, Dr. Neil Aggett, is a trauma which is not going to be forgotten by the workers of this country, nor the effects of the detention of people such as Mr. Thomazile Gqweta and other trade union leaders.

This brings me to the question of detentions generally. On 24 February I received an answer from the hon. the Minister to the following question which I put to him—

The answer was the astonishing figure of 4 094. Over the past year alone more than 300 people, excluding those from the independent homelands, have been held under this Act, which is the most drastic of all our security laws, for an indefinite period for purposes of interrogation. We all say they are kept in solitary confinement, and they are indeed, but the hon. the Minister of course is hiding behind the technical definition of solitary confinement in the Prisons Act. They are, however, alone, in isolation and even though they are not detained in terms of the technical definition which is used in the Prisons Act. One person died recently in detention and at least 10 others have been hospitalized. A few of them have been charged and some have been transferred to section 12(b) of the Internal Security Act, which deals with witnesses in State security cases.

Some have also been released.

Yes, I was coming to that. Some have been released. However, because of the wide and, indeed, completely unrestricted powers enjoyed by the hon. the Minister and the Security Police in terms of section 6, there appears to be a complete lack of concern about the length of time during which people can be held under section 6. The Security Police take all the time in the world in questioning detainees, and they have no need to hurry, because the detainees can be held indefinitely. No one, not even the courts, can interfere. Some ex-detainees claim that for months before they were released they were not questioned.

On 10 March 1982, 78 people were still being held under section 6. Some were detained in September 1981, some even earlier, and some later. Among those who were recently released were seven young people who spent about six solid months in detention under section 6 alone, in solitary, in isolation, or whatever one wants to call it.

Ah, come now!

Does the hon. the Minister want to tell us that they were not held in isolation because they were interrogated? Some of these people were students who now have to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to reconstruct them. Others had jobs, which I sincerely hope they will be able to regain. What the lengthy stretch of being held in solitary has done to them and to their careers only time will tell. These people have no legal redress against the Government; they have no claim for compensation for lost earnings, for damage done to their family life, and so on.

The hon. the Minister of Law and Order launched into a tirade against the hon. member for Pinelands, who suggested ex gratia compensation for detainees’ loss of earnings. The hon. the Minister called them “the wild allegations of the hon. member for Pine-lands”. In fact, I believe the better description of what the hon. member suggested would be “simple justice”. This would in some way make up for what the State has done in using its might against the individual, something which does not happen in other civilized countries. However, one cannot expect simple justice from this Government.

Finally, I want to draw the attention of the House to the human drama—this will interest the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development—which is being enacted around the corner of the House, a few hundred yards away from Parliament, which, if allowed to reach a tragic finale, will earn for South Africa yet another one of those screaming headlines which make civilized people shudder. I refer of course, to the poor people who are entering their 24th day of a hunger strike in St. George’s Cathedral. I have no desire, and I want to say this at once, to jeopardize negotiations which may presently be taking place between the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development and church leaders on how to resolve what at present appears to an impasse, a no-win situation. I sincerely hope that some solution is reached before we have a tragic occurrence in the cathedral. But what I want to say to this House, leaving aside the particular and coming now to the general, is that nobody should be under any illusion about the squatters in the cathedral. Here we have a continuation of the whole ugly spectacle of the wretched people who were so harassed throughout last winter on the Nyanga flats. They are a continuation of the whole scene. They were bussed back to Transkei, and we told the hon. the Minister then that that was no solution and that they would soon be back in the Western Cape.

And they were bussed back by someone else.

No, they were bussed back by the same buses and, indeed, this Government gave them an allowance to come back. That is the interesting thing. The obvious thing is, as everybody must have known, that sending them to the Transkei was no solution. They came back because they had to look for work in the Cape Peninsula as there was no work for them in Transkei. I want to say to the hon. the Minister and to hon. members that no matter how the impasse is resolved—and I hope it will be—the squatter problem will reappear over and over again in the Western Cape. It is quite inevitable because it emanates from rural poverty and lack of employment in the rural areas. It also emanates from the ludicrous, outdated Coloured labour preference policy that the Government insists on maintaining in the Western Cape. That policy was introduced way back at the end of the fifties by Dr. Verwoerd and Fr. Eiselen in order to try to reserve the Western Cape, west of the Efselen Line, for Coloured labour.

It is a good policy.

They are preserving jobs that the Coloured people do not want and that the African people are prepared to take up. Everybody has criticized this policy and has asked the Government to drop it, economists and the Coloured leaders themselves for whom this protection was devised. I refer to such leaders as David Curry and other leaders of the Labour Party and, in addition, Dr. Erika Theron has said that the policy should be dropped. Until urbanization for Black people in the Western Cape is accepted, as it is now gradually being accepted for the rest of South Africa, I can tell the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development and the Government that it is going to be faced over and over again with a squatter problem in the Western Cape.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton has the ability to get me in to a situation where I have to completely discard the speech I wanted to make and react to what the hon. member had to say instead. I am not going to let the hon. the member for Houghton lead me astray, in the political sense of the word, and share in her delight at the coming into existence of a new political party from the ranks of the NP. After all, I feel that the political situation in South Africa is serious and we must not make jokes about the threat to South Africa.

The hon. member for Houghton returned to two matters, which we have come to expect of her. In the first place she spoke about the squatters. This side of the House is not insensitive to the problems of unemployed persons. It is far from the truth to allege anything to the contrary. It is also not true to say that the work preference opportunities for Coloureds in the Western Cape led to the squatter situation. If we have to create employment opportunities for these people here in the Cape Peninsula and its environs, where are we to do so? There are no employment opportunities for these people. As a matter of fact, even people who are living here legally are unemployed. If people cannot find work in the Transkei or the Ciskei and consequently come to Cape Town, should we give them work? After all, the preference that must be given to Coloured labour in this area is not at issue. What is at issue is whether there is work here or not. We know there are insufficient employment opportunities here. Should we allow these people to come here in spite of this?

The hon. member and her party can help us a great deal by simply going round the comer to see those people and explaining these matters to them, just as we have already tried to explain it to them. However, no respectable Government will allow itself to be held to ransom by a situation such as the one we now have in the Cathedral. One cannot expect this from any Government. Those people were given a simple answer. The hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development said that if they vacated the Cathedral it would be possible to speak to them. However, those people preferred to remain in the Cathedral and to continue with their so-called hunger strike, and now the Government and the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development are being blamed for this.

The hon. the Minister and the Government have created many opportunities to overcome problems of this nature, but there are those who are protecting the people in the Cathedral. They are being encouraged to remain in the Cathedral. [Interjections.] We really do not want to be unreasonable, but then all parties involved in the problem must also be reasonable, because concessions cannot be made from one side only. That kind of morality does not exist; it is pseudo-morality.

Of course it was only to be expected that the hon. member for Houghton would also refer to our Security Police. However, if the hon. member thinks there is a better way of maintaining law and order than the way which has been proved over the years to be a good way of maintaining law and order in South Africa, she should tell us. But the hon. member and her party associates only criticize and apart from saying that there should not be any prosecutions or detentions, they do not suggest a positive plan, or an alternative method which we can apply. [Interjections.]

By this time we are used to the hon. member for Houghton’s tirade against the Security Police, but I just want to point out to her that no one on this side of the House is in favour of people being detained without a trial. No one on this side of the House is in favour of interrogation taking place at certain times. Every hon. member on this side of the House prizes the freedom of the individual just as highly as any hon. member on that side. However, this side of the House has the responsibility of governing, and for this reason the obligation to maintain law and order also rests on us. The hon. member said the hon. the Minister of Law and Order should instruct his officials to stay away from the trade unions, for apparently they are only clamping down on trade unions now. But this is not true at all. The hon. member would be well advised to go into the history of every one of those people. Why are they implicated at this stage? The hon. member for Pinelands can tell the hon. member for Houghton a great deal about the history of those people because he knows exactly how the situation arose. We are not bent on detaining people without a trial in terms of any of the relevant sections merely because they are members of trade unions. Trade unions are not at issue here. In fact it was this side of the House that made it possible for the Black people to have trade unions. [Interjections.] We on this side of the House did this. All we ask is: What is the object of a trade union? The object of a trade union, as the hon. member said, is to bargain for its members in an employer/employee situation. However, if a trade union moves away from this area and ventures into the domain of politics, which has nothing to do with the concept of trade unionism, which is an economic concept, this side of the House cannot sit back and watch chaos arise in one of the most sensitive areas of the South African economy, which is what that hon. member is advocating, because people initiate an agitation or because radicals see an opportunity to achieve certain objectives in the political domain, through the trade unions objectives which they would otherwise not be able to achieve. It is as simple as that.

Helen knows it.

If only the correct concepts and the correct object of trade unions are adhered to, no trade union leader will ever get into trouble simply because he is a trade union leader. That is not the issue. Eventually the hon. member for Houghton will have to go into this problem with us, because this is a problem which South Africa is going to be face to face with. [Interjections.]

I want to conclude what I want to say about the hon. member for Houghton. Once again she has taken up more than half of my time. The hon. member for Houghton said we were not considering the aspect which was of the greatest importance to the Black people, namely the entire question of citizenship. However, we explained earlier in this session that this matter was being considered. I am on record as having advocated in this House that serious attention be given to the establishment of the confederation. I said it should take place in such a way that it was visible to our people. Our Black people should be able to see it. The hon. the Prime Minister said the confederation usually functioned through secretariats, etc. We are now preparing the way for such things as citizenship to be discussed fruitfully with those people in a confederal context. We are taking steps to ensure the establishment of that pattern. In actual fact we have just received a very important document which sets forth the measures to encourage regional economic growth.

Let us just consider this confederal idea for a moment. Confederations established before the First World War, those established between the First World War and the Second World War and those established after the Second World War differ from one another. Certain confederal set-ups were inclined to change into federal set-ups because there were certain elements present, but there are two basic reasons why confederations come into existence. In the first place, if groups felt that they were threatened or smaller nations felt that they were threatened, they joined forces in order to ward off the threat and hold their own. After the establishment of a confederation, however, each group maintained its identity, and, if it had sovereignty, it retains that as well. That is the one reason. The second reason, which emerged in modern times in particular, was of an economic nature. For economic considerations it became essential to do certain things within a confederal dispensation. In South Africa we have both these elements present. Whereas in certain parts of the world only security is at issue, and, in other parts of the world, only economic considerations count, in South Africa confederation is essential for both these reasons. If one wants to establish a confederal system for the sake of security, this should not be the sole ultimate objective.

It should also be based on economic considerations. That is why the document we received is so important and why, for the first time, the Government has taken a very important step to bring about this regional economic growth. I should very much like to elaborate on this further. I should like to explain what, in my opinion, the secretariat should look like. I should like to suggest that we read a book written by Mr. M. C. Botha regarding the Black man’s pursuit of freedom and setting out his blueprint for the secretariat. We can even say where we want it situated so that it will be easily accessible internationally. We can elaborate on many things in this connection.

However, I should like to say a few words about what the hon. member for Sea Point had to say about the Buthelezi Report. This links up with what I have just said to the hon. member for Houghton. It is not true that the Government merely swept the Buthelezi Report off the table with a careless flick of the wrist. That is not true. When we discussed the private members’ motion of the hon. Natal leader of the NRP, the hon. member for Sea Point accused me of being contemptuous about the Buthelezi Commission Report. That was not true. I find the report not only interesting, but informative as well. There is a great deal of information in that report which we can use and which is useful. However, this is not the first time that an attempt has been made to deal with Natal in isolation from the rest of South Africa.

We can use it as a model.

The hon. member had a chance to speak and I did not interrupt him. Give me a chance to speak now.

Basically the Buthelezi Commission Report made use of the Lombaard Report. The hon. member for Sea Point will concede this. The members of the Buthelezi Commission also gave a great deal of attention—this is done in the report—to the seminars held in March last year by the law faculty of University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. Some of those people also served on the Buthelezi Commission. Scientifically speaking and factually speaking therefore there is a great deal in the Buthelezi Commission Report that is useful to us. However, the Government adopted its standpoints on the Buthelezi Report for the simple reason that it is already giving expression to its idea of a confederation. Some of the ideas expressed in the Buthelezi Commission Report could be incorporated very successfully into the economic co-operation set-up. There is no problem in this connection. Some of those ideas could also be accommodated within the confederal context. However, the Government cannot simply say that it finds the Buthelezi Report acceptable simply because the PFP says it is. As a matter of fact, Chief Minister Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement has not even indicated yet whether it finds the report acceptable. They are still discussing it.

Does the hon. member want to drive us into a corner by expecting us to adopt a certain standpoint which he thinks is to the correct standpoint? Surely he knows as well as we do that it does not fit in with the policy of this side of the House. We have been debating this matter with one another for many years. The allegation by the hon. member that we have simply swept the Buthelezi Report from the table is not correct. We rejected the political implications which did not fit in with the Government’s policy. Since Inkatha still has to consider this report, it is not fair to make this side of the House seem suspect to Buthelezi and Inkatha. However, this is exactly what the hon. member wants to do. I can understand his excitement. He served on the Buthelezi Commission and signed the report and he must therefore support it. That is obvious. I do not hold it against him at all. However, the hon. member, as did the hon. member for Houghton, then went on to say that this side of the House was not prepared to propose reform. The hon. members ought to know better. I have just referred to the document we have received which will bring about vast improvements in South Africa.

The hon. member for Sea Point also accused the Government of not being prepared to proceed with consolidation. He announced that he was glad and referred to what I had said it would cost.

I have never in my life said that the NP was going to put an end to consolidation. What I did say was that geographic consolidation was no longer possible because it would cost too much money. No one can deny this. There are also various other reasons why geographic consolidation is no longer possible. However, I do not want to tell the hon. member what those reasons are because he will rush out and tell anyone who wants to listen what I have just said. All I said was that geographic consolidation was no longer possible. From reports of the commission and the standpoints adopted by this Government, emerge these ideas of regional economic development, which will have a greater effect on the position of the Black people than mere geographic consolidation would ever have had. Surely these matters are important.

What it amounts to basically is that we have made it clear to the PFP that geographic consolidation is no longer possible, but that we have put something else in its place, something which did not exist before. As a matter of fact I believe we are now introducing part of the concept which was already evident in the Tomlinson Report. It can in truth be said that we were only doing so now, after so many years. That is all very well, but time brings counsel. However, the fact remains that this is what the Government is now doing. We are now taking certain steps that hon. members of the official Opposition would like to term PFP policy. However, we are able to take these steps because the NP has implemented its policy consistently, and also because the NP has placed people of colour, particularly Black people, in the position they are in today. That is why the Government can take certain steps today, for example to abolish work reservation, to allow the establishment of trade unions, and many other things. This is because the Government implemented its policy. If the PFP had been in power, all those people would still be where they were before. [Interjections.]

They would simply have used those people as a source of labour. They would have made money out of them, and would not have attached any value to the national pride and feelings of those people.

The hon. member for Sea Point accused the hon. the Minister of Finance of speaking too quickly and without thinking first. However, I want to tell the hon. the Minister of Finance that the hon. member was wrong when he said we were not consolidating. Natal will also be consolidated as far as possible. I know it will be difficult but we are going to try our best, believe me. [Interjections.] If we consider all the factors involved here, we can see that we have already made tremendous progress in this field. There will also be a great deal of progress in future. We are continuing our work. However, we do more important things than merely deciding on borders. We also ensure that there is something within those borders. It is no longer of importance how short or how long those borders will be. What is important is what there will be within those borders and what we are prepared to do for persons living within those borders.

Mr. Speaker, if I were to say that I was rising to speak here this afternoon under easy conditions I would not be telling the truth. About 15 years ago I rose for the first time in this House to make my maiden speech. As it happened, it was also on this side of the House, in the back row of benches. As anyone who has made a maiden speech knows, it was not easy then either. For the same reasons it is not easy for me this afternoon because in a certain sense this speech is also a maiden speech. This afternoon I am making my maiden speech from the ranks of the Opposition.

A breakaway speech.

In the short time at my disposal I should like to discuss three aspects this afternoon. In the first place I should like to express a word of thanks and appreciation. In the second place I should like to convey a few words of tribute and finally I want to express a few ideas on the present political situation as I see it.

Just as I do not begrudge hon. members of the NP their political convictions and their right to their political convictions and respect these convictions, I know, I accept and I believe that they will not begrudge the same to me. I feel we owe at least this much to each other.

This brings me to he first aspect I want to refer to. I said I wanted to express a few words of thanks and appreciation. I want to express my thanks and appreciation to all my hon. colleagues in the NP, for long years of pleasant co-operations, good fellowships, loyalty, friendship, etc. This afternoon I want to say in all seriousness that these are characteristics and qualities which I feel are far above political differences and I shall try to keep it that way. I want to thank my colleagues most sincerely for the times when we could still participate together in certain things.

I think hon. members in this House would be justified in saying that I am one of the quiet and non-vociferous members of this House. This is true. However, I also claim the right to say that I am a careful observer. Because I have been a careful observer over the years, I know many of my colleagues better than they probably realize. That is also why I have such great esteem and respect for many of them because over the years I have closely observed and appreciated their qualities and abilities. After all, every man and every woman who enters this House has certain qualities, otherwise they would never have done so. I appreciate this and I shall continue to do so.

I said that in the second place I wanted to convey a few words of tribute. I want to pay tribute to my old party, the National Party. I think I am entitled to say that for almost 40 years I gave unselfish service to the NP and for most of that time, like the vast majority of hon. members opposite, I was not paid a cent in compensation for my services to the NP. That was as I wanted it and that was what I preferred. I say this because we believed in something, we were working to achieve an ideal. That is why I worked for the NP over the years.

Here in my file I have a motion which I was to have moved on 26 February. It reads as follows: Mr. W. L. Van der Merwe moves a motion expressing appreciation to the National Party Government for what it has done for South Africa over the past 33 years in the political and economic spheres. I gave notice of this motion three weeks prior to 26 February when I would have had to present it. On 24 February the crisis caucus within the NP met. Can hon. members appreciate my position? While I had adopted a standpoint in the caucus which was in accordance with my convictions, hon. members will understand my position when I say that under the circumstances I would have found it extremely difficult to present this motion two days later. I had to choose one of three ways of dealing with that motion. Since the hon. the Prime Minister had given us a week to reconsider our position, I could have carried on as usual and moved this motion, thus creating the impression that I was reconsidering my position. I could not do that; I would have been dishonest because on the morning of 24 February it was clear to me that the parting of the ways had come. That was the first possibility.

The second possibility was that I could have moved that motion as applying up to 23 February. I considered this but did not think it proper to do so because I would not have been honest either. It would not have been fair to my colleagues who would have had to follow me to support me in this motion. I did not adopt that method either.

There was therefore only one method open to me, which I in fact adopted, and that was to withdraw the motion summarily.

I now want to refer to a few thoughts I would have raised in that motion. In that motion I would have made mention of all the things the great National Party, the greatest party South Africa has ever known, had accomplished. This party that has accomplished so many great things for South Africa both economically and politically. There are the Iscors and the Sasols, etc. In the political sphere there are the Black independent States which were established in terms of the policy of separate development. In our own political sphere there was the long-cherished desire to become a Republic, which we achieved in 1961. I could have spoken about that. I could have waxed lyrical about it. I can still do so today. I could have spoken about the great leaders this great party produced. This afternoon very critical references were made to Dr. H. F. Verwoerd. Of course the hon. member has every right to refer to him in that way, but then I also have every right to consider him the greatest leader this country and nation has ever produced. He also emerged from the ranks of the NP.

In the third place I come to the political situation today as I see it. On 24 February 1982, as I have already said, it was clear to me that the parting of the ways had come. We can differ in our interpretation as much as we like, but that is what I was convinced had happened, and if in the opinion of the hon. members opposite my conviction is incorrect, it is their right and privilege to feel that my conviction and my feeling was incorrect. On 24 February 1982 I felt that the NP had deviated from its established policy of no power-sharing. [Interjections.]

You know you bluffed your way out of it.

The hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs felt he had made out a strong case against the hon. member for Pietersburg because the hon. member had quoted from a certain book written by the hon. the Minister of National Education. Then the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs quoted what the hon. the Minister of National Education had written five years later. I ask myself: Is this the pass our politics has come to today, when different views are expressed at different times?

The congresses changed the policy in 1977.

Can it be held against me if I ask myself what such a person will then write in two or three years’ time? [Interjections.]

Why did you not leave in 1977 when the congresses changed the policy?

The hon. member for Pretoria Central, who is making such a noise now, had occasion to say that the 1977 proposals were a failure and that was why the President’s Council was seeking other ways and means. Does he admit that?

Yes. Of course that is the case.

And when the problems arose and we stood by the 1977 proposals, the hon. member and his colleagues grasped at those proposals notwithstanding the fact that the hon. member has just admitted that he had said that those proposals were a failure and that was why the President’s Council was seeking other ways and means.

Yes.

The hon. member has just admitted it again. [Interjections.]

Order!

Why did you not leave in 1977?

In the final instance how are things progressing in today’s politics? If I was sitting where those hon. members are sitting—it is only human nature to deny this, and that is why I do not take it amiss of those hon. members—I would have asked myself how the newly-formed party, the Conservative Party, was doing. I shall tell the hon. members how the Conservative Party is doing, and in their turn the hon. members can tell me how they see it. This party is doing extremely well.

And how is Connie?

Hon. members will recall—no one can deny this—that shortly before the 1981 election I asked the hon. the Prime Minister in a friendly way: Sir, are you aware of the fact that Afrikaners are drifting away from the NP in their tens of thousands? Do hon. members remember that? [Interjections.] Yes, the hon. members remember. I was rebuffed and I was told that I was mistaken, but later two hon. Ministers and many colleagues came to me and said: You were 100% right and we think the treatment you received was unfair. That was what I said at that stage. This afternoon I say for the second time that my instinct is not wrong; it will be proved right. I want to say that people are not joining the Conservative Party of South Africa in their scores but in their thousands. I shall give hon. members a few examples. I have too many examples to mention all of them, but I shall refer to a few. Would hon. members not also say it is wide support when a clergyman from a certain province—not the Transvaal—calls and says they have 19 clergymen and missionaries in their circuit and that it does his heart good to be able to say that only one of the 19 does not support us?

Wait till they hear the truth.

What conclusion would the hon. members arrive at if they saw the telegrams we received from teachers in which they pledged us their support? Today I want to say that between 80% and 90% of the Afrikaans ministers and Afrikaans teachers support this party. Everyone who knows about national politics in South Africa will know implicity who brought the NP into power in 1948 after many years of hard work. It was the quiet influence of the Afrikaans ministers and the Afrikaans teachers.

You are now dragging the church into the political arena.

In my 55 years I have witnessed three unstoppable movements in South Africa. At the time of the symbolic Ossewatrek I was 11 years old. A boy of 11 is very impressionable and what makes an impression on his mind then grows stronger as he gets older. As an 11 year old boy I was aware of the small symbolic ox wagons leaving from the foot of Jan Van Riebeeck’s statue and travelling through the vineyards of the Boland, through the bush-veld of the Karoo, through the green maize fields and yellow sunflower fields of the Free State and past the goldfields of the Transvaal. Other ox wagons travelled north from the Limpopo, past the thorn trees, past the giant baobab trees, and they all gathered at Monument Koppie, where a national pride took root and began to grow ever stronger.

In 1948, as a young man of 20, I saw the unstoppable flood of nationalism which brought this Government into power, flow over South Africa. Now, in 1982, I see conservatism coming to South Africa like a welcome spring rain on the parched political soil. The harvest will be a good one and the labourers many.

It is based on untruths.

The late Dr. Malan said in 1948, when the NP came into power and the Transvaal had given the final breakthrough: “As Transvaal kom, dan kom hy.” Today I want to say to hon. members: When the Conservatives come, then they come, and they are already there.

Mr. Speaker, before reacting to the speech of the hon. member for Meyerton, I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister on a budget which is indicative of delicate footwork in difficult times. It is a budget which will protect the basic strength of our economy, and for that South Africa thanks the hon. the Minister.

Now I should like to turn to the CP sitting on the opposite side, wedged in between those who are very leftist and those who are not so leftist. The hon. member for Meyerton paid tribute to the NP, and for that attitude we thank him. The hon. member spoke of his 40 years of service to the NP, and for that service we thank him. We should like to tell him, however, that it is a great pity that he and his party had to hurt the NP in a time of crisis when the NP needed him.

The Minister said you were a purified party now.

It is very regrettable that that hon. member and his group had to leave the NP in the lurch at a time when South Africa badly needed the NP. The NP had not, as was suggested by that hon. member on the opposite side, deviated from its course. The challenges confronting South Africa gave that hon. member and his party cold feet. That is why they ran away. The hon. member said that there were thousands of Afrikaners who were drifting away from the NP, but I want to give the hon. member the assurance that that is not true. There are many Afrikaners who did not vote for the NP in the last election but who are now returning to the NP because they have discovered the road of realism. I can tell the hon. member that motions of confidence in the NP are pouring in from all sides. Those hon. members should not warm themselves at a cold hearth and think they will be as successful as they imagine they will be.

The hon. member for Meyerton will probably not hold it against me for reminding him of an verligte image he once used to very good effect. The hon. member once said the days were past when we could serve coffee to people of colour in cups without handles.

That is true.

The hon. member says that is true. We can recall how he used that image very effectively. While I was listening to him here today, I recalled that image the hon. member had used. I could not help thinking that the hon. member for Meyerton and his party were back in the days of cups without handles for people of colour. It is clear to me that the hon. member and his party have reverted to a state of political petrification and stagnation. They are indeed back in the days of cups without handles.

Before elaborating on this, and I am going to elaborate on this, I should first like to address a very friendly request to hon. members of the CP—and this does not apply to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat—to stop their viciousness and bitterness. [Interjections.] It is so. Hon. members have heard the scornful laughter from the opposite side. The enemies of the Afrikaner are laughing at us because we are quarreling. I ask them to put an end to these quarrels. The insults and crudities levelled at us by hon. members in those ranks in recent weeks, must please stop. It would be a great pity if the image of the Afrikaner were to be undermined because of this. I want to ask the hon. members of that party to stop indulging in negative, short-sighted viciousness directed at personalities. This harms the image of the Afrikaner. If we have to disagree with one another—and we accept that we shall disagree with one another, because it is their right to disagree with us—let us do so in a worthy manner by pitting policy against policy and argument against argument, as was done in the days when Dr. Malan was sitting in the Opposition benches in this House. The hon. members of the CP say that they, too, subscribe to the principle of justice for all ethnic groups. That, however, is as far as they get. They flinch away from any real relinquishing of political power to others. They dread reality. They run away from the realities of South Africa. That is at the root of their problem. The hon. members of the CP must get up here today and tell us how they want to implement the lofty principle of justice if they are in earnest about it. They must tell us how they are going to translate this lofty ideal of justice into practical politics. There is no point in stating problems without furnishing any answers. That is a fruitless exercise. It means nothing. I want to accuse the hon. members of the CP of misleading the general public in the present tense situation with distorted standpoints and emotional slogans. I want to accuse them of distorting NP policy. However, they will not get away with that, because answers will be given to all those distortions. History will accuse them of having left South Africa and the NP in the lurch at a critical stage and of not having had the courage and the conviction to cut the Gordian knot by effecting essential reform when the moment to do so arrived. When reform was on the verge of producing its first results, they got cold feet and ran away!

It would appear as though the CP would prefer to succumb to stagnation rather than to contribute towards essential reform. They cling desperately to the obsolete status quo. They cling to rigid, inflexible concepts. Now, at the time when South Africa is calling upon us to move out of the cul-de-sacs, they cling to these old concepts. One day they will stand accused of having refused to move like jibbing horses when they should have moved forward with us in the interest of the survival of the South African people. [Interjections.]

I should like to remind the hon. member for Meyerton of another very striking image he used. It was a very gripping image that he used at the time. He once spoke of a farm and the poplars on that farm and said that when a storm was brewing the leaves of the poplars turned face downwards and showed their white undersides, and that whenever that happened the livestock had to be brought into the kraal as a storm was brewing. I want to tell the hon. member that a storm is brewing at the moment but that he is leaving us in the lurch at this time. [Interjections.]

The leaves have dropped off!

In addition I should like to tell the hon. member that the NP intends to move, so hon. members of that party might as well fasten their safety belts because we are not going to allow ourselves to be deterred by their shortsighted criticism. We have to prepare ourselves for the recommendations of the President’s Council, because they may be of a far-reaching nature. We should not, however, try to flinch away from them at this early stage, because the fact is that we can no longer go ahead on the basis of political clichés in this country. It is essential that we face up to reality and that we take the initiative. It is high time for us to take concrete actions, and in this regard those hon. members agreed with us on numerous occasions.

First tell the people where you are going.

Sixty years ago, on 1 December 1922, Gen. Hertzog said in a speech at Aliwal North that “justice had to be done to the Coloureds” and that “all injustices had to be removed”. In that speech Gen. Hertzog told the White rulers that “justice was its own reward”. He also said in that speech that we must find a system in terms of which we could deal with one another on a basis of honesty. That was 60 years ago, but even at that time Gen. Hertzog emphasized the urgency and seriousness of finding a solution. He said, and I quote—

He was referring to the Coloureds. Those were Gen. Hertzog’s words 60 years ago, words which are as valid today as they were then, but which also form a serious charge against us for having made so little progress in connection with political rights for the Coloureds in this period of 60 years.

To the obscurantists we want to say today: It is getting late, time is running out. Now, at a time when reform is on the verge of yielding its first results, they should not become afraid of those results. As far back as 60 years ago Gen. Hertzog was afraid that it was too late to find a solution. We are standing on the verge of a critical phase in our history. Politics of protest are gaining momentum amongst people of colour. The conflict and confrontation potential in our country must not be underestimated and cannot be ignored. This Government does not intend to allow itself to be diverted from its course by people who get cold feet along the way. If the momentum of the NP’s evolutionary reform, based on principles, has become too great for some people, they must simply fall behind on that road of reform. Real reform is coming and will be carried through, and the sooner this is done, the better, so that an end may be put to the frustration and uncertainty existing in the country and so that more clarity and political stability may emerge.

There are people who are becoming impatient because we are moving so slowly. They are tired of the deadlock as regards colour politics in this country. They are calling for results. To those people I should like to say that the Government is in great earnest about carrying through plans concerning constitutional reform and social justice. We sincerely hope that the members of the President’s Council, who have a very difficult task, will reach consensus soon on matters they are considering and that they will submit recommendations to us which will testify to wisdom and expertise and which will be scientific. When that happens, those hon. members of the CP may say that they do not like the recommendations. But they have run away before they have had anything concrete in front of them. What is of more importance is that the President’s Council will make recommendations which, it is hoped, will provide such a strong basis for justice to be done and for reconciliation to be effected that those recommendations will be acceptable to all interested parties in the country. We hope that those recommendations will indicate the direction which is to be taken so clearly that we shall be able to build a new dispensation on the basis of those recommendations.

The NP is honest and sincere when it says that it envisages a just and fair political dispensation based on Christian justice for every person in this country. The NP is prepared to substitute a joint say and joint responsibility for an absolute say. A relinquishing of power must not be seen as posing a threat to the survival of the White man.

Hear, hear!

It should rather be seen as a prerequisite for safeguarding the survival of the White man.

Hear, hear!

Surely all realistic people know by this time that if the legitimate political aspirations of the coloured groups in this country are denied, it could only heighten the conflict potential in the country, which can only be to the detriment of the Whites as well. Surely if we do not do justice to others the Whites, too, will be unable to survive in this country. In this process, however, the NP does not intend interfering with the fundamental and established rights and the security of the Whites. The rights of people of colour are not implicated because numbers and time are on their side, but the rights of the Whites may be jeopardized and for that reason their position must be safeguarded. For any plan to succeed in this country, it must be acceptable to the majority of White voters in South Africa. It will not be possible to sell to the White electorate any dispensation which does not guarantee the fundamental and established rights of the Whites and which does not ensure their security.

Mr. Speaker, there is certainly nothing dull about politics at the moment. I do not intend entering into the “broedertwis” on either side. The hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs spoke of “konkelary in donker kamers”. He knows nothing yet. The hon. member for Waterberg should take some tips too, because they are amateurs at this game. We have experienced it, but then it was “konkelary” in smoke-filled hotel bedrooms! If they want to know how to do this, they should go and talk to the hon. member for Yeoville, the hon. member for Sandton, the hon. member for Wynberg, particularly the hon. member for Bryanston and of course the hon. member for Hillbrow. They know about this game. At this stage we can sit back and watch from the side-lines as spectators.

I was particularly interested in the speech of the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs, amongst others. They are saying things now 30 years too late. One’s mind goes back to the pleas of Opposition members over the years in their efforts to get across the need for and urgency of the things for which the hon. the Minister and his party now take credit. All the things that have disappeared, all the prohibitions, all the stupidities such as the case of the Japanese jockey—incidentally, it is interesting that the Minister concerned at the time was Mr. Louwrens Muller who, I gather, now supports the CP—the case of D’Oliveira and all the other stupidities that the Government has perpetrated over the last 30 years and which have done this country so much harm, now form the subject of things they are bragging about. What has caused it? “Magsdeling”. Somebody said the other day: “Magsdeling is soos ‘power-steering’. ”

*When it was first introduced, everybody steered off the road the first time they touched the wheel. It seems to me that powersharing is like power-steering. The way the NP grasps the wheel, the power-steering is a bit too powerful for them.

†However, they will have to learn to cope with power-sharing. They will have to learn how to handle it. This is the task this party is trying to fulfil. This party aims to keep the “sanity zone” of politics clear. We were used to ducking the cross-fire between the NP and the PFP while trying to get the Government just to have a look into the sanity zone even just to come and look at concepts like power-sharing and confederation, the things we have been preaching and pleading for over the years. Just when we were getting the Government to peep over the fence and say “You know, it is not so bad” and even actually to poke a finger at some of the ideas, the PFP gets pushed off the battlefield by its own radicals and disappears out of the serious fight. Then we thought we could get into another sort of debate. Now another war has broken out and we have to put on our tin hats and watch the shells flying over us from both sides again.

Not shells, buckets.

Yes, they fill up the buckets and one gets splashed every now and again by a particularly dirty bucket being thrown from one side or the other. It makes it difficult to continue with our role of trying to keep the sanity zone clear so that we can get down to the real issues of the debate. There have been flashes of intelligent thinking, however, and I should like to deal with one or two of them.

I think it is a pity that the same thing should happen now which happened when the NP was fighting the PFP. They have no technique. They try to descredit personalities. They do not fight on the issues that are at stake. When one tries to commit personality assassination one is not achieving a constructive debate. There have been flashes of constructive debate, however, and I was particularly interested in what the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt had to say.

Hear, hear!

He made a very important contribution to this debate. He spoke of confederation, and while he was speaking of confederation I could almost hear the voices of hon. members of the NRP, including my own voice, echoing back from the dozens of speeches in which we have advocated confederation throughout the years in this House. [Interjections.] The hon. member Mr. Van der Walt made one specifically significant remark. I should like to confirm it with him in order to place it on record. I thought I heard the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt, when he was talking of confederation, speak of “burgerskap in ’n konfederale verband”.

That is correct.

That is correct, Mr. Speaker.

Well done, Hennie!

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development is sitting here in the House now. One of the two key issues when we were debating the Ciskei Bill here in the House was the question of citizenship. At the time we put it to the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development that the fundamental element that was missing from confederation as understood by the Government was a form of confederal citizenship or confederal nationality. We were not going to argue about the terminology. Today, however, the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt spoke clearly about “burgerskap in die konfederale verband”.

This is a vast step forward, a vast step forward in the thinking of the Government in respect of confederation. If they can accept this concept, the concept of a common nationhood, of a common citizenship in a confederal context, then we have come a long way towards removing the antagonism, the rejection by the Black homelands of the concept of confederation. I believe this is crucial. This is one of the two basic issues; the one being an equal and open access to a common economy, and the other being a confederal citizenship which makes them all part of a confederal entity with the State. Those are the two things …

The hon. member for Durban Point is suggesting that the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt referred to citizenship in a confederal context. I do not think he put it that way.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt spoke of “burgerskap in ’n konfederale verband” …

The hon. member said we were preparing the table; i.e. we were considering the matter. [Interjections.]

You see, Mr. Speaker, as soon as the Government shows a flash of intelligent foresight the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development comes along and ‘stomps’ down on it in order to obliterate it. [Interjections.] It always happens this way. One hon. member on the Government side displays a flash of insight, which we all welcome. Then, however, the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development stamps on it in order to prevent any accusation by hon. members of the Opposition that he is changing his mind. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt said the Government was preparing for it.

We are laying the table.

Now the hon. member says they are laying the table. We said this was a key issue. One does not lay a table if one does not intend to serve something on that table. If the Government is laying the table for citizenship in a confederal context it is of necessity an indication of preparation for the concept of a confederal citizenship.

Go and read my speech in Hansard.

I shall go and read the hon. member’s Hansard carefully. It is the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development who came and put a damper on things. It was not I who did it. It seems to me as if that was another kiss of death. [Interjections.]

†I want to say only one other thing about the “broedertwis” that is going on at the moment. I shall come back to the Buthelezi Commission later and deal with it in its proper context. The only thing I want to say about this “broedertwis” is that the Government would not listen. On the day that the split took place, I advised the Government to let the dissidents go and not try to bring them back into the party. Instead of this we have had the NP trying to hold on to its adherents by means of moth-eaten 1977 coattails. They brought out the 1977 black hat and tails and they tried to hold on to those coattails to try to prevent other people climbing on board the “vreestrein” which the CP had set in motion. However, Sir, if people want to board the “vreestrein na nêrens” then the NP should allow them to do so because the die is now cast and the NP has chosen between the 1980s and the 1970s. The CP in turn has chosen the 1960s and the 1970s. I say the die is cast. If the Government would only listen, they would do much better. What they seem to be doing now is not only firing dud ammunition at each other but also shooting smokeshells over the heads of their own supporters to keep others from boarding this “vreestrein” of the CP. They should not try to put up smokescreens as did the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development as soon as I praised that party for having had further insight into the idea of a confederal citizenship. What they are doing at the moment is quibbling over the meaning of words.

That is exactly what you are doing.

They are quibbling over the meaning of words and they are ignoring the consequences of those words. I want to tell the hon. members of the CP and of the NP that one cannot resurrect the past. There is nothing as dead as yesterday’s politicians. To try to tie things on to what was said by them yesterday or in 1977 is just to confuse the issue.

What was said last week was important.

That may very well be, but one cannot tie policies to bygone history. The hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs was correct. He said that it was in the past so let us forget it. What we have to do now is to identify real reform as opposed to ersatz reform. We have to identify the real decisions that have to be taken. These are going to be further delayed and made more difficult if the Government persists in its efforts to try to hold back the remnants of the CP by attempting to tie them to what happened in 1977 and before. The time has come, Sir, when South Africa cannot afford to play this sort of politics. We know, of course, that there will be fellow-travellers such as the AWB. We know too that the PFP have some very strange fellow-travellers themselves. It is no use trying to fight that sort of war. There is no use saying: “Omdat die AWB aan julle kant is, is julle ’n klomp mal mense”. There are “mal mense” in every political party. We even have one or two … [Interjections.] … not in Parliament but we do have a few under the bushes! I am prepared to give them to the CP if they want them. [Interjections.]

Give them to the Progs.

No, the Progs have got all the cranks that we used to have. They are there already. [Interjections.] Let me come back to the concept of power sharing. The hon. members for Sea Point and Houghton raised it in relation to the Buthelezi Commission. I welcome the fact that the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt said quite clearly that the Government was not rejecting that out of hand. I think that is a welcome attitude and a welcome statement.

What are you doing?

I say it is a welcome statement because we have said exactly the same thing. In the minority report signed by the NRP representative, he concluded his report with these words—

This is in the report. He said earlier on—

We were not prepared to accept—this will be dealt with more fully tomorrow when the hon. member for Durban North is present—a common legislature for Natal/KwaZulu. I want to quote the proposal—

I quote further back—

This is what the PFP, the official Opposition, has committed itself to: A single legislature elected on a common voters’ roll by proportional representation which by majority decision would elect the Chief Minister who would choose himself the consociational executive from amongst its members.

Under heading 7 it says—

What we did not accept is: A common legislature elected on a common voters’ roll where the majority elects a Chief Minister who appoints his own executive. The PFP, however, have clearly accepted it. That is their concept of power-sharing, which is nothing but a transfer of power to the majority. We were not prepared to accept that, but what we were prepared to accept and have accepted is the need for co-operation, executive and administrative co-operation, and we have issued four statements appealing, inter alia, that the Government, the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development, the Natal Provincial Administration under the NRP and the Government of KwaZulu get round the table to sort out the practical method by which co-operation can be achieved. I hope that this is what is going to occur.

In the short time left to me I want to come to a matter with which I wanted to deal in another way. I was already dealing with it the other way, but I want to say quite frankly that one thing I do not accept is being misinformed. I refer—I do not have the time to read them all—to the reports on Kangwane and its possible incorporation into Swaziland. I discussed the matter telephonically over the Christmas holidays with the hon. the Prime Minister, and this year I have discussed it with the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development. I received an assurance that I would be kept informed on developments. Tuesday before last I inquired from the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development whether there had been any further developments. He said no, he was waiting to see the Chief Minister. I want to ask him whether on Tuesday last week the Cabinet discussed the matter or took any decisions on it. There is only dead silence from the hon. the Minister. My information is that the Cabinet did discuss the matter and did take decisions. That very afternoon I asked the hon. the Minister whether there had been any developments, but he said no. What are the facts? What is the truth?

The fact is that I am seeing Mr. Mabuza on Friday.

That is not my question. My question was: Did the Cabinet take decisions last week? I say the Cabinet did take decisions.

I want to deal quickly with the record of this. In January 1980 Kangwane, the Swazi homeland, applied for self-governing status. They were advised not to be impatient, but to get their house in order, and they waited over a year. On 3 April 1981 they re-applied, with the unanimous backing of the Kangwane Cabinet, for self-governing status, second phase. On 14 April the matter was considered and they understood their case would be sympathetically received. By 7 May 1981 they had received no reply and their Legislative Assembly then passed an unanimous resolution to again request self-governing status. On 12 June they met with the hon. the Minister. This is a delicate field and I do not want to go into other aspects which have international implications, but the hon. the Minister knows about them. They were then presented with certain information concerning objections to their getting self-governing status. They were advised that preference should be given to unification, which Kangwane refused. On 28 July 1981 they again met with the hon. the Minister, and others, in Cape Town and re-emphasized that whilst they have cultural, language and emotional ties which link them to Swaziland, there were no political ties. They therefore did not accept incorporation with Swaziland, unless it takes place through a natural and evolutionary process, which they could negotiate from their status of self-government. Other meetings took place on 4 October and 10 November. On 1 December the hon. the Deputy Minister opened their Assembly and said that the negotiations—I have the relevant cutting with me—were so far advanced that finality on incorporation was expected in the not too distant future. Again it was rejected unanimously.

This Government bases its total philosophy on “selfbeskikking”, one of the issues being discussed here. I want to put it to the Government that they are bound by their own policy to allow the people of Kangwane the right of self-determination; it is their fundamental right. They did not create Kangwane; the Government created it. There are more than 700 000 South African citizens in Kangwane and they are entitled to take their own decisions on their future. I believe there are many things in favour of unification, but there are also things which are not in favour of unification with Swaziland, such as the question of the economic infrastructure, their South African citizenship, their dependence on the South African economy, their political rights, including the right to hold elections and to elect their own Cabinet, rather than to be part of a country which does not have that system which they are entitled to under our Government. However, that is not the issue and I am not going to argue the merits or demerits. I am arguing the right of the 700 000 plus citizens of Kangwane, the Swazi-speaking South Africans, to have a referendum to determine for themselves the wish of the people. Then the Government can say it is carrying out its policy. If it tries to impose a policy without a referendum, without those people wishing it and without their co-operation, it will be going against fundamental NP policy and philosophy. The purpose of my raising this issue here is that it can be seen publicly to be within the four comers of the policy of that party that such an option should be given to the people. If they then of their own free will negotiate unification with Swaziland, that can be dealt with on its merits.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I should very much have liked to have reacted on the speech of the hon. member for Durban Point and to have dealt with a few of the points he raised, but I am afraid that this budget debate has taken such a turn that there is another very important matter that will not receive attention during this debate. I am referring to the problem of agriculture caused by the bad drought this year. As far as this matter is concerned, there are a few points I should like to bring to the attention of the House.

I think that generally speaking the agricultural sector can congratulate the hon. the Minister and thank him for presenting a budget which is really very favourable. I may say that we expected worse. However, there are a few specific points I want to raise and problem areas I want to point out. I think that one of the main reasons why we should really have had a very severe budget was the declining gold price and the resulting weak balance of payments position. Another factor which played a role was the tendency of the inflation rate to rise even further and the efforts of the Government to try to keep it as low as possible. We accept this, and we have to deal with these problems. The agricultural sector is unique and cannot be compared with the other economically active sectors in the country.

The country is experiencing exceptional drought conditions this year which are hampering certain agricultural sectors tremendously. There are other parts of the country which have been drought-stricken for a few years now. As a result of that we cannot merely accept that we simply cannot be exempted from the strict monetary policy that the Government has to adopt. When we look back, we see that in 1979 we also experienced a difficult year. The Jacobs Committee had been appointed in 1977-1978 and it brought out its report in 1979. The agricultural sector was very grateful for that report.

The biggest single problem of the agricultural industry is the input costs of the farmer in producing his product. On the other hand the importance of the agricultural industry in helping to improve the balance of payments position of the country as a whole, should not be underestimated either. When we look at the gross national product and agriculture’s contribution to it, we find that this was 21% in 191l, while the contribution of the secondary sector, the manufacturing industry, was 4%. Since 1931 the contribution of agriculture remained in the region of 13% to 14% until it became 10,2% in 1961. The contribution of the manufacturing industry increased systematically. Mining and agriculture were close together until 1980 when the tremendous increase in the gold price raised the contribution of the mining industry to the gross national product to 22,7%, whereas it had only been 8,8% in 1971. In 1980 agriculture’s contribution was only 6,8%.

The first point I want to bring to the attention of the hon. Minister of Finance, is that I feel that we should exploit all ways and means of encouraging agriculture to take part in the export drive, so as to promote the balance of payments position of the country as a whole in this way. I think this is a basic approach we should have and which the Government should also have. However, I accept that there are a few problem areas. In its report published in 1979 the Jacobs Committee said that specific attention should be given to export promotion benefits, and the Van Huyssteen Commission also put forward proposals in this connection.

When we look at the production cost inputs of agriculture, we find that a tremendous increase occurred over the past few years. One of the factors over which the Government does have direct control, is a surcharge, the tax on the import of goods used by the farmer. In its recommendation the Jacobs Committee said that it accepted that the surcharge should not, at the stage at which they made the recommendation, be summarily abolished because the fundamental approach was to phase it out. However, if the Government levies a surcharge on the farmers’ means of production, his cost inputs have to increase. We may now accept that as regards our domestic industry, many of the products are in the favourable position that they can be passed onto the consumer on a cost-plus basis. However, as soon as the farmer has to export the product, he finds himself in an uncompetitive position with other export countries and therefore suffers losses on his product. This places the farmer at a disadvantage.

There is another factor which also plays a role and that is that increased production costs influence the profit margin of the farmer tremendously, because rising cost items, the balance between internal sales and exports therefore reduces the net realization of the farmer. When we look at this situation, we find that agriculture has over the past six to seven years since 1975, been working on a net profit on capital of between 6% to 8%, whereas this figure during the 1981 harvest year was 10%. In every other sector in the country that percentage of profit on capital is considered to be low. In industry they work on a profit of 15% and in the retail trade they work on an even higher figure than that.

The problem in this regard is that the farmer is never able to form capital to make provision for bad years, as is the case at present. If we cannot make provision for capital requirements with which to face the problematical years, the farmer has to seek assistance from the Government in years such as these to obtain short-term financing.

When we talk about short-term financing, we find that the high interest rates—which we accept in principle, play a large role. To combat inflation and to be able to save, one needs an interest rate which is higher than the inflation rate. In agriculture, as regards production capital, this type of credit control is not restricted in regard to the amount of capital that is going to be used in agriculture. In any event, the farmer needs that capital; no matter what the interest rate is. On that basis I think that agriculture was in the past dependent upon the other sources of finance at other interest rates it has. However, in years such as this year we accept that we shall also have to, ensure that the farmer receives assistance, in the short term at any rate.

I should just like to suggest that we, as regards the short term this year, will have to make provision for the carry-over debts of farmers who have no harvests. I accept that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries has had consultations with the S.A. Agricultural Union and that he has said that he will give it favourable consideration and that it must be worked out. If the carry-over debts are made available, it will have to be done at lower interest rates than the existing high interest rate, and even lower than that of the Land Bank, and we therefore accept that there will have to be a subsidized interest rate.

You must learn to make wine from maize, for only then will you receive assistance.

After the handling of the transfer debts, I believe that there is another facet, namely that adequate capital should be available to prepare for next year’s harvest. I believe that provision should be made for that.

As regards the long term, I should like to recommend something to the hon. the Minister of Finance. We have heard that the Jacobs Commmittee are going to study these problems again, and I should like to suggest that the Department of Finance as well as the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries should draw up a White Paper on the recommendations of the Jacobs Committee, indicating what they are going to accept and how it is going to be applied. It is of no avail for that committee to make recommendations, while we wait for drought conditions to arise before those recommendations are implemented. On a previous occasion the Jacobs Committee made a recommendation on taxation. This is something which has been referred to before in this House. The committee recommended that the farmer should not pay the tax in a good production year, but in the year when he withdraws it as an investment. I should, therefore, like to ask once again that the hon. the Minister give his attention to these recommendations and that ways and means be found to implement them.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak after the hon. member for Ventersdorp, as he speaks a language which I understand, and for which I have great appreciation. In my opinion, there are two characteristics of the budget which contribute largely towards making it an exceptional one. One of the predominating impressions, is the knowledgeable and sober way in which the economic demands and challenges of the day are reconciled with the hard realities of our economy.

A second characteristic is the healthy balance struck between measures which have a restraining influence on our economy, and measures by which it is sought, in a circumspect fashion, to afford relief to certain problem areas in our economy. This healthy balance also forms the basis on which the necessary consolidation in our economy can take place before the next growth phase.

The image conveyed in this budget, is contained in these two characteristics, viz. the image of expert and balanced thinking and planning, which form the basis on which the stability of the South African economy is built. This image gives the ordinary citizen of our country peace of mind and confidence on the road ahead. For their achievement in creating peace of mind and confidence in our economy in the midst of a problem situation, the hon. the Minister of Finance and his management team deserve our sincere thanks and appreciation.

I should like to confine myself on this occasion to the relief of or aid to agriculture, as indicated in the budget. To me as a farmer, the sustained provision of aid over a period of years to the drought-ravaged North Western Cape, and the announcement that the Jacobs Committee will be investigating the drought conditions in the northern provinces, together with the assurance that the Government will be giving positive aid there, too, points to one important truth which I wish to summarize as follows: Because the Government realizes the strategic importance of agriculture, they regard it as a matter of great importance to keep our people on the land, as the vitality of our agriculture is dependent on the family farming enterprise. I therefore wish to thank the hon. the Minister of Finance most sincerely for his understanding and his vital contribution in emphasizing so clearly to our farmers the Government’s confidence in agriculture.

However, the prolonged and oppressive droughts are not only threatening to destroy our land and the financial resources of the farmer. They also undermine the spirit and self-esteem of the farmer and his family. They threaten the farmer’s independence and self-esteem. Our people in agriculture have no desire to be continually living on State aid and planning their farming activities accordingly. Over the generations, this has always been our basic aim in agriculture.

Now I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Ventersdorp. I call upon the hon. the Minister of Finance to reconsider a recommendation of the Jacobs Committee of 1979. I refer to the recommendation that the farmer be allowed to invest surplus funds with the Land Bank or other approved institutions during prosperous years, but that these funds only be subject to income tax in the year of withdrawal. The implementation of this measure could contribute significantly towards restoring the feeling of independence and self-esteem of our people.

I now wish to deal with a matter of extreme importance to me. In the budget debate of August 1981 I said, in response to the increased excise duty on fortified wine and spirits, that the increased excise duty shocked and frustrated the wine farmers. I quote (Hansard, Vol. 94 col. 1205)—

The developments in the wine-farming areas after August 1979 prove that this statement was correct. These developments in the wine industry resulted in an interview granted to a delegation of wine farmers by the hon. the Prime Minister. One of the key requests to the hon. the Prime Minister on that occasion was—the abolition of the excise duty on natural wine. The reason given was that natural wine, as a natural agricultural product, ought not to be subject to any excise duty. Now, with this budget, that happy day has dawned for the wine farmer and the wine industry. I said at the outset that this budget is an exceptional one, but to the wine industry and the wine farmer it is much more than that. It is an historic budget for the wine industry, as excise duty on natural wine has once again been abolished in toto, 20 long years after excise duty was imposed on natural wine for the first time in this country in March 1962. It is unnecessary to say that the wine farmers are overjoyed and grateful. Once again this is something that is deeply felt everywhere. On behalf of all wine farmers, I wish to convey our deepest thanks and appreciation in this House to the hon. the Minister of Finance, as well as to the hon. the Prime Minister, for this decision which has been taken. The wine farmers are profoundly appreciative of the fact that this decision has been made despite the difficult situation in which our economy finds itself.

I also sincerely appreciate the motivation given by the hon. the Minister of Finance for this decision. In his motivation, the hon. the Minister underlines three important factual statements, viz. that the wine industry is the anchor industry of the rural economy in the Western Cape, that the natural wine market needs a stimulus at this juncture in order to catch up on a financial backlog, and that South Africa, as a wine-making country, belongs back in the cadre of wine-making countries that recognize that natural wine, as a natural agricultural product, ought not to be subject to excise duty. These three facts are important to the wine industry, but at the same time they place a heavy responsibility on the wine farmer and on the wholesale and retail liquor trade, viz. the responsibility to pass on the full benefit of the abolition of the excise duty of three cents per litre on natural wine to the consumer as a price reduction. Here I wish to give the hon. the Minister the assurance that all sectors of the liquor trade have committed themselves to this. They also undertook the obligation to emphasize the production of natural wine in the future planning of production expansion schemes in the industry. Here I can give the undertaking on behalf of the KWV that future production expansion programmes will be planned on this basis. In addition, there is an undertaking always to strive, in the promotion of natural wine, to establish a moderate and civilized drinking pattern. Here once again I can give the undertaking, on behalf of the KWV, that the advertising and promotion of natural wine is centred around the concept of wine with food, wine with a meal. I therefore wish to give the hon. the Minister of Finance the assurance that this new recognition of natural wine in the industry will be handled with the necessary care and sound judgment.

I also wish to thank the hon. the Minister for the interest-free loan of R2 million which he has granted to the dried fruit industry. The dried fruit industry serves as a catchment area for the problems of the entire fruit industry. It therefore deserves understanding and encouragement with a view to orderly advance planning.

On this occasion I also wish to thank the hon. the Minister of Finance for his part in the decision to request the Jacobs Committee to investigate the agricultural industries of the Western Cape. I presume that the abolition of excise duty on natural wine and the interest-free loan to the dried fruit industry have already been interim recommendations of the Jacobs Committee. I therefore wish to address a friendly request to the hon. the Minister to give very favourable consideration to any further recommendations that may be forthcoming from the Jacobs Committee in connections with agriculture in the Western Cape, particularly with regard to the canning industry, as the canning industry is a long-term industry in which adjustments in the short term are virtually impossible. Therefore this industry, as in the past, deserves sympathetic treatment from the State.

As a wine farmer, I regard it as a privilege to support this budget.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Ceres as well as the hon. member for Ventersdorp will excuse me if I do not speak about the subjects which they rightly brought up in this debate. I wish to come back to the crux of the debate we have been conducting over the past few days, viz. the new political situation which has arisen as a result of the formation of the CP. In a certain sense, despite what hon. members on both sides say, it was a somewhat distateful experience for us in these benches. I feel that personal bitterness and the reproaches which have been hurled from both sides, do not really become this House. In this regard, I wish to associate myself with the appeal made to members by the hon. member for Meyerton, viz. that it is not necessary to be unnecesarily bitter about these matters.

I wish to refer to the speech of the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs. When some of the hon. members in the House warned 20 or 30 years ago that we could not proceed with the policy of the Government, when we said that the late Dr. Verwoerd had made a mistake by rejecting the Tomlinson report and that the policy being followed with regard to the Coloureds was not acceptable, we were attacked as traitors by hon. members on the Governside. I am happy and grateful that politics is perhaps now entering a phase in which we can discuss these matters soberly, objectively and rationally, without becoming bitter and personal.

The hon. member for Maitland said that the NP had deviated from certain aspects of its policy. He also spoke of double-talk. I want to say to him that we are living in a dynamic world. The world in which we are living today is not the world of 1948, 1928 or 1899. It is a completely different world. It would, in fact, be irresponsible towards the country and its future if we were not to keep pace with the demands made by the changing times. There is no shame in doing this. In other words, it is not really an accusation to say that what a man says today, does not correspond with what he said 10, 20 or 30 years ago. It is as simple as that. If we want to be responsible, we should take note of the other demands set us by the times we are living in.

What struck me once again about the speech of the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs, is that the PFP is being used as a punch-ball by the NP to warm up, so that they can attack the CP here. [Interjections.] It is just like two boxers. [Interjections.] Of course, this is an old ploy. One first has to confirm one’s credibility to speak as an Afrikaner and as a Nationalist, by disparaging the PFP. No, that kind of transparent gambit can no longer impress any of us. Should hon. members of the NP, however, feel inclined to use me or the PFP as their punch-ball, they can do so with pleasure.

They can do it if they enjoy it.

They can use us as a punch-ball with pleasure. However, they will not promote their own cause by doing so. This is something which I wish to state very clearly.

It seems to me that you are already punch-drunk, Nic!

What has struck me as odd in the recent occurrences, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that the central issue in this split, flaking off, breakaway—call it what you will—was the constitutional position of the Coloureds, of all groups in South Africa. It is that group of people who have been treated not as stepchildren, but as orphans throughout history, and particularly during the past 30 or 40 years. They have also been orphans in terms of the policy of the NP Government. I really find it remarkable, therefore, that their constitutional position has become the touchstone …

What did Sabra have to say about this?

I have already replied to the hon. member for Verwoerdburg on that. If the hon. member wishes to maintain the position of 30 or 40 years ago, well and good. However, if he wants to know what Sabra’s standpoint was, he should read the S. P. Cilliers report.

It is indeed prophetic that the Coloureds who, as a group, have been treated as orphans for the past 30 or 40 years, have become the touchstone for the NP and for the unity of Afrikanerdom today. I predict that because it is a matter of conscience for the Afrikaner, the Coloureds will remain the Achilles’ heel of those who refuse to accord their existence due recognition and who begrudge them a rightful place in South Africa. Whatever it may be—the NP, the PFP or the CP—the Coloureds are going to be the anvil on which that party which refuses to give them their rightful place in the South African sun, is going to splinter. [Interjections.]

In my opinion, this debate concerns the constitutional position of the Coloureds. During the course of this debate, a number of concepts have been used. One of them was the concept “nation”. Now I want to know from the hon. member for Lichtenburg and the hon. member for Rissik whether they see the Coloureds as a separate nation or not.

We are still going to discuss that.

Yes or no? That is all I wish to know. That is a simple question, is it not?

It depends on what your definition of “nation” is.

A nation is, after all, a cultural-historic entity which has developed into a separate nation after a time due to common characteristics.

[Inaudible.]

Very well. It is just that it is interesting to me that hon. members of the CP cannot reply to this clear question, Mr. Speaker.

We shall still furnish a clear reply to that.

After all, this is the issue that is at stake.

Just be patient; we shall give you a clear reply on that.

After all, the Government said that the Coloureds were not a separate nation; nor a nation-in-the-making either.

That is what the hon. the Prime Minister said.

If we consider the definition of a “nation” used by the hon. member for Pietersburg, we find something strange. The hon. member spoke of the definition of the “Afrikaner nation”, but immediately afterwards he also spoke of the “White nation”. Now, my goodness gracious, when we speak of a White nation, my mind boggles. What, then, is the criterion for a “nation”? To think that one could regard the Whites as a nation! After all, this is what the hon. member for Pietersburg said. He regards the Whites as a nation. Among those Whites are people who do not even speak our language as Afrikaners, people who cannot even speak our language, people who have an entirely different religion, people who have nothing in common with our history. So to include those people in our concept of nation, and then to say that merely because they have identified themselves with the Afrikaner, that they are part of that nation, is simply ridiculous. Many of those people have not even identified themselves with the Afrikaner. Therefore, to speak of the Whites as a nation in the present context, is sheer lunacy. It is irrational. There is no such thing. This is what the hon. member for Pietersburg did in an effort to find justification for making a distinction between the Whites and the Coloureds. Similarly, colour is the only reason they do not include the Coloureds with the Afrikaner. After all, the majority of them speak Afrikaans. The religion of the majority is N.G. Kerk. The overwhelming majority belong to Afrikaans churches. Their culture is, in essence, that of the Afrikaner. The only reason they are not included in the concept “nation”, is their colour. Then the hon. members of the CP must not tell me that they are not racist, because if this is the only basis on which they do not want to include the Coloureds in the Afrikaner nation, whereas they do include the Portuguese and the Greeks and all the others, then it is purely a question of colour and nothing else.

I shall explain carefully.

Please, then, let us get away from the use of this term “nation” in this regard.

The fourth matter which has been raised in this regard, is the question of homelands, of geographic division. I want to ask the hon. member for Lichtenburg: Do they believe in a separate homeland for Coloureds?

We shall reply to you.

They will reply to me. It is very trying to conduct a debate in this manner. The hon. the leader of that party said in the Skilpad Hall that the CP supports the idea of geographic or spatial independence for each national group and that they would advocate voters’ rolls and governing bodies of their own for the Indians and the Coloureds. I do not think that those hon. members should use words like “spatial”. They are meaningless. They are elusive words, they are ideas which lack substance. It is clear to me from the words used by the hon. the leader of the CP, that they are thinking in terms of a Coloured homeland. In this regard, I want to say this. Someone who still speaks of a Coloured homeland today, someone who can speak of a political connection which must be created, of a vague, so-called spatial ordering, an undefined spatial ordering, is simply evading the reality of the situation in this country. The truth is very simple. If we accept—what we know to be the truth—that one cannot geographically separate people in a country, if they cannot be geographically separated, then there can only be one central authority in that country. It is as simple as that, and in that respect, it seems to me that one has to agree with the writer of that article in Nat 80. Only if people can be separated geographically, is there the possibility that one can have more than one central Government in a country, or a central Government with strong, decentralized authority. However, it is impossible to consider a separate central system of Government in the same country where people live together, and where they cannot be separated geographically. This is completely impossible. Therefore, if they cannot be separated geographically, there cannot be separate Governments, no matter who is involved. It does not matter whether it is the Coloureds or the English or anyone else. It is as far-fetched to maintain that we in South Africa can have separate central Governments, for Whites and for Coloureds, as it would be to maintain that we could have separate central Governments for English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people. It is completely impractical.

I now come to the third point. If people cannot be separated geographically, there is a preponderance of common interests. One could say that here and there things could be separated, but there is a preponderance of common interests. There lies the difference between the NP—I shall return to the NP just now—and the CP. The NP says that it recognizes the existence of common interests and that common structures should be created for those common interests for a say, co-responsibility, power-sharing, call it what you will, while the CP says: No, we refuse to acknowledge the existence of areas of common concern. They say: In as far as they exist, we think that those common spheres could be dealt with by creating separate controlling bodies or structures of control for those aspects. The hon. the leader of the CP put it very clearly in the Skilpad Hall. He said—

He stated this very clearly. It is completely impossible, where there are common interests, to say that you are going to create separate structures, for dealing with those common interests. In the first instance, the weakness of the NP lies in this: Who gives us the right to determine which areas are not areas of common concern? Who gives us that right? Have we at any stage asked the Coloured if he agrees that these interests alone could be his particular interests? [Interjections.]

Order!

I am saying that other groups should participate in the decision as to what the particular interests of other groups are, otherwise it is pure “baasskap”.

Secondly, I wish to point out that should the hon. members of the CP say that they concede that there are commom interests, but that they are not going to endanger the right of the Afrikaner or White to self-determination, that self-determination can only be implemented by means of domination.

With this, I return to the other concept, that of the right to self-determination. We have had a great deal of confusion about this concept—co-responsibility, power-sharing, or whatever. Unfortunately I do not have the time now to dwell on the concept “right to self-determination”, but there is a question which I want to put to the NP in this regard. These concepts confuse the situation—power-sharing, co-responsibility. Can we not accept this simple truth: Due to the preponderance of common interests between Black and Coloured, there should be joint decision-making, no matter how. Let us not toy with concepts such as co-responsibility, power-sharing and that sort of thing. If we accept the view that there are common interests which we all share, as the hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs has said, then only one logical conclusion remains, and that is that we must fully accept that it is right and necessary that there be common structures, common decision-making and therefore common determination; not self-determination.

Did you not read what the hon. the Prime Minister said in the no-confidence debate?

The hon. member for Pietersburg said that self-determination means the exercise of a sovereign will, thus an exclusive will. One cannot have that sort of thing in a matter of common concern.

The hon. the Prime Minister said that there could be joint determination of certain things.

But then those things should be spelt out.

Why are we wearing ourselves with these things? Why do we not state clearly and unequivocally that joint structures will be created for those areas of common interest which will make joint determination possible? I accept that the Coloured is just as loyal to South Africa as we are and that he will promote the interests of South Africa just as much as I or anyone will. That is why I say that there is only one solution, and that is that we must create structures which will lead to exercising a right of joint determination by White and Coloured, concerning those matters of common concern.

Coming back to the debate, I say that I have no doubt that the proposals of 1977 do indeed contain elements of power-sharing. It is no use the hon. members of the CP telling me that they fought an election and that certain aspects were subsequently referred to the Schlebusch Commission, because those proposals were submitted to the NP congresses in 1976-’77. The hon. members should have objected there and said that they did not agree with the proposals, as they amounted to power-sharing. [Interjections.] Perhaps they did this inwardly, but there was no indication that any member of the NP rejected those power-sharing elements in 1977. [Interjections.]

Order!

We are speaking about the constitutional position of the Coloured. We are making a big mistake if we think that we can solve the problem of the Coloured merely by concentrating on the constitutional aspects. There are all the other things. I have said that the Coloureds have been treated like orphans. There are all the other aspects too, and whatever form of constitutional dispensation we were to create for the Whites and Coloureds in South Africa, we shall never have peace in this country unless we treat the Coloureds as people in all other spheres. Let us be honest with ourselves. We need only consider what the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act have meant to the Coloureds, and how they have been affected by job reservation. I am nevertheless grateful that job reservation is being examined in a different spirit today. By giving attention to a constitutional dispensation for the Coloureds—I welcome this—we are merely touching on one element of the relationship between Whites and Coloureds. It is imperative that we give attention to the other matters as well. However, do not tell me that we should first achieve the constitutional dispensation before we can examine the other aspects affecting the Coloured. That would be pointless.

In conclusion I want to say that the 1977 proposals are as dead as a doornail. Anyone who tries to create the constitutional future of the Whites and Coloureds within the framework of the 1977 proposals, is making a mistake. The 1977 proposals have been rejected by academics, as well as by the Coloureds themselves. There is no longer any life in them.

But what do the voters say about them?

I want to tell the hon. members of the CP that they can forget about reviving the 1977 proposals, about trying to revive those skeletons.

My time has almost expired, and I am sorry that I do not have sufficient time to raise other matters. I do just want to say, in all honesty, that if we seek to maintain the basic pattern of the 1977 proposals of separate structures for particular interests, and common structures for common interests in the new constitution, this would be equally objectionable to the Coloureds. The voice of the Coloured is very clear on this point—hon. members of the CP in particular should listen—that the idea of being treated as a separate group and having separate institutions, is completely unacceptable to them.

I find myself in the unenviable position of having to react to what the hon. member Prof. Olivier has said and of finding that to a certain extent I agree with some of his arguments. The hon. member asked who had given us the right to decide unilaterally which matters were matters of common interest and which were particular to a certain group. That hon. member’s party denied him the right to deliberate about all these matters together with the Coloured people about whom he has so much to say. His party denied him the right to deliberate with them, and now they accuse the Government of arrogating to itself the right to decide for the Coloured people. I think it is absolutely outrageous to make such a statement while that party is boycotting the President’s Council.

The hon. member also made a second statement in saying that the 1977 proposals were as dead as a doornail. I do not think the hon. member knows what is stated in the 1977 proposals, because many of the things he has said today, many of the things he has advocated today with regard to the Coloured people, are contained in the 1977 proposals. The hon. member quoted facts from the 1977 proposals.

No, that is not so.

I think the hon. member made one of his weakest speeches today.

I want to raise a further point. I can remember …

Thirty years ago.

The hon. member had not even been thought of then.

No, 40 years ago.

I can remember listening to the hon. member Prof. Olivier 30 years ago, as he defended the Group Areas Act with the same fervour that he showed today. [Interjections.] I shall tell him later where this happened.

Mr. Speaker, in the time available to me I should very much like to confine myself to certain aspects of agriculture. I am sorry that the hon. member for Yeoville has left the House, because I want to come to a statement which this hon. member made in this House on Monday which I really believe should be more closely examined. The hon. member said, and I am quoting only a very short passage, because my time is very limited—

Then he went on to say—

The whole argument of the hon. member was an accusation of maladministration against this side of the House. The hon. members on that side of the house do not know how agriculture works, especially the maize industry, the wheat industry and other industries as well. The Marketing Act is the umbrella Act—it is an enabling Act—and in terms of this Marketing Act, certain powers are conferred upon boards. These are boards that have been established under the Marketing Act. Among other things, the Marketing Act authorizes the boards to appoint agents to handle products on their behalf. Those agents, in this case mainly the co-operatives, are then authorized to buy the crops by means of cash credit loans from the Land Bank and then to pay the farmers the money for the crops they have delivered. Now the hon. member knows—he said so—that in the maize industry, for example, we were faced with a R4 million surplus this year. Who should finance this—the farmers themselves? I ask the hon. member for Wynberg, who knows agriculture: Should the farmers finance it themselves? We have a Joseph’s policy with regard to maize and we have a Joseph’s policy with regard to wheat. Who should finance this Joseph’s policy—the farmers themselves? The Joseph’s policy is being implemented in the interests of South Africa and its people, in order to ensure that these important products will be available during the next season. I want the hon. member for Wynberg, who is the chief spokesman on agriculture on that side of the House, to tell us, in the first place, whether he agrees with the functioning of the Marketing Act and, secondly, whether he agrees with the way in which matters are being handled at present by the various boards dealing with these products. They are being financed through the Land Bank to receive the crops and to pay the farmers. Only then, after the entire harvest has been sold, is the money paid back to the Land Bank.

It is a terrible remark and a terrible allegation against our farmers in this country to say that they are making money out of the Land Bank by investing money at a higher interest rate than that at which they are borrowing it. I say this is a terrible allegation. That is all I want to say about this aspect.

The hon. member for Sunnyside and the hon. member for Carletonville spoke about the drought today. We are all very unhappy about it. I just want to tell the hon. member for Sunnyside, who made a plea on behalf of the farmers, that he knows that this Government’s record with regard to disasters and aid to disaster-stricken areas is absolutely clean. I think he knows it, because he spent a long time on this side. I want to refer the hon. member to the Laingsburg disaster, for example, and also to what happened south of Laingsburg. I think the aid given there was unprecedented in our history. I also want to refer the hon. member to the NorthWestern Cape, which has been suffering a drought for five years, and which has had no rain. I think those farmers are extremely fortunate, and you can ask the hon. members representing those constituencies. Therefore I only want to say that as far as aid to farmers is concerned, the record of this Government is absolutely clean.

Very strong representations were made by several members, including the hon. members for Ceres, Beaufort West, Namaqualand, Prieska and Gordonia, for aid to certain farmers who are excluded from drought aid. We have had lengthy deliberations about this matter, because I strongly sympathize with it. We have had lengthy deliberations about it, and we have decided to give aid in this connection to all farmers who own farming units in all the listed disaster areas, i.e. in those areas in the North-Western Cape and further to the north, as from 1 May. This is a major concession. We have done this for quite a number of reasons. Firstly, there is definite evidence that a further process of depopulation is taking place, and we must try to prevent this at all costs. The duration and severity of this drought have caused more and more farmers to find other work to obtain an additional income. Then there is also the fact that the new drought plan, which is being carefully investigated at the moment, makes no exceptions with regard to drought aid. For these reasons, therefore, it has been decided that all farmers in these listed areas who own farming units will henceforth receive aid.

In the few minutes left to me, I wish to come back to the speech made yesterday by the hon. the leader of the CP. I just want to clear up a few aspects with him. I am now linking up with the hon. member Prof. Olivier. The NP has been accused of having deviated from its policy. I want to ask hon. members on the other side: Has it ever been the policy of the NP that there should be a Coloured homeland?

No.

No. Do those hon. members agree that a Coloured homeland is not practical politics.

That was the standpoint of the NP.

It was the standpoint of the NP and the hon. member agreed with it. But now he no longer agrees. The hon. member can simply tell me “yes” or “no”.

I shall make my own speech.

Those hon. members must tell us whether we have deviated from the old policy or whether they have deviated, because the hon. the leader of the CP based his whole argument with regard to constitutional development yesterday on the fact that there could be geographical partition of this country. If one read his speech, one would see that he based his whole argument on geographic partition. If this is the standpoint of those hon. members, they must tell us that there must be geographic partition, for then the solution to the Coloured political problem is very easy. It is easy to get on a platform and to say that we should create a Coloured homeland and that we should give them the right to full self-determination in that homeland. That is very easy. Those hon. members have agreed with us all these years that geographic partition is impossible with regard to the Coloured people and the Asians.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question?

No, my time is very limited. The hon. member should sit down.

I want to come to a second concept, and that is co-responsibility. The hon. member for Waterberg said that we should take, for example, the concept of co-responsibility. We all accepted it and it was contained in the explanation of the 1977 proposals. What does it mean, however? I said by way of interjection that self-determination was not negotiable. Then the hon. member went on to say that we should take the concept of coresponsibility. He said that this was an accepted concept, but he asked what it meant in actual reality. Now I want to give those hon. members the answer which was given in this House in 1977 concerning the concept of co-responsibility. In reply to an interjection by the hon. member for Durban Point, the previous hon. Prime Minister said (Hansard, Vol. 73, col. 4644)—

Not only a voice, as the hon. member now says, but also co-responsibility in matters of common interest. The Prime Minister went on to say—

In response to a further interjection by the hon. member for Durban Point about “a joint say”, the Prime Minister said—

Then the Prime Minister qualified “a say” and said—

What does “a say” mean? What does it mean in this context?

The hon. member for Groote Schuur also made an interjection and asked: “Can they open their own schools too?” This is a further qualification of the word “say”. In reply to this, the Prime Minister said: “They will have control over their own schools.” It is a full decision-making, therefore. So the then Prime Minister fully qualified the concept of “a say” on two occasions, but he also placed it in the same context as co-responsibility.

Let us stop playing with words. In that respect I agree with the hon. member Prof. Olivier. Let us stop playing with words. Let us stop trying to split a party with a play upon words.

I want to raise a final point. On 7 March 1981—and now the hon. member for Rissik must listen carefully—Dr. A. P. Treurnicht made a speech at Randfontein, the home town of Dr. Connie Mulder, and he said the following—

If words have any meaning, what does this statement mean? At that stage of his argument in an election speech, the hon. member was therefore proceeding from the standpoint that a final decision had not yet been taken about these matters. The hon. member himself referred to it yesterday as a point of departure. Everything has been referred to the President’s Council for further recommendations, and then Dr. A. P. Treurnicht makes this absolute statement—

Why do hon. members of the CP no longer adhere to that standpoint?

In the minute or two I have left I wish to turn to the hon. member for Meyerton. He aroused a great deal of emotion today with regard to the Afrikaner in 1948. However, I want to tell him what I experienced as a young man in 1947 when an agreement was reached between Dr. Klasie Havenga and Dr. Malan. I was living in a small community, and one evening I went with my father to a braai which the late senator Flippie Hayward was having on his farm to celebrate the unification of the Afrikaner nation. That night I saw grown people embracing one another like children. I saw people crying like children. It made an indelible impression on me. On our way home my father told me that we must make sure that there was never again a rift in the Afrikaner people. He said they had had the opportunity to put matters right, but he did not know whether we would be afforded that opportunity. If we wanted to arouse emotions about this matter, we could mention many examples in this Parliament. I also experienced those things as a young man. Remember, my father was not born an Afrikaner. He was English-speaking. He was not born an Afrikaner, but became an Afrikaner from conviction. Those people over there have tried to cause a rift in the party with a minor play on words. [Interjections.] They have tried to cause a rift in the party with a minor play on words. The people will ultimately deal with them for having done this. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be able to react to what was said by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. He devoted a major part of his speech to agricultural affairs, and consequently I should like to make a brief statement on our standpoint—and also my personal standpoint—as regards agriculture. In the past the hon. the Deputy Minister and I travelled a long road together in the interests of agriculture in South Africa. We in this party do not intend—and this has always been my standpoint—to drag politics into agriculture. If we were to do so, it would be an evil day for South Africa and for agriculture in particular. My standpoint is that agricultural affairs can best be dealt with by organized agriculture, but that does not mean that criticism will not be expressed from time to time by this side of the House on agricultural affairs, but if criticism has to be expressed we shall attempt to do so in a constructive way which will be in the interest of the agricultural industry of South Africa.

I think the hon. the Deputy Minister—and I am saying this in a friendly spirit—should rather have confined himself to agriculture … [Interjections.] … but the hon. the Deputy Minister went on to ask whether we were in favour of a homeland for the Coloureds.

But that is basic.

I shall reply to the question. The hon. the Deputy Minister need not reply to the question on my behalf. So the question is the following: Is there to be geographic consolidation for the Coloureds? The question is posed whether that is our standpoint. Is it not strange that we have had to learn here this afternoon in this same debate from the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt that geographic consolidation is no longer possible for the Black people, and I am not misinterpreting what the hon. member said. This afternoon he, on behalf of the NP, stated as a fact that geographic consolidation for the Black people of South Africa was no longer possible.

But they nevertheless have ties with a homeland.

If, on the basis of that standpoint, geographic consolidation is no longer possible, what is to be done about the political rights of the Black man? Then the logical—and I concede that an endeavour is being made to be logical—argument must be carried further, not only as regards the Coloureds and the Asians but also as regards the Black man. [Interjections.] An appeal has been made to us not to be over-emotional. I really think that appeal is unnecessary. Some of our hon. friends on the opposite side said we should not become insulting.

Man, be insulting if you like.

I do not know why that appeal has to be made to us in view of what has been said in the course of this debate. [Interjections.] I do not know why that appeal is being made to us. However, I shall leave the matter at that.

The question had been posed whether we still stand by the 1977 proposals. I, however, pose the same question to that side of this House. Earlier on this afternoon the hon. member for Pretoria Central admitted by way of an interjection that, as far as he was concerned, the 1977 proposals were stone dead.

That is not what he said.

Yes, that is what he said. Sir, what is at issue in this debate? After all, the accusation is levelled at us that we caused the rumpus over a single word. But with what have we had to contend in recent times? The 1977 proposals have been explained. We put those proposals to the electorate of South Africa in an election. Time does not permit me to quote from all the pamphlets nor do I want to tire you with what the NP impressed on the electorate at that time, particularly as drafted by the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, who was the chief information officer at the time. The electorate of South Africa was repeatedly given the assurance, however, that there was no question of power-sharing among Brown and Asian.

But what happened subsequently? Subsequent to 1977, when the draft Bill was submitted to us, we had the first deviation in terms of the 1977 proposals. I put the following question to any hon. member on the opposite side who is interested in this matter: Did we not conduct an in-depth debate amongst ourselves on the deviation contained in those draft proposals.

Were they not considered by a Select Committee?

That deviation concerned the very functions of the Council of Cabinets as well as the function this House of Assembly was to fulfil in any future dispensation. Whereas we told the electorate of South Africa in 1977 that the Council of Cabinets would be a consultative body in which three independent parliaments would have consultations on matters of common interest, we find…

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. member?

There is no time. Whereas that was told to the electorate of South Africa, we found that the Council of Cabinets was being elevated to a super Cabinet in the draft legislation of 1977. Surely the hon. members on the opposite side know that I personally, as well as other hon. members who are still sitting on the opposite side today, objected to that.

Where?

We objected at discussions.

What discussions?

Evidently the hon. the Deputy Minister was not present at the discussions of the study group on internal affairs. He was not present. Finality was not reached at those discussions and we were told that there was still time for further discussions.

But what happened? Subsequent to that we found a gradual creation of a certain climate in progress.

Who created the climate?

At that time we started hearing arguments of the Brown man speaking my language, belonging to my church and fighting at our side on the borders …

Do you deny that?

It was said that they were not a nation-in-the-making. To what end were all these things said? Surely one cannot make any other deduction but that that created a climate for the acceptance of the Brown man is part of our nation. More than that. What I find strange about this argument is that whereas this argument was used ad nauseam with regard to the Brown man, nothing was said about the Asian. The Asian does not speak my language nor does he belong to my church. So is it the intention to treat the Brown man and the Asian differently in the future dispensation? I am just asking. The Asian does not belong to my church nor does he speak my language.

What about the Greek?

It was said that this matter had been referred to the President’s Council for recommendations. But I am beginning to believe—and after all, the proof exists of Cabinet minutes leaked to Beeld—that the Cabinet must have intimated to the President’s Council in advance what would and what would not be acceptable to the Cabinet.

Who leaked the Cabinet minutes to Beeld?

We do not know who was responsible for that. But that is the impression we have. Moreover, I have the relevant edition of Beeld here with me.

Your leader denied it!

Mr. Speaker, I have to conclude.

Yesterday your leader denied it categorically!

What did he deny?

In the past the policy and standpoint of the NP always stood on two legs.

You are no longer standing on even one leg!

The one leg of that policy and the standpoint based on principle was that of nations. We acknowledged and propagated the existence of separate nations in Southern Africa. It has always been the standpoint that each separate nation should realize itself politically and in all other spheres in its own circle. The standpoint of the NP, as I understood and knew it, did not, however, stand on this one leg, i.e. of peoples, only. It also stood on the leg of race.

Here it comes!

It also had the leg of race. I do not know whether the hon. member for Florida wants to deny this.

Of course he will.

I now give him the opportunity to do so.

Your leader says he is opposed to racism. Let us hear what you have to say.

If the hon. member for Florida wants to deny …

Barend, you must be cautious; you might not be made a member of the Cabinet. [Interjections.]

… that the policy of the NP no longer contains the element of race, that the NP has kissed that element goodbye, he should tell us so now. Then he should also tell it to the electorate of South Africa. [Interjections.] If the position is that that element is no longer a standpoint of the NP, we ask …

What do you say about it?

… why they still have the Immorality Act?

Now you must never say again that your party is not racist!

What is racism? [Interjections.]

Why does the NP still have the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act?

Does Jaap Marais write your speeches?

If that is the position, surely the NP should repeal those Acts. [Interjections.] There is no point in hon. member’s of the NP referring to me as allegedly being a racist in this regard. [Interjections.]

We need not say it. We have had confirmation from your own mouth.

After all, throughout the years it has been the accepted standpoint of the NP … [Interjections.]

All right boys, keep on throwing the buckets at each other! [Interjections.]

Now I have to start accepting that when it is said that one word caused us to …

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. member?

No, my time has virtually expired. I cannot reply to questions now. [Interjections.]

Order!

Now it is being alleged that we differed to such an extent over a single word that we broke away.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member for Barberton entitled to make another hon. member of this House out to be a liar? [Interjections.] The hon. member for Barberton said that he had intimated his objection to the 1977 proposals ad nauseam at meetings, whereas his hon. leader said here yesterday that there had never been any opportunity to object. Consequently he is making the hon. member for Waterberg out to be a liar. [Interjections.]

Order! That is no point of order. The hon. member for Barberton may proceed.

Now that was a truly poor attempt on the part of the hon. member for Parys to waste my time. [Interjections.] If he himself was not present, the hon. member for Parys knows nevertheless that this matter was discussed by the study group on internal affairs down to the minutest detail. That was when his former Free State leader of the NP, at present Vice State President, was Minister of the Interior.

But your hon. leader himself denied it.

The hon. member for Waterberg was not present at those discussions. [Interjections.] There is simply no point in our playing with words any longer in South Africa. [Interjections.]

Who is talking!

When I moved at the meeting of the Transvaal head committee of the NP that that head committee reaffirm the policy and the standpoint of the NP, i.e. that the NP was not in favour of power-sharing or of a mixed government on all three tiers of government, it was decided that my motion was in conflict with the motion introduced by the hon. Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, the present leader of the NP in the Transvaal. [Interjections.] Surely one can draw only one conclusion from this. That conclusion is that that meeting of the head committee decided at the time that they were no longer opposed to a mixed government on all three tiers of government. [Interjections.]

Unfortunately there is no time now to read out quotations, but several newspapers did say that in his new policy statement the hon. the Prime Minister had announced the most important change in NP policy since 1948.

It is true. Of course.

It is rightly said that powersharing is, in the words of Die Vaderland, the antithesis of apartheid. Power-sharing is the antithesis, not only of apartheid, but also of self-determination. One cannot have power-sharing and self-determination.

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening very carefully to the debate this afternoon—since yesterday, in fact. If it had not been so serious, it would actually have been comical at times. At the beginning of the afternoon we listened to a verkrampte Prog, the hon. member Prof. Olivier, who made statements which reminded one of the time when he was a member of Sabra, of the NP, of the United Party, of yet another party and then of the PFP. He is the verkrampte wing of the PFP. He made statements here which were in line with many of the views held by this side of the House. It is a pity that he is not here. I did not tell him that I would be referring to him, but surely he should be here.

If you asked him, he would have been here.

In 1955, the hon. member served on a committee of the NP as a Cape professor. He helped to work out a policy for the Coloured people. Today he is a member of that party and he rejects everything that this party wants to do for the Coloured people. He actually speaks on their behalf. [Interjections.] I do not want to devote a great deal of time to the hon. professor and the PFP. I want to make it quite clear today that the policy of the PFP is one man, one vote in a unitary state.

That is untrue.

That party would bring about the demise of the entire White population in South Africa.

That is untrue.

That noisy hon. member for Bryanston is the best example of an Afrikaner who has taken leave of his senses. [Interjections.] When one takes him and the few other Afrikaners on that side, surely they cannot be proud of the way he sits and shouts in this House. He does not even want to listen when one is speaking. I did not interrupt him, because he did not really say enough to make me want to interrupt him. [Interjections.] The hon. member’s party would bring about the demise of the White people in South Africa, and as I have said in other speeches, they are irrelevant in the politics of the White man in South Africa. Therefore I want to eliminate them.

†I want for a moment to discuss what was said by the hon. member for Edenvale. The hon. member discussed the question of pensions but I do not wich to discuss this matter during this debate except to say that I think that this is the best deal that the hon. the Minister of Finance has ever given the pensioners in this country. In this I include social as well as the civil pensioner. The hon. the Minister of Finance has given pensioners in every population group the biggest increase that they have ever had. In this regard I want to refer particularly to the civil pensioner and the 10% plus 1% scheme which we put to the hon. the Minister and which he accepted. This is probably one of the best schemes that has ever been implemented because some of the older civil pensioners are being given a marvellous square deal. In fact, some of them are receiving from 35% to 40% increase in their pensions.

You mean because they only need R20 a month to live on?

I think the hon. member for Bryanston would do better to keep quiet because he only irritates me.

Do you still stand by that?

When one considers what pensioners in the other race groups are receiving, one realizes that these are the best concessions that the hon. the Minister has ever made in this regard. This is in addition to a medical aid scheme for the civil pensioner. Can anybody expect better than that? This was done after we had discussions with the representatives of the older groups of pensioners and they had made certain representations to us. However, all the hon. member for Edenvale did was to deliver a long tirade in regard to parity. I want to refer the hon. member to a speech that I made on the budget in 1980. I do not want to read it. I shall just give him the reference. He can read what I said at col. 7192 of Hansard for that year. I said then that parity could not be introduced simply for the sake of parity. I said that parity had to depend on what the expenditure on each pensioner was and that we were trying to work out categories of pensioners. I said then that once this had been achieved, it would remove colour totally from the pension scene. Is that not what we all want? Is that not what the hon. member for Edenvale wants as well as the very talkative member for Bryanston?

* Whatever the hon. member looks at, he only sees Black. He only wants to see parity, but he does not think of the realities. How could one achieve parity among all the population groups today without discriminating against the White pensioner? I want to leave this matter at that. I shall discuss the matter again under my Vote. If the hon. member wishes, he may raise further matters with the hon. the Minister of Finance.

The hon. member for Pietersburg had a great deal to say about something which I allegedly said during the no-confidence debate, namely that he did not swear allegiance to the Prime Minister and that this was the reason why he left the NP. The hon. member made a great point of saying that he did not have to swear allegiance to anyone. I did not say he had to put his hand on the Bible. Surely this is a common everyday expression and the hon. member can look it up in any dictionary. It dos not mean that the hon. member has to put his hand on the Bible. Swearing allegiance to a person means affirming one’s loyalty to that person. The hon. member did not show loyalty to the hon. the Prime Minister. Nor did it have anything to do with the hon. member’s creed as a member of the Reformed Church, as he said during the no-confidence debate, because it has nothing to do with the Reformed Church. The hon. member does not have to swear with his hand on the Bible. But the hon. member did say another interesting thing, and that was that he had not sworn allegiance to his present leader either. Therefore I think his present leader should also keep a watchful eye on him, just as the hon. the Prime Minister had to do when the hon. member was sitting on this side of the House.

The hon. member read a beautiful poem in this House yesterday. I want to concede to the hon. member that it was a beautiful poem. As the hon. member was reading it, however, I increasingly felt that it referred to the present leader of the NP in the Transvaal. The poem says “Daar het ’n man opgestaan”. After all, the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs rose in this House yesterday and showed that the NP now had a leader in the Transvaal such as it had not had there for years.

Hear, hear!

He has to put right what other leaders have bungled before him. Since the days of Minister Ben Schoeman, the Transvaal has not had a leader who concentrated on the affairs of the NP. No, they have concentrated on other affairs. If the hon. member had not read at the end of the poem “Dit is die man, A. P. Treumicht”, one would have thought that it referred to the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs.

I want to make a few remarks about the meeting in the Skilpad Hall. It is prophetic that they should have met in the Skilpad Hall. There was not a cartoon which did not ridicule that party and its leader. However, do hon. members know what the peculiarities of a tortoise are? In the first place, tortoises are very rare. Secondly, they always walk across a road, never straight down that road. [Interjections] What is more, when one does anything at all to frighten a tortoise, it draws in its legs and comes to a standstill. If one frightens it again, it draws in its head and waits until the danger has passed.

What happens if you pick it up?

The tortoise also lives to an advanced age, and it forgets very easily. That is why it is so difficult to get through to the CP. The hon. member Prof. Olivier said that one should not go back to 1899. It is true that his own past does not inspire us with any wish to go back into the past. The NP’s past, on the other hand, is such that one can confidently refer back to the past. Surely the golden chain of nationalism extending from Dr. Hertzog to Dr. Malan—one of our great leaders—and to Mr. Strydom, Dr. Verwoerd, Mr. Vorster and Mr. P. W. Botha, cannot simply be broken by a breakaway. This chain, from the heart of the people of South Africa, cannot be broken. The hon. member for Meyerton waxed lyrical at the beginning of his speech this afternoon, but I think he was merely trying to create a climate for the mule kicks he tried to work in towards the end. Surely the 1938 trek was not symbolic of the CP. The 1938 trek made the NP, the party in which he served for 40 years and to which he paid tribute this afternoon. It is a pity, though, that he has left at this moment, now that this party, under the present Prime Minister, has to surmount the greatest problems that the nation has ever been faced with. That hon. member must not wax lyrical about things in this House while he is actually running away from us at a moment when he should have stayed.

Let us examine a few of these things. The hon. member said that Dr. Verwoerd was the greatest leader he had known on the Nationalist side. I do not want to single out the leaders, but let us examine a few things that Dr. Verwoerd said. At the moment we are hearing noises about a Coloured homeland. The hon. member for Lichtenburg said at Kuruman that the chequer-board policy we had for Bophuthatswana could do well for the Coloured people. When we asked the hon. member for Rissik across the floor yesterday whether he was in favour of a homeland for Coloured people, he seemed very excited and it seemed to me that he thought this was right.

You should go and read the Hansard.

I shall read the Hansard, but why did the hon. member say that he was not in favour of such a homeland? However, the hon. member for Lichtenburg said this at Kuruaman. He was my benchmate and he is a reasonable and an honest man. He would not deny having said it if he did say it. He said it at Kuruman.

Referring to the concept of a State within a State and the question of whether this meant a separate territory for the Coloured people, Dr. Verwoerd said the following in 1961—

This was only the beginning, for in addressing the Coloured Representative Council on 12 December 1961, he said the following—

What does the hon. member for Meyerton say now? This was said by the great leader, Dr. Verwoerd. He said that the Coloured people could not have a homeland.

Coloured people live in their own residential areas.

The hon. member for Meyerton has a homeland in mind, as do the other hon. members on that side.

Allow me to make a few remarks, and then I shall come back to those leaders. Dr. Verwoerd was one of the people with the greatest intellects that I have ever encountered. He wrote a letter to Mr. Menzies on 26 October 1967 in which he said the following—

This is what he wrote to Mr. Menzies. What else did he write?—

Dr. Verwoerd said that a Coloured person could possibly sit in this House. That was what he wrote here. But now those hon. members are running away while we are deciding where they should sit. Mr. Speaker, allow me to say this to those hon. members: One is not a right-winger because one sows poison against the NP and its leaders for a person who does that is only a gossip. Nor is one a right-winger because one says that the Government does everything for the Black people, for then one is a liar. Nor is one a right-winger when one promotes only the interests of the Afrikaners and the Whites, because then one is being selfish, shortsighted and a danger to relationships between the population groups, and this is contrary to the spirit of Christianity. Is a person a rightwinger if he even co-operates with liberals, so long as he can harm the NP? That is unprincipled and opportunistic. Nor is one a right-winger when one scrutinizes all leftist newspapers for the obscure report which may harm the NP, so as to make this a part of one’s indictment against the NP. This is malicious and despicable. The hon. member for Sunnyside is continually holding up pamphlets to me and my colleagues in this House. When one is guilty of radicalism and of stirring up racialism, one is not a rightwinger, one is doing one’s own people and our country a disservice. Does the hon. member agree with what I have said here, that one cannot be a right-winger under these circumstances? Of course he agrees with it. His own leader said so at the Transvaal NP congress, and what did we get within a few days? [Interjections.]

Does the hon. member remember that I warned him there?

Yes, he warned that they could not show their right-wing character by trying to attack and disparage this party.

Looking at the question of the homeland, we see that Mr. Vorster rejected this. The present Prime Minister has also rejected it. Let us consider our becoming a Republic. It is said that a Prime Minister cannot take decisions on matters of principle. He cannot interpret policy. Those hon. members will recall that they would have liked to vote in the caucus for a motion of confidence in the Prime Minister, but they did not like the end of the motion, i.e. that he could interpretpolicy. Is that not so? They also had the great leader, Dr. Verwoerd. He made a speech at Loskop Dam and said that no Maoris would be allowed in the All Black team. A little later that same year he was in London. The Cabinet phoned him in London because there was a crisis. An Indian had applied to play in a golf tournament. Dr. Verwoerd said from London that this was in order. He said that Papwa Sewgolum could play in the golf tournament. He was the first non-White to take part in organized sport in the RSA. Dr. Verwoerd allowed this.

In 1967, the sport policy was discussed in all the caucuses and accepted on a certain basis. The sport policy changed during those hon. members’ own time in the NP. Mr. Vorster changed it. He took the sport policy to all the congresses, where it was approved. The other day, however, the hon. member for Kuruman said that the sport policy was actually the first step on the slippery slope to integration. However, he was sitting in this party when Mr. Vorster changed it and when all the congresses accepted it.

Hon. members cannot present the NP in a certain light, as they are trying to do at the moment, on the basis of a word or two which they disagree with. The hon. member for Barberton says that we should forget about the words, but when one leaves out one word, such as power-sharing, they have nothing left. Then they have absolutely nothing left. I suppose one would have to get on the platform with a dictionary in one’s hand and to say that where the NP speaks of power-sharing, one is opposed to it. The CP stands for nothing. They are only opposed to something. They are opposed to power-sharing, which has not even been decided upon yet. The hon. member for Lichtenburg, who used to be my benchmate, knows very well that we discussed this matter. We discussed it among ourselves and said that there was nothing before the Cabinet which obliged us to take a decision at this stage. No decision has been taken in the Cabinet which changed anything with regard to the 1977 proposals.

When we examine this matter very soberly and carefully, one thing is quite clear. That is that the party over there has been built on a concept which came upon them too unexpectedly. The rift should have come a littlelater, after the proposals of the President’s Council had been submitted. However, hatred has taken root in that party, hatred against the hon. the Frime Minister and hatred against the executive committee in the Transvaal. Those hon. members, including the hon. member for Barberton, have made bitter and sarcastic remarks about the Transvaal head committee. Hatred developed and a slogan came was adopted, exactly the same things that the HNP is built on. I want to associate those hon. members more closely with the HNP by reading to them from Mr. B. M. Schoeman’s book Vorster se 1000 Dae—

He went on to say—

This is followed by a long passage which I do not wish to quote. However, Dr. Treurnicht says—

Does one persevere for five years? Unfortunately the hon. the leader of the CP is not here today, but I am not talking about him as a person, but about his views. I ask again how one can persevere for five years and then say, as the hon. the leader of the CP said in a reply yesterday, that everything happened so quickly, what with all the commissions and committees that were being appointed, that one had not time to think about the business, because all recommendations were referred to the President’s Council. However, hon. members firmly supported these decisions in 1977.

The story of the Council of Cabinets and its executive powers is ancient history. In 1978 the then Prime Minister, Mr. Vorster, said that the Council of Cabinets would have the same powers as the one in which we are now serving. If this Cabinet has executive powers, that Council of Cabinets will also have such powers. Were hon. members in those benches all asleep when the hon. the Prime Minister made that speech in this House?

Mr. Vorster is still living; ask him.

I do not want to pick a quarrel with the hon. member for Rissik. I have always known him as an honest man.

But now he is looking for trouble.

In 1969 a motion of confidence was moved in the then Prime Minister, Mr. Vorster.

I voted against it.

Yes, but the hon. member was one among five.

Yes, I voted according to my conviction.

Thirteen years later, a motion of confidence was moved in the present Prime Minister, and again the hon. member opposed it.

Yes, again I opposed it.

If I were the leader of that party, I certainly would not sleep easy at night! [Interjections.] How can I look over my shoulder and see a man sitting behind me who voted against two motions of confidence in two Prime Ministers who are still living today?

If I differ with him, I shall tell him so.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question?

I am sorry, but my time has almost expired.

We in the NP will continue under our leader, Mr. P. W. Botha, who has been serving the party since his youth. Who would know better than he what the NP stands for? He has had a hand in every link of the golden chain, from General Hertzog up to the present day. Why would he now betray the White man and relinquish his right to self-determination? After all, the hon. the Prime Minister said in his statement that he stood for the White man’s right to self-determination. How can the CP suddenly profess to be the party that will protect the White man? Those hon. members are doing the White man a disservice. They should reconsider their attitude.

The hon. member for Pietersburg is an expert on the subject of President Kruger, and I now want to quote something that President Kruger said. It is not a cliché, because I have a very great admiration for President Kruger. But every man in his own time. President Kruger said—

The hon. member for Pietersburg must not say that he has not been warned, therefore. In fact, I have been doing my best today to warn him. However, I want to tell him to leave the people to us, because we shall see them through these difficult times. Finally, I want to quote from the farewell speech of Dr. Malan, and it consists of only one word: “Farewell.” [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, to start with I should like to refer to the hon. member for Barberton, because I do not think that I can simply allow what he had to say about his motion before the head committee to go unanswered. In his motion he tried to create the impression that on that specific day the NP renounced everything it had stood for up to that stage. With all due respect I want to say that the only way in which those hon. members could have been accommodated on that specific day and in which unity could have been maintained in the NP, was by reversing the way in which democracy functions. In other words, 36 people had to swing the entire matter their way and 172 people had to subject themselves to those 36 people. There was no other way in which the decision of those hon. members could be complied with. I therefore want to suggest that in the motion the hon. the leader of the Transvaal drew up he not only did everything in his power to accommodate those members, but in fact bent over backwards to do so.

I should like to refer to the hon. member for Bryanston who said here yesterday that it was nice to be a Prog. However, this remark did not stem from surging patriotism or a positive, constructive love for his own party. It was quite clear that he was enjoying and exalting in the fact that an organization or party or institution which that hon. party, and therefore that hon. member, hated politically, had been hurt. There is no other basis for his approach. The hon. official Opposition has been striving for many years to cause or encourage a rupture in the NP or within the ranks of the Afrikaners. Surely this is a fact. I want to suggest with all due respect that one of the basic reasons for the founding of the CP is in fact the irrelevance or powerlessness of the official Opposition, as well as the NRP. During the previous election, at a meeting in the Potgietersrus constituency, I said that we would be able to maintain our position as a party and as a nation in this country, notwithstanding the communistic threat, notwithstanding the West which was not always well-disposed towards us and notwithstanding the presence of other nations at the southernmost tip of Africa, and that we would be able to do this specifically because of the vitality of the NP. However, we must not then allow ourselves the luxury of quarrelling amongst ourselves because politically there is no one else worth quarreling with. That is all that has happened here.

I therefore want to suggest with all due respect that the NP has emerged from this a strong party, stronger in truth than any of those members thought, in spite of the flaking off of the CP. I also want to suggest with all due respect that all this foment that was taking place had been common knowledge for some time. We had been aware of the extreme groups rearing their heads for a long time. We knew this even before the election. We were aware of the undertones within the party. It was not conducive to unity, particularly unity on a sound basis. After all we are aware that these things have been in progress for a long time. [Interjections.] What happened during the Craven week when there was such a palaver? Frequently those things were demonstrated within our caucus in more ways than one. We know that during the Craven week incident there was a feverish meeting and a counting of heads to see whether there would be a break-away at that stage or not.

At this stage I should like to hear from the hon. member for Koedoespoort whether on 23 February, the day before the caucus meeting took place, he held discussions with the hon. member for Kroonstad. Did he hold discussions between 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock that morning? [Interjections.] Did he hold discussions with the hon. member for Kroonstad? [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

With all due respect I want to say that this is indeed a very relevant matter. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Kroonstad is not interested in eleborating on this matter. He made it quite clear that the hon. member was in his office that morning. Is the hon. member for Koedoespoort denying this? [Interjections.] Did those discussions not take place that morning, the day before the break was to take place, the day before they walked out? I want to put it to him that the hon. member for Koedoespoort asked the hon. member for Kroonstad that day: Are you going to walk out with us, because A. P. is going to be kicked out of the Cabinet today? [Interjections.] Is that true?

The cloak of decency has been discarded.

Were the hon. members looking for a reason to walk out? What was that matter? What went on there? With all due respect I want to say that in spite of all this one cannot take pleasure in what happened here.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. member?

No, my time is very limited. The hon. Minister took up part of my time. [Interjections.] I want to make it quite clear that during the Craven week incident these matters were discussed one by one and attempts were made to settle them. If it had not been for the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs and the hon. the leader of the NP in the Transvaal, the break would have taken place then. I also want to suggest that if one considers the ostensible reason given for this walk out, I think that the hon. member for Bloemfontein North was quite right when he said that these members are running away from the consequences of the clear principles of the NP policy. They want to run away. The hon. members of the CP did not, however, wait for the starter to fire his pistol. They started running before the shot was fired and they are still running. I ask myself when they are going to stop; at what principles they are going to stop. Are they going to stop at the 1977 principles, at the 1966 principles or where are they going to stop? With all due respect I want to say that they accepted the 1977 proposals just as we accepted them.

But they are no longer the same.

It was obvious that as a result of radical elements the 1977 proposals could not come to fruition at that stage. What was the result? The result was quite obvious. These matters were then referred to the Schlebusch Commission and that is how we progressed step by step.

To integration.

In what respect is there integration? In no respect. The hon. members quite simply broke away because of a principle, a word, as they said, and to this day they still do not realize the basic consequences of what they are running away from. This party has not deviated from its policy in any way. Surely the congresses have not up to now, accepted any modifications either. In what respect do they feel that there has been a deviation from the policy?

The head committee deviated.

The hon. member for Pietersburg says the head committee deviated. The head committee did not deviate. The head committee merely confirmed what the hon. the Prime Minister had said in a Press statement on 22 February. I therefore do not know how the hon. member comes by what he has just said. After all we are still waiting for recommendations. The hon. members know this very well. No decisions have yet been taken in this regard. The President’s Council will make recommendations and then the Cabinet, our caucus and our congresses will consider them. In spite of all these safety valves they decided they wanted to walk out. That is what it basically amounts to.

In his speech in this debate the hon. the leader of the CP pointed out seven or eight opportunities he could have used to say what he had to say, but he did not do so. Eventually he said (Hansard, 30 March)—

Is this not the reply to the entire question: “‘Prens en vrede’.” This was the idea behind everything. At least things are still acceptable to us. We shall remain where we are and we shall decide at a later date whether we are going to walk out”. Is this not the reply to the entire question? The hon. the leader of the CP also stated quite clearly that this entire matter was being placed in cold storage. Surely it has been placed in cold storage. We are awaiting the recommendations of the President’s Council before we take any further meaningful steps. With all due respect I want to say that these hon. members have done South Africa, the NP and the Whites a disfavour.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Mr. Speaker, the last four hon. speakers in this debate have gone to great lengths to define “magsdeling” and their attitudes towards it. At the same time they have endeavoured to justify the respective stands that they have taken in respect of this issue. It is therefore not relevant for me to follow the intricacies of their debates.

I do wish to dwell though on certain aspects of the division that has taken place within the NP because I feel that we have reached the stage in the history of South Africa in which, since 24 February this year, the whole political scene in this country changed. People can argue whatever way they like, and say this is not necessarily so, but it is indeed so. We in the Opposition benches welcome this move. We do, however, regard this as no more than political evolution. This has happened in the past. It will happen again in the future, and I do not think that we should shy away from such developments occurring from time to time within the political structure of this country in the future.

When I say that we on these benches welcome this change that has taken place within the Government, I believe we must also remember that we have the overseas countries looking at us with considerable interest. We need not necessarily hesitate but we must realize that this change will be welcomed in many countries. Some of our Western allies appreciate the fact that the old tradition has in many ways now found new ground. The Government must be encouraged to move now if it is going to retain credibility in the eyes of the country and of the outside world. For a considerable time now we have heard the utterings of hon. Ministers, the utterings of politicians all round in the Government benches, relating to positive changes that may take place. What has happened? I think there has been a general disappointment at the speed at which things have moved.

What is our main priority? Our main priority as members of this House is to find a political dispensation that is acceptable to all population groups, entrenching the group rights of all sections of the community without affecting in any detrimental manner the existence of any particular group.

Why have you joined the Nats in Johannesburg?

Why does the PFP boycott Johannesburg? [Interjections.]

It is in that context that one must reflect on the three basic fundamentals that face this country at the present time. I refer to stability, security and prosperity. We need and we must have in this country a satisfied and contented population. Irrespective of the political affiliations of any hon. member of this House, I am sure that this is the direction in which we are all endeavouring to move. We must accept that this is the spirit of true democracy. Party differences must exist and this is where true democracy will find its base. Therefore I think that when one reflects on the move away from the Government benches of the hon. members of the CP, one must view it in a constructive light. I believe that it is not so much a case of whether the CP are correct or not correct or whether the Government is right or wrong. I believe that we must appreciate the fact that these hon. members deserve the respect of this House because of the fact that they had the courage and the principles to take the stand they did at considerable self-sacrifice to themselves. With this spirit in our Parliamentary institution, I can only see that our strength will be preserved at all times. As a member of an opposition party, one is concerned about the tremendous emphasis that is being placed by the CP and by hon. members on the Government benches in trying to justify what has taken place. I feel that the function of Parliament must not in any way be permitted to be diverted by this barrage of political exchanges that have been so prevalent between hon. members of the CP and the NP. There are more important issues with which we in this House have to deal and we cannot be seen to act as did Nero who fiddled while Rome burnt.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn now to certain other issues that were raised in a previous speech by the hon. member for Ventersdorp in regard to aspects of the Budget. I want to refer particularly to a matter which I myself have raised and on previous occasions. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance to bear with me and to listen to what I have to say in the spirit in which once again I bring this matter to his notice. I wish to draw the hon. Minister’s attention as earnestly as I possibly can to the position of those farmers who were paid out in the form of Government stock for their farms that were acquired for consolidation purposes. The latest position in this regard is that the original disbursement in Government stock—arising from a reply to a question that I submitted—amounted to something in the vicinity of R119 million. It will no doubt come as a surprise to this House to learn that some 70% of that stock has been redeemed. The balance that is now held by these ex landowners in Government stock amounts to a mere R30 million. I want to tell the hon. Minister again that these people have had to live with a situation where, through no fault of their own, they have been forced to accept Government stock as part payment for their farms, and I think that they deserve special consideration. Let us see what the true position is. We were told graciously during last year’s budget debate that the Land Bank would accept Government stock from these ex farmers as security in respect of loans from the Land Bank. Can I tell the hon. the Minister how many applications there were? There were six.

Is that the Government’s fault?

No, it is because they are out of farming. [Interjections.] You have ruined them.

I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that these ex-farmers who were originally paid out in Government stock have, as a result of discounting their stock, lost in the vicinity of R22 to R25 million. Is this fair?

I want to raise with the hon. the Minister the question of the diminishing amount that has been allocated in recent years for the payment of land taken over for consolidation purposes. It is regrettable to see that the figure for this year is R64 million. I want to plead with the hon. the Minister to ensure that there is a greater allocation for money for this purpose. I have been in contact with some of these farmers who are completely tied to their farms as a result of the fact that they have not been paid out. I know of cases—I have the evidence available in my office—where people are too old to continue farming and who have been forced to stay on their land. There are also cases where the younger farmer has been placed in a position where he has not been able to re-establish himself, and we have a position where the farms, as a result of the sword of Damocles being held over them, are deteriorating in that no improvements are being made to them.

I want to raise another question with the hon. the Minister of Finance in regard to agriculture, namely the removal of certain export incentives. We have heard a lot in regard to balance of payments in the earlier stages of this debate. One of the aspects that has been affected is the withdrawal of special reduced rail charges. I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that concerns, boards and agricultural organizations, as a result of having negotiated long-term contracts—and after all what is more desirable for the economy of this country than a long-term export contract?—have now been put in an embarrassing financial position. As a result of this facility being removed in respect of rail charges the Citrus Board is facing an extra expenditure of some R13 million and the Wool Board an amount of R1,5 million.

You do not know what you are talking about.

My figures are correct. One must not forget that the total of agricultural exports of our country amount to between R1 800 and R2 000 million per annum and that this is one-third of total agricultural production.

Finally, I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister. The agricultural sector is battling to survive in the face of inflation and high interest rates, and I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister not to throw agriculture to the wolves. I do respect the fact that the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Prime Minister are looking at this problem. But, I want to warn that the time is coming when the agricultural industry in this country will, if its representations are not taken seriously, end up in rags and tatters.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has now resumed his seat, need not worry about the Government of this country neglecting the farmers. Our whole history shows that this Government cares for the farmers. Only recently we saw once again how this Government reacts in a time of crisis when disasters strike the farming community. We are also aware of the assistance, even in good times, which farmers get from the Government, as in the case of the maize farmers last year. All possible assistance is being rendered in order to make life as easy as possible for those people who play such an important part in our society.

†Mr. Speaker, if the party of the hon. member for Mooi River was not so woolly, one could almost invite him to join this side of the House. The hon. member for Mooi River is a decent chap. We all like him. He always at least attempts to make a constructive contribution. I think many of the things he said today are not really at issue in this House.

They are at issue.

No, what is not at issue—if I may be very clear about it—is the hon. member for Mooi River’s appeal that the Government must deal as sensitively as possible with the agricultural sector, also that part of the agricultural sector which is in his constituency. The fact is that of that he can be assured.

The hon. member for Mooi River said that he was pleased with what happened on this side of the House on that so-called historic day a few weeks ago when the Treurnicht group broke away from this side of the House. I think he is right, but I think so for different reasons than those which the hon. member mentioned. I think what is happening is that the debate in this House at present is putting into sharper focus the voice of true nationalism in South Africa. Those gentlemen are creating a forum which enables the Government to concentrate on the relevant problems of South Africa and to ignore the irrelevant arguments of the PFP. To that extent at least it is a good thing. I am also certain that the arguments of the CP are irrelevant. Even though one may have sympathy with or even affection for individual members of the CP, the fact is that the march of history is inexorable. A set of events exists to which South Africa is responding, has been responding and will respond dynamically. No number of people breaking away from the centre or carping or refusing to budge or appealing to the worst instincts, if I may say so, of the electorate will prevent this side of the House from doing that which we know must be done because leadership does not mean that one must necessarily acquiesce in the prejudices of some of the people in one’s society. The fact is that there comes a time in the life of a nation when the emphasis must be on leadership and when one will be begging one’s responsibility before history if one were not to do that which one knows to be in the best interests of one’s country. I do not believe there is a person in this House who can argue with any realism whatsoever that the attitudes which are inherent in the CP and the solutions that party offers in respect of, for instance, the Coloured people, have any potential whatsoever of meeting with the favour of the Coloured or Asian South Africans. I do not think one will find any responsible political observer who will not agree that the philosophies of that party as we have heard it over the last week—and we have not heard much—have the faintest hope of being accepted by the broad mass of Coloured people in South Africa. That that is imperative of our society and our history is unquestionable. In little more than a month from now the President’s Council will report and it will confront South Africa with having to look deeply into this problem once more. Indeed, this party is committed to resolving this intractable issue that has been with us since 1853 or even before.

And to accepting its recommendations ?

Not necessarily. Parliament remains the regulator of our affairs.

I am just asking.

The hon. member for Umhlanga and his party are always telling us that they hold the solution to South Africa’s problems. One also always hears the refrain “local option, local option, local option.”

Some time you must let me tell you about local option!

I understand. I accept the fact that their policy of local option would in some measure help communities to maintain a certain measure of community life, but the fact is that at the confederal level they are on record as saying that it would simply mean a transfer to a Black majority. On 5 February 1982, during discussion on the no-confidence motion, the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy affairs put the following question to the hon. member for Durban North (Hansard, col. 401)—

The hon. member for Durban North’s reply to that question was—

In other words, this was a public admission by a person who I think is the greatest exponent of the federal confederal philosophy of that side of the House since Mr. Sutton left this House. He admitted that it would simply lead to Black majority rule. [Interjections.] The confederal model that they propose is a federation, not a confederation.

Nonsense!

It is like the Swiss confederation that everybody always talks about.

You are like a Swiss cheese—full of holes, and most of them are in your head!

The Swiss system is not a confederation at all, but is in fact a federation.

Since this is a financial debate I should like to say that what we have in fact seen with the CP is a reverse takeover. It has been a reverse takeover because what happened was that the smaller took over the larger. At the Skilpad Hall we saw that there was a gathering of the clans and that here too was a situation where Dr. Mulder figured very prominently in the deliberations. The new party that was born, bore his initials, namely CP, and it also bore the name of the party that Dr. Mulder had founded. I think that is of particular significance. Having listened to the hon. members of the CP over the past weeks, and having listened to them over the past years in this House, I want to say that I do not believe that the debate we have had has had anything to do with the subtle nuances of power-sharing or not or whether in fact coresponsibility and consultation equal powersharing or not. I do not believe that that has anything to do with it at all. I believe that hon. members on that side of the House knew in 1977 what the proposals were. I think they understood the proposals extremely well. I think they understood the implications of the proposals extremely well. However, I do not think that they believed that the Government was in fact serious about reaching an accommodation with people of colour and that those proposals, or something like them, might become a reality. As we moved towards a situation where these proposals might in fact become reality, those hon. members suddenly bolted. They suddenly shied at the fence and were not prepared to go any further. I do not know whether they did that at a conscious or subconscious level but I am quite sure that that was what happened. If that is not the case, it means that they were simply being frivolous, that they were simply moving the deck chairs on board the Titanic while it was steaming towards disaster, but I hardly think that such action would be worthy of those hon. gentlemen.

I should like, however, to advance another reason. In 1979 the spiritual father of the CP, Dr. Mulder, said this—

I am quoting from the Beeld of 27 September 1979. Dr. Mulder said, and I repeat—

*Dr. Mulder did not believe in that solution. He would not accept it, and the CP does not want to accommodate the Coloured population in an equitable way.

†I should like to ask the hon. members a question, and it is a serious question: Does the hon. member for Rissik accept that Asians in South Africa are South Africans?

* Are the Asians in South Africa citizens of South Africa?

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member says, yes, the Coloureds and the Asians are South African citizens. [Interjections.]

†Is the hon. member in favour of an equitable division of power with people of colour in South Africa? [Interjections.]

The power I have over them I no longer want. [Interjections.]

If the hon. member for Rissik is saying that he and his party stand for an equitable division of power, then one wonders why they are making such a fuss about the concept of power-sharing. According to the dictionary “equitable” means “one of the equal parts of a company’s capital; giving away parts on a basis of equal shares”. The word “share” is defined as “an equitable division”. If the hon. member therefore says that he stands for an equitable division, he stands for the sharing of power. In view of that, does the hon. member accept that in a common South Africa with a common geography, with people of colour, that is Coloureds, Asians etc…

And the Blacks. What about the Blacks? [Interjections.]

Those hon. members of the PFP dare not even enter into a debate on power-sharing, because their policy does not deal with power-sharing. [Interjections.] Their policy simply envisages a fully integrated power structure, regardless of race. It is merely a matter of Black majority rule; Zimbabwe, here we come! We have had it before, 49 times in Africa. [Interjections.] We are not going to do it again.

Healthy power-sharing.

I know that a mamba has a deadly poison. I do not have to be bitten by one to find out. [Interjections.] Let us at least debate some new things.

Can we have a Coloured Minister of Defence?

Order! The hon. member for Bryanston must contain himself.

I am serious about this.

Go on!

Would those hon. members accept that there are certain functions in society which are common to all the communities?

Like a Minister of Defence.

I shall choose the examples, but we can choose that one too. [Interjections.]

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member for Maitland that I allowed a little leeway for the sake of clarity but I cannot allow a dialogue to be conducted across the floor of this House.

Very well, Mr. Speaker. The point is just that if one has coresponsibility and joint decision-making, as a principle, and if there are areas of common concerned in societies, obviously the areas of common concern have to be structured. Structures have to be brought into being in which the various population groups can be represented so as to deal with those matters of common interest, and if one deals with matters of common interest, and if one exercises powers together in dealing with those matters of common interest, one has a form of power-sharing.

You are re-inventing the wheel.

No amount of running away from the word “power-sharing” or treating it as something very evil is going to alter that reality one iota. [Interjections.]

What about the Blacks?

That hon. member asked “What about the Blacks?”

That is the real problem.

That is not the problem. [Interjections.] I do not see the Blacks as problems. If that is how the PFP likes to look upon Black people in South Africa, let them do so, but I want to tell them that we do not look upon the Black people of South Africa as problems. [Interjections.] We look upon them as neighbours, as people for whom we care. We look upon them as human beings, people with whom we have lived on this subcontinent and with whom we shall continue to live on this subcontinent. [Interjections.] We look upon them as people with whom we shall attempt to live in peace on this subcontinent, and we shall do so on the basis of still retaining our self-respect.

Are they South Africans?

The fact is that considerable advances have been made in respect of the Black people. We all know of the recent independence of Ciskei. We also know of others that might become independent quite soon. We know, in fact, of the confederal discussions that are taking place, and the subcontinental apex discussions that have taken place. We also know of the structuring of functional committees. I think there are 19 so far that are looking after matters of common interest on the subcontinent. There is great progress being made with the confederation. I want to guarantee those hon. members one thing, and that is that that progress will be inexorable. We shall be resolving those problems along that road. If new problems come up, if there are new hurdles, this party will handle them. This party will face them, not shy away from them.

And if they do not come along, you will make them.

That is why this country, with 90% desert, surrounded by stormy waters and without adequate harbours has, against all odds, been the success that it is. It is because the people of South Africa, with their deep commitment to South Africa, have always faced the realities of South Africa. We shall continue to do so, no matter how the PFP shouts about it. The PFP members are like the poor. They have always been with us and they always will be with us. [Interjections.] We have had them throughout our history. Look at the solutions they are trying to foist upon us now. If one reads the history of the Coloured franchise …

The fat cats can go. We shall remain.

In 1853 the British Government tried to foist on us what the PFP is trying to foist on us now. It is the old story. They have become irrelevant, both to this debate and to South African politics. With those few words, let me say that I think this budget has been one of realism and reform. I think it reflects the serious mood of this nation, I think it responds to the educational needs of this nation. It also responds to the manpower and security needs of this nation. I therefore support this budget with acclamation.

Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear that the hon. member for Maitland is nothing more than an English-speaking lackey of the NP Government. If he thinks for one moment that he or his party is going to solve the problems of South Africa in isolation, without taking into proper consideration the majority of the population, viz. the urban Blacks and those outside the urban areas, then he and his party are making the greatest mistake of their lives. I shall come back to him a little later on.

I want to start off tonight referring to the hon. the Minister of Finance whose budget this is. He quoted Chesterton as having said “progress is the mother of problems”. Well, if we want more problems, then let us be more progressive and have progressive problems. However, if the hon. the Minister of Finance thinks he can hide the rosy picutre he painted a year ago of our economic life by referring to negative growth rates and recessions in the UK, the USA and West Germany, let me say that, although they may be responsible for some of our problems, he cannot hide the fact that basically we are faced with a situation in which we find that the surplus of R2,8 billion on the current account of the balance of payments in 1980 was transformed into a deficit of nearly R4 billion in 1981.

In our budgeting we have become dependent on the gold price. The hon. the Minister obviously has to take into account fluctuations in the gold price. For example, a drop of 100 dollars per ounce in the gold price means a reduction in South Africa’s earnings from the sale of gold abroad of approximately R2,1 billion with a consequent loss of revenue to our coffers of R1,1 billion. That is very substantial.

This is linked to the aspect of the depreciation of the rand in terms of the US dollar, which has been dramatic. It depreciated from approximately R1,33 to R0,97 in the dollar. But surely the hon. the Minister with his managed float is directing the price of the rand. He controls the depreciation of the rand against the dollar. In looking for a cushioning effect, we find that, apart from anything else, the net output of gold declined from R10,1 billion in 1980 to R8,3 billion in 1981, with a warning of a further drop to come in the gold output.

It would appear that the hon. the Minister of Finance, in presenting his last budget, in fact banked on a gold price which was much higher than it turned out to be and also banked on the world economy reviving when in fact it has failed to revive. Therefore he overplayed his hand and the gamble he took failed. Now he is confronted with a deficit of something like R4 billion.

It would appear that, with higher interest rates and not having increased taxes, the hon. the Minister was left with very little room to manoeuvre and, in fact, has painted himself into a corner. He failed to provide a proper mix of monetary and fiscal policy as well. In view of the drop in the gold price of approximately 500 dollars in the space of only two years, surely the hon. the Minister of Finance should in the fat years we enjoyed have made some provision for the lean years to come. At the right time he could well have considered establishing a stabilization fund to cushion the effect of the fluctuation in the price of gold.

The Government has a clear duty to the country in the economic field, just as it has the duty in the political field to try to solve the main problems facing us in South Africa today. He must try to establish economic priorities in this era of changing political conditions. Demands can be made for a sound economic policy based on equal opportunities for all people, with an equal right to education and to attaining one’s highest aspirations in education, with an equal right to employment and to practising one’s profession in an area where that profession is practised, to obtaining adequate housing and living in an area where one can afford to live, to participating in sport and having a say in the affairs of the Government of the country in which all should, irrespective of any ethnic difference, enjoy a form of power-sharing that is acceptable to all and that will maintain economic and political stability in the country.

To provide this political stability we should only look at this stage at the NP, the party governing South Africa at the present time. What do we see? We have seen a dramatic event that took place when hon. members of the NP left that party to form the CP. Those hon. members who left the NP are those who felt that power-sharing meant that each population group should live in his own particular geographical area. They reject any kind of integrated form of government at all levels. Many of them prefer to return to the late 1960s and the founding of the HNP. The NP, however, is free now to carry out its policy and to execute its own interpretation of power-sharing, knowing full well of course that as the governing party they have the majority and they can do so.

Focus of attention should therefore now be on the hon. the Prime Minister because he has to tell this country how he is going to adapt or die. He should now transform his words into deeds throughout South Africa.

It would be a pleasant change if he would spell things out clearly.

The hon. the Prime Minister should clear up all confusion within the ranks of the NP, particularly as far as the Coloureds and Asians are concerned. He should tell us whether he is prepared to let them serve as Deputy Ministers. I understand from what the hon. member for Maitland has said that that is the position. Be that as it may, South Africa is definitely crying out for a change in this direction. Let the hon. the Prime Minister go ahead boldly, and where he makes changes that are meaningful and necessary he will receive the full support, not only from the official Opposition, but from all population groups in South Africa. The time for past recriminations and for scoring political points—which is in any event counterproductive—is over. We will support all positive moves by the hon. the Prime Minister because we believe that the time has come now for real change to take place. If the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Prime Minister, however, do not go ahead now with their constitutional plans the whole exercise of flushing out the Conservatives from the ranks of the NP will have been futile. I must warn the hon. the Prime Minister and the NP that the granting of political rights to the Coloureds and the Asians is all very well, the decks have been cleared now for recommendations to be made by the President’s Council, but if, as I said to the hon. member for Maitland, the Government is going to ignore the 8 million Blacks in the urban areas of South Africa and if it is not going to give them a political dispensation in which there will be a meaningful sharing of power and co-operation among all the race groups in this country, we are simply wasting our time. The Government is certainly not going to bring about any meaningful change if it is simply going to polarize politically the Coloureds and the Asians and the Whites on the one hand, and the Blacks on the other hand, by seeking confrontation.

Alf, tell us why your party boycotts the President’s Council?

Mr. Speaker, whilst we welcome the fact that hon. members of the CP have in fact broken away from the NP, we cannot say that we welcome the establishment of a political party to the right of the NP, a party which has gathered, as it indeed has, the support of certain elements within the HNP. We have listened to hon. members of the CP stating the principles of their party. I can only say that their principles, as outlined by them, can only exacerbate the frustration of the Black people of this country, who are looking to the White politicians for some form of relief and for some meaningful political dispensation. I want to know whether it would not be better that, while there are Black leaders who shoot from the lip, something sensible should be done before they begin to shoot from the hip. [Interjections.]

The hon. leader of the CP has spelt out clearly exactly what he means. He must, however, state clearly what his attitude is towards the AWB, and whether he will allow members of that organization to join his party. I was absolutely shattered when I read in Hoofstad of 23 March 1982, the following—

I want to know from the hon. leader of the CP whether he is prepared to repudiate the AWB. Is he prepared to allow people to join his party who are members of an organization wearing symbols and insignia similar to those worn by the Nazi Party. Is he prepared to accept Mr. Eugene Terre’Blanche as a member of the CP? With regard to that other ally, the Kappiekommando, I want to know from him whether he is prepared to stand up here in the House and repudiate the Kappiekommando, who insulted, in the most dastardly way, the flowering female youth of South Africa, who sacrificed their lives to fight Nazism, who endure hardships in the desert and in Italy during the war. I want to know whether he is going to support these women who have one-track minds, these women with dirty minds who can think of only one thing. I want to hear hon. members opposite say that they are going to repudiate these statements.

I would, however, be failing in my duty if I did not also refer to the NRP and, in particular, although I do feel that they are becoming irrelevant in our South African politics, to a statement made by the hon. member for Durban Point. In a speech on 12 March the hon. member had the temerity to accuse this party in very strong terms. He said—

The hon. member for Durban Point was referring here to the municipal elections in Johannesburg, the question of proportional representation and the request to us to accommodate two NP members. How hollow and false is the argument advanced by that hon. member! For five years that hon. member had to live with the idea of the NRP forming a coalition with the NP in Johannesburg, so much so that they felt compelled to expel Councillor Oberholzer from the NRP and he then had to form the Independent Ratepayers’ Association. This embarrassed them enormously. What is this Independent Ratepayers’ Association? It is an association without a constitution and without any members. It consists only of those few members and it has no credibility whatsoever. It is a farce and a sham. All the members of the NRP on that council assisted that party in every election and in every by-election and when it came to the line-up of the Johannesburg City Council recently, after Councillor Oberholzer had been expelled, the hon. member for Durban Point had the temerity to say that PFP policy had been revealed as a monstrous confidence trick on the voters of South Africa. What credibility can one attach to the statements by members of a party that has become irrelevant? Where is the credibility of that party? Have those hon. members heard of a gentleman named Edmond Elias? I want to quote in this regard from The Star of 21 August 1981, as follows—

If the NRP expect us to honour that, why do they not honour their public undertakings? Surely the words are plain enough or do they still not understand them? [Interjections.] They had a full period of six months in which to act and at no time during that period of six months did the hon. leader or any member of that party repudiate the statement made by Mr. Elias. This was the situation until the election and then, all of a sudden, they found it expedient not to stand by the promises that they had made. That is exactly what happened. [Interjections.]

On 26 March 1982, the chairman of the Johannesburg region of the NRP had the following to say—

That is a complete contradiction of what was said previously. What happened in Johannesburg yesterday? The NRP put the NP back in power again. It perpetuated exactly what it had done five years ago by putting the NP back into power. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Durban Point and his party were simply playing politics. They were being completely expedient. [Interjections.]

I want the hon. member for Durban Point to tell us where he stands in regard to the question of proportional representation. Our policy is quite clear in this regard. We have a convention, we have proportional representation and we have the right of veto. Why did the hon. member not say that there would be a right of veto? Why did he not tell us that it was their policy that there should be the right of veto on the Johannesburg City Council? I want to ask those hon. members what would have happened if we had won 28 seats on the Johannesburg City Council and the NP had won 14? Would he have expected us then to turn around and to say that because we stand for proportional representation we would give him three seats like good boys? Is that what the electorate of Johannesburg are asked to vote for? No, they are not asked to vote for that. Had we opted for proportional representation, they would have hammered us and said: You have hammered us for five years, and now you are getting exactly the same. We did not go for proportional representation and now they say we do not carry out our policy. So, whatever we do, that hon. leader over there was on a matter of expediency simply waiting to see which way he could jump in order to try and … [Interjections.] The position can still be retrieved. The management committee can be voted out by means of a vote of no-confidence on 10 days’ notice, and I challenge the NRP to have a no-confidence motion, and to ask their one member to stand with us against the NP and to put Johannesburg on a proper basis, so that it can rule properly and the people of Johannesburg can have a sound government. The choice is theirs and the public of South Africa will judge them. The NRP are in a unique position. Are they going to support the National Party or the PFP? If they support the National Party, what are they doing in this House opposing the NP?

Mr. Speaker, this has been a real dog fight, and things got so bad one could hardly hear what the hon. member was saying. The hon. member for Mooi River said we had to discuss important matters, but it seems to me as if the PFP and the NRP want to iron out their personal differences. It seemed to me to be sour grapes on the part of the hon. member for Hillbrow as regards the situation in the Johannesburg City Council. It looked as though the hon. member was going to speak about the budget, but he very soon turned to other matters. The hon. member does not appreciate the brilliant budget by the hon. the Minister of Finance and he cannot say anything about it, except to criticize.

I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister of Finance on the brilliant budget. He handles the leadership of the NP in Natal as well as he handles the budget. We are very proud of our leader’s performance. The question of loyalty has been bandied about in this House today, and if hon. members want to learn something about loyalty, they should serve under this leader. Every week we meet and discuss matters, and we remain loyal to our leader, with regard to his actions in the caucus as well. We greatly appreciate what he does. In turn, our leader is loyal to the main leader of the NP.

Hear, hear!

I do not want to waste time on what the hon. member for Hillbrow had to say. As the hon. member for Mooi River said, we should rather discuss more important matters, and at present there are a few matters which are important to us and to the country. I am not referring to the PFP, because they have become dangerous recently due to becoming frustrated. Because they realize that they will never be elected by the voters of South Africa, they have now resorted to extra-parliamentary activities and measures, which are out of place in South Africa.

I now come to the matter we all discussed today, namely the breakaway of our former friends, the Conservative Party. The hon. member for Meyerton placed special emphasis on three matters. He had a great deal to say about honesty, truth and loyalty. Sir, allow me to say a few words about the statements made in this regard. I am a new member who came here in 1978, about four years ago. I now want to tell you what my experience and the experience of the members sitting behind me and next to me has been, and then you must judge for yourself, because a great deal has been said about the innocence of those members now sitting on the opposite side of the House, about their having supposedly been kicked out and about their being martyrs. The fact that they were kicked out was referred to repeatedly here. But this is not true. This has been going on for some time. There was a group of plotters that approached me, too, and tried to persuade me to join them. The ringleaders were the hon. members for Sunnyside, Rissik and Waterkloof. The hon. member for Sunny-side cannot deny today that when the Prime Minister was elected he came uninvited to my hotel room and sat there until midnight trying to persuade me to vote against the Prime Minister. [Interjections.] I was still a newcomer. What right did he have to do that? Other members also tried to persuade us to join them. This group came into existence, and after each election they tried to recruit new members. After the 1977 election they recruited three men, namely the hon. member for Jeppe—a failure—the hon. member for Pietersburg and the hon. member Mr. Theunissen, who at that time represented Marico. During the by-elections, when about 20 members came in they again campaigned in all earnestness and managed to recruit the hon. member for Germiston District and the hon. member for Nigel. They slipped up, however, because although they tried equally hard in 1982, they only gained one recruit, namely the hon. member for Koedoespoort. You must not think they did not try to convince the others. Their claim that this matter only arose on 24 February 1982 is devoid of all truth. Claims were made and heads were counted during the Craven Week incident. There were hon. members who said these things should take place more slowly. One need only keep one’s ear to the ground to know what goes on here. These members said we should not split over this, but should rather wait for something else. I shall tell you who these advisers were. One was the hon. member for … I do not know whether to refer to him as the creeper or the sleeper! [Interjections.] During the summer, the hon. member for Pietersburg, the hon. member for Jeppe, the hon. member for Roodeplaat and I usually played tennis together. At the time I noticed that the hon. members for Pietersburg and Jeppe had things to say to each other that were not meant for the ears of the hon. member for Roodeplaat and myself. When we came near them they stopped speaking. [Interjections.] They have had plans to harm and attack this party for some time now. The two of them played an active role in this. I do not want to mention all the meetings in Acasia Park that I know of, but one only needed to keep one’s ear to the ground to know about these things. The hon. member for Rissik will have to send an account for tea to the people he had visiting him at his home. Die Volks blad referred to a few meetings they knew of that had taken place within the last year. I have known for the past four years that this has been going on. In this newspaper Lood mentions certain dates and names, and challenges them to deny it. He says they held meetings at Mr. Daan Van der Merwe’s home in October, February, on 12 May, 18 June, 7 July, 6 October and 23 October 1981. [Interjections.] These were all monthly meetings and house meetings. Reference has been made here to loyalty. The former hon. member for South Coast told us a pretty story—which also appeared in the newspaper—namely the JR story. This is what one of the loyal Nationalists, the hon. member for Rissik, is reported to have said when he addressed a Rapport-ryerskorps. I do not have all the details, but one of the people at that meeting told the former hon. member for South Coast about it. He said to him: Look, this man speaks with contempt of the leader of the party. He was extremely upset about this and bought that man a plane ticket to come here, but when the man arrived to attest to what had been said, namely that the hon. the Prime Minister had been spoken of with contempt, he refused to give evidence. He alleged that he could not give evidence because they had threatened him. I do not know whether this story is true, but I ask hon. members to judge for themselves whether there is any truth in this story.

Reference has been made here to building up of leaders. I want to ask the hon. member for Rissik whether he has ever built up the image of the leader of the NP.

No.

I arrived in the Transvaal a week before the events of 24 February. I was extremely upset when I visited some of the constituencies of those hon. members of the Conservative Party in the Transvaal and heard the opinions of Nationalists who spoke with contempt of the leader of the NP. They cannot now say that it was only yesterday that this matter reared its head. This breakaway has been coming for some time. [Interjections.]

There was something else that bothered them. They were also worried about the leadership. I really do not want to mention the name of that hon. member in the Conservative Party, because it would be unfair. But he said something to me before of a witness in the course of a popular discussion on leadership. We were discussing the next man to become Prime Minister. We were agreed that it would be a Transvaler. I asked the hon. member: Who will it be? He replied: If he is to be elected tomorrow or the next day, it will be Dr. Treurnicht. I then asked: And what about in three or four years’ time? He replied: No, then it will be the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs or the Minister of National Education. I asked: Why do you say that? He replied: We in the House of Assembly have come to realize that there is no strong leadership and these people are going to overtake Dr. A. P. [Interjections.] They were therefore forced to move a little faster. They themselves felt that this split had to come at some time or other. After all, every one of us here, as well as people outside, seek security. If one feels that one has a strong leader, one feels secure. However, once one begins to doubt one’s leader’s abilities, one begins to feel unsure.

That is what happens when you have a weak leader behind you.

Let us now consider the hon. members sitting here. When I first came here I admired Dr. Treurnicht as a cultural leader. I admit that. As a matter of fact, I thought he was one of the great people of our Afrikaner nation. I arrived here admiring him, but what happened to me then? What happened to the other hon. members? After we had been here four years we realized that this was a leader who did not lead but was led. This is obviously true; he is led by other people. We have noticed who drinks coffee with Dr. Treurnicht, who talks to him in the lobby and who eats with him. They were and still are exactly the same group of people. This worried us, and every hon. member will admit that this is so. I therefore do not see a future for the Conservative Party, unless Dr. Connie Mulder takes over as leader, because at the moment it seems as if they want to act quickly so that the people outside do not find out what we have already found out here and that is that the leadership now in Dr. Treumicht’s hands, is not as strong as they would like it to be. [Interjections.]

I have been in the caucus for four years, and when my voters asked me whether there were problems in the ranks of the NP, I always denied it. They then said that newspaper reports indicated that there were problems, and my reaction was not to lie to them, but to tell them that in the four years I had been in the caucus, the hon. member for Waterberg had never differed with the hon. the Prime Minister, and after all, that is the truth. [Interjections.]

We cannot follow a leader who does not want to stand and fight, but who ventures to strike a stealthy blow and then runs away. When the hon. member speaks in Waterberg, the newspapers write what he said against the NP, but he never said those things here in the caucus.

I think you would do better in Hyde Park.

Never mind, I shall say a few things about that hon. member’s constituency too. [Interjections.]

On the Tuesday evening in question they decided on the split, how did the hon. member for Rissik and the hon. member for Meyerton behave in the caucus? They immediately jumped up and stood outside, so that there could be no going back.

Do not speak out of the caucus.

I read about this in the newspaper. [Interjections.] However, these disturbances and this counting of heads have been going on for some time now.

The hon. the Minister of Health and Welfare spoke about loyalty, but I want to say that if one considers the loyalty of those people one notes that in fact it poses a danger, particularly if one considers some of their statements, because some of the hon. members of the Conservative Party have moved a motion of no confidence in two Prime Ministers of the National Party, and bearing this in mind, I predict that the leader of that party is going to encounter problems in the future. [Interjections.]

It has been alleged that the speeches of the hon. leader of the Conservative Party helped the NP to win the election but, Sir, do you know what some of the hon. members in the back benches had to say about the hon. member for Waterberg? They said to each other that they could ask any of the NP members to participate in the election campaign, except the hon. member for Waterberg, because they had come to the conclusion that if one wanted matters about which there was uncertainty to be even less clear, one should ask that hon. member to explain them to an audience. [Interjections.] It is much better to ask people who can point out the problems honestly and can seek solutions for them with you to address an audience, rather than to ask a man who plays with words and, when he has finished speaking, one still does not know what he wanted to say.

In the times in which we live South Africa needs strong leadership, and in the leader of the NP we have truly a strong leader. One knows exactly where one stands with him. The only reason these difficulties arose is because these people who were supposed to sell him to the public, did not do so.

Why did you have so many problems in Vryheid?

I have far fewer problems than that hon. member has in Barberton. He always spoke about the drought and the Hertzog supporters in Barberton, but his problem was that he was trying to move to the right of them instead of to the left. [Interjections.] I see that hon. member wants to hold a meeting there. He can come, because I have been honest with my people. We speak honestly and clearly to our people. One comes across the best examples of non-honesty in Pretoria. There are no problems in one man’s constituency—there is a positive spirit—but in another man’s constituency there is absolute negativism and the former leader of the Transvaal is sitting there almost starving. We are proud of our leaders in the NP. We are proud of the main leader and the leaders of the different provinces.

If there is one man of whom we are really proud today, and who will cause those people opposite a great deal of trouble, who will, in fact, dig their graves for them, it is the present leader of the Transvaal. Just keep an eye on him in the future.

Mr. Speaker, after Union there were issues which the political leaders of the day had to struggle with, problems standing over from the previous century. The first major question relating to population problems in South Africa was the great problem of how to deal with the relationship between Afrikaans-and English-speaking people, just after a war in which the bitter acrimony between the two groups was clearly evident. A difference of opinion then arose between Gen. Hertzog and Gen. Louis Botha. The then Hertzog policy triumphed. That is the policy we call today the two-stream policy, a policy which was not only theoretically correct, but is also the one which, in practice, is the best policy today.

The second major issue which had to be faced was that of the whole relationship between the White people, the Europeans, the Caucasians on the one hand, and the Black people on the other. There, too, one had different points of view. There was Gen. Hertzog with his standpoint. Later there was Dr. Malan, then Adv. Strijdom, Dr. Verwoerd and so on. These were the people who stood on the one side. On the other there was the philosophy of Gen. Smuts. Adv. Strauss, Sir De Villiers Graaff and the people who followed them.

What about Mr. Vorster?

The basic principles accepted then and the policy which is succeeding now—if it is indeed carried out—is the policy of separate development, which distinguishes among the various peoples, recognizes their diversity and then leads them to a process of independence, with their co-operation of course. This policy has not yet assumed its final form because many problems are involved, problems which, in my opinion, will require a great deal more work.

However, there was a third question, too, which had to be solved, and that was the problem of the relationship between the Whites on the one hand and the Brown people and Indians on the other. Within the ranks of the NP various leaders put foward a solution. They indicated how the politics of the relations between the Brown people and the White people could be resolved. Looking back at history, one can, in my opinion, state that neither Gen. Hertzog nor Dr. Malan nor Dr. Verwoerd really came forward with a solution that we could accept and carry out. In other words, this last population issue remained, a question which still had to be resolved.

With the coming of Adv. Vorster, certain things were done. I think one can accept that the position of Afrikaans and English-speaking people was settled, and theoretically that of the Black peoples as well. However, the one very complex problem remained, and that was how one should deal with the question of the relations between the Whites and the Coloureds. In his time Mr. Vorster did a few fundamental and practical things in this regard. I do not want to mention all of them now, but I shall just mention a few that occur to me. The first was the removal of the White Coloured representatives from this Parliament. Subsequently the Erika Theron Commission was appointed, and then, too, there was the recommendation that stemmed from that. With the growth of knowledge and background a Cabinet Committee came into being in due course, of which the present Prime Minister, Mr. P. W. Botha, was the chairman. This Cabinet Committee came forward with its plans and proposals, and I do not know whether this was the case in other provinces, but in Transvaal Dr. Mulder discussed this matter with me at the time, and I with him. Quite probably he discussed it with other people as well. I had two problems which I discussed with Dr. Mulder at the time. He furnished me with an answer. I shall say no more about what we said. If he wants to speak about it himself at a later stage, he can do so. He came to the Cape to attend the big caucus meeting of the NP in the Synod Hall. There these plans were explained to us.

My two significant problems were still troubling me. One was the whole issue of power-sharing. I, too, examined the plans as they were submitted to us and I myself noted that one could develop from these plans in the direction of greater co-operation and unity among White, Coloured and Asian, and that on the other hand, it could be a point of departure which could give greater momentum to separation.

To a homeland.

Yes, that was not excluded either. Indeed, at the time I stood up and put a question to Mr. Vorster. I agree that the leader interprets the policy. In the final instance, no one other than the leader may interpret it. That is correct: The leader interprets the policy. One then states one’s standpoint on the matter. One indicates whether one agrees or not. Depending on how strongly one feels about the matter, one then adopts one’s own personal standpoint. I asked whether this did not involve an element of power-sharing—I cannot recall my exact words. Mr. Vorster, as the leader of the NP, rose and explained to me and to the others that it did not involve an element of power-sharing. I accepted that because his interpretation satisfied me. Subsequently the present hon. Minister of Law and Order rose and said that in his opinion it did, after all, contain an element of power-sharing. The hon. the Prime Minister then rose again, and again gave his interpretation. I accepted it as such.

Subsequently we had the 1977 election. In that election I was confronted time and again in my constituency, where there are many thinking young people—not that the older people are not also thinking people—by HNP members, but also by others, members of the NP, with regard to the issue as to whether it involved power-sharing and if so, where it would take us, and if not, where that would take us. I accepted that the formation, development and growth of a constitution would take place over a period. As a White Person, I cannot simply say: “This is my standpoint and everyone must act in accordance with it”. I recognized that there had to be consultation and that this had to develop if one wanted to find a peaceful solution to an issue. To me as an Afrikaner and a White, the proposals of 1977 were sufficient, because I saw that they protected my interests and that inherent in them was the possibility that we could offer the Brown people and the Asians a solution. I realized that this was not the final answer and that we should still have to discuss the matter. We had the 1977 election and we won it. In 1981 we won again, and won well—not as well as in 1977, but we did win.

Only in Rissik.

Rissik did not do badly.

Now I want to turn to the new leader of the NP in the Transvaal. To me, words have meaning. Words have substance. In the history of South Africa there are certain words that have a certain substance and meaning and have certain consequences. Let me say today that when the hon. the Prime Minister, Mr. P. W. Botha, made his statement, I said to myself and to my wife: “Look, I cannot agree with this.” As an hon. member rightly said, I stood up in the caucus that day and stated my standpoint—and if I had been alone, then so be it. [Interjections.] I stated my standpoint and I said to the hon. the Prime Minister that I differed from him on a matter of principle. I said that in view of the background I have just sketched, I was unable to accept it. I now come back to the hon. the leader of the Transvaal. People may now say that what I have before me is only a pamphlet or a piece of paper. However, it was issued by the NP, and the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs was its author. In this it is said that the NP still offers the necessary guarantees and that the spectres being conjured up everywhere are an insult to the good judgment of the Whites. I have a very high regard for the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs as a person; I shall always have that. He always treated me very well. In his conduct towards me he has always been irreproachable. I believe, too, that he will be a very good opponent. I believe, too, that the hon. the Minister can write well, that he can state a point effectively.

Just do not lay it on too thick now! [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I am merely giving expression to what I feel. The hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs and I are now opponents, but I shall always deal with him in that good spirit. I like him.

However, the Minister writes as follows under the heading “Bangmaakpraatjie no. 2”–

A week or two ago the new hon. leader of the NP in Transvaal said that we and the hon. member for Waterberg presented a distorted image of this policy of the NP. That is the same accusation he used to level at the HNP.

Yes, I said exactly the same about the HNP.

However, listen to what the hon. the Minister goes on to write—

Note well the terms he uses—

Now, however, we find the opposite. To begin with, we have his statement about the PFP and the NP, two parties both of which opposed me in the previous election. Now, however, we come to the argument against the HNP. The hon. the Minister puts it as follows—

He goes on to say—

I must now honestly say that I am simply no longer able to understand this argument. Now I am stupid. Despite everything that has already been said about me, let us accept that I am the very worst, the weakest and biggest sinner in this House. [Interjections.] Let us accept it and leave the matter at that. However, it is true that after I had taken part in two elections, and had faced my people and told them that we did not have power-sharing, and explained to them that consultation and joint responsibility were not the same thing as power-sharing, then surely I could not tell them that I now suddenly believed in power-sharing. [Interjections.] One can qualify the term “powersharing” however one wishes, but powersharing remains power-sharing. One can speak about healthy power-sharing, Christian power-sharing, progressive power-sharing or whatever. However, the principle remains power-sharing. [Interjections.] I simply cannot accept that. I see in this a change of principle in the policy and the standpoint of the NP. That is my first opinion, and hon. members opposite are welcome to differ with me on this score.

My second opinion is the following. As far as I am concerned, a credibility gap has begun to develop in this regard as well. As I have said, to me personally words have always had meaning. That, too, is why I stood up in the caucus and put certain questions to the then Prime Minister. However, a credibility gap has developed as far as I am concerned. Perhaps this has also happened with regard to certain hon. members who are still in the NP. Possibly they have developed a credibility gap as far as I am concerned as well. However, I accept that.

That credibility gap did not come about yesterday. You ought to know that.

However, it has always been my standpoint that the Whites do not share their sovereignty and power. That has been my standpoint since my earliest student years and I still stand by that same principle. To me it is a moral standpoint. I cannot accept it, and I could never look a South African voter in the eye again if I were to accept it.

However, there is a third reason as well. As far as I am concerned, the NP has broken its golden thread, its historic link with its predecessors in that party. That is my standpoint. There is something I want to say to the hon. leader of the NP in the Transvaal. In this regard I want to give him a friendly hint for old times’ sake; I won’t go so far as to say farewell. My history of and my experience in the NP over the past 20 years has been that the matter that is being discussed today, the issue of whether or not to share power with the Coloureds, is nothing new in the NP. There were also the days towards the end of the 1950’s, the days of Sabra—the hon. member Prof. Olivier knows about them, so does Prof. Piet Cillié—when there were people with certain points of view in the NP. The hon. the leader of the PFP—I have been following his career since those days—joined those people in starting to use this kind of argument against the NP.

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

No, because my time has almost expired.

I have certain important questions I want to ask.

I must point out to the hon. the Minister that we are still going to debate this matter at length, and we can discuss it further then.

You have not given your advice yet, either.

Let me conclude. At one stage Dr. Malan asked quo vadis? Where are we going? All of us, as we sit here, are concerned about the future of our country and our people. Dr. Malan said: Go back, go back to the basic princples of your existence. In my own mind —I hope I shall influence my colleagues in this regard—I am sure that we shall go back to the basic principles of the existence of the Whites, and on that basis build up a new policy which I believe is modern, streamlined and is based on the principle that it offers not only myself and my people but also the other population groups a future, however arduous and difficult.

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to what the hon. member for Rissik has just said. It is a pity he did not have the time to continue with his speech. It is also a pity that he did not give the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs the opportunity to ask him a question.

To my mind there have been a few characteristic utterances on the part of leaders of the National Party in the recent months and years which present no problems to hon. members on this side of the House. I cannot understand how hon. members on that side of the House can now regard and interpret the quotations concerned as meaning powersharing. If we go as far back as 22 August 1977 we can read what Mr. Vorster said very emphatically—

He was referring to the 1977 proposals—

To me, Mr. Vorster’s Afrikaans in 1977 was clear; viz. there will not only be a say over their own affairs, but also a joint say, and that that joint say can in no way be interpreted as “inferior” in respect of the various groups.

In April 1978, when elaborating further on the structure within which these discussions would take place, Mr. Vorster said—

I have before me the minutes of the congress of the previous year on the 12-point plan. On that occasion, with reference to the statement—

Dr. Treumicht said—

To me, this Afrikaans states very clearly that a State of their own and territory of their own for each group is not being implied here. Dr. Treumicht went on to say—

He also said that one could not give them their own States and that there would be joint involvement. I quote—

I find it impossible to understand this evening that the members of the CP could possibly have the problem of feeling that their survival is being threatened. The NP has a very clear policy, and it is this very same policy with which we won the recent election and with which we shall win the next election.

I wish to come back briefly to what the hon. member for Vryheid said. The hon. member made an excellent speech, in a fairly humorous mood, and cast one hook after the other to hon. members of the CP. However, there has been no endeavour on the part of the CP to refute all the allegations of intrigue, furtive action and incessant writing in this House tonight. In fact, the hon. member for Rissik is far more interested in what the PFP can tell him than in what his former colleagues on this side of the House are saying to him.

I should like to make a few comments with regard to what the hon. leader of the CP said in the House yesterday. He fired two wild shots right at the beginning of his speech. In the first place, he launched an attack on the hon. member for Pretoria Central. In the second place he admitted that he was open to holding talks with the Afrikaner-Weerstandbeweging. It is very important that we should take note of this aspect and also look to consider the trap he has fallen into by doing so. Right at the beginning of his speech the hon. leader of the CP contended that there was no official link between himself and the AWB. Knowing that is a great help to us on the Government side a lot. Official or unofficial, a link is a link, a connection is a connection, and an agreement is an agreement; whether it is official or unofficial is irrelevant.

The hon. member also said that the members of the AWB could join the CP as individuals and that as far as their membership of the AWB was concerned, they would be allowed to remain members of the AWB until, if necessary, matters could be settled with them. Now we see who is handing out the sheets here because, and I repeat, he says until the matter can be settled “with them”. Then the hon. member for Water-berg also admits that discussions have taken place between him and the leader of the AWB. I ask myself: What do the leader of the Conservative Party and the leader of the AWB discuss with each other in a situation such as the one in which we find ourselves at the moment? The leadership in this country, the government of this country, is at stake. I think they are dreaming about eventually becoming the Government. Therefore, while the leaders of the CP and the AWB are negotiating with each other about future co-operation, it is necessary this evening that we should ask: Who are the bedfellows of the CP? In the first place, they are a militant group which is opposed to the present system of government in our country. These people are sowing the seeds of revolution from the right against all power structures in the country as efficiently, as quickly and as strongly as they possibly can: against the Government, against the Defence Force, in fact, against all power structures. If one analyses their philosophy in depth, it is clear that their philosophy is the same as that of neo-Naziism. In practice this means that if they were to come to power—and I see the hon. member for Meyerton is listening attentively now—they would not, as their leader himself declared, hesitate to nationalize wherever they saw fit. Once one starts nationalizing, one does not stop. That was the path Hitler followed, and that will also be the path the second Hitler would follow should he be able to realize his dreams. It is in the company of these people that the leader of those hon. members consults, reflects, thinks and dreams.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for Waterberg is not present tonight, because I should very much have liked to ask him something. Before and during the last election I continually kept him informed about the actions of the AWB, especially because they were very active in Pretoria, Brits and Rustenburg and vicinity. He spoke mockingly when referring to the AWB and Eugene Terre’blanche, because he called him “Ygene Terre’blanche”. How is it possible to perform such a somersault within a few months as to begin by mocking the leader of a little group of demagogues and then to proceed to negotiate with the same man a political dispensation about which they will deliberate jointly in future? Whence this sudden preference and rapprochement? We are justified in asking whether the hon. member for Waterberg has changed his mind or whether it is perhaps the AWB which has changed its mind. I want to say here tonight that it is not the AWB which has changed its mind, but the hon. member for Waterberg, who has perhaps covertly been a member of the AWB for some time already. I know the AWB and I have inside information about these people and about the way they work and operate. There are people among them who have in the meantime seen the light. I recently conducted a conversation with one of them. He told me: “Jan, you do not know these people. I am telling you, they are going to exterminate you. If they knew that I am talking to you and telling you these things, they would set fire to my house. They would set fire to my cornfield. They would destroy me. I warn you against these people; they are devils”. That is what an ex-AWB member said to me. It is with these people that the hon. leader of the CP is now in league, and they want to bring about a conflagration. They are causing confrontation in South Africa, not only between White and White, but between White and non-White as well. They are instigating polarization, a polarization which will eventually cause this country to go up in flames. I say this to those hon. members while they can still hear so that they may hear this, because the Bible says that there are people who have ears, but who do not hear; they have eyes, but they do not see. These are the bedfellows with whom the hon. member for Waterberg is happily flirting. These are the people with whom the CP is co-operating. These are the people who are joining the CP in their hundreds all over the country. They are boasting about it. Last week the few AWB’s in my constituency crossed en bloc to the CP. They are welcome to it.

They are of no use to that community. They bedevil the farming community and they bedevil the business community. They are welcome to the CP. However, I believe we should go a little further and ask; what is their view of humanity as manifested in the manifesto of the AWB? Those hon. members who sat with me in the elders’ pews must listen very carefully now. I put the question to the hon. member for Meyerton. What is the view of humanity of the members of the AWB with whom his leader, his “great light” is co-operating, associating, and banding together? I cannot call it interesting; I would call it absolutely shocking. Let me put it in a nutshell. They are trying to prove on a Biblical basis that the Creator created the Blacks inferior to Whites. Then a lengthy case is made out and text after text quoted to prove that they are there to serve the Whites. The other day I received a fivepage letter from an AWB clergyman—can hon. members believe that there are still such things today. He lived in Zimbabwe and subsequently came here. He nurtures an eternal hatred for everything Black. In the last paragraph of his letter he quotes the Bible and says that a sacrifice will eventually have to be made, a sacrifice on the part of the Whites by the Whites. This sacrifice is that all Black people will have to be sacrificed. It will have to be a sacrifice of blood. Then he quotes the text. He says that his conclusion is that the only sacrifice which will be acceptable to the Lord is that the Whites, the true remaining Israel, will have to bloodily exterminate the Blacks. I am saying this tonight so that hon. members may be acquainted, not only with the political, military and economic views of these people, but also with their views of humanity and of God. I find it shocking to see, read and experience. For that reason I ask this question: Is the CP going to continue along this road in company with the AWB, as their leader indicated in this House yesterday?

No, he did not say that.

I shall quote what he did say. Since that my time is almost up, I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will allow me an extra ten seconds or so in order to do so. He says that hon. members of the AWB join as individuals and that as far as membership of the AWB is concerned, they can remain members of that organization until that matter can be clarified with them, if necessary. That statement appears in the hon. member’s Hansard. [Interjections.] Is the CP going to continue along this road in company with the AWB? For how long are they going to sit around a table with Eugéne Terre’blanche? After all, those hon. members should remember that they allowed the AWB—and the nation took note of it—to meet them at the airport. After all, we have seen photographs of the AWB forming a guard of honour for the head committee in Pretoria. While they were doing so, some of them punctured the tyres of my bakkie. Fortunately there was a good Nationalist there who gave me a set of brand-new tyres.

Moreover, the CP allowed the AWB to share the platform with them in the Skilpad hall. Accordingly I should like to hear from the CP tonight when they are going to dissociate themselves publicly from the AWB.

They will not!

Do it tonight! When are they going to repudiate the AWB in public? I put this question to the three hon. members who are sitting here now, and particularly to my friend Daan.

Hon. Flakes!

When are they going to dissociate themselves publicly from the AWB? I challenge them to do so now. I challenge the hon. members for Meyerton, Sunnyside and Rissik to stand up and state that they dissociate themselves from the AWB and that they repudiate everything that Eugéne Terre’blanche has said.

Andries will be very angry if they do that.

[Inaudible.]

Thank you very much. Now South Africa knows who the heart and soul—let me phrase it clearly—who the military wing of the CP is.

Daan, are you a member of the AWB?

Gen. Connie is there too! [Interjections.]

I am not dealing with Gen. Connie now. I now want to refer to a lady. In fact, I now turn to the Kappies, to the Kappiekommando, to Mrs. Marie van Zyl who said some extremely unpleasant things about our daughters last week.

Leave my family alone!

Kappie van Zyl, the national chairwoman of the Kappiekommando, together with the AWB, the CP, all the “jeugkommando’s”, the AET, etc. was at the airport, at the meeting of the head committee and also at the Skilpad Hall. I do not want to repeat here what Mrs. Van Zyl said, but suffice it to say that she went further and had even more unpleasant things to say about our older women who served in our Defence Force during the Second World War. One could not repeat in decent company what she said about them. Are hon. members of the CP proud of that Van Zyl woman? Are they proud of the Kappiekommando? [Interjections.] Do they agree with her statements?

Come on, Daan! Answer!

Gen. Neil Webster, chairman of the Council for Ex-Servicemen, took the strongest exception, and on behalf of all ex-servicewomen came out against this contemptible language and behaviour of the leader of the Kappiekommando.

The Kappiekommando, as I said, welcomed the hon. member for Waterberg at the airport. The Kappiekommando formed its guard of honour at the meeting of the head committee. Moreover, the Kappies were with him at the Skilpad Hall. I am glad that the hon. member for Lichtenburg is also present now, because I want to ask that hon. member when the CP is going to dissociate itself from these people. However, I must say that CP’s and Kappies sound rather similar. When is the CP going to repudiate the Kappiekommando in public? I am asking them this question now. I have challenged the CP in connection with the AWB, but they are too afraid to stand up here and state their point of view clearly.

You and I can go and speak on the same platform in Brits. [Interjections.]

Daan, where do you stand as far as the Kappies are concerned?

Daan van der Merwe, you may as well go a little further with your JR-games. [Interjections.]

I challenge you to appear on the same platform with me in Brits.

If that hon. member will guarantee that he will not bring all the AWB’s and all the Kappies in the world with him, I shall appear with him in Brits. [Interjections.]

You must not look for trouble! You are looking for trouble now!

No, Daan, you just answer the question!

I had rather finish my speech now. My question to hon. members of that party is: When is the CP going to dissociate itself from these people? When are those hon. members going to repudiate these people in public? [Interjections] As long as they fail to do that, they are still being associated with those people, and for that reason the people will reject those hon. members … [Interjections.] … because the reasonable people of our country are not prepared to talk to the Terre’blanche people or bow down before them. [Interjections.]

That also applies to the Kappiekommando’s [Interjections.] We reject you with contempt. [Interjections.]

My time has almost expired. I therefore want to conclude with a remark which the hon. leader of the CP made. I said that he fired two shots in this House yesterday, the first about the AWB’s and the second about the hon. member for Pretoria Central. Surely he did attack that hon. member. Oh, it is a pity, but the time allocated to me has expired.

Mr. Speaker, right at the outset I just wish to associate myself with what the hon. member for Brits said, but at the same time I also wish to react to the statement by the hon. member for Waterkloof to the effect that my family refers to me as a Prog. I must admit that that caused me great shock and consternation. I enquired everywhere to find out where the rumour sprang from. I then discovered that that same tannie Kappie Van Zyl of the Kommando is a second cousin of mine. [Interjections.] But now I understand that she is also a good friend and kindred spirit of the hon. member for Waterkloof. Hon. members must simply accept that although one can choose one’s friends, one certainly cannot choose one’s family. [Interjections.]

I really want to enter an honest and frank argument with the hon. members of the CP. I want to argue with them a little in order to see what this is all about. Let us speak about fundamental things, since after all, that is how they profess to think. [Interjections.] Since they are now so eager to speak about fundamental things, let us see what issue is at stake here. The issue is of course a future constitutional system. We want to see what a future constitutional system in this country in which we live will look like. At the moment we are, of course, discussing the Coloureds, the Asians and the Whites. However, any State has two minimum components which are necessary for its existence. The one is an authority and the other is citizens. I think that hon. members will concede that. The authority must govern the citizens, but the authority must govern the citizens justly. This brings us to the concept of “governing justly”. How are we to achieve this? Before dwelling on that further, I just wish to spell out a few things in fundamental terms. I should like to have the reaction of those hon. members to this. I believe that they will agree with me.

My first statement is that a party is not itself a government. The NP is not the government. It is true that the NP did put the Government in power indirectly.

Directly.

You can call it directly or indirectly, but in fact, the NP designated representatives who sit in this House. The representatives in this House, in turn, designated their leader and, in accordance with convention, put the leader in power. From his position of leadership as head of the Government he gathered people around him to form the Government together with him. However, we who sit here are not the Government. We are the representatives of the people at large. Therefore we recognize that the Government in its official capacity wears a different hat to the hat it wears when it acts as a member of the corps of representatives of the legislative authority. I think that hon. members will concede that as well. Now, if that is so, if we come to that, then the Government has an obligation to govern in the general interest. Indeed, that appears in our programme of principles.—“The Party stands for the just and equal treatment of all parts of South Africa, and for the impartial maintenance of the rights and privileges of every section of the population.” Our own programme of principles states that this party accepts that the Government governs in the general interest. However, over the years we have found that it is difficult—in fact, almost a superhuman task—for a government which has been put in power only by White people, which consists solely of White people and which, in fact, in terms of the constitution, must only react to the pressure of White people that he represents to govern in the interests of everyone in the country. After all, we have admitted that. I think that the hon. the Prime Minister has done his utmost to govern in the general interest, but we do know that there is great pressure on him. The aim, then, is to see whether we cannot make of this justice a living reality. This means that the citizens who are governed must be represented in the Government as we are represented in the Government. However, they must also, by some means, have a say in the election of that government. After all, this was built into in the proposals of 1977 and those of 1979, with the electoral colleges and the representation in Parliaments of their own for each group. Surely these are not matters that we can dispute on a basis of principle. Having taken it so far, we now come to the question of how to put it into effect. We recognize that there can and, indeed, in a divided community there have to be separate structures to represent the group interests that do exist. It is not only the NP that recognizes that. The CP surely recognizes it too. Indeed—we shall try to ascertain this—what they are really talking about is a total separation, with separate authorities in which people are represented, but which must not cross colour lines or group lines. Even the PFP, although they may deny it, recognize this with their ideas of free association, political party formation along ethnic lines and the right of block veto. Surely that, too, is a form of separate structures. Surely, then, we should not fight about whether it is to be one legislative authority or ten legislative authorities. Yesterday the hon. member for Pietersburg kicked up a big fuss and said that we were on the slippery slope towards a single legislative authority.

But it is stated there.

Of course it is stated there, but that is hardly a slippery slope. We have one legislative authority today. We can also look at the set-up before the proposals came before the President’s Council and before the Senate was abolished. What does a legislative authority consist of? At that stage, the legislative authority consisted of the House of Assembly plus the Senate plus the State President. These three components together formed the legislative authority. In terms of the 1977 proposals there are three separate Parliaments, all of which have to pass judgment on matters of common concern and try to achieve unanimity. The legislation that will come before them will be placed before them by the Council of Cabinets. Eventually the State President will sign this legislation. Surely, then, together they form a legislative authority. When they act in this way then surely they act as a legislative authority. It then comprises one legislative authority. It is true that it will consist of different structures, but it remains one legislative authority.

The hon. members opposite make a fuss about the concept of “one Government”. This originated in the article in Nat. 80s by Dr. Jan Grobler, the editor, in which he said that it was only logical that in one country there could be no more than one Government. I think the hon. members agree with that statement. Am I correct? I think that the hon. member for Rissik, who is now nodding his head, agrees with that. There certainly cannot be more than one Government in one country. That is quite true. There must be a central authority. However, the question is: How are we going to make up that Government. Once again the NP has made certain submissions on the basis of a constructive proposal at present before the President’s Council, in which the procedure to be followed until the Government is confirmed in its office, is indicated. This is a matter that is open to negotiation. The idea of a say and representation in that Government has, however, been established by way of the NP’s proposals.

If hon. members of the CP do not want to accept that standpoint, then in fact there are a few alternatives open to them. Here one has to go back to the letter written by the hon. member for Waterberg to the editor of Nat ’80s. In the last paragraph of his letter he makes the statement that the editor must please consider a qualification of that statement because, he says, “as it stands, we shall not be able to sell it”. What does that mean?

The first possible inference is that he has no objections in principle but that he would struggle very hard to market the idea. He is afraid to try to sell it. As it stands there, we shall not be able to sell it, is his conclusion. That is the first possible interpretation.

The second possible interpretation is that the hon. member for Waterberg and hon. members of the CP believe in one Government, one Government for this country in which other people also live, but a Government in which only White people may serve, a Government which is appointed only by White people, a Government which represents only White people. This is the next possible alternative, which of course means that the Coloureds and Indians simply have to serve under this White sovereignty. They have no objections in principle to that. However, they do object in principle to the participation of Coloureds and the possibility that Coloureds may make joint decisions as far as the future of the White people is concerned. They object to that. They object to Coloureds discussing matters together with the White people and deciding together with them. However, they do not object to the total domination of the Coloured by White people. If that is so, I ask: Where is their morality? If that is their interpretation, I want to know: Where is their morality?

However, there is also a third possible interpretation. This is a possible interpretation which the hon. member for Rissik unfortunately failed to develop in his speech. However, it was an interpretation which I believe one could make on the strength of interjections he made earlier in this debate, and particularly on the basis of questions asked by hon. members of the CP relating to a Coloured homeland. All we have heard from the hon. member for Rissik thus far is that they will speak about it later.

We cannot debate that.

Of course we must debate that. Therefore the possibility is foreseen that we may also have a Coloured homeland. The hon. member for Lichten-burg compared Bophuthatswana to a spotted cat. Therefore, by implication, there could be a spotted cat for Coloureds as well, a spotted cat of a Coloured State. All of these 300 or more Coloured towns …

Altogether 549.

There are altogether 549, according to the hon. member for Kimberley North. Therefore hon. members of the CP foresee the possibility that there may be a Coloured homeland; a Coloured village homeland. That, then, is a possibility they foresee. That is the third interpretation to which I refer. In the light of this third interpretation, it is very easy to show where hon. members of the CP stand. With whom do they associate themselves? They associate themselves with Aksie Eie Toekoms, an organization which advocates a Coloured homeland. Therefore the gap is opened for them.

However, on the strength of the second alternative I have mentioned—that of White domination and the retention by Whites of the sole right to make decisions—they accommodate everything the HNP stands for, and indeed, everything that the AWB and the Kappiekommando stand for too.

You must read the programme of principles.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Lichtenburg says that I must read the programme of principles. I have tried to read them in all the newspapers I have been able to lay hands on. However, it does not say anything which can be interpreted to mean anything other than what we have always been able to interpret the speeches of the hon. member for Waterberg to mean. This amounts to a minimum of two interpretations, with an unlimited maximum of interpretations. Once again, that is exactly what we find in that programme of principles.

That is quite correct! [Interjections.]

However, what hon. members of the CP ought to do is to state clearly and unequivocally where they stand. They must say what alternatives await us. I do not begrudge them the time to develop them. Then, however, they must not tell us that they have broken their links with the NP because the NP has changed. The NP has not changed now. However, the NP will still have to change a great deal. Of course it will have to change a great deal. After all, we have proposals before the President’s Council, and if we have decided that we are not going to listen to any proposal for change, what have we done? Then hon. members cannot complain that they have been kicked out. They were not driven out. Indeed, it is harmful that we did not drive them out earlier. We should only have known that that was how they thought. I also do not think that we should debate about that.

The last idea I want to develop. …

There are quite a few on the other side whom you have not driven out yet.

Sir, that hon. member can continue to dream that dream forever. I am prepared to take a bet with him that there are no other people here who will leave this side to join them, either people sitting in this House at the moment, or people who have sat in this House recently.

Just before I develop my final argument in this regard, I do just want to refer to a statement I made. I said that that party also accommodated Aksie Eie Toekoms. The speech of the leader of the CP was reported in the minutes of the latest Transvaal congress. Even at that stage he made this statement—

This, then is the second alternative—the White standpoint, the White Government. Herklaas Booysen, however, was already a member of Aksie Eie Toekoms at that stage. He is quoted as the great authority at the Transvaal congress. I now repeat my question: How long have these things been going on?

You did at least applaud that speech before the congress.

No, Sir, I stood up, as befitted a decent loyalist, but I really did not applaud.

Another idea I want to develop is the idea of power-sharing. Power-sharing originated in the concept of one man, one vote in homogeneous communities under the Westminister system. However, we do not live in a homogeneous community and applying it here—and I have advanced this argument before in this House—does not result in power-sharing; it results in “majority rule” in South Africa, if there really is a majority. I contend that there is no majority; in any event, there are only minority groups. However, the idea of power-sharing in the unitary system among individuals presumed that people would choose different sides depending on the argument, whereas in a plural society, everyone votes for his kind. The factor that determines the decsion is therefore: To what group do I belong? To what ethnic group, to what nation do I belong? Perhaps there other dominant factors, too, depending on the nature of the plural structure. However, for the most part, ethnicity is dominant in a plural society. If one develops a system of groups, in terms of which groups negotiate and compromise to reach a decision, then surely they accept from the outset that they are entering that negotiating situation from which they know a decision must come. Because they do so in order to obtain a decision, to reach an agreement, surely that is a form of power-sharing. It is a healthy form of power-sharing within a plural society. Indeed, that is the only real form of power-sharing within a plural society. However, it retains all self-determination and all identity because when a group negotiates, then surely it remains an independent contracting party. It can do what it likes. It can even storm into a revolution, it can seek confrontation, but it can also be prepared to discuss matters. Then at least it would divest itself of the power over other people, of control over others and of the idea of governing at all costs. It would then be acting justly.

There is one last idea I want to mention. Those hon. members selected the name of the Conservative Party. The hon. member for Pietersburg said that when a crisis occurs, one casts back. One runs to the museum, grabs a weapon from the stone age, saddles up the skeleton of a dinosaur and then one storms the world. [Interjections.] It was something to that effect. However, one casts back to the old things. Conservatism says …

Dr. Malan said that.

No, Sir, he spoke about building forward. He did not say “Ek gryp vas en ek hou”. The hon. member should at least quote him in context. The conservatism embraced by those hon. members in an embodiment of a norm we had before. Surely we want to live justly. As soon as one lives justly, this is embodied in a manner and a form. And that form satisfies the demand of justice. However, when times and circumstances change, that form is no longer necessarily valid. However, the norm, justice, the demand, must remain. We must cast back to the norm and not to those things that embodied it. The hon. members of the CP elevate those embodiments to the norm. “The nation” becomes justice.

Because my time has expired, I still just want to say to those hon. members: If they are really going to regard what has been embodied here over the years as the norm, then they are worshipping a golden calf.

Mr. Speaker, I may come back in the course of my speech to one or two points raised by the hon. member for Randburg. However, I want to begin by referring to some remarks made by the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs earlier in the debate when he explained why the Coloured people and Asians should be drawn closer to the Whites, and why the Blacks should be excluded from joint political decision-making with the White community. It is interesting to note that the same party which deprived the Coloured people of all their rights during the ’fifties … [Interjections.]

What do you mean by that?

It hurts the hon. member to hear that, but please allow me to make my speech. It is interesting that the party which deprived the Coloured people of all their rights today wishes to draw the Coloured people closer to them. However, the arguments that are being advanced would have been equally applicable in the ’fifties. I want to refer briefly to arguments that have in fact been advanced in this connection.

It has been said, among other things, that the Coloured people speak the same language as we, that they belong to the same religious denominations, that their culture is more or less the same as ours, that they inhabit the same territory and that their way of life is the same as ours, and that for these reasons they should be drawn closer to the White community today. The same arguments applied in 1950, but at that time they did not constitute sufficient reason for establishing closer ties between the Coloured people and the Whites. When one examines those same arguments, one sees that some of the criteria laid down by the hon. the Minister are to a large extent applicable to urbanized Blacks as well. The urbanized Blacks are living in our territory permanently today and accept the same Western norms as we do. Large numbers of them speak the same language as we and a very large percentage of them also belong to the same churches as we.

That is quite a dilemma, isn’t it?

If this is so, why is one group of arguments being used with regard to the Coloured people, but not with regard to the Blacks? How can this be explained? I want to tell hon. members of the NP that any political solution which includes the Coloured people but excludes the Blacks can never be a solution. I want to make the further point that those arguments are being used to prove that there is a fairly close connection between the Whites and the Coloured people and that for this reason the Coloured people can be drawn into a closer relationship. However, this does not apply to the Asians, but they are also being drawn into a closer relationship with us. They have a different cultural background from that of the Whites. Some of them speak a different language and there are other differences as well, but there is the same readiness to establish closer ties with them. The point I want to make is that the Coloured people, the Asians and the urbanized Blacks form part of the South African community and must therefore form part of any political solution.

Having listened to speakers on that side of the House over the past two or three days, it has become clear to me that the Government has not given enough attention in its budget to the economic and political priorities of our time.

Because urbanization and unemployment are probably among our greatest problems today, I want to devote my time to a discussion of these matters. Population tendencies indicate a process of Black urbanization for which the Government is not making proper allowance either politically or economically. It has hardly been mentioned in this debate up to now by members on that side of the House. If one has to accept that by the year 2000, approximately 80% of all South Africans, Black, White and Brown, will be urbanized, then one realizes that one is obliged to accept and to deal with this fact. I believe that the hon. members on that side of the House have not yet realized the implications of this. They have not taken into account the fact that even if the homelands and all the national States were developed to their full potential, they could only provide jobs for 20% of their population increase in the homelands. The rest of the Blacks would be forced to make a living in the so-called White area. This is a responsibility which cannot be escaped, even though the hon. members on that side of the House are trying to do so. The approximately 20 million people who will flock to the urban areas of South Africa within the next 18 to 20 years must in some way be provided with accommodation and work. If I am wrong in saying that this is our responsibility, I should like to enquire of hon. members on that side of the House whose responsibility it should be. Do they accept responsibility for the provision of jobs and housing or do they not?

An equally important question which must receive attention is the Black man’s insistence on being granted political rights. The concept of power-sharing between Whites, Coloureds and Asians has already landed the NP in this dilemma, and I wonder whether it is within the power of that party to give attention to the political rights of the Black man without splitting from top to bottom. I wonder about this, for the time is very fast approaching when it will have to give attention to this. The debate about this cannot be put off indefinitely. Hon. members should not believe that the debate about Coloured rights is more urgent than the debate about the Black man’s political position. The two are equally important.

They could both have been dealt with by the President’s Council if hon. members on that side of the House had had the courage to include Black people in the President’s Council. Hon. members on that side of the House will come to rue the day when they turned down our proposal that Black people be included in the President’s Council. Hon. members must not believe that because the Black man has been excluded from the President’s Council, the pressure for political rights will be eased. The contrary is more likely to be true. The pressure will mount. Because no forum has been created for the Black man, he will make use of every opportunity to agitate for a joint say. Today he has the right, for example, to bargain in the industrial field through trade unions. This does not reduce the need for negotiation in the political field. It rather increases that need. Even if political participation were denied him in the long term, the Black man would simply use the industrial field, to which he has access, to air his political grievances and to flex his muscles. This will be done to the detriment of the entire community. If this happens, it will be the fault of hon. members on that side of the House. It will be their fault for having refused to create a forum for the Black man. If the Government finds itself in an era of renewal and reform—and there are many hon. members who allege that it does—it will have to give attention to structures which will enable the Black man in the cities to realize his aspirations. He is just as permanent a part of South Africa as we all are.

There may still be a few hon. members on that side of the House who believe that some form of influx control, as implemented by them, will arrest the process of urbanization.

There may be such hon. members. There may also be hon. members who believe that the responsibility for providing jobs can be shifted on to the national homelands. There may be hon. members who believe this, but I want to say to such people that this is not only a dream, but in fact an immoral dream. [Interjections.] The poverty and frustration which such a policy would cause in the homelands and in the national States would destabilize those homelands economically and politically. If this happened, we would blame it on the hon. members on that side of the House. We have already seen how influx control, as applied in the Western Cape, has had a ripple effect that has been felt as far afield as Ciskei and Transkei. If the NP perseveres with this policy, it will in fact be helping to destroy those homelands that it has created, for then it will be making it impossible for them to survive.

We in the PFP accept that urbanization imposes a responsibility on all of us in this House with regard to the provision of jobs and housing, and we accept that responsibility. We believe that in so far as we succeed in doing this, stability will be ensured in the national States, as well as in the so-called White area of South Africa. We accept that unless democratic rights, and the responsibilities that go with them, are shared with the Black man, the present political dispensation, as well as the economic and industrial dispensation, will be jeopardized. It is unthinkable that we could continue to live securely in South Africa if 75% of the South Africans who live here permanently and who work and die here are forever deprived of their civil rights.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wynberg is an absolute stranger in Jerusalem. Is he a Rip van Winkle who is not aware of the things that have been happening under his nose in this country over the past 20 years? [Interjections.] He actually says that this Government has failed all these years to create a forum for the Black man.

Hear, hear! It is quite true. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. member for Bryanston is talking absolute nonsense. Twenty years ago, the first step was taken with a form of self-government for Transkei, and over the years this has been extended to nine other states. In recent years, four of these states have become independent. [Interjections.] At this stage there are almost 800 Black men who are members of the National Assemblies of their own national states. In fact, almost a hundred of them are Cabinet Ministers. [Interjections.] Those people have the right to self-determination, and we have created a forum for them which is now making it possible for them to come to this House and to ask for their independence. [Interjections.]

Of that the PFP knows nothing, of course!

The hon. member also says, among other things, that by the end of this century, more than 80% of the population, including Black people, will be urbanized. However, I do not know where he got that figure from. Suppose it is correct; then the hon. member’s conception of what urbanization means is quite wrong. By urbanization he understands that the Black man will come to Langa, Nyanga, Gugeletu and Soweto. That is as far as his conception of urbanization goes. Does the hon. member not know that whereas there were only three towns in the National States in 1960, there are almost 80 towns today?

How many job opportunities are there? [Interjections.]

Does he not realize that the influx to those towns is much greater than that to the metropolitan areas and that jobs are being created there? Does the hon. member not know what the Carlton Conference and the Good Hope Conference were all about? He should know, after all, that an attempt was made there to obtain capital to be invested in the national states so that more jobs may be created there. [Interjections.] There is not much time left, Sir, and I am afraid that the hon. member for Rissik will not be here tomorrow.

Why not?

He made a very interesting speech. Among other things, he objected to the fact that the NP had deviated from its historical course and had accepted power-sharing as a principle, something which, according to him, the party had never accepted before. In spite of the fact that we have told him over and over again that we do not stand for the kind of powersharing which the Progs want, he persists in saying this. However, this is just by the way. The hon. member, who is a student of history and of political science, must know that this is not correct. After all, he knows what General Hertzog stood for throughout his life. When he was the chief leader of the NP, and later of the UP as well, he stood for the representation of the Coloured people in this Parliament.

That is correct.

Is that not power-sharing? [Interjections.] The hon. member also knows that Dr. Malan put forward that same view in 1928. Dr. Malan even went further and asked whether Coloured women should not also be placed on the common voters’ roll. Is that not power-sharing too?

Surely the hon. member for Rissik knows what the position was in the ’fifties, under Dr. Malan as well as Mr. Strijdom. He knows that they put four Whites in this House to represent the Coloured people. Is that not power-sharing? [Interjections.]