I move—

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to delay the proceedings of the House very long. We have debated this measure over and over again. I have stated all my objections to this Bill, which centre entirely around clause 6, which to me contains the very important principle of the detention of a person after he has completed serving a sentence which was duly imposed upon him by the courts of law. To me that is a cardinal principle and it runs contrary to any of the normal concepts of the Western world and of common justice, and for that reason I opposed the principle of this Bill at Second Reading. I opposed the relevant clause in the Committee Stage, and I oppose the Third Reading for the same reason. There has been no change made in the Bill since it was presented for Second Reading. The hon. the Minister has announced that he will to some extent alleviate the conditions of Robert Sobukwe’s detention by granting the privilege of allowing his wife and children to spend two fortnights a year with him. As far as I am concerned, that is no compensation for the deprivation of normal family life and liberty to which he would normally be entitled. Therefore I wish to move at this Third Reading the same amendment I moved in the Second Reading, namely—

It has now become customary for the hon. member for Houghton to fight under the guise of championing Western concepts and ideas, but in actual fact she is only fighting for a person. I now want to say why that person is really being detained. That person is in the same position as a person whom one has to detain because, for example, he has to be placed under quarantine owing to disease. That person is being detained as would a person who is mentally ill and who is detained because he is a danger to the public. He is being detained because he has a mental attitude which is dangerous to the public, because he is a communist. I want to repeat the question I asked him when I visited Robben Island recently. I asked him: “Do you intend changing your ideology?”, and he replied to me: “Not until the day of resurrection”. But this “day of resurrection” is not the day of resurrection according to our Christian religion. In his view it is the day when the communists will have gained the upper hand in South Africa. He is a real danger and he is being detained there not as a person who is serving a sentence, but as one who is dangerous, in the same way as is a person who is suffering from a serious contagious disease and who is placed under quarantine. He is under quarantine. But the hon. member is now fighting for this person and not for the principle. I want to emphasize that, and because she is fighting for the person I want to draw the inference that she has the same spiritual leanings as that person.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member allowed to say that? The hon. member for Heilbron has just stated, incorrectly I might add, that Sobukwe is a communist, and he has now said that I am fighting for the person of Sobukwe and that I have identified myself with his spiritual leanings.

Order! As I understood the hon. member for Heilbron, he did not accuse the hon. member for Houghton of being a communist.

On a point of order, he accused Sobukwe of being a communist and said that I had the same spiritual leanings as Sobukwe. The insinuation therefore was that I had similar leanings.

If the hon. member takes the view that I accused her of supporting Communism, I withdraw that, but I did not mean it in that way. She misunderstood me.

Question put: That the word “now” stand part of the motion, and a division demanded.

Fewer than four members (viz. Mrs. H. Suzman) having supported the demand for a division, Question declared affirmed and amendment dropped.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Third Time.

Mr.

Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, during the Committee Stage the hon. the Minister accepted one of our amendments and he also gave the assurance that he would have regard to the spirit of a further amendment. We are grateful for that. We are grateful for small mercies, but that cannot detract from our feeling that here we are dealing with undesirable legislation, with short-sighted legislation and legislation which must harm one of the important and major principles in our industrial life. We feel that this Bill runs counter to the principle of collective bargaining in our industrial relations. The hon. the Minister said time and again that the principle of collective bargaining was not being affected in any way whatsoever. In that case I must ask him, “Why this Bill?”. If the principle of collective bargaining operates satisfactorily, and if it is a sound principle, why is this Bill necessary to change the process of bargaining in the case of the municipalities and to bring it under the control of a bureaucratic organization such as the industrial tribunal? There can be no doubt about the fact that in this Bill the Government and the Minister are taking steps to enable an administrator, for example, to interfere in the process of bargaining between municipal officials and municipalities. In the second place, this Bill is providing that even where there is agreement, where there is no dispute, the State may interfere by means of the tribunal to create an artificial dispute between employer and employer which has nothing to do with the process of bargaining, and to enable the Government to interfere in cases where an employer feels that his interests are being affected by an agreement between other employers and employees. On this point, which is a matter of principle, we disagree with the Government, and at this Third Reading stage we must once again register our protest against such a measure.

The other matter in respect of this Bill about which we are concerned is that the Government is not being realistic and does not want to realize that if it continues in this way it will not be able to compete with the private sector of our economy. If we are not prepared to pay people who have special qualifications, people who are heads of departments, scientists and doctors or other professional men, on a basis which is on a par with the standards which are applicable in South Africa to-day, then the public sector must suffer severely as a result of that. We have an example of that to-day. Neither the Government nor the municipalities are able to attract people to fill a post such as that of district surgeon or municipal surgeon at a place such as Philipstown where more than 100 people are suffering from a serious disease caused by negligence and by undesirable circumstances in the public health service, because that service is not enjoying the proper attention of the State and the public sector which must care for the health of our nation. The time has arrived for us to face up to these things.

The third point of objection to which the Government did not reply is that the salaries paid to the top officials eventually determine the salaries paid throughout the entire structure of the public service and in this case of the municipal service. In South Africa there is already, as various hon. members pointed out, and as the hon. member for Kensington in particular pointed out, a bunching of salary structure under the top officials in the municipal services and in the Public Service in particular, and now this Government comes forward with this extremely short-sighted approach to the problem. They now want to force the entire public sector to pay lower salaries to place it in an even weaker position than ever before as far as competing with the private sector for the best manpower available in South Africa is concerned. Why penalize the entire public sector? If it is necessary to protect the public sector, why is it not being protected against the private sector? Johannesburg, for example, was forced to pay higher salaries, because it could not, in competition with the private sector, attract the people required to run a large city. The Government can no longer compete with the private sector in obtaining the people required to fill very important posts. Let me just mention one example. The conditions in our mental institutions and the facilities in those institutions are as disgraceful as anything in a civilized country such as South Africa can be. The other day in reply to a question we once more heard that hundreds of mentally disturbed people must be locked up in prison cells like criminals, because we did not pay our people enough. For that reason, Sir, we must continue to register our protest against this shortsighted and clumsy measure which we are now being asked to pass.

Sir, there are two important principles which exist in our industrial laws as they are to-day and which are being changed by this amending Bill. At present if a dispute arises the parties concerned have the power to decide on arbitration by an arbitrator of their choice. This power is now being taken away in the case of disputes concerning the remuneration of departmental heads. The amendment which is now being introduced under clause 3 (b) means that in the case of disputes concerning the remuneration of departmental heads, the matter must be sent to the Industrial Tribunal to be decided. The parties no longer have the choice of having the matter decided by an arbitrator. Sir, this is quite an important principle which is being changed. If it is to be changed in the case of departmental heads, this could well be used as a precedent for the future in other cases.

But by far the most important principle which is being changed in the Bill is contained in clause 3 (d). Up to now the whole principle of industrial conciliation was based on the settlement of any dispute by the employer and the employee, and if they were able to settle their differences between them, that ended the matter. If they were not able to settle their disputes between them, then there was the further step they could take of either having the matter arbitrated by an arbitrator or having it decided by the Industrial Tribunal. There is at the present time, however, no possibility of any interference by any third party. This amending Bill is introducing an entirely new principle and one which we believe will seriously and gravely damage the whole principle of industrial conciliation and the settlement of industrial disputes. This new principle is to allow the Administrator of a province and, through him, the Minister of Labour, to interfere—and I want to emphasize this—not only where there is a dispute between a local authority and departmental heads in respect of salaries but even where there is no dispute at all. The Administrator and, through him, the Minister are being given the power to interfere where there is simply a change in the remuneration attached to the post of a departmental head.

In such cases the Administrator may refer the matter to the Minister, and the Minister, if he thinks that this change in the remuneration could affect or is likely to affect the remuneration paid to departmental heads in other local authorities, may then refer the matter for arbitration to the Industrial Tribunal. I emphasize that this can be done even if the parties concerned, namely the local authority concerned and the departmental heads, are perfectly satisfied with the salaries fixed. Sir, this is a principle which is entirely foreign to industrial conciliation and one which undoubtedly must do harm to the whole set-up of industrial conciliation in South Africa, because, as has been pointed out by the General Secretary of Tucsa, if this new principle works in relation to the departmental heads of municipal authorities, it could well be extended to other categories of employees and employers by this Government if it chooses to do so for the reason given by the Minister to justify this particular Bill, namely that they cannot allow inflation to go unchecked. If this principle is going to be used in the case of departmental heads of municipal authorities, the next step will be for the Government to say, “wages are being increased unreasonably”—or, to use the term which has been used in this debate—“Salaries are being increased exorbitantly in other spheres and therefore we must step in.” This is what the Government is quite likely to do in the future, because if the principle holds good as between local authorities and departmental heads, then it must hold good in other spheres as well.

Sir, I want to deal with this explanation given by the hon. the Minister and Government speakers to justify this legislation. What have they said to us? They have said two things to us to justify this legislation. They have said first of all that they cannot allow officials of local authorities to get more than the officials of State Departments in the way of salaries. The second thing they have said is that they cannot allow salaries to be increased at a time like this when the Government is trying to fight inflation. Let us have a look at these two things. I want to deal with the second one first, namely this question of inflation. What is this Government doing? This Government has landed South Africa in a state of inflation largely due to its own acts and omissions. This is the point, Sir. The inflationary situation which exists in South Africa to-day is largely due to the Government’s own acts and omissions. What is this Government doing to fight inflation? We had the hon. the Minister of Finance telling the people of South Africa when he introduced his Budget, that in order to fight inflation they must work and save. Those are very fine sentiments, but what is the Government doing to work and to save in order to fight inflation? It is doing precisely nothing. The Cabinet is in no way carrying out this request which it has made to the people of South Africa. What are the State Departments doing to work and to save in order to fight inflation? They are doing precisely nothing. But what this Government is doing is to fight inflation by using the ordinary man and woman, the ordinary workers of South Africa. They are the ones who are being called upon to tighten their belts; they are the ones who will suffer as a result of the proposed step by the Government under this Bill to freeze the salaries of departmental heads. I think that the time is coming when the people of South Africa are beginning to realize that the Government is talking with two voices. When it comes to their own spending they spend freely but when it comes to the ordinary members of the public they expect them to tighten their belts. The hon. member for Witbank, when he spoke yesterday during the Committee Stage, said that in fighting this Bill we were not concerned with the ordinary man; that we wanted departmental heads to be paid any sort of salary.

I did not say that; go and check my speech.

This is precisely what the hon. member for Witbank said.

Do not distort my words.

Order!

Sir. what is the position? The position, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Yeoville, is that fixing the salaries of the departmental heads at a particular level automatically freezes the salaries of all the lower ranks, so the Government do not need to extend this legislation to all municipal employees. By controlling the salaries of the top departmental heads they are in practice also controlling the salaries of all municipal employees. What we still have not heard from this Government is what they are going to do to give municipal employees, whose salaries they are now fixing, some relief from the rising costs of living. We are now going to have the situation where on the one hand the salaries of municipal employees are to be fixed, and on the other hand, the cost of living is continually rising and rising so that their salaries will become worth less and less.

Where are salaries fixed?

Then I come to the next point that I want to deal with and to which we have as yet had no reply from the hon. the Minister. We are told that one of the reasons for this legislation is that local authorities cannot be allowed to pay their officials more than the salaries paid to State officials. But, Mr. Speaker, surely if that is so, if this is what the Government wants to achieve, the remedy therefor is quite simple—pay State officials the salary to which they are entitled and which at the moment is far too low. During this Session of Parliament examples have been given during the debates of where this was the case. To refer to only two such examples …

Order! That is not under discussion now.

May I point out, with respect, Sir, that one of the main reasons advanced by the Minister in justification of the legislation, is that it is the Government’s point of view that heads of departments in local authorities should not be paid higher salaries than those paid to heads of State departments. That was one of the main reasons given by the hon. the Minister to justify this legislation and it is with this argument that I am now dealing. We say that top officials in State departments are not being paid adequate salaries. Therefore, the solution is not to peg the salaries of departmental heads of local authorities. The solution is to step up the salaries of top officials in State departments. When we made this contention during the Second Reading Debate and during the Committee Stage the hon. the Minister accused us of acting irresponsibly because the country was in a state of inflation. But it is all very well for the hon. the Minister himself to say a thing like this when his own Government has largely been responsible for creating this state of inflation. The point is, how does the Minister intend preventing top officials of State departments and municipalities leaving to go to the private sector? How can he prevent that if he does not pay them salaries which are adequate and which they can get in the private sector? Members on the other side have told us that they cannot allow one municipality taking away the staff of another municipality. But that is not the end of the matter. If the Government by pegging the salaries of departmental heads of local authorities can thereby ensure that those officials remain in the service of local authorities, there may be some justification for this legislation. But that can never happen, because if their salaries are pegged they will simply leave the service of local authorities altogether and go to the private sector. The hon. member for Witbank told us yesterday that our contention was not correct, our contention that heads of departments of local authorities were not leaving to go to the private sector. He mentioned the case of a local authority, I think it was Bethal, to refute our contention that departmental heads of local authorities were not leaving local authorities to go to the private sector. However, he defeated his own argument entirely by admitting that the person concerned was attracted by a higher salary—I think he got R120 per month more in his new post.

My point was that local authorities were even attracting people from the private sector.

The example mentioned by the hon. member serves to prove our case—that unless these people are paid higher salaries, they are not going to remain with local authorities but will go to the private sector.

Mr. Speaker, let me now sum up the position.

I hope the hon. member will not repeat arguments in summing up.

I accept that, Mr. Speaker, and I shall be very brief. Our objection to this legislation is, then, that it will lead to disputes between employer and employer and that this will be to the prejudice of the employee; it will not solve the real problem, which is competition, not only be tween local authorities but also between local authorities and the private sector. This is a problem which we believe cannot be solved by a negative measure such as this, but that it requires positive steps, steps to make local authorities more attractive. If, in order to do that, it is necessary to make salaries paid by State departments to the top officials more attractive, then that should be done as well. That is the only positive way to overcome the problem facing us, a problem of a shortage of top personnel.

The hon. member for Yeoville labelled this measure as being “undesirable and shortsighted”. That cry seemed very familiar to me, familiar because it is the same type of cry which we on this side of the House have heard so many times during the discussion of labour measures in this House. And, in spite of the accusation that these measures would allegedly be “undesirable and shortsighted” they have always been the corner-stones of our present labour relations in this country. That is why we need not attach too much value to it when this hon. member once again raises the same cry in regard to this Bill. The question was put, “What principle is being affected here?” Surely in trade unionism the basic principle involved in neogtiations is the right of bargaining and this principle is not being affected in the least by this measure. On the contrary. The right of bargaining remains fully protected. That is why it is also entirely incorrect to level the accusation at an administrator and say that he will now be able to interfere. The fact of the matter is that if this measure is not passed, that may give rise to interference on the part of an administrator who will have to rectify matters by way of an ordinance in the event of an emergency. The only thing this Bill is doing is to give an administrator an opportunity of laying a matter before a tribunal. Therefore the operation of this measure can only be to the advantage of a co-ordinated salary structure.

With the exclusion of the private sector? Surely that is ridiculous.

In the private sector normal negotiations can take place. After all, here we are concerned with the public sector.

Therefore normal negotiations cannot take place in the public sector?

Negotiations can still take place. It is quite wrong to label this measure as being bureaucratic. As a matter of fact, in the past SAAME and the other trade unions concerned referred their disputes to the industrial tribunal voluntarily. They even did so with the highest degree of eagerness. Therefore to label this now as being bureaucratic does not agree at all with past experience.

But I want to conclude by expressing my gratitude to the trade unions themselves. I want to express my gratitude for the responsible way in which the trade unions concerned approached this matter. Whereas we in this country are saddled with an Opposition who does not come anywhere near having a sense of responsibility, we can at the same time regard ourselves as being fortunate that we have trade unions which are on the whole infused with a spirit of service and loyalty towards South Africa. This measure which is aimed at the creation of a co-ordinated wage pattern is also going to be instrumental in combating inflation. As far as that is concerned the trade unions concerned have made a major contribution. For that I express my sincere gratitude to them.

Motion put and the House divided:

Tellers: P. S. van der Merwe and B. J. van der Walt.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Motion accordingly agreed to and Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

It is not possible to allow this Session to end without referring to what is a near catastrophe and may even become a catastrophe to the country as a whole. I refer, Sir, to the outbreak of illness—or what is now known to be typhoid—in an obscure village with a population of 500 people in the Cape Province. For such an occurrence to happen in a civilized, fully westernized health controlled country, is almost incredible. More than a fifth of the population was stricken within a fortnight with this great disease. The reflection which it casts upon the health services of the Government is impossible to appreciate unless one has knowledge of what does happen in other countries. It takes us back to the days of the Anglo-Boer War when there were more deaths from typhoid among the British forces than there were from wounds from gunfire or other injuries. That was more than 60 years ago. Not only is this large number— now said to be 130 people—afflicted—there has been one death, at least, while one more is expected to die—but there was delay in discovering the diagnosis of this illness. Naturally, with the delay in diagnosis there is delay in treatment. As some 80 of the 130 patients are White, it can be expected that the illness will spread as more and more of the non-Whites report ill. This illness can be prevented in two ways. One is the method of prophylaxis by vaccine injection which in this instance is not satisfactory because it will be too slow. Secondly it could be prevented by discovery of the source of infection which normally affects the water or milk supplies— and this has not as yet been discovered—in which case the best that can be done is to tell the people to boil their milk and their water. And I suppose some will do it and others will not do it. Now, this outbreak is an illness which is infectious. It could just as easily, under the existing local circumstances, have been a contagious disease—a disease spread by contact. It could have been plague, it could have been smallpox. Then the sources of infection would have been widespread, because presumably these people travel, while other people from other villages come into contact with them. We had an example in Port Elizabeth not so long ago where a Native woman who came from Rhodesia or Malawi spread smallpox fairly widely. The country is moderately protected from smallpox. But nevertheless, it spread fairly widely and there were numerous cases. How many more of these people are likely to die? Perhaps not many, because modern treatment is effective. But it does exhibit a pattern, namely the pattern of the state of the public health services of this country, a state to which this side of the House has made constant reference. Only last week I quoted the statement of the president of the Institute of Health Officers in Port Elizabeth last year at a conference, in which he said that large areas of the country are without qualified health officials; not only doctors, not only medical officers of health, but the infra-structure which supports the medical officers, the ancillary services, which carry out the search for causes of illness and prevent it. There is a shortage of hygiene officers, meat inspectors, health inspectors, public health visitors and other workers of that category, who warn the M.O.H. of What is happening and advise him on the exercise of his powers. The medical officers of health have great powers. They can condemn food; they can quarantine humans; they can order certain drains, certain sanitary services to be corrected, and so forth. But they can only do this if the head of the health services of the country supports them. We have seen little support for the medical officers of health from the head of the health services, namely the Minister of Health. It was some four years ago and, subsequently, on three occasions I have pointed out to the hon. the Minister of Health that certain premises on the parade in Cape Town were condemned as unfit for the storage of human food. That condemnation still stands, those buildings still stand and the food is still kept there.

When were they condemned?

About five years ago. The Medical Officer of Health is helpless. He can only condemn and, where the local authority does not act on the condemnation, it is for the Minister of Health to act. We passed in this House a Slums Act. If one analyses this Slums Act, one will find that the main principle of this Act is to enable the Medical Officer of Health of the local authority to condemn an area or a building as a slum. Formerly it was enough if it went to the local authority and the local authority acted. But in the Slums Act that condemnation was carried further. It went to the Government and the Government then took the right to declare the area concerned a slum area and itself to deal with it. In other words, even against his own local authority the M.O.H. must at all times have the support of the Central Government. Since I have been in this House the Government has not given the support to the M.O.H. that should have been given.

I have also drawn attention to the fact that there is a grave shortage of qualified health personnel and no men are entering the service. The health officers of the country are all, or nearly all, in the upper age brackets and no more are joining. The State Department demands, correctly, that health officers must have certain specialist qualifications. They cannot just be taken out of the consulting rooms, put into an office, as one can with clerks, and be trained. They have to go through not only the ordinary training of a doctor but they must have post-graduate training. It is in the law that they must be trained in that way. You cannot just take any doctor and make him the health officer of a large local authority. There are practically no postgraduates training at the moment. Certainly in four out of five of the medical schools there are none in training. I think there may be some at the University of Pretoria.

The health officers themselves have told me that they are concerned that when they reach the age limit there will be no successors. The hon. the Minister of Health has done nothing about it. He has been warned over and over again that the clock is running down. There are no or few sanitary inspectors training:

there are few health inspectors training, and there are almost no medical officers training to take up this career. The death-knell of the M.O.H. as a career was sounded, the last nail in the coffin was driven ten minutes ago in this House when the Industrial Conciliation Amendment Bill was passed. Because it has been common recently to reduce the status of the M.O.H. of the larger municipalities to below that of the city engineer and the town clerk. If one lowers the status of a professional man he will, if possible, seek a post which is less onerous and demands certainly less study, but at least in the ordinary way will compensate him by salary increases for loss of professional status.

I regard the position of the health services to-day of the country as a whole, which can allow a condition to occur such as this in Philipstown, as disastrous and capable of bringing disaster. This is but one area. What is the position in other places? What about Hammarsdale? I hate to talk of Hammarsdale—it stinks in all directions. It is one of these areas. The fact remains that the health services of this country are running down; they are running down because of the shortage of trained staff, and we cannot create trained staff in five minutes. The infra-structure, that word which is so much used in this House, is also disappearing, and the superstructure is getting steadily older until it, too, will disappear.

I want to refer to one other subject and that is the salary scales of the doctors of the different races, because that too, is important in this respect. If the Government is truthful and honest in its desire to create independent non-white states then it must create the health services of those countries. But the salary structures in the Government and provincial services of the non-white doctors are lower than those of their white colleagues. These groups are working together in the same hospitals. Not only are they in competition in private practice—which is quite reasonable and understandable—but they are working in the same hospitals, and the non-Whites are receiving, in terms of Government policy, lower salaries in those hospitals. What does that mean? Here are people with professional qualifications which are accepted in about half the world; they have no difficulty whatever in obtaining recognition in roughly half the world. We have reciprocity of qualifications over a very wide area and the reciprocity is accented without question on the basis of the certificates of this country. So, as one non-white doctor said to me, why should he remain here? He asked me: “Why should I stay here in an inferior position with a lower salary than the man who is under my instructions, when I have qualifications with which I can go almost anywhere and get a job on an equal footing and be received as an equal?” It is said that in the hospitals of Britain in the junior posts about 90 per cent of the doctors are non-White—and a large number of those people come from this country. They will not return. If we are talking about a brain-drain, then I say this is one of the worst examples of encouraging the brain-drain that could be found anywhere.

Mr. Speaker, it is perhaps a great pity that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat did not mention this matter to me beforehand. Philipstown is a town in my constituency and I know precisely what went on there in regard to the disease which broke out there. If the hon. member had been in the House at the time he would have remembered that I mentioned this matter in this House a while back when I said that there was neither a hospital, nor a doctor, nor a nurse in the town.

And the Government did nothing.

If the hon. member knew how to set about things, he could have made that remark, but of course he does not know how one sets about things. That is his difficulty. I took all the necessary precautionary measures myself. I want to make special mention of it here and I want it to be placed on record. I phoned Dr. Murray of the Department of Health straight away and he gave the matter his immediate attention.

When was that?

Let me just finish speaking; then you will hear what I have to say, or are you in a great hurry to hear it now already? He sent down a team of people straight away to investigate the disease which had broken out there. It is not the case that there was no service from doctors whatsoever. The doctors from De Aar, Dr. Louw and others, went over to Philipstown. Dr. Eyssel of Petrusville also went over. In addition to that the nurses from De Aar went to Philipstown.

After the disease had broken out.

Yes. The doctors could not establish what kind of disease it was. The Department of Health had samples taken and examined, and it has been established what the difficulty is. It is an epidemic which broke out there as a result of the tremendous rains which had fallen there. It was very wet. The people there could, with the best will in the world, not keep their stables and cattle pens dry under such circumstances—they could not keep them dry when between 25 and 30 inches of rain had fallen in the Karoo. That is what happened there.

The hon. member spoke here of slums. I wish he could go there and have a look. I do not know whether he knows where Philipstown is situated—I do not believe he does know. [Interjections.] Yes, he spoke about “slums”, I wrote the word down. If he ever wishes to see a neat Coloured location or a Bantu location, he may as well take the trouble of going to look at the locations there, and he will then see how neat it all is. The buildings are all quite new. The epidemic broke out on account of circumstances which nobody could have controlled. In addition I want to tell the hon. member that I got in touch with Professor Fransie van Zyl and at the moment everything possible is being done to send a private doctor there.

After it is too late.

The hon. member asked by means of an interjection why the Department had not gone sooner. If I were to ask the hon. member for Durban (Central), who is a doctor, to go to Philipstown he would say no thank you. The Department cannot compel a doctor to go there. The young doctors of to-day are not keen to go to the rural areas. Everybody knows that. Most of them are in the cities.

I want to give this hon. House the assurance that every possible precautionary measure is being taken. It has already been announced that all milk and water used by people there must be boiled. There is a town clerk and a health inspector on duty. The hon. member said that that was not enough. As I say, there is a properly qualified health inspector. Hon. members can also go to the abattoirs and see how neat they are. It is an absolutely clean country town. There are much dirtier towns in the country. Here in our cities there are places which are much dirtier than Philipstown is.

Where did the disease come from?

If one catches a cold, where does that come from? [Interjections.] I want to have it on record that the Department of Health was not inactive. On the contrary. They took every possible step to analyse and to combat the disease.

Mr. Speaker, it would have been better for the hon. Whip, had he not got up to take part in this debate at all, because he has only made the matter much worse. On his own admission he raised in this House two years ago the question of the services there. Why did he raise it in this House? He raised it here because he was worried and because he wanted the Government to do something about it. What did they do about it? Absolutely nothing. They sat here for two years and did nothing. All the hon. member has told us is what they did once the disease broke out.

Where do you get the two years from?

The hon. member asked the Government to do something two years ago and they did nothing. Now they are doing everything. What is the use of that? There has been a death and half the community are down and the disease may spread. What was the case made out by the hon. member for Durban (Central)? It was that this Government was not meeting its obligations and was not looking after people as it should. He pointed out the shortage of staff and said, quite rightly, that he has raised the matter year after year in this House and he has criticized the Government. The hon. member for Durban (Central) did not say Philipstown was a slum. He said that under the Slums Act the Government could take action, but it has taken no action. That was the reference to slums. At any rate, what was the report this morning on Dr. Hertzog’s radio? It was that Dr. Murray, the Secretary for Health, had said that it was due to the personal hygiene habits of the population. What is all this cleanliness we hear about here?

Must the Government be blamed for the personal hygiene habits of the people?

There should have been a health officer in that area. If this Government had done its duty, there would have been a health officer long ago and he would have reported and the Government would then have taken some action. But as the hon. member for Durban (Central) pointed out, this is not the only instance where we now have disease. The case of Hammarsdale has been brought to the notice of the Government time and again, and the Deputy Minister, Mr. Coetzee, admitted that conditions are shocking and it was a slum, and this is a township which was established by the Government, without any precautions being taken at all.

But you were always against the clearing up of black spots.

This side of the House is not responsible for Hammarsdale. What is the hon. member talking about? But this is typical of what we have been pointing out during the whole of this debate, namely the lack of efficiency on the part of the Government, the lack of ability of the Government, the lack of ability to govern. What did the Minister say in reply to this debate yesterday? He said—

It is because of the economie strength of South Africa. Why are we economically strong? Because of the “kragdadige Nasionale Regering”? No. It is because of our mineral resources. We talk about this being such a young country, but we are 125 years older than Australia. Can we say we have left Australia behind? What has Australia done, a much younger country, and how could she do it? It is because she has broad-minded politicians. After the war they took advantage of conditions to build up the country. The hon. member for Umlazi has dealt with shipbuilding, and he dealt with the lack of shipbuilding facilities here. Attempts should be made to develop that industry. All we are building are fishing boats. When I was in Australia in 1959, we went to a shipbuilding yard where they had three ocean-going vessels on the stocks, but we still do not have anything of the kind. That is typical again of the lack of foresight on the part of this Government and its lack of “kragdadigheid”. This country has developed not because of the efforts of the Government, but because of the efforts of the people, despite the efforts of the Government. During these debates we have raised time and again the policy of the Government with regard to labour, and we pointed out the defects in the policy but we have had no reply from the Minister on this point.

What is the function of government? Surely it is to provide security, happiness and prosperity for all its people. Unless you have contented people the country cannot develop as it should. Will the Minister pretend that we have a contented labour force to-day? Because there are no strikes it does not mean that they are contented and satisfied with their lot. When we talk about security, we do not only mean security against outside attacks. We also mean economic security, and when we talk of economic security we do not only mean for the white people of South Africa. What does the Government do for the majority of the population to give them more economic security and to make them happier? Obviously, the first thing to do to make a people happy is to see that they are happy in their home life, to give them family life, as my Leader said, to treat them as human beings and to give them what all human beings want, a happy family life. How many hon. members of this House come down here and leave their families at home? Only a few do so, but that is because they cannot find accommodation here. The majority of us bring our wives and families with us. It is only natural to want them to be with us. The Deputy Minister, Mr. Coetzee, in defending the policy of the Government to establish border industries, claims that every labourer is entitled to sleep at home every night. [Interjection.] That is right, and all we ask the Government to do is what is right. Where does this Government’s policy fail? It does not fail in setting aside homelands and protected areas for the Bantu where they can be protected against avaricious land-grabbers. But that is not a new policy; it has been the old policy of all Governments in the past. Where this Government’s policy fails is in regard to the people who do not live in the Reserves, the majority of the Bantu who live outside the Reserves, whether in the urban areas or on the platteland. In discussing our future prosperity, happiness and security, we cannot close our eyes to the fate of the majority of the population and of the labour force, the millions who live outside the Reserves and work in the shops, in industry, in the hospitals, in our power-stations, on our Railways and in the docks. Building operations would cease if the Bantu workers were not allowed to work in those spheres. The farmers would stop producing food if you take all the Bantu off the farms. Our life as we know it in South Africa would cease to exist. [Interjection.] The Government knows very well that, in furthering its policy of sending the Bantu back to the Reserves and removing them from the white areas and farms, until it can supply work for them there they cannot justify that policy. They also know that no economist will support them in saying that the Reserves can maintain the Bantu population. All economists agree that migrant labour is wasteful and that it does not make for higher productivity. No social worker or church will support a migrant labour system.

Do you read Die Kerkbode?

The D.R. Church does not support migrant labour; it stresses that it destroys family life. This system of migrant labour takes away the head of the family from his home and there is no one to impose discipline, with the result that it breeds lawlessness and the Bantu youth suffer. Sir, all of us, including the Africans, want economic security.

I should like to ask the hon. member whether he is in favour of migrant labourers coming from Basutoland and territories outside South Africa bringing their families here?

Was the member here when his Minister asked that question? Let us face up to the facts. Botswana has to send out her people to work. The principle is that if you cannot get work in your own area you must go out to work. The difference as regards the workers from Botswana, Malawi and such countries is that South Africa is the home of our Natives. The United Party has never suggested that we should open our doors and allow foreign Natives to bring their families here when they come to work on the mines, but what we should realize is that, although the Bantu are not part of the “volk” hon. members opposite are always talking about by which they mean the Afrikanervolk, they have no other fatherland. This is their fatherland and they are entitled to live in it, and therefore we should see that we give them security and happiness. What do they want? They want no more than we want; they want security for themselves and their families. They want to see that their children get a proper education. They want their own homes and security in their old age. They do not want to live on charity and that does not only apply to the fathers, it applies to the mothers as well. We all admit that there must be a measure of influx control, and this side of the House in fact introduced influx control. We are not suggesting that everybody should be allowed to go into the Native townships and buy a house but there are people there who are permanently urbanized and what we say is that those people must be given an opportunity to have their own homes. The Government itself recognized this fact when it amended the Bantu Urban Areas Act and made provision for Bantu who have lived in an area and worked for one employer for ten years or for different employers for 15 years, or who were born in that area, to remain there.

That Act was passed in 1945.

Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister has been a member of this House for some time. He must remember the amendments made to that Act in 1957. The late Dr. Verwoerd introduced amendments in terms of which Bantu who have worked for one employer for ten years or for different employers for 15 years are allowed to remain in the area.

You know what section 10 provides.

Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister can get up when I sit down and deal with section 10. We now have the Minister saying that this section has been misrepresented and that he may have to introduce legislation to put the facts right. He says that the misrepresentation is that these people have a right to be there. Of course, they have a right to be there. The law says that they can stay there. But what is happening now? The Government in applying this law has excluded women. I put a question the other day in which I asked whether this section applied to women as well and I was told that it only applied to widows. Sir, that is most unjust. We have women living there with families. Their husbands have deserted them; they are respectable women. They have nowhere to go. They have been there for ten years and more. Some of them have worked for one employer for ten years and others have worked for different employers for 15 years, and it is quite unjust that these women should be placed in that position. But, Sir, what about the rest of the Africans who live there? This Government is the first to show in the Government magazines, and to take overseas visitors round to, these Bantu townships in order to show them the beautiful houses which have been built there by Native businessmen. Sir, the Native businessman is now facing a state of insecurity, because he now knows that according to the Minister section 10 gives him no right to be there and that he may be put out. He knows that the law is going to be altered. What security is there for those people who have built houses there? What security is there for their children? In the past they have understood that if their children were born there they could live there too. This sort of thing builds up a feeling of hostility and animosity towards the white man who is governing them.

Then, Sir, you have the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education telling us that the Government is reconsidering the present system of subsidizing transport. What does that mean? It either means that they are going to abolish the subsidy or that industry must pay it. Employers already pay a levy of 30 cents per Bantu per week and that includes 10 cents per Bantu per week for transport. According to figures which I saw recently, in the Johannesburg area over R6 million has already been paid by employers, through this levy, to the Department of Transport. The Minister of Transport can correct me if that figure is wrong. Sir, I am very glad to see the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education back in the House. I am sorry that his welcome back to this House should be in the form of an attack by me. I am dealing at the moment with his threat to reconsider the subsidies on transport. Perhaps he can tell us what he intends to do. Perhaps I can go on now, Sir, when hon. members opposite have finished congratulating the hon. the Deputy Minister on his return to this House; perhaps they will commiserate with him afterwards about what he has done! Sir, what is going to be the effect of this on industry? Is industry going to be asked to bear this additional cost as well? Is it fair to industrialists when they have already established themselves? Because if they have to bear the cost there will be further inflation and the cost of their products will have to go up and the vicious circle will start again. This services levy in Johannesburg produces R26 million per annum. This services levy is paid by employers for employing Africans on the Witwatersrand.

What is the subsidy of the Department of Transport on that amount?

In 1966 R760,000 was paid to the Department of Transport.

For your information the figure is of the order of R12 million.

Yes, it may be R12 million but that is not the figure in respect of the Witwatersrand only.

No, it is not the figure for the Rand only.

Sir, when we talk about withdrawing subsidies I would like to remind the Deputy Minister that once before we had trouble with transport. He will remember the Alexandra bus strike. The hon. the Minister of Transport will remember it very well. He will remember the difficult time that he had. He had to go up there himself and he then agreed to pay this subsidy.

It was not a strike; it was a boycott.

I am sorry; I meant “boycott”. I want to appeal to the Government not to take the advice of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education and to think twice before they build up any further animosity in the minds of the Native workers on the Witwatersrand and in the other big towns against the Government.

Sir, we are told by hon. members on the other side, that the answer to the problem of lack of home life as far as the Bantu are concerned, lies in border industries, but the Government offers no home life to the largest number of labourers from the reserves and that is labourers from the Transkei which is the biggest reserve. There is no place where these people can enjoy home life.

I wonder if the hon. member will allow me to put a question for the sake of clarity? Is the United Party in favour of allowing the thousands of Natives from the Transkei working on the mines and the thousands of Natives living in railway compounds to have their families with them?

We have discussed that question before.

We have never had a reply to this question.

We have often before discussed this question of migratory labour on the mines. We appreciate that you cannot make provision for all the Natives working on the mines to have their families with them. To begin with the mines are not there permanently. In any event, there are Natives who wish to keep their homes in the Transkei and in other reserves. They want to go out to earn money to keep their families at home. There are those who want to be migratory labourers. The man who goes to the mines, knows that he will be there purely as a migrant labourer, and that he will be housed in a compound.

Do you want him to bring his family with him?

The hon. the Minister knows that mining work is so unpopular today that 60 per cent of our mine labourers come from other territories. The Natives from the Transkei prefer to look for other work; they do not want to go to the mines. One of the reasons why they prefer to seek work in the towns is that they hope to be able to take their families with them. Those Africans who do want to have their families with them on the mines are denied this right by this Government. Why did the Government not accept the experiment which Mr. Oppenheimer offered to make at the time? The labour would then have become more productive; it would have become more efficient.

Are you in favour of it?

Yes, I said …

Are you in favour of allowing the Natives in the Railway compounds to have their families with them?

The Natives living in the Railway compounds are there on a different basis altogether.

What about those living in the compounds of Hume Pipe?

Where a Native can be permanently employed, we are in favour of his having his wife and family with him, no matter where it is.

They are permanently employed.

Well, then the Minister should make provision for them to be with their families. The hon. the Minister is a practical Minister. Surely he will agree that what we must try to achieve is greater productivity. Surely he will admit that a migrant labourer, unless he is doing a seasonal job, is not the most productive labourer. Surely the man who is permanently employed year in and year out becomes a much more efficient worker, and when we have to compete, as we will have to compete, on the world markets, it is in our interests to see that our labour force is as efficient as possible.

Your views seem to be very flexible; I want clarity.

Sir, I have answered the hon. Minister’s question and I have very little time left. As far as the question of border industries is concerned, I have said that there is no place anywhere where the Transkeian Native can work during the day time and return to his family at night, unless he works in the Transkei itself. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development quoted here the other day from a speech made by Chief Matanzima. It is clear from that speech that 160,000 Africans go out of the Transkei, through the labour bureaux, to go and work outside of the Transkei, and that figure does not include the mine labourers. That was the figure that was given for the year 1966. The mine labourers are recruited direct by the Native Recruiting Corporation. No fewer than 160,000 left the Transkei in one year to go and work elsewhere. What about all those Transkeians who are at present living outside the Transkei and who are working and living in urban Bantu townships and who have been there for ten years and more, and who have homes there because they are there on permit? How does the Government hope to be able to provide sufficient employment opportunities for those people? We were told here the other day by the hon. the Deputy Minister that jobs had been provided for 45,000 or 48,000 Africans. Sir, that does not even make provision for the natural increase in the Transkei. What about the 160,000 and all those who are at present living outside of the Transkei? Do you know, Sir, that the nearest place in which they can go and work is East London, and if they go to Mdantsane and they are given a house there, they lose their citizenship rights in the Transkei. If they have a communal home they lose that property as well. These people are most dissatisfied. What encouragement is there for them to go and work and live in Mdantsane, for instance, if they know that they are going to lose all their rights in the Transkei? Sir, this Government does no planning. It simply steamrollers ahead and its policy has not been successful. It is no good the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development pretending that Chief Matanzima or anybody else supports him in this policy. The most that Chief Matanzima admitted was that there should be a measure of influx control. But, Sir, the Government is going to have more and more trouble from the Africans, from these people who are offered homes in the reserves. They are going to have more trouble from the politicians, than they are getting now, and it is no good pretending that the Africans accept this policy. Chief Matanzima has made his protest and the Government is going to get more protests. Sir, this system is not conducive to peaceful life and greater security. If we want security and happiness for ourselves, we must see to it that we give security and happiness to the majority of the people. Do not let us be ruled by “verkramptes”; let us have a few “verligtes”. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Transkei will forgive me if I do not try to follow him along the tortuous trails he has taken. On the one hand he says that morally it is quite wrong to have migratory labour, but on the other hand he declines to take a stand in principle in pursuance of the question put to him by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. If I am summing up the position correctly, the hon. member for Transkei will probably be dealt with by the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration somewhat later. I shall therefore not deal too harshly with him. But let him bear in mind, if he wishes to convince us that the churches and the economists and whomsoever he enlisted to bear him out condemn migratory labour and that the United Party condemns migratory labour because the men may not bring their families with them to the urban areas, that whether those Bantu derive from the Transkei or from Botswana or from Malawi, the same principle applies and the same moral considerations apply. The policy of this Government was very clearly formulated, namely that what Botswana and Lesotho are at present is also envisaged for our Bantu homeland. Does the United Party accept that in its present policy? We say that the Bantu homelands will become independent states; just like Botswana and Lesotho they will have their own political status. For that reason the hon. member cannot tell me that they draw a distinction between Botswana and the Transkei. In principle they can draw no distinction. In principle the United Party can draw no distinction between the labourers from Botswana and Lesotho and those from the Transkei, and if they have moral objections in one case, these should apply in equal measure to the other case. The United Party should not think that through moral indignation of the kind it produces here it will gain the support of the Afrikaans Churches. We know the United Party too well in South Africa, namely that if it adopts this attitude of moral indignation in this House, it is merely trying to save its own skin. That is how deep the morality lies.

I should like to come back to what the hon. member for Yeoville said last night. He made an hour-long speech, and I think it is worthwhile coming back to some of the points made by him. One of the points I want to deal with, in the first place, is the seeming indignation of the hon. member for Yeoville because the Prime Minister referred to the United Party’s opposition to the Extension of the University Education Act, which was passed in 1959. The Prime Minister said that the United Party had opposed that legislation, and then the hon. member for Yeoville came along and actually devoted almost ten minutes of his speech to the statement that the United Party had in actual fact been in favour of the establishment of Bantu university colleges but that they had fought this legislation merely because the conscience clause had been omitted from it. The hon. member for Yeoville said last night in this House that the Government had cunningly coupled the omission of the conscience clause …

I did not say a word about the conscience clause.

He did that last night, and he said that the conscience clause had been coupled to this …

On a point of order, Sir, may I tell the hon. member on a point of explanation what I was referring to? Will he allow me to do so?

If the hon. member wishes to explain, he may do so at the end of the speech.

May I do so now, with the consent of the hon. member?

Yes, with his consent. Is the hon. member prepared to give the hon. member for Yeoville permission to explain?

Yes, if he can do so in a minute.

I can do so in two words. I did not refer once to the conscience clause. I referred to the restriction of the academic freedom of the universities to admit their own student. That has nothing to do with the conscience clause.

I am coming to that. In the first place he referred to the conscience clause, and afterwards to academic freedom.

I did not speak of the conscience clause. On a point of order, the hon. member refuses to accept my word.

If the hon. member gives an explanation in the House, the hon. member for Innesdal must accept his explanation.

I am prepared to accept his explanation. It does not affect my argument in any way. He said that they had opposed this legislation—as he is now also saying—because the academic freedom of the universities would be restricted. Can the hon. member for Yeoville remember that in this House the United Party even opposed permission to introduce the Bill? They opposed the First Reading, they opposed the Second Reading throughout a night sitting. At the Committee Stage, when a guillotine was applied, they devoted the full period to two clauses. And that night at half-past ten, when we had to vote, they voted on every clause, until ten to three that morning. They even opposed the short title and the schedule. Let me now remind the hon. member for Yeoville that if a party does that, and does so in the terms in which it opposed this legislation in 1959, when it referred to the Afrikaans universities as “the closed universities” and to the University of the Witwatersrand and of Cape Town as “the open universities”, then it is the strongest possible opposition. The hon. member for Kensington is nodding his head in agreement. What the United Party’s entire argument amounted to was that the Afrikaans universities, because they refuse to admit non-Whites, are bigoted and “closed”, and that the model for a university was these “open” universities, attended by Black, White and Brown alike. The very basis of the United Party’s opposition to that measure was not academic freedom or the conscience clause, but was the same as in respect of all the laws passed to promote separate development in South Africa. It was the same consideration which applied in the case of the Group Areas Act, and in the name of which the United Party did not want that Act passed, in order that mixed residential areas should continue to exist. For the same reasons it wanted the continuation of mixed university education. [Interjections.] The United Party knows very well that the universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand are white universities where non-Whites are allowed with the permission of the Minister. They are white universities, and not mixed or multi-racial universities, as the United Party wanted them to be. Surely that is the very essence of the matter.

The United Party opposed that legislation probably more violently than it has opposed any legislation in the past 20 years, and for one reason only: To keep the non-Whites in those universities, together with the Whites. Consider the United Party’s record in the past number of years and compare it with their present attitude, for instance that adopted by the hon. member for Yeoville lat night, when he pretended that the United Party had always been par excellence the patron party of the Whites, and that it was highly indignant if it should ever be said that it did not stand for separation of Black and White. That is the image it is trying to conjure up. When the past is referred to, as by the Prime Minister, the United Party is probably so scared of its image that it drops its cud, as the hon. member for Yeoville did last night when he spoke about 1957 instead of 1959, and made all those mistakes. The hon. member for Yeoville said that they had opposed that legislation because of the restriction of academic freedom. If they had opposed that legislation on the ground of the restriction of academic freedom, as he is saying, on what grounds did they oppose the Group Areas Act? On what grounds did they oppose the Population Registration Act? On what grounds did they oppose the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act? On what grounds did they oppose the establishment of Bantu Radio Services in South Africa? Is it because academic freedom was abrogated? Why did they oppose the establishment of the Bantu Investment Corporation in South Africa? Is it because it abrogated academic freedom? Why did they oppose job reservation in South Africa? Is it because academic freedom was abrogated? Every measure, social, economic, cultural or educational, which was designed to bring about separation of Black and White in South Africa, was vehemently fought by the United Party. And it was not because academic freedom was at issue. The United Party’s attitude throughout these years of opposition in South Africa can be construed in only one way. That is that it opposes everything which seeks to bring about separation of the races and promotes everything which seeks to bring about mixing of the races in South Africa. If the United Party, with that past and that record, tries all of a sudden to prove to South Africa’s voters that it is the great patron of the White man’s future in South Africa, it has by no means an easy task, and one should perhaps not hold it against the hon. member for Yeoville that he cannot do so successfully. He tried hard to do so last night, but he reminded me of the grasshopper of which Solomon wrote: “The grasshopper shall be a burden.”

The United Party will gradually find that that will be its problem. It has a past to carry along which it lacks the strength to carry, which it lacks the strength to drag along. I am glad that in this debate the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Yeoville have at least referred to their policy again. It is probably more than a year since we have had any reference to the United Party’s policy from the two hon. gentlemen. There was a period when they were completely silent and did not mention the name “race federation” at all. Now they are at least mentioning it again. The hon. member for Yeoville said last night that South Africa was a “multi-racial state” and that that was a fact which we should accept. Is that what the United Party has always said? Did not the United Party say all these years that we were a multi-racial nation? Not a multi-racial state, but a multi-racial nation? Those were the terms in which the United Party used to speak. One could find a whole series of similar quotations, but I want to read the House just one of them from Hansard (1950, Col. 9395)—

If the Bantu and the non-Whites are excluded from the South African nation, we are dealing with what is thought to have been destroyed when Adolf Hitler was destroyed. Who said that? The hon. member for Yeoville. His words were that the Bantu formed part of the South African nation.

I spoke in English and I used the word “people”.

“People” and “volk” have the same meaning. You may go and look that up in any dictionary, and the hon. member for Transkei should not come and tell me that he understands Afrikaans better than I do. What the hon. member for Yeoville said, has since been repeated numerous times. The United Party’s concept of the South African population is that it is one community, that it is one nation, that it is one people, as he said. He has never got away from that. He is the heir to the old British Colonial attitude to South Africa, that all who have one common loyalty form part of the nation. Basically that is the attitude of the United Party. In the twenties and thirties they were still speaking of assimilation. The non-Whites were to be assimilated. Then it was integration. The non-White was to be integrated with the White.

We never said that.

People who are members of the United Party propagated that openly. That hon. member is a latecomer in politics. If he had been here when Sakkies Fourie and those people, and also the hon. member for Houghton, belonged to the United Party, he would know that they propagated that almost daily in this House. He may go and look it up in Hansard. But now the United Party says that it is no longer assimilation or integration, but federation. They say it is only a little bit of territorial federation and a little bit of race federation. But it is in fact federation. They decorate it with all kinds of fripperies to conceal the essence of their policy, which is to combine Black and White in one multi-racial community with a common loyalty, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said only yesterday or the day before in the House. If one asks him about details, he says that there will be eight White Bantu representatives here. There you have the federation.

That is not the federation.

Am I understanding the hon. member for Yeoville correctly? That is the first step towards federation.

It is only one minor aspect of it.

Now we have really had a most remarkable admission. “One minor aspect” of the federation is that eight Whites will represent the Bantu here. But does the hon. member for Yeoville not owe it to this House to give us somewhat more than this minor, single aspect? Surely the country has a very strong claim to an explanation after this admission by the hon. member for Yeoville that the United Party is concealing the major part of the race federation plan and is showing us only one minor aspect of it?

[Inaudible.]

What else is known about this race federation? The other day the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke and gave us only one detail. That was also all that the hon. member for Yeoville gave us last night. But let me now tell the hon. member for Yeoville that if one speaks of a federation, whether a race federation—he knows that that cannot exist—or a territorial federation, one is not dealing with a parliament only. It is no use giving the various states or the various races representation in a parliament and then claim a federation.

There I agree with you.

That federation must be reflected in the federal government. Unless one gives every constituent element in a federation a say in the government, there is no federation. The hon. member knows that as well as I do. Unless one gives each of those constituent elements a share in the federal public service, there is no federation. The United Party knows that very well. I am now telling the hon. member for Yeoville: It is to conceal those things that he offers us the one minor aspect and declares that it is the essence of their race federation.

And then he says our policy is dishonest. Surely this is dishonest!

But the hon. member for Innesdal is talking nonsense. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite prepared to admit that I am talking nonsense in saying that the United Party has a race federation policy if that is all there is to it: Eight representatives of the Bantu in South Africa. That is rubbish. It is as the hon. member for Yeoville said, one minor aspect by which they are trying to throw dust in the eyes of the voters of South Africa. But we can dispose of that very quickly. Until 1959 we had three Bantu representatives. Those hon. members were still in the House when the United Party said that they would increase the representation to eight. Mr. John Cope, who was a member of the United Party at that stage, said that the United Party would restore the Bantu representation in Parliament and increase it to eight members. It was merely an expansion of the communal representation the Bantu had from 1936 to 1959. It had nothing to do with federation. If that is in fact the heart of federation—race federation or territorial federation—it means that from 1936 to 1959 we had a race federation in South Africa. What rubbish! No, Mr. Speaker, if this representation has something to do with federation, it means … [Interjections.] I say if it has something to do with federation, it means inexorably that that representation will have to be extended to every Bantu state, that they will elect their own representatives and that they will elect Black representatives, as the hon. member for Yeoville has said repeatedly, and that they will have to be granted a say in the central government. Now I ask the hon. member for Yeoville—surely he knows the parliamentary system; he is a good authority on it—how does a federal government, or rather, a federal party, form a cabinet unless everyone who becomes a member of that cabinet accepts co-responsibility for the Government’s policy? In what other way can anybody be made to accept co-responsibility for a government’s policy except that he should be a member of the Party to which the other members of the government belong? How is one going to form a multi-racial federal government in South Africa unless black, white and brown belong to one political party? Consider the federations existing in the world. In the U.S.A., Australia, Switzerland, or any country whatsoever, wherever one finds a federal government, that government has to be elected by all the constituent elements. For that reason the political parties, which cut across the borders of the constituent elements, are of national scope, and in that way the government is elected. If the hon. member for Yeoville would be so friendly to reveal to us somewhat more than just that one minor aspect, to enlighten us on another minor aspect of the matter, we would be grateful. The hon. member for Yeoville is not always so reserved when he speaks about these things as he is to-day. He has surely said before that the policy of the United Party would result in a multi-racial government in South Africa. Would the hon. member deny that he said that? [Interjections.] The hon. member for Yeoville cannot answer me if I ask him whether he is prepared to deny that he has said, and that it was published as such, that the policy of the United Party would result in a multi-racial government for South Africa. Look at him. He cannot deny that. Would he deny that?

I have never spoken about a multi-racial government. You are talking nonsense.

Oh, Mr. Speaker, but here is The Star of 5th December, 1961. The leading article states—

[Interjections.]

That is The Star’s deduction. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I could refer the hon. member for Yeoville to at least two other occasions on which he said and wrote essentially the same. Here is the Sunday Times of 3rd December, 1961, i.e. of the same period. Here he has the pen in his hand. It is not a Press report. He writes about the race federation—

“A government in which all races will share.” He then continued and made it very clear that it would not be the government of the constituent states. He said—

I could give him numerous other examples. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the same. He also stated very explicitly that this representation by eight would not be mere representation of the Bantu—those were his words—without the opportunity to share in the government of the country.

You are repeating that untruth.

I challenge the hon. member for Pinelands to get up in this House and to say, in the light of the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at De Aar in 1962, that any other conclusion could be drawn from what the hon. the Leader said, than that Blacks would share in the federal government of South Africa. I challenge him. He said I was repeating an untruth.

I want to tell him: He is repeating for the third time the most obtuse story I have ever heard from a person with his training.

He was speaking of the communal councils and the part they would play.

The hon. member for Pinelands is after all not as bright as I thought he was. Let us accept that. Let me tell him once again that one could go through this whole speech, and I shall show him a dozen places where the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke of “representation” through which participation in the Government was to take place. He referred every time to “representation” on the federal government, and not to the government of the constituent states. I hope the hon. member for Pinelands understands it now. If he does not understand it, I am prepared to go and show him outside how foolish he is to believe that. I want to ask him:

If it is as I say, will he be prepared to repudiate the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the United Party? [Interjections.] I am prepared …

I just want to see to it that you tell the truth.

I am prepared to get up in this House and to apologize to the Leader of the Opposition if I am wrong. I now challenge the hon. member. [Time expired.]

I am very pleased to have the opportunity of intervening in this debate. This debate is the third occasion during this session when misleading statements have been made about the attitude of my party to the establishment of university colleges for non-Whites in South Africa. The first occasion was a speech made by the hon. the Prime Minister during the discussion of his Vote; the second occasion was a speech by the hon. the Prime Minister during the debate on the Second Reading of this Appropriation Bill; and in accordance with the saying “Zooals de ouden ongen, soo piepen de jongen”, we have now had it from the hon. member for Innesdal. Dismissing what this hon. member said, let me quote what the Prime Minister said. But, first of all, let me say that the conscience clause has nothing at all to do with this. What the Prime Minister had to say set the example for what was said on this point, and we are going to hear it again in the recess throughout the country. We shall have it ad nauseam. The hon. the Prime Minister said—

Well, it cannot be stated more strongly than that, Sir. When he repeated it on the second occasion I had to interject and say that it was untrue, not in accordance with the facts. Now, what are these facts? I have been associated with every select committee and every commission which has dealt with the establishment of non-White university colleges. Let me give the House the historical background. In 1957 this Government introduced a Bill for the establishment of separate universities. After that Bill had been read a first time, it was discovered that it was hybrid by virtue of the fact that there was a Fort Hare in existence. So, that Bill was withdrawn and the Government introduced another Bill from which Fort Hare was excluded. To this Bill I took a point of order on which you, Mr. Speaker, gave a famous ruling. On that occasion I pointed out that there was a university in South Africa which would continue to have Whites and non-Whites, namely the University of South Africa. However, Mr. Speaker ruled—and a wise ruling it was—that the University of South Africa was sui generis and therefore outside the scope of the Bill. In any event we opposed the Bill and, as the hon. member for Innesdal said, we opposed it very strenuously. Why did we oppose it? I have here a copy of the original Bill and from that I will tell hon. members why we opposed it. This Bill did not contain only one principle, but two principles. In considering one of these principles we concurred, the other we opposed. Let me read the long title of that Bill, so that we can see what those principles were. It was a Bill—

We agreed with this. But there was a second principle, namely—

That we opposed. But we did not oppose the establishment of non-White university colleges. On the contrary. Our attitude was that the Government could establish as many such colleges as it wished, the more the better, because we were keen to have educational facilities for our non-Whites. However, we believed in the autonomy of universities and we said if Stellenbosch, Pretoria, UKOVS or Potchefstroom should decide that they did not want non-White students they should be free to take such a decision and that nobody should be in a position to force them to take non-White students. But we also said that those universities who were willing to make provision for non-White students should be enabled to do so. So we fought this Bill in the form in which it was read a Second Time. After its Second Reading it was referred to a select committee of which I was a member— as a matter of fact, there are only two hon. members here to-day who are survivors of that select committee: the hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and myself. This select committee met when the principles of the Bill had already been adopted by the House. We proceeded to take evidence from people throughout the country. The attitude we, on this side of the House, adopted was an attitude which was supported by the leading educationists in South Africa, including educationists from Afrikaans-speaking universities. I can name them if necessary. However, the select committee could not complete its task and was transformed into a commission. That commission proceeded with the task and here is its evidence. Everybody can read it. We produced a minority report. Here it is on record. It must be remembered that by that time the principles had been accepted by this House. Therefore, we could not argue about the principles. In the circumstances, the attitude we adopted was that if the Government wanted to establish these university colleges we should find the best way in which that should be done. For that purpose we submitted a draft Bill and if this had been accepted we would have had a better law to-day. Where did we differ? We said, for instance, that we should not have all the members of Council appointed by the Minister; that there should be control in a council as we have at a university. On such a council the Minister at first would have had majority representation, of course, but there would have been other people as well. What did the Minister say? He said the council must be white and the advisory council non-White; the Senate must be white and the advisory Senate non-White. This meant that where you have a black professor and a white lecturer, the lecturer would have been permitted to sit in the Senate while the black professor had to go to an advisory Senate. We said that was not the way in which these institutions should be built up. We asked one of the leading witnesses from an Afrikaans university whether he thought that white men and black men should sit together on the council of one of these institutions. His reply was “Of course! How else are they to learn?” He agreed that we should assist them in that way to establish their colleges. All in all, there were nine points of difference between us and the Government side. Let me state another important point of difference. We said that the legislation should not be enforced at once but that there should be a ten-year interim period. We said educationally it was impossible to establish those colleges at once. But we have the Act. Under section 17 of that Act no white student may attend a non-White college. Under section 31 of that Act, however, non White students may attend white universities, but only with the permission of the Minister —as the hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science has said, he gives permission to the Chinese while the Minister of Bantu Education gives permission to Bantu. Let us look at what the position is after eight years. Remember we said there should be an interim period of ten years. The latest figures available to me are for 1965. In that year at the three Bantu university colleges there were 700 students while at the Coloured university college there were 368—a total of 1,068. There may, of course, to-day be more. I am working on the latest figures available to me, namely for 1965. At the same time, however, there were 1,200 non-White students at universities —universities such as Wits, Cape Town, and others. So, after eight years the majority of these non-White students are still where they were when non-White institutions were established.

What about the Indian University College?

I am dealing with those university colleges established at the time. We have, of course, an Indian college as well, and we have supported its establishment. For any hon. member to say to-day that this party opposed the establishment of non-White collegers is saying something that is not true.

But you belittled them.

Please talk sense. The hon. member is only repeating what others have said, namely that we belittled these institutions. But I was present at the opening of the University College of the Western Cape, for instance. The hon. the Prime Minister said we incited the Coloureds against their college. That is absolutely untrue. There were people who demonstrated against it—the lunatic fringe in politics. There were such people. But we were present at the opening because we assisted in creating the law as this Blue-book can prove. Let any member who doubts that come and read the report of the Commission on the Separate University Education Bill. But this was the unkindest stroke of all. When we came back here for debate the now hon. Minister of Planning quoted our Bill because in the Bill we submitted in our minority report we stated exactly what I have quoted to the House from the original Bill. We had to—the principles were accepted. It is elementary: a select committee on a Bill after Second Reading cannot change its principles. So, the commission had first of all to decide what those principles were so that provision could be made for them. We welcomed the appointment of the select committee. We drafted a Bill and we proposed a better constitution for the non-White university colleges. Why was that not accepted? Ours was constructive criticism. That I should come along at this stage and hear the hon. the Prime Minister say that we have opposed the establishment of these colleges is to hear, I repeat, something that is quite untrue.

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

May I point out that I am usurping the time of another member of this party. Hon. members know that I never refuse questions. But I am now using the time of another member who has very courteously granted me this privilege. In conclusion let me say that if any member should go to the country and after this explanation of mine say that we opposed the establishment of these colleges, then I say it would be a frigid calculated falsehood—it is not true. There is one other matter I should like to mention. The hon. the Prime Minister referred to one other point in education. He said that as he understood the principle of the National Education Policy Bill it was to provide English-medium education to an English-speaking child and Afrikaans-medium education to an Afrikaans speaking child. That is not true. We have had that provision for over 50 years. While its interpretation from province to province may have differed we have been accepting that for 50 years, from the time of the Beyers Commission after Union. The principle of the National Education Policy Bill is: “Concentrate all power, autocratic power, in the hands of one Minister, the Minister of Education, Arts and Science”. He can govern by decree. He is an autocrat. That is what we object to.

Now I have used up the time which was allocated to another hon. member and I want to thank my colleague behind me who has made it possible for me to take part in this debate despite the fact that I was not to have been a speaker.

Mr. Speaker, although I am sorely tempted to reply to the hon. member for Kensington, I am actually getting up to address a few kinds words to the hon. member for Von Brandis. The hon. member is the Chief Whip of the United Party and a highly esteemed and respected member of this House. He also attaches great value to tradition. In the heat of the fray some time ago—it was on 13th April, 1967—I took part in the Budget debate and addressed the following words to the hon. member. For the sake of clarity I shall quote them—

Later on I said the following—

I wish to say that although I used these words in the House I subsequently established that the hon. member had only been fulfilling his normal function as Chief Whip and that he had not given instructions to those hon. members to participate in the debate in the way they did. After I had established that I had made an undeserved attack on him, I personally went to him, because we are great friends, and apologized to him. But in view of the very fine spirit prevailing at the close of this Session, I feel that I want to apologize to him specially in the House as well for the unkind words which I addressed to so respected and friendly a Chief Whip.

Mr. Speaker, now that we have come to the end of this Session, with this very fine spirit prevailing, it is necessary for us to look back for a moment to see what we have achieved during the past Session. It is a good thing that we have achieved clarity in regard to certain matters and that there is in fact agreement on those matters. But I think that when we adjourn here, there will be one clear-cut issue remaining and in regard to which there is a tremendous difference between the parties, namely the Government party and the Opposition, and that is the policy of the National Party and the Government in respect of separate development. I listened attentively to the various speakers on that side of the House. I want to refer to a few of the speeches made by the hon. members. In the first place I want to refer to the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said here that his objection to this Government was that it allowed Bantu labour in white areas only by way of permit. And he levelled the charge at the Government that it was our fault that we did not have a stable labour force in the white areas. One has to infer from this that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, like other members of his party, stands for the relaxation of influx control measures for Bantu in white areas.

Who stands for that?

That hon. member has woken up again, but I cannot reply to him now. If the hon. member does not realize that his party stands for that, then I want to know from him what one must make of all the speeches we have had on this matter to the effect that there should be a stable Bantu labour force here, that they should not be here as migrant labourers, that they should be able to have their family life here, and that they should be freely available to all industrialists. If that does not mean relaxation of influx control, then I should like to know what it does mean. And even if the hon. member tells us only next year, let him tell us what he understands the policy of his own party to be. The hon. members on the opposite side now raise the cry that Bantu labourers should be made available on a larger scale to our industries, to agriculture and so forth. The hon. member for Queenstown mentioned certain figures here. I do not want to repeat them, but I want to point out a few aspects. The 1960 census showed that there were 255,175 Bantu in the Western Cape, of which number approximately 162,000 were males and 93,000 females. If we went back to 1921, we would find that at that time there were only 30,000 Bantu in the Western Cape. In other words, from 1921 to 1960 there was an increase of 800 per cent. But even that is not enough to satisfy the hon. members. The hon. members want still more Bantu in the Western Cape. Still more have to be made available.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for East London (City) must not interrupt me. After all, he made a speech only yesterday. It is not months since he last made a speech. I know he is quick to forget. Only yesterday the hon. member said that the Eastern Cape was over-populated and asked what was to become of the Bantu there. He also said that they should be allowed to go to where there was employment. Has the hon. member forgotten that already? He said that only yesterday, not years ago. [Interjections.] Oh, the hon. member admits now that he said that. Now he interrupts me in my arguments and says that that is not their policy. I suppose I must also accept then that it is not their policy to allow the Bantu to come here on a family basis. However, Mr. Speaker, I do not want to allow myself to be diverted from my argument. I just want to deal further with this question of the family basis and that Bantu labour should be made available here. [Interjections.] The hon. member for North Rand would do me a great favour if he did not listen to me, because he would not understand me in any case. I think it would be better if he did not make a nuisance of himself here and allowed me to continue. I want to refer to the 162,000 male Bantu that were here in 1960. I readily concede that there are more to-day. That is another charge that will be levelled at us. If those Bantu were to be allowed to have their family life here in the white area of the Western Cape, we would get the following position. The hon. member for Queenstown made an analysis. The hon. member for Queenstown also made the statement that each of those families would consist of five persons, i.e. the father, the mother and three children. However, if the calculation is made on the basis of a Bantu family of seven, i.e. the father, the mother and five children, which is nearer to the truth, there will be an immediate increase of 645,000.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Chief Whip has just reminded me that the time agreed upon for the debate has expired, and in the circumstances I undertake to continue my speech next year.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

The House adjourned as 12.44 p.m.