Mr. Speaker, I believe that we are facing one of the most unnecessary and futile general elections in the history of South Africa. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether ever, in the history of parliamentary democracy, there has been a more ridiculous and ludicrous series of reasons for holding a general election than those given by the hon. the Prime Minister.

I thought you would welcome it.

I always welcome an opportunity of a contest with the hon. the Prime Minister, but I do not believe that one should undermine parliamentary democracy in the way it has been done, by calling an election for the reasons that he gave. The four main issues he wants the country to decide on, are these: first of all there is his new sports policy. Secondly, there is his new immigration policy. Thirdly, there is his new and changed policy towards neighbours in Africa, and fourthly, there is his new policy in regard to national unity. Sir, if you look at these four points, you will find that basically, however badly the Prime Minister is carrying out these policies, they are United Party policies. Now he is going to the country to ask it to agree that the United Party policy is the right one. But the country, the people, the voters, are intelligent people, and I am quite sure that they will vote for the genuine article rather than the ersatz imitations of the hon. the Prime Minister, because obviously we can do better in carrying out those policies. We have proved it in the past.

Let us take the issue of national unity. Let us look at the dismal list of names of people belonging to the English-speaking section of South Africa who have tried to taste National Party policy, and who have left that party and got rid of its policies as soon as they could: Ivor Benson, Stirton, Bill Jones, Blyth Thompson. And so these names go on. [Interjections.]

I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister: How serious is he when he talks about national unity? I trust that he carries on him his membership card of the Nationalist Party, and I know that he probably signed an application form when he applied for that membership. Now he knows that that application form reads as follows:

He has signed the form, he agrees, pledging his loyalty to the Nationalist Party as the political front Of one section of the people of South Africa only. Here is an admission, in this form he signed, that the Nationalist Party is a party for one section only. Strangely enough, of course, in the English version, they speak of “the South African nation”. Why speak of the South African nation in the English version, which is signed by 1 per cent of the hon. members on that side, and call their party “die politieke volksfront” of one section of the people only when it comes to signing an application for membership by the other 99 per cent of the members of the party? I think we need an explanation, Sir.

Indeed, coming to national unity, how can the hon. Prime Minister speak of national unity when he cannot even keep unity in his own party? After all, in 1948 there was only one Nationalist Party whereas to-day, believe it or not, there are 12. There is the Vorster Nationalist Party, the Hertzog Nationalist Party, the Swazi National Party, the Venda National Party, the Tswana National Party, the Zulu National Party, the Xhosa National Party and the Ndebele National Party, all with the policy of the hon. Prime Minister to a lesser or greater extent.

Just as I believe that there is a credibility gap as far as the hon. the Prime Minister is concerned when it comes to the question of national unity, so I believe that there is a credibility gap throughout that party when it comes to policy and their intentions. One cannot easily forget the statement made by the hon. leader of the House, the hon. the Minister of Transport, when, on 13th December, 1969, he said that “suggestions by Opposition parliamentarians that the Government would hold a general election next year in an attempt finally to eliminate the verkrampte element from the South African political scene” were “Utter nonsense”. Can the hon. the Minister of Transport blame me for saying that there is a credibility gap, a credibility chasm, a credibility gulf or a credibility canyon when it comes to his party?

I believe that the Herstigte Nasionale Party also suffers from a credibility gap. Let me say, and let it go on record, that I regard the Herstigte Nasionale Party’s policy of being anti-English, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic and anti-everything as totally abhorrent and repulsive to ordinary South Africans, and I reject it entirely. Let nobody call me or my party “bondgenote” of that party. I think that the Leader of the Herstigte Nasionale Party also has at least a few matters to account for. I wonder whether he remembers that in 1966 when the hon. Prime Minister addressed a huge meeting in Pretoria he, Dr. Hertzog, was asked to thank the hon. Prime Minister. Here are the words of that gentleman and I want his followers to listen—

Dr. Hertzog was extravagant in his thanks to Mr. Vorster for taking over the premiership and declared: “Mr. Vorster, you will only have to command and we will act”. The command “go outwards!” came, and out he went!

If the hon. Prime Minister is really so outward-looking in his policy we are justified in asking what he is doing about the remaining very large number of verkramptes in his own ranks. What is he doing about a man such as the editor of Hoofstad, Dr. Andries Treurnicht? You will remember, Sir, that the very day after the hon. member for Ermelo made that speech attacking the English-speaking section of our population, Dr. Treurnicht wrote the following in a leading article after the Prime Minister and the leader of the House had repudiated Dr. Hertzog: “Dr. Hertzog se toespraak was ’n herbevestiging van die geloofsbelydenis van die Nasionale Afrikanerdom”. Every morning the hon. the Prime Minister reads Hoofstad with approval at his breakfast table in Pretoria.

What is the hon. the Prime Minister going to do about the hon. Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration? This is what the hon. Deputy Minister said about the verkramptes: “We want to keep the Rightists in our party. We want to pamper and protect them because it is with them that the power of our party lies”. What is the hon. Prime Minister going to do about the Minister of Information? The Minister of Information will remember that he made a surprising statement on the sports policy of the Government. In the ensuing edition of Die Beeld the editor, Mr. Schalk Pienaar, was so shocked that he used the unparliamentary term “hou jou bek” towards the Minister of Information. I wonder what Mr. Schalk Pienaar felt when he read another statement made by the Minister of Information, the same Minister, claiming that he was in favour of independent Colouredstans. He said he believed that a sovereign, independent homeland was the only just cause. “I believe there is no other way”, he said in reference to the Coloured people. Does that agree with the policy of the hon. the Prime Minister? I trust the hon. the Prime Minister will repudiate that statement, because, after all, there is such a thing as Cabinet responsibility.

It is my conviction that the rank and file of that party is as verkramp as they always have been. I have here the proof. Their Sunday newspaper, Dagbreek, receives hundreds of letters of complaints from ordinary Nationalists. They have made a summary of these letters. Here are some of the complaints, and I am going to read some of them: “So lyk Nattes se griewe.” Hon. members must remember that these are Nationalists, so-called “outward” Nationalists and these are their complaints against the Government: “Sy taal is in gevaar. Sy beurs is leeg …”

May I ask the hon. member a question?

I am sorry, but my time is limited. I continue: “… die swartes verswelg hom en hy word uitgelewer aan liberalis, kapitalis en bloedsap. Die ryke juig, die arme hyg, maar die Regering swyg.” Quite poetic, you will admit. These are some of the complaints in letters to Dagbreek. [Interjections.] I do not agree with these complaints. I am referring to the verkramptes’ complaints, verkramptes in his own party. They complain:

These are letters from Nationalists, written after the break with the Hertzog group.

When are you going to begin with your speech?

Would the hon. member not rather hear what Nationalists are saying than what I am saying? I continue:

So Nationalists are complaining:

What price unity, Sir!

This is what Nationalists are writing to their own Press.

These are extracts from letters which have been written to Dagbreek, the biggest Sunday paper supporting that side.

This is your policy with which you want to win the election, I take it!

I would not be surprised if one of these letters came from that hon. member. But there are other letters with which I agree, and these are the letters from the ordinary, common man from the Nationalist Party complaining about the way in which his interests are being neglected to-day. It is just as well that I read what they are saying to-day, because I agree with most of what they say. They say:

They write to their paper;

That is the reply to the hon. Minister of Labour’s speech yesterday. They write and they complain:

These Nationalists are right. They should stop voting for or supporting that party. They also write the following:

Nationalists wrote this and it is a fitting reply to the speech of the hon. the Minister of Community Development yesterday. I read further:

That is what the Nationalists are writing today. Let me continue:

Yesterday the stock market value of industrial, commercial and business shares dropped by an estimated R500 million. This is the Government which asked and pleaded with the ordinary man to save and invest in the future of South Africa! I am not blaming the Government entirely for the crash on the Stock Exchange yesterday, but I do want to say that the lack of confidence in the Stock Exchange is to a large extent the result of the financial policy of this Government. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me the hon. member for Orange Grove, who has just resumed his seat, has now at last become a modest person. We do not know the hon. member to be a modest person, but it seems to me that modesty can also be attributed to him now. He mentioned the names of the persons here who have left the National Party, and exulted in that He had nothing to say about the person who stood at the head of these people. I wonder why the hon. member did not want to blow his own trumpet as well. I just wish to make one further remark about the hon. member for Orange Grove. We all find it astonishing, and probably the public as well, that this hon. member, being a member of an opposition party which longs and craves and is all aflutter to get into power, should call the coming election a “futile election”. That is probably why hon. members on the opposite side make such futile speeches. If an opposition party deems an election to be futile I cannot understand why they are fighting to win, and that is probably why their speeches are so poor. That is probably why the hon. the Leader of the Opposition distinguished himself with such a poor speech.

I should like to furnish the hon. the Leader of the Opposition with replies to several points he raised during his speech. However, I am going to confine myself for the most part to one aspect of his speech. If I subsequently have the time I shall come back to other aspects. The one aspect to which I should like to confine myself is the importance of the reduction of the number of Bantu in white areas, and what the Government is doing about it. Despite the fact that we are on the eve of a “futile” election I also want to refer to what the Opposition has to offer in that connection. We know that there are two main groups of people in South Africa who have a great deal to say and write about this subject of the number of Bantu in white areas. The first group I want to mention is the hasty, and in some cases, the over-hasty supporters of the Government who have something to say and write about this subject. With this group I have a great deal of patience. In some respects I am even grateful for them because they are people who support our policy. They are also the people, who through what they say and write, focus attention on this very important matter. They are of tremendous assistance to us in bringing home to the public the fact that it is essential that every person, and not only the Government, should play his part in reducing the number of Bantu in white areas. I am far more concerned about the public than the Government. There is also a second group of people who have something to say and write about this subject, i.e. the Opposition. This includes the United Party Opposition, other opposition parties, and their newspapers and spokesmen. What they have to say and write about this subject is from beginning to end profound falsity, because their only purpose in doing so is to try to make people disloyal to the National Party. Their interest in this subject is not aimed at reducing the number of Bantu in white areas, nor do they nurture any profound desire for these numbers to be reduced. In particular let us take note of the attitude of the United Party in this regard, in addition to what I want to say here this afternoon as I go along. It is striking and particularly disturbing that the United Party, in every department or facet of its policy in regard to the relations among Whites and Bantu, does not in any way adopt an attitude aimed at trying to compel or urge the public and everyone in general to reduce the numbers of the Bantu in the white areas. Nor are there any objectives in the policy which they advocate which will in any respect whatsoever cause the number of Bantu in white areas to be reduced. I shall deal with other aspects of their policy as I go along. But what that part of their policy which I mentioned in my few introductory words does in fact signify is that the number of Bantu will increase in respect of each facet of their policy in white areas. The number of Bantu will increase if the policy which they advocate were to be applied.

But the numbers are at present increasing.

Wait a minute. Not only will their numbers increase but—and this is even more disturbing—the influence of the Bantu, the say and joint say of the Bantu, the status of the Bantu in the economy, their position in commerce and business and the professions will be strengthened vis-à-vis the Whites here in white South Africa if the policy of the United Party were to be applied. Even within this Parliament the numbers of the Bantu, their influence and their say will increase if the policy of the United Party were to be applied. But where, under our policy, does one find any vestige of that? I shall deal with these points one by one in order to make them clear to hon. members. In spite of this the public still has to hear how we, the Government, are being taken to task by the United Party because the number of Bantu have allegedly increased in South Africa. We are being taken to task by those to whom it makes no difference, by those who offer no policy to try to curb it or reduce the numbers. Since we are now on the eve of an election, even though it is called a futile election, the Government and the public has the right to demand from the United Party that they present to the public in this debate the guarantee that if their policy were to be applied by the government in South Africa, the number of Bantu in the white areas would decrease.

But what about your guarantees?

I shall give them to you in a moment; if you have the courtesy to listen to me. I am requesting from the United Party guarantees that the number of Bantu will decrease under their policy. I am requesting from the Opposition guarantees, assurances, details in regard to their measures which they will apply. In a moment I shall deal one by one with the government’s measures and contrast them with what the United Party’s attitude in that respect on each count. Recently the hon. member for Yeoville stated in a newspaper that we were now approaching an election and that there was now an opportunity for the Opposition to present its case as well to the nation, in this “futile” election. I should now like to hear their case in respect of this subject during this debate. I should like to repeat what has been said so frequently by myself and other members on this side of the House, i.e. that despite the fact that the overwhelming importance of an exclusively White authority in white areas and exclusive white sovereignty in white areas was an integral, built-in element in our policy of separate development, it was nevertheless still necessary for the numbers of the Bantu in white areas to be restricted, controlled and reduced. That is an integral part of our policy. What are we doing in this connection? I want to tell hon. members. In white areas here the Bantu are not being granted equality or potential equality with the White man in respect of any single aspect of social life whatsoever; not as far as the say as regards the government of the country is concerned, not as far as labour status is concerned, not as far as proprietary rights are concerned, not as far as social amenities are concerned; they have no potential or actual equality. As far as the United Party is concerned, we heard again yesterday how proprietary rights should be granted to the Bantu everywhere in South Africa. What is the standpoint of the United Party as opposed to the standpoint of the Government? The United Party states that the public authority here in this Parliament of ours in Cape Town will be shared by the Bantu. The public authority in the white areas will not be an exclusively white authority. That is the standpoint of the United Party. And with that they then want to go to the election. What is needed in order to reduce the number of Bantu is that employers should make increasingly less use of Bantu in their services, and that the Government should also take steps. In the third place of course an increased carrying capacity should be created in the Bantu homelands to allow an increasing number of Bantu persons to come into their own there.

Must Ben Schoeman also keep the railways running without Bantu?

Order!

I am not worried at all about Mr. Ben Schoeman, but I am terribly worried about you.

What do we get in this respect when I say that the number of Bantu must be reduced by the public and by the Government, and that an increasing number of opportunities should be created for them in the homelands? What is the standpoint of the Opposition in this regard? Do we ever hear the Opposition advocating that employers in South Africa should, as far as possible, apply labour rationalization in order to utilize as little labour as possible in the factories? We hear nothing of that kind. Do we ever hear the Opposition pleading for any measures by way of legislation, proclamation, or in any way whatsoever, to restrict the number of Bantu? No, we do not. When we come forward with measures such as those of the hon. the Minister of Labour, in regard to labour reservations, or with a Bill such as this one of mine which is now upon the Table of the House in regard to the restriction of Bantu labour in white areas, the Opposition are stirred up to high heaven to oppose it. We receive no support from them in that connection. Measures which the Government has already applied are known, but it would be a good thing if one were to deal with them in conjunction with each other.

I am mentioning to you in the first place, for the restriction, control and reduction of the number of Bantu in white areas, our influx control system and our labour bureau system.

Who introduced it?

Yes, it was introduced in 1922. I know that. But what did it look like then? Who introduced the labour bureaux? Labour bureaux are the heart of influx control, and not restrictive little measures such as those of 1922 which the hon. member has in mind. The labour bureaux which were introduced in 1952 by the late Dr. Verwoerd are the heart of influx control. Our labour bureaux function throughout the entire country. What do Opposition members do to promote them? They oppose, ridicule and belittle them wherever they can. Yes, and they sabotage them as well whenever the opportunity presents itself. Our labour bureaux are at present dealing with an average of 2 million Bantu employees per year. It is a system for regulating the proper flow of Bantu labour and in particular for damming up and combatting the inflow of unauthorized Bantu. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke about the increase in the number of Bantu. I should like to see the hon. the Leader make a better analysis. Unfortunately there are no more recent figures available than those I have previously mentioned. As yet I do not have the figures available for the sixties. The tendency indicates very clearly that whereas in the forties the number of Bantu in white South Africa increased as a result of influx into the white areas from outside, the process during the fifties was the exact opposite. Although there was still an influx of Bantu, by far the greatest percentage increase of Bantu was attributable to births here in the white areas and not to an influx. This was the position despite the fact that the Opposition maintains that we are ruining the family life of the Bantu. What are the Opposition doing in this regard, despite the interjection from the member for Yeoville to the effect that they introduced influx control? If that party on the opposite side were to come into power, one would, within two years, see only the remains of influx control hanging in tatters in South Africa. That would be the only outcome. After all, we know what the standpoint of the Opposition is. They tell us that the Bantu must be allowed free access to offer their labour wherever they wish. After all we know that they state that the Bantu should be allowed to enter the white areas with their families in order to be given accommodation there. That would mean that they would become increasingly anchored as far as proprietary rights, houses, etc., are concerned. That is their attitude towards one of the measures we want to take in order to reduce their numbers. I have already mentioned that nothing is being done in respect of the rationalization of labour. I should prefer to leave this topic and hasten to my next and more important point.

We introduced very important schemes, of which I shall mention those which were recently introduced. There is for example the Physical Planning Act. This results in the establishment of industrial land in white areas being controlled. A further result will be that any increase in the size of factories by means of the expansion of Bantu labour will also be controlled by this legislation. I furnished the figures on a previous occasion, and the hon. member for Yeoville queried them vehemently in the Press. I am sorry that he is running away now, but I want to repeat them. Statistics indicate that during the first 12 months during which the Physical Planning Act was being applied in a number of metropolitan areas in white South Africa, applications for 6,500 morgen or industrial land were refused as a result of the provisions of that Act. Under United Party rule not a single morgen of those 6,500 morgen would have been refused. Nor would they refuse it. If they were to come into power they would repeal the Act. What does this refusal of 6,500 morgen of industrial land mean? On a very favourable estimate it would mean that industrial land was withheld from industrialists who would have been able to utilize 260,000 Bantu labourers on it. Bantu labourers are people who, according to the United Party, should be established on a family basis. If those 260,0 workers were to have established themselves there, each with their wife and at least four children, which is a low average, what would that have meant? That would mean that the withholding of that 6,500 morgen or industrial land in white metropolitan areas would have resulted in the elimination of a potential 260,000 Bantu labourers. That means the elimination of a total of well over one and a half million Bantu souls in white industrial areas.

You said that numbers do not matter.

Rip van Winkel from Durban (North) should listen more carefully. I have never said that the number of Bantu do not matter. If that Act did not exist, in other words if there were a government which did not adopt such an attitude, we would have had a tremendous influx of Bantu into white areas. That is what would happen under a United Party government, for they are opposed to that Act, just as they are opposed to many other acts. That is not the only implication attached to it. We can work out its further implications. If 260,000 Bantu families had to come and work in the white metropolitan areas, how many Bantu houses and how much land for Bantu residential areas would that not imply? How many Bantu hospitals would not have to be erected? However I shall leave it at that. What is the attitude of the United Party? They say that if ever anything harmful was introduced then it is the Physical Planning Act. They want to see this Act done away with. They condemn the refusal of industrial land in white areas which has been authorized in terms of this Act. They therefore advocate that these 1½ million Bantu persons should have been allowed into the white areas of South Africa. If one advocates such a standpoint in an election then one has to term such an election a futile election; there is no other alternative.

I want to mention the policy of decentralization of industries and what has been established in terms of it. Border industries have been established. These border industries have, during the past ten years, expanded tremendously in quite a number of places. I quickly want to mention only three of the border industries to the hon. members. I want to mention to the hon. members the border industries of Rosslyn, Hammarsdale and Brits. Brits is the most recent, where, before the first industrial sites were supplied with services, virtually all the sites were sold. Is this an unpopular measure we are establishing if the industrialists snap them up so quickly? And according to estimates these three border industry areas of Rosslyn, Hammarsdale and Brits represent a total labour potential—they do not yet have a full complement; Brits and Rosslyn do as yet not have a full complement—of 36,100 Bantu workers. Calculated on a very conservative basis it means as many as 172,000 to 175,000 Bantu individuals who will be dependent upon that industrial land, and they all reside within the Bantu homelands. For it is the sine qua non for those Bantu industrial areas, the border industry areas, that the Bantu reside in their own areas. But what does the United Party say? The United Party say that border industries are harmful. They say that border industries are unprofitable. They say that border industries are something which should not be applied; the Bantu should be able to come from all over to work where their labour is required. In other words, these Bantu masses that I have mentioned to you, i.e. 172,000 in these three places only—and there will be many more—should simply be allowed in. I wonder what the hon. member for Brits would say if he were to hear that all the Bantu in the Brits border industry area, which has a potential of approximately 18,0 Bantu workers and almost 100,000 Bantu souls who will all reside in the homeland, had to reside in the white area of Brits if there had been no border industry areas? But that is the policy of the United Party, those are the consequences of their policy. Even a child does not find it surprising that they should call the election a futile one.

During the past few years, and particularly the past two years, I have called much attention to the agency system. Let us say something about this, particularly because the hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated here yesterday that nobody was interested in the agency basis, in establishing suitable industries in terms of it within the Bantu homelands. Let us for a moment consider the facts. Sucking things out of his thumb does not befit the Leader of the Opposition; the facts are far more important. Temba, the other side of Hammanskraal, is the first growth point, which we are laying out under the agency basis. It has not even been completed yet, and work there is being done at breakneck speed in order to get it ready, but we have already had a large number of applications, so that four of the 102 sites there have already been occupied. There are 34 other applications from white entrepreneurs wishing to go there, which are already receiving attention. We have already had to start planning growth points for agency work in other Bantu homelands, and I recently approved one in Natal as well. At the right time we shall hear more about this. The estimate, according to the magnitude of that industrial potential, at Temba is that it will be possible for a total of approximately 14,500 Bantu workers to work on those industrial sites. This will mean a restriction or retention, by means of support to them, of 70,0 Bantu individuals who will be able to reside in the Bantu areas and who will be dependent upon that workers’ corps working within those areas under the agency system and who will therefore have no need to go to the white urban areas. That is merely one example, the first one.

What homeland is that?

That is the Tswana homeland. While I am discussing this I should like to mention to you an example in order to show you how consistently this idea of decentralization of industries to the border industrial areas and in terms of the agency basis works out right into the homelands. On the Witwatersrand, the most industrialized white area in South Africa, the average number of Bantu workers per white person is 2.2 Bantu workers per white worker. The average number of Bantu workers per one white person at Hammarsdale is 18—which is the right kind of thing. A large complement of Bantu labour, as there is in those factories, belongs in a border industry. The estimate which I furnished here in regard to Temba amounts to 32 Bantu persons for each white person in that factory. Therefore 2.2 for the Witwatersrand, 18 for Hammarsdale which is the border industry and 32 for the agency system within the Bantu homeland—the correct tendency. Of course we would very much like to see—and I am a strong supporter of this—that the complement in the white areas should be even lower than 2.2 Bantu per white individual. It ought to be lower than this, and we are doing everything possible in order to decrease this figure, and employers should simply accept that they will have to move into this direction.

Mr. Speaker, these examples alone, which I have furnished here—the three border industries and the one agency centre—means that a total of 50,000 Bantu workers with a total number of approximately 250,000 souls have been kept out of the white areas, retained in the Bantu homeland areas in which they all reside. Is this not a measure aimed at restricting, reducing and keeping down the numbers in the white areas? What else is it then? What is the United Party doing about this? They ridicule, belittle and oppose it. Sir, I have mentioned to you only three examples of border industries. There are many more, and there are other types of work as well; there are the mining entrepreneurs of the Bantu areas. And what I have not taken into account at all, i.e. all the consequential workers, for you must realize that where one has a large agency centre one still has other consequential factors such as schools, chemists, shops, doctors and matters pertaining to village management boards, which all serve to employ Bantu. The accumulative and proliferating effect of employment is very great, and I did not take it into account at all in my figures. All the border industries combined—and hon. members can find this in the report by Dr. Rautenbach as chairman of the Permanent Committee which was recently laid upon the Table —have up to the present provided 81,000 additional Bantu workers with employment. That is in addition to the other Bantu workers who were already present in those areas. Just those 81,0 additional Bantu workers alone means that half a million Bantu souls who are dependent upon them, together with the workers themselves, were kept out of the white areas. But this does not matter, Sir!

We shall go to the nation with these matters and we shall inform them that the United Party Opposition state that they do not want to proceed with this, for it is a futile election; they have lost before they begin. All these carefully considered measures of ours, all these good measures—even if they are perhaps not as good as some people present them—are vehemently opposed by the Opposition. What their policy will amount to is that the average of 2.2 Bantu workers on the Witwatersrand will increase to a higher total per white person, and what their policy will amount to is that there will be no such thing as border industries with 18 Bantu per white person as is the case at Hammarsdale and other places. They will allow all the industries to develop in our metropolitan areas with an ever-increasing measure of black integration as a result of an increasing influx. If this is not going to happen then it is high time now they told us what measures they are going to apply in this sphere. Let us hear from them what restrictive measures they are going to apply in order to reduce the number of Bantu in white areas. We must know this, and if they cannot tell us, then they can hide their faces in shame. In addition you must remember, Sir, as I said a moment ago, that in terms of their policy it will not only be the number of Bantu that increase; it will be the number of Bantu rights which increase; it will be the Bantu say in administrative matters, in the machinery of government, right into this Parliament as I said a moment ago.

Measured against all economic criteria everything we are doing, including the internal development within the Bantu homelands, is highly satisfactory. I wish hon. members would read the papers presented recently by public servants at this conference in Cape Town.

I have read them.

Yes, he has read them, and they had no effect on him. One knows what happens to water on a duck’s back. Sir, in this way we read there, as well as in the summary by Dr. Rautenbach in his report, to which I referred a moment ago, that the part played by the State in these decentralization attempts compares extremely favourable with other decentralization attempts in regard to industry in other parts of the world. It even compares more than favourably with those in certain countries. He gives the share contributed by the South African Government as R343 per worker, as compared with R437 by Britain and R858 by Belgium. Only France is lower with R262 per worker. The figure for the Netherlands is R796, almost double the figure for South Africa, and the Netherlands is a smaller country, with a greater concentration of people, shorter distances for transport, and better lines of communication. The annual growth rate in the Bantu homelands, which Dr. Rieckert mentioned in his paper, also speaks equally loudly of a success for us. He points out that in the fifties the growth rate in the Bantu homelands was 2.5 per cent, as compared with a growth rate of 5.14 per cent in the sixties. That is more than a twofold increase. On those grounds we feel ourselves completely at liberty to predict that in the seventies this is going to be even more favourable. That is to say, if we ensure that the National Party comes into power again on the 22nd April, otherwise the growth rate in the Bantu areas will diminish and the number of Bantu in the white areas will increase. That is what would increase if that party on the opposite side were to come into power.

Sir, the facts which I have been able to lay before you in the short period of time at my disposal indicate that this Government is aware of the task which rests upon it as a government. I wish to express the hope that the public will display the same sense of responsibility, and that they will also realize their task, because the public also has a tremendous task in regard to reducing the number of Bantu in the white areas. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a feeling of sadness that I have to look at the National Party to-day. Once upon a time they were a mighty party; a party which many of us helped to build up for 56 years, and some of us for shorter periods; a party which became increasingly stronger and more powerful after 1948; a party which under its former leaders became a solid, mighty party. It was said that it had become as solid and as strong as granite. It is a party which everybody thought would never perish, but would only soar further from strength to strength. It was a party which inspired the Afrikaner people, which strengthened them, and whose message echoed through our country like a clarion call. It was a party which was joined by English-speaking people, and to which they felt strongly attracted, for they felt that in that party they had a strong leader, a strong man, a man of granite, with principles of granite, principles behind which everybody would be safe, principles which would ensure the survival of the white man. That was the party of Dr. Malan, in which, as he phrased it, “everybody who belonged together by inner conviction” worked together. Out of that inner conviction he built up the initial strength of the National Party. To-day I say with as much sadness that I am grateful that it has been destined this way, i.e. that I may view the tragedy of the National Party from the outside and no longer from within the party. [Interjections.] Where does this party stand, Sir, the strongest party South Africa has ever had, the party which was capable of resisting the greatest onslaughts and threats from the outside world? Where does it stand to-day? As a battered party … [Interjections.] … a party ridden with cracks and tensions. This is a party which has already driven and cast out thousands of its most loyal members; a party which tens of thousands of people are leaving in droves. Dr. Verwoerd bequeathed to us not only a great and inspired party, but also a party with a minutely detailed, reasoned master plan, a master plan in which he had fully considered the problems of the country and in which he had clearly formulated the solutions for us. All that was necessary, was merely to follow those clear beacons which Dr. Verwoerd had planted for us, and nothing could have gone wrong. But now, under the new leadership that barely 3½ years ago took over the control of that fine party, that great party has become desperately ill and paralysed by the mistrust that exists between member and member and between member and leader and leader and member. This process of breaking up has gained momentum. Especially over the past nine months this has been the case. Since April last year the position has been that the new leaders of the National Party have to an increasing extent had no hesitation in casting out the foundation stones of nationalism one by one. This has especially been the position since my having stated the basic principles for the survival of the white man in this country in April last year. I pointed out that we here were a small minority of 3½ million highly competent and highly civilized people. We are people who are skilled, a hard-working nation, a nation which is extremely just towards the less privileged parts of our country and which governs the country with competence for the benefit of everybody. I pointed out that there were two sections of our population in this country and that in those two sections there were sections which differ considerably in significant respects. The English-speaking section holds mainly liberal ideas, and no matter how fine those liberal ideas may be in there full abstractness, that liberalism is always the germ of ruin. This is the source of their weakness. They recognize the principles of the permissive society, permissive principles, principles which imply that one always concedes and concedes more and always endures more and more. Those are the principles which have had only one result everywhere, i.e. their disappearance. We need merely look at the position here in Africa to see how the English-speaking people have for the most part had to disappear from Africa. As against that there is only one nation in Africa which for centuries has been able to endure the most difficult circumstances and the most violent onslaughts. That white nation is the Afrikaner nation. The resistance and the strength of that nation, as I reminded the House last year, is attributable to its Calvinistic code of principles and its Calvinistic way of life; it is these things which have made that nation strong and powerful. I went further by trying to show that every person, every section of a population had a task and function, and that the task and the function of the English-speaking section of our population might be a grand economic one. But the function of the Afrikaner is the function that arises out of that robust code of principles, which arises out of his strong armour, his spiritual armour, which makes him the soldier, the fighter and the protector of the white man and of white civilization in this country. The survival of the white man depends on the Afrikaner. That is why, and this was my premise last year, I said that it was that code of life, that code of conduct of the Afrikaner, which we had to protect and preserve and which we had to live up to. But that way of thinking was repudiated entirely in this House. It was repudiated by the Minister of Transport. It was repudiated by the Prime Minister. It was repudiated by the Minister of Economic Affairs. It was repudiated right and left by their leaders. It should be obvious to us that there is one thing we cannot deny, i.e. that they are now saying openly that the Calvinistic principles have been repudiated entirely as the principles of the National Party.

That is untrue!

Ever since that moment that repudiation has increasingly brought about the repudiation of all National principles, and this is done at an increasing rate. The leaders have to an increasing extent been turning their backs on the tested, the standing principles of our nation.

Let me take hon. members through the history of this matter from April to where we are sitting here to-day. The first event I want to refer to, took place in April. It has always been a principle of our Nationalists that the white area in South Africa is the home of the white man, and that the black areas, the locations, is the home of the black man. When those black tourists come here, they have to stay in the non-white areas. When white tourists come here, they have to stay in the white areas. This is the only way if one wants to guarantee our white pattern of life, the white pattern of life here in South Africa; that pattern of life which in turn is the guarantee for the survival of the white man. It is striking, Sir, that in the same month, in April, 1969, the then Attorney-General, Adv. Rein, obviously on the instructions of the Government, admitted that at present non-white visitors stayed in white areas and white hotels, and that he had forbidden his public prosecutors to obey the law without his approval, that law which provides that hoteliers providing non-Whites with liquor in white areas are to be prosecuted. In this way the doors have been opened wide to Bantu and Whites mixing socially in white hotels in white residential areas. Even at present it is by no means an unusual occurrence always to find in some of the larger hotels of Pretoria a whole group of Bantu staying or boarding there. And these numbers of non-Whites staying there must necessarily grow as they begin to realize the change in Government policy.

Now there has been yet a further development in this direction. It is not astonishing to hear that it has become known that a short while ago the Government has agreed to a large international hotel being erected almost at the foot of the Union Buildings, in the block bounded by Church Street, Pretorius Street, Wessel Street and Leids Street. This is in the best part of Pretoria, where all the public servants, the clerks and the typists are staying. The Government has now given permission for that large hotel to be erected in that area and also for that hotel to be open to non-Whites. In other words, here the Government has gone along and given permission for a hotel to be erected in the heart of the white area, a hotel where black and white can stay together. In this way principle after principle is being abandoned by these new leaders of the National Party.

I should now like to refer to what happened the next month. In May the hon. member for Worcester, Mr. Louis Stofberg, identified himself with the Calvinistic principles of our nation which were set out by me here in this House and to which I referred a moment ago. Subsequently the hon. member for Worcester said in a speech that those principles were the right ones since they were also his own principles. He said that that was his honest opinion. Having made this speech in the middle of May, he received a threatening letter which had obviously been drafted on the instructions of, or perhaps by the hand of the Leader of the National Party in the Cape himself. In that letter he was notified that unless he repudiated before a certain date those principles as set out by me here in this House, he would be expelled from the National Party. I should now like to read out the exact wording as used in that letter. It reads as follows (translation)—

I do not think such a thing has ever happened in South Africa before. This has definitely never happened in the National Party before. I do not think that this has ever happened in any political party in South Africa before. However, here it happened that a brilliant and loyal member of the Afrikaner nation and the National Party was given notice and threatened that unless he repudiated his convictions, convictions which are shared by the mass of the Afrikaner nation, he would be expelled from that party. Is it possible to find better proof to the effect that the principles of the National Party are simply being repudiated holus-bolus by the leadership on the other side?

I want to go further and refer to what happened at the end of May. The hon. the Minister of Community Development will know what happened on 30th May. On 30th May the Chief Commissioner of the Girl Guides, a certain Mrs. Douglas Murray, asked that hon. Minister for permission to hold on a Sunday a multi-racial rally in a white residential area in Pretoria. It has always been a firm principle of the National Party that social gatherings in South Africa should be strictly segregated in respect of Whites and non-Whites. Whites must have their meetings in white areas and the non-Whites must have theirs in non-white areas. When this hon. Minister was asked for his permission, he gave it. He gave his permission for young white girls and young non-Whites to gather in a white area on the occasion of a big rally for the purpose of welcoming Lady Baden-Powell. What is worse, is that the hon. the Minister of Community Development also gave permission for both white and non-white Officers of the Girl Guides to have tea with Lady Baden-Powell. He was careful though, and in a request to them he said that he would appreciate it very much if this could be done in church halls. But if it could not be held in church halls, it would also be fine. That is what he said. Step for step those principles which are cardinal to the survival of the white man are being stripped away by those leaders, stripped away one after the other.

But I should also like to refer to the ministerial relaxation during September last year, for during the month of September we saw the next instalment in this breaking down process. On one matter Dr. Verwoerd was very explicit. Inexorably he stood by this standpoint, for deep down inside he believed in it. He said that the white man in South Africa could only survive for as long as we preserved white solidarity in South Africa, white solidarity as against the non-Whites; as long as we upheld apartheid closely. At Loskop Dam he set out this principle very explicitly. At a later date he had it published in the form of a document, in which his words were as follows (translation)—

He went on and said—

This was stated very explicitly by Dr. Verwoerd, as we always knew him. That was the policy of the national nation. This has been the policy of our nation for years with its effects over centuries. But under this new regime a change has been introduced, because the new Prime Minister did not subject himself to that policy. He determined that the sports administrators of New Zealand could select whom they pleased. However, he made a reservation. The reservation was that “relations in my own country shall not be damaged by it”. By those means the present Prime Minister reserved the right to refuse admission to Maori’s if the nation were opposed to it. All of us accepted that. Knowing the Afrikaner nation and the white nation, knowing that the white nation would be opposed to it, we accepted that he meant by that that it would not be possible for the Maori’s to come here. But what a disappointment it was to us when towards the end of August last year at Innesdal and once again at the congress of the National Party on 9th September, Minister Schoeman said that it was the policy of the Government that the Maoris could indeed come and, according to him, not only Maoris. He took this further by saying that even French non-Whites could come. French non-Whites would probably mean Arabs and Negroes, because they constitute the black population of France. Therefore at that National Party congress the present National leaders openly and boldly repudiated the National principles of Dr. Verwoerd and of his predecessors in the party, who preceded him. They abandoned them altogether. But that was not all. They were not content with merely repudiating those principles. They also wanted to repudiate everybody in that party who had the courage to admit that he still adhered to those principles. At that congress Minister Schoeman announced that every member of the party who did not accept those principles, i.e. the new principles as formulated by him, would be expelled from the party. These were his words (translation)—

Each of us who could not subject ourselves to the policy, the new policy which is in conflict with the policy of our nation and which is a danger to the survival of the white man, said that we would go on trying to bring about a change in it. This is why we were kicked out of that party.

In this manner the National Party principles which have for generations served our nation, and have for generations helped to build our nation into a powerful and mighty unit, have systematically been watered down, renounced and repudiated.

Let me now deal with the next month. It is strange that during the same period two events took place in quick succession, during this period when tested Nationalists who had helped to build the Party, were expelled from it because of that congress resolution in Pretoria, expelled not because they wanted to water down or liberalize the principles, but because they simply pleaded for the retention of those principles—and I am referring to those men whom Dr. Malan had brought along because he had said they were people who belonged together by inner convictions. It is striking that during the same period an English-speaking person was taken into the heart of the party. He is an English-speaking person who used to be very liberal in his views, a person who I understand belongs to the Institute of Race Relations to this day. It should be remembered that the Institute of Race Relations was described as “the bastion of liberalism” by its former director, Quenton Whyte. A person belonging to that organization has now been taken into the party, and not only into the party, but also into the heart of the party. He has been appointed to the Senate. The Afrikaner Calvinist is no longer welcome in the National Party. But the liberal person is being received with open arms and festively escorted to the inner rooms of the Party. No matter what sphere we enter, be it in the sphere of sport, in the sphere of rugby, at the Olympic Games, or in the diplomatic service, in our hotel trade or in the sphere of the supply of liquor, or at the universities or our schools, in the political sphere or in society—in every sphere the tested Afrikaner principles, principles which do not only have value to us as Afrikaners, but also to every English-speaking person because they are his guarantee, are being cast of f one after the other. And I want to tell you, Sir, that this is not by chance. This is not merely happening haphazardly. There is a policy behind it. If you do not want to believe me, Sir, let me refer you to their mouthpiece, Dagbreek, for what they dare not risk saying, they leave to their newspapers to say. On 25th January, a week ago, the following appeared in Dagbreek (translation)—

This is their mouthpiece. It is their people who are talking like this. The hon. members opposite are the bosses of those people. They are the people who want the newspaper to speak that way. They are the people who are saying that the old values of the Afrikaner nation must be destroyed. They say that there is no longer room for them and that they are obsolete ideas. I want to go further. I want to point out to the hon. members over there that along with renouncing the National principles, there is another thing that follows in its wake. That is the decline of moral standards. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader has just resumed his seat. The lifelong ambition of the hon. member for Ermelo, who has just resumed his seat, has at last been realized; the lifelong ideal of the hon. member has at last been achieved; he has become a leader. Even if it is only a leader of a splinter group, he is nevertheless a leader. But it is the most expensive leadership ever obtained in South Africa; it has cost him R½ million. That was the credit balance in the Press fund which his father established and which he is now using to cause the party which his father founded as much damage as he can.

Disgraceful!

But the hon. member and his friends have also founded a party. They call it the Herstigte Nasionale Party. When the hon. member for Ermelo was asked about the origin of that name, his reply was as follows: “We decided to re-establish the National Party and to give it back its principles.” One of the principles of the party established by him and his friends is that the English-speaking people in South Africa are to be deprived of their language rights. There must be only one official language and that is Afrikaans. In the 56 years of the existence of the National Party this has never been a principle. On the contrary, the late General Hertzog’s struggle was for the Afrikaans language to be accorded equal treatment. His attitude was that there should be no subordination of the one language to the other. How can he then restore to the National Party a principle which it never had?

What about the Republican Constitution of 1940?

I wish you would shut up now.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, they are protecting their allies now. In the course of my speech I shall prove that they are in fact allies.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is the hon. the Minister allowed to say “Shut up”?

The hon. the Minister may proceed.

The endeavour and the struggle of the late General Hertzog was for equality and equal treatment of the two languages. But what did the hon. member for Ermelo himself say in April of last year when he made that notorious speech on Calvinism? I want to quote to hon. members what_ he said. He said: “That is why the English-speaking people need never fear that the Calvinistic Afrikaner or the Nationalist …”

Mr. Speaker, could you please give a ruling on the remark made by the hon. Minister of Transport?

Order! I have given my ruling.

Have you given your ruling, Sir? May I ask you what your ruling was?

Order!

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but may we have your ruling?

I have told the hon. Minister he may proceed.

Is that expression then permitted, Mr. Speaker? [Interjections.] Well then, hon. members opposite must shut up!

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I want to know if that is a permitted parliamentary expression.

Order! I have given my ruling. The hon. member can resume his seat.

Then that is your ruling, Mr. Speaker. It can be accepted as a parliamentary expression.

Order!

You know you have never grown up …

Shut up, Ben!

Order!

Mr. Speaker, the opportunity will come, and then I shall talk to that hon. member about the irresponsible statements he usually makes. That time is coming.

*I shall talk to that hon. member about the irresponsible statements he usually makes. I shall come to that. But I am now dealing with the hon. the Leader, the hon. member for Ermelo. When making that speech about Calvinism last year, the hon. member for Ermelo said the following—

Mr. Speaker, it was last year in April that the hon. member for Ermelo made that speech. Six months later they established a party, one of the basic principles of which is that the English-speaking people in South Africa should be deprived of their language rights and that Afrikaans should be the only official language. That is now the honourable undertaking supposed to have been given by that hon. member, but I realize, Sir, that the words political morality are quite alien to him, and I shall point out more things in this vein.

But now I first want to deal with sport, because this is the main point of attack on the Government. I want to quote what the hon. members of that new party said in this connection. In an interview given by the hon. member for Innesdal, they said that no mixed sport of any kind whatsoever would be tolerated in the Republic. The document issued by them at the so-called congress which they held, stated (translation)—

I emphasize the words “mixed sport”. No mixed sport will be allowed. But surely that is not true. Surely those hon. members are in favour of mixed sport. They are in favour of mixed sports teams visiting South Africa. They said so. They are in favour of a New Zealand sports team, consisting of Whites and Coloured persons, being allowed to visit South Africa.

Oh, you know that is not true.

I am going to prove it. They are in favour of a Maori who is registered as a white person in New Zealand being allowed to be a member of that team. They are quite prepared to allow mixed sports teams, because as you know, Sir, a white person with Maori blood in his veins is regarded as a Coloured person according to our norms. They are quite prepared to allow mixed teams, consisting of Whites and non-Whites, of Coloured persons from New Zealand, to visit South Africa. They have no objection to that. They say that he may come, even if he has 90 per cent Maori blood in his veins; as long as he is reasonably white in appearance he is welcome. He must just not have 100 per cent Maori blood; then he is not welcome. The hon. member is laughing. Here in my hand I have a cutting from a newspaper about an interview which the hon. member for Wonder-boom gave to Mr. Jan van Rooyen, the former editor of Die Transvaler.

That is untrue. [Laughter.]

First listen to what I have to say. This interview was conducted by way of question and answer and it was never repudiated. This was on 26th September of last year. I now come to the questions and answers (translation)—

[Laughter.] These are now the people who say that they take their stand upon a matter of principle. Is it a principle when they say that a full-blooded Maori is not allowed to come, but that a man with 90 per cent Maori blood will in fact be allowed to come?

Mr. Speaker, they also say that this party which they founded is based on the infallible Word of God. It stands at the beginning of their programme of principles. They also say that it is the first time that a party having such a basis has been established. I agree with that. It is the first time in the history of South Africa that a political party is huckstering so shamelessly with the Word of God, not because they are genuine and sincere, but in order thereby to gain a little political support from the Afrikaner.

Let us now test the integrity and sincerity of these people, of these pure, Christian, Calvinistic Afrikaners, as they call themselves, against their actions. On 13th October of last year they issued what they called an election manifesto, and among other things they had this to say. They spoke of the Prime Minister and of “his poor, opportunistic and vacillating leadership which led to the splitting of the National Party from top to bottom”, and in addition they say “three years of wrong leadership, incompetence and moral poverty has been long enough”, referring to the Prime Minister. During two of those three years the hon. member for Ermelo sat in the Cabinet, and he would still have been sitting there if the Prime Minister had not thrown him out. During those three years the hon. member for Innesdal and his friends sat there, and if they had not been expelled by their own branches, they would still have been in the party. But not only that. During these three years they repeatedly voted in favour of motions of full confidence in the Prime Minister. But what is even worse is this. In my own Office those two hon. members for Wonder-boom and Innesdal gave me their personal assurances of full loyalty to the Prime Minister. I asked them specifically whether they had any conscientious objection to any aspect of our policy, and I spelt it out: sport, diplomats, co-operation, immigration. They said they had no conscientious objections. I then told them that I would step into the breach for them and protect them, but, Mr. Speaker, they deceived me. They were false. For three years they sat with treason in their hearts and waited for the first opportunity to display their treason in public. Then they speak of Christian Calvinism; then they speak of a party based on the Word of God. That is blasphemy and I say to them that God does not allow Himself to be mocked.

Mr. Speaker, they established a newspaper too; why I do not know, because they have the Sunday Times as their official organ, but probably the Sunday Times does not go deeply enough into the gutter. They then established a newspaper which could go even more deeply into the gutter. They also appointed an editor, a certain Dr. Lubbe, who was previously a minister of religion. I want to quote what Dr. Lubbe said when accepting the editorship (translation)—

But, of course, he never had the R15,000 a year in mind which was offered to him. He never had in mind the five-year contract which they offered him, but he decided prayerfully to accept it. Mr. Speaker, do you know what this reminds me of? It puts me in mind of the young man who prayed to God to give him a good wife and who put it in the following way: Lord, please give me the right wife, but please give me Anne. That is how this gentleman prayed. He asked for guidance but at the same time he said that he wanted to accept this editorship. But then this hon. gentleman said the following (translation)—

That is very idealistic; very high principles, if he pays heed to them.

Much better than in Dagbreek, eh?

I am still coming to that hon. member’s newspaper. In the same issue the hon. member for Ermelo, in welcoming their new newspaper, Die Afrikaner, said (translation)—

Mr. Speaker, I now just want to give a few examples of the Christianity propagated in the Press, in the newspaper of the people who founded a party which is based on the infallible Word of God. I quote what appeared in that newspaper on 16th January; this is what this newspaper itself had to say in reply to questions put to it. One of the questions was (translation)—

Thereupon the newspaper first referred to me in its reply and said (translation)—

Sir, that is a lie. I never summoned the hon. member for Ermelo to my Office. It is untrue; ask him: there he is sitting.

Answer!

I say it is untrue. I never summoned the hon. member for Ermelo to my Office; I never said “Surely that is only a religion”; I never used those words. Neither could I have used them, because I never summoned him to my Office. This is the newspaper in which Mr. Lubbe, the editor, says that the Christian principles must be propagated; this is the party which says that it is based on the infallible Word of God, but they do not hesitate to tell lies in public. They go further; they state (translation)—

This is surely another untruth. In his speech the Prime Minister said that he found no fault with the Calvinistic part of the speech. He said that in his young days he himself had been a member of the “Calvinistiese Bond” I never once in my speech referred to the Calvinistic part of that hon. member’s speech, and here we get these deliberate untruths in a newspaper of which a retired minister of religion is the editor and which states that the Christian principles must be practised in the Press.

There is yet another matter, Mr. Speaker. One of their Christian, Calvinistic, National Afrikaners is Professor Weiss. In the newspaper of 23rd January he held an interview in which he said that he had been alleged to be a member of the Afrikaner Orde, and then he said this (translation)—

The report to the effect that he was a member of the Afrikaner Orde. I was in touch with Dr. Piet Meyer; he said it was an outrageous lie; he had never said it—yet these are the Christian individuals! These are the people who peddle religion! Mr. Speaker, this shameless hypocrisy is enough to make any decent person sick, and that is what we are faced with here.

I do not even want to speak about the smear reports in their newspapers. In an interview reported in another newspaper the hon. member for Ermelo said, as he did once again this afternoon, that we had converted the National Party, mainly an Afrikaner Party, “into a party with all kinds of heterogeneous elements which cannot endorse the aspirations, the calling and the philosophy of life of the Afrikaner”. He spoke of the heterogeneous elements, referring to the English-speaking people in the party, and he mentioned one of them this afternoon. Mr Speaker, to-day Dr. Verwoerd is the hon. member’s hero, but Dr. Verwoerd brought Mr. Waring and Mr. Trollip into his Cabinet, and the hon. member made no objection to that at the time. Under Dr. Verwoerd Mr. Odell of Pietermaritzburg became a member of the party; Mr. Carr is a member of the party, but the hon. member and his friends never objected to that. Now he suddenly speaks of heterogeneous elements that have come in! Why? Because Mr. Lewis and Professor Horwood have come in. And then he had the impudence this afternoon to speak about the English-speaking people in South Africa after having grossly insulted them and wanting to take away their language rights.

He is only angry at having been expelled from the Cabinet.

In that interview he then went on to say (translation)—

For nine years the hon. member was in the Cabinet and approved of and supported everything. Those hon. members beside him sat in the party all these years and never raised any objection. For three years they sat in the party with treason in their hearts; for three years they were false; for three years they waited for the moment to arrive when they could show their true colours and when they could commit treason in public.

Do you want to suggest that I made no objection?

Ask Mr. Waring whether I made no objection.

The hon. members never made any objection. I now want to come to the hon. member for Ermelo. At Worcester the hon. member made an allegation in connection with the Bureau for State Security; he said that it would cost R50 million rather than R4 million. When he was summoned before the commission to prove his allegation, he did not have the courage to do so; he was too cowardly to appear in the witness box; he refused to give evidence. The commission has now reported and has stated that that allegation is devoid of all truth. This is what is done by that honourable, upright Calvinistic Christian Afrikaner.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member instituted a claim of R100,000 for damages against the Sunday Times because they had alleged that he had undermined Dr. Verwoerd. When he was asked at Worcester why he was not proceeding with that case, he said that he was no longer proceeding with it because the Prime Minister was levelling the same accusation at him now. But what is the truth? In July 1968, while he was still a Minister, his attorney struck that case of f the roll. I say that his credibility is not worth anything. He has never had anything like political morality. Then he has the audacity to speak about Christianity, and about a party based upon the Word of God.

Mr. Speaker, my time is nearly up. In one of their writings I also see that the hon. member now says that he was personally asked by Adv. Strydom to stand for election in Ermelo in 1948. I declare categorically to-day that this is yet another of his untruths. I was very close to Adv. Strydom. I was a member of the then executive. What actually happened was that when we heard that he was a candidate in Ermelo we were most disappointed. In the forties, when Strydom, Verwoerd and I were fighting in the front line for the continued existence of the National Party, he was sitting on the fence. He never gave us any assistance. How could Adv. Strydom have asked him personally to stand for election?

There is another matter. In his speech the hon. member spoke of the Blacks who were now staying at hotels, but as far back as in Dr. Verwoerd’s day two Black Ministers from Katanga stayed at the Luthje’s Langham Hotel in Johannesburg. I entertained them at a banquet there on behalf of the government. He was a member of the Cabinet at the time, and he approved of it. Do you see the hyprocrisy, Sir? Do you see the duplicity and the untruths with which we are faced?

I now want to come to the final point, Sir. I spoke of the alliance existing between the United Party and those gentlemen. This alliance is going to become an ever closer one.

You are talking rubbish.

The closer the election comes, the closer this alliance will become. I have here in my hand a sworn statement made by a certain Mr. Andries Frederick Coetzee, who, according to them, would be their candidate in Stilfontein. That is Mr. Rossouw’s constituency. In this sworn statement Mr. Coetzee states (translation):

[Interjections.] That is not yet the worst. The statement continues:

They say they are not allies. [Interjections.] I now want to say this …

Produce the letter.

It is a sworn statement. I am prepared to repeat this outside parliament. If hon. members then want to dispute it, if they are of the opinion that this man has committed perjury, they know what steps they can take. We shall see if they have the courage. In other words, the alliance already exists between them and the United Party. They support each other. [Interjections.]

Order!

Sir, look how they have been protecting them. The hon. member for South Coast protected them to such an extent that he almost fainted. [Interjections.]

Order!

Ben is in injury time.

They call this a re established party. I do not know whether any right-thinking Nationalist could ever give his support to them. I describe them as a party born out of hate, bitterness and frustration, and based on falsehood, hyprocrisy and political dishonesty.

Mr. Speaker, I am very sorry indeed to have to interrupt this private argument between our verligte and verkrampte colleagues. The argument was very interesting indeed and I am really very sorry to interrupt these proceedings. I have, however, a very much more important matter with which to deal and I am sure that hon. members will forgive my intrusion in the debate at this stage. I am sure that they will have an opportunity to carry on their private dispute later on.

Mr. Speaker, I feel that I must not lose this opportunity perhaps the last that I may have in this House, of expressing to the Government my profound regret at the way in which the Government has dissipated a wonderful chance of regaining the friendship and goodwill of our Coloured citizens. Despite the many humiliations which the Government has inflicted upon our Coloured people over the years, last year there still existed a chance of our regaining their goodwill. The Government’s handling of the establishment of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, however, has dissipated all hope of achieving that position under this Government. I am afraid that we have lost any chance which may have existed of our regaining the esteem and the goodwill of our Coloured citizens. This is due almost entirely to the inept manner in which the Government constituted the Coloured Persons Representative Council and the flagrant way in which the Government refused to acknowledge the overwhelming Coloured views expressed so strongly in the recent Coloured election. I should like to tell the Government, and I say this from my own close association with our Coloured citizens, that never in the history of our country has there been a more bitter and hostile feeling on the part of the Coloured people towards the Government, and unfortunately also generally towards the white people, than exists at the present moment.

On what did you base that statement?

I base it on public utterances made by the Coloured people and on discussions which I have had with many of their leaders.

I have had just as many discussions with them and I have not found that at all.

I am afraid that the hon. the Prime Minister may have spoken to that section of the Coloured people who are pro-Government for various reasons best known to themselves.

I have had discussions with anti-Government leaders as well.

I speak on behalf of the general mass of Coloured people and I would ask the hon. the Prime Minister to accept what I say as a factual reflection of the discussions which I have had with them.

Well, my facts are different.

That may be so. We all know that our Coloured citizens have suffered very much at the hands of the Government since 1948 but I doubt, and I say this advisedly, whether anything which was done to them during these many years could match the blatant and crude act, and may I say, the shameless act of the Government during last October when it contemptuously vitiated the overwhelming vote of the Coloured electorate. The ill-considered decision by the Government to pack the Coloured Persons Representative Council with 20 Government supporters, including 13 pro-apartheid Federal Party members who were ignominiously defeated in the September Coloured election, has caused greater frustration and resentment among our Coloured people than anything experienced by them since their political rights were first tampered with 20 years ago. Mr. Speaker, our Coloured people regard this Government manoeuvre as a contemptuous insult to their own intelligence. I will quote just now from public statements made by Coloured leaders to this effect. But what is more important, is that they regard the Government’s action as being grossly unfair, almost dishonourable, and as a preconceived betrayal of their meagre political rights and a repudiation of the assurances given to them over the years and specifically before the election in 1968-’69.

I can assure the hon. the Prime Minister that this ill-conceived decision to flout the Coloured vote has caused tremendous ill-feeling and bitterness among our Coloured citizens. But what is more disheartening is that this ill-feeling is not now only restricted to the Government, but is also being ventilated generally against our white people. That is the unfortunate situation that has arisen as a result of the Government’s actions.

The Coloured people now are vehemently claiming that by packing the Coloured Persons Representative Council with men whom the Coloured voters had themselves rejected, the Government has shamelessly given the lie to their proclaimed pretences of self-determination and self-government to the different racial groups in South Africa. They have come to realize that these promises of self-determination and self-government are so much eyewash. It has now been forcibly impressed upon them that the Government’s concept of these high faluting principles of separate freedoms, which we have heard so much of, of self-government and self-determination—we have heard this ad lib in this House—means only self-determination as long as it is in line with the Government’s policy and what the Government wants and demands. The Coloured people feel that the slightest deviation from the Government’s wishes will under no circumstances be tolerated. I think it is necessary that we should examine the position to-day in the light of some of the solemn assurances given to our Coloured people by the Government when this House discussed the commission’s report on their political future, and when we in Parliament debated the Bill for the establishment of the new Coloured Persons Representative Council. On 28th March, 1968, when the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs introduced the Bill which laid the foundation for the establishment of the Coloured Representative Council, he said the following (Hansard, Col. 2930)—

The hon. the Minister went on to elaborate the various ways in which it was proposed to make this new council truly and properly representative of Coloured opinion in South Africa. He went on to explain that it was the intention of the Government to give all Coloured citizens, even the most illiterate among them, “the opportunity to register for participation in these elections”. I am quoting from the hon. the Minister’s speech. He went on to explain that this was being done by the Government so that the Coloured people themselves and I repeat “themselves”, could elect the council which would be looked up to with admiration by the whole country and the outside world, and particularly would be truly representative of Coloured opinion in South Africa.

Now, Sir, will the hon. the Minister, or in his absence, the hon. the Prime Minister, honestly contend that this packed new Coloured Council is truly representative of Coloured opinion in South Africa? Will the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs have the temerity to claim that this new packed council will be looked up to with admiration by the Coloured people or by this country generally, or even by the outside world? No, Mr. Speaker. This new council, for which we all had such high hopes, has been reduced to an absolute farce by the Government. It is really incredible that this most important constitutional matter should have been handled with such utter ineptitude and thoughtlessness. Were it not for the tragic result of this action by the Government, the whole matter is really laughable. We all recall the innumerable occasions when Government spokesmen in this House said that they were not interested in the opinions expressed by the Coloured representatives in this House. They did not want to listen to these views expressed on behalf of the Coloureds. All they said they were interested in was the opinion of the Coloured people themselves. This was said time and again.

You are obviously out of touch with the people.

Yes, Government spokesmen said that they want to hear the opinions of the Coloured electorate themselves and not those expressed by their white representatives. The Coloured people have now expressed their opinion in the clearest possible manner. They did not do so through the mouthpiece of their white representatives in this House, but by means of an election which the Government arranged for them. No clearer expression of opinion by the Coloured people could have been given. And what do we find? We find that the Government rejects that clear opinion with the utmost contempt Why? Because it was not favourable to Government policy. How can this rejection of Coloured opinion be reconciled with the persistent claim made on behalf of the Government that all the Government is interested in and all they will act upon is the honest opinion expressed by the Coloured people themselves? The action taken by the Government is totally inconsistent and is irreconcilable with the views expressed by the leaders of the Nationalist Party. In the light of the contemptuous way the Government has treated Coloured opinion as expressed during the election, is it any wonder that the Coloured people now vociferously claim that our Nationalist Party politicians should really be ashamed of themselves and that their word cannot be taken or trusted? Is it any wonder that the Coloured people have now publicly declared that, as far as the Coloured people are concerned, this final act of vitiating the Coloured vote has made them realize that they cannot in future rely on anything said to them by the Government. They have said this publicly. They publicly assert that they will not accept any assurances at all from this Government. They treat, with the same contempt which the Government meted out to them, the assurances given to them by the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs when he opened the first session of the Council. On that occasion the hon. the Minister told the Council, and I quote—

The hon. the Minister went on and referred to the public criticism and to the agitation against the appointment of members to the Council in the face of the election results. He proceeded and said the following—

Coloured leaders immediately publicly challenged the hon. the Minister to state which democratic countries, with the exception perhaps of Russia and now Lesotho, would have packed a representative council in defiance of the overwhelming vote of the electorate. They asked him which democratic country would vitiate an election result in the way the Government vitiated the results of the Coloured election. The hon. the Minister then went on to tell our Coloured citizens, and I quote—

He quickly however added this very important condition—

I am sorry that the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs is not here but I wonder whether he realizes that our Coloured citizens have not forgotten the assurances he gave them at the time he asked Parliament to pass legislation necessary for the establishment of this Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. He then referred almost contemptuously to the old Coloured Advisory Council which we had in this country many years ago. He went on to assure the House—and I quote his words—“that the Government would not perpetuate that type of body” which according to the Minister had never received the goodwill of our Coloured people. The Government has done precisely what the Minister said they would not. They have brought into being a council which the Coloured people will not respect, which they do not respect now and will not respect in future, and which can only suffer the same fate as the old Council.

How many Coloured people do not respect the council?

The vast majority. They returned 26 members. In the election 26 seats were won by opposition parties. Through the manoeuvre of the Government they find themselves in a minority position. [Interjection.]

Order! The hon. member must proceed with his speech.

It is perhaps appropriate that we should record to-day some of the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs own words at the time we were debating the establishment of this new Council. I quote from column 2933 where he says—

He went on to say that for the first time in our history the Coloureds of South Africa are being granted political authority. In column 2934 the hon. the Minister has this to say—

And they did. This is how they have been treated. Unless they fall in line with Government policy they are out. In reply to the second-reading debate on the 30th April, the hon. the Minister had the following to say in column 4379—

These flowery words were used by the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs who was the leading spokesman of the Government during this debate. I should like to tell the hon. the Prime Minister and this Government that by this ill-considered action they have succeeded in binding the Coloureds of this country into one unit. This is true. But it is not the type of unit which the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs had in mind when he spoke of giving them unity which is the root of nationhood. The unity which has been brought about is better expressed in the words of Mr. M. D. Arendse, the Leader of the Coloured Labour Party, when he addressed a crowded and enthusiastic meeting in the Woodstock town hall to protest against the Government’s packing of the Council with their nominees who had been rejected at the polls by the Coloured voters. At this mass meeting which was an enormously attended one, the leader declared that the Government had deprived the Coloured people of their political rights and went on to say this. I am quoting from his words as reported in our local Press—

This is the unity, Mr. Speaker, which the Government has succeeded in bringing about. It is a solid unification of Coloured opinion against Government policy. It is a solid determination, except for a handful of the majority who sit on this council. There is a solid determination by the Coloured people not willingly to allow this unsatisfactory state of affairs to continue. I want to remind the House of what the leader of the Labour Party said at that meeting when he summed up the Coloured attitude. He said—

This, Sir, is the unity which the Government’s action has brought about in so far as the Coloured people are concerned. The Coloured people are now unified in a determination to accept this new Council as a temporary expedient under the utmost duress, as said by the leader of the Labour Party. They no longer regard it in the hon. the Minister’s words as their plateau from where they can see a new future. They no longer regard it as that.

Mr. Speaker, when I supported the measure for the establishment of this Coloured Persons Representative Council last year, I did so and many on this side of the House—with the exception of course of the hon. member for Houghton—because of the Government’s assurances and because the measure appeared to be a positive step to improve the image of the then existing council. I personally accepted the assurances given by the Government that it was their intention to elevate the old council into a truly democratic body, representative of the solid opinion of our Coloured citizens. I thought that this new council may well become a vital stepping stone and a responsible channel to our Coloured people finding a solution to the problems of coexistence which at present seemed to confound our Prime Minister and his Government. We all remember the very frank declaration made by the hon. the Prime Minister that the Coloured people of South Africa constitute a problem which our children must solve. Those were his words. I honestly thought that this new Coloured Persons Representative Council as originally envisaged and as set out by the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs, might well be the channel through which future generations may find a satisfactory solution to the problems which has confounded the Government. I am afraid, however, that these hopes have now been shattered because of the Government’s own stupid action. The Government is solely responsible for this council losing the goodwill and the esteem, not only of our Coloured citizens, but also of many of our Whites. What hope can there now be of this council as presently constituted helping to solve the legacy which our Prime Minister has left to future generations. The Government has been responsible for reducing the council to a worthless and meaningless sham in which the Coloured people have really no powers of self-government. Surely the Government must realize that if it wishes to persuade the Coloured people to accept and follow Government policy of apartheid it must allow the Coloured Representative Council to function as truly representative of Coloured opinion. The Government cannot achieve this by bludgeoning the Coloured people to accept a council consisting of a majority which has been rejected by the Coloured voters. The Coloured people now realize that the Government has frustrated the clearly expressed wishes of the Coloured electorate. Through this manoeuvre the Government has brought about a situation where the majority of the members returned to this council now find themselves as a minority party in opposition.

The Coloured people now have no alternative, as Mr. Arendse has pointed out, but to use this Council, temporarily at least, as a platform to clamour and press for the restoration of their fundamental political rights to which they are entitled as patriotic citizens of South Africa. I can only hope that this Government will soon come to its senses and will realize that our Coloured people have a just cause to be included as an integral part of the South African nation. I hope that the Government realizes that our Coloured people will not be prepared to continue being relegated to the status of second-class citizens in their own country. This is what this Government is doing at the moment. They will not willingly continue to tolerate the political and economic discrimination which is being inflicted upon them as at present. They will continue to strive for the restoration of their rights of Parliamentary representation by their own elected representatives. The sooner this Government makes this human and fundamental concession to our Coloured citizens, the sooner we will have racial peace in our country.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me for being unable to follow up what he has said, except for one statement I should like to make. Throughout the administration of the National Party Government we have been placing the Coloured people of the Republic of South Africa to the best of our ability on the road which lead them to developing into a proud people in the future. Everything the Government has done, has been positive and in the interests of these people. They no longer are the political football they used to be in the days of the United Party Government.

The political conflict in South Africa is concerned with important issues. This conflict concerns the destination of the various peoples, the various population groups in South Africa. World opinion and international thought aim at a process of levelling at all costs. The National Party moves away from this idea. The National Party is a counter to this idea, because the National Party’s policy is conservative and wants to ensure that each population group retains its own identity. This Government wants to ensure that each population group, and pre-eminently the white population group of South Africa, retains its own identity. By these means the future of each population group in South Africa is being protected, and the future of the Whites as well as every other population group in the country is being ensured for the future. Above all, this is also the key to the continued existence of the Whites in South Africa. We as Whites want to live, but we also want to let others live on this southernmost tip of the continent of Africa. In this is to be found the major difference between us on the one hand and the United Party and the Progressive Party on the other hand. The United Party and the Progressive Party should be placed in the same category for all practical purposes. The policy of the Progressive Party advocates immediate equality. The United Party, on the other hand, does not say to-day as the Progressive Party does, but it does say tomorrow. There is no doubt as to where the electorate of South Africa stands. Since 26th May, 1948, the voters have been giving their support to the National Party to an increasing extent. Once can understand that; it is realistic and it is logical. It is, indeed, self-evident. It shows the will to live and it also shows the will to let live. In this process the United Party, once a mighty party, has been declining into an insignificant, ludicrous party. Now, with a view to the election; the United Party has to try to remedy its image in the eyes of the electorate. They have to make an attempt to remedy their image in order to make it acceptable, and with an eye on the election they are trying to do something about that image of theirs. In the first instance they are trying to make the electorate believe that the National Party is adopting their policy, but the fact of the matter is the following: Will a Government such as the National Party Government accept a policy which has caused the United Party to decline into such a ludicrous little party? Why should we accept such a policy? The fact of the matter is that there are cases where the United Party has been moving closer and closer to the policy of the National Party in an attempt to improve their image in the eyes of the electorate of South Africa. I want to read quotations to you. I have in front of me a cutting from The Argus of 27th January, 1970, i.e. last week. Here on the one side are two letters. On the one side one reads—

But, Sir, listen to what one reads on the opposite side. It is also a letter in the same newspaper—

Sir, need I give any comment? That is the United Party in its true colours, a party that is trying to adopt the National Party policy and is trying to move closer to the National Party’s policy. That are also trying to undergo a rejuvenating cure. The candidates of the once democratic party, the party which fought for the freedom of the individual, for the freedom of speech at all costs, are now being appointed from above in many cases. They have become dictatorial. The hon. members for Durban (Central) and Kensington can testify to that, and that in an attempt to undergo a rejuvenating cure. The voice of its members no longer has any value. But in the third place they are following the dictates of the American election authorities, and what are the dictates of those people? Disparage the leaders of your opponents. Sir, what a task! They tried to do it in the days of a D. F. Malan. They tried to do it in the days of a J. G. Strydom; they tried to do it in the days of an H. F. Verwoerd and again they are trying to do so in respect of an Adv. B. J. Vorster, and I say to them: What a task you have to try to disparage a person like him, to try to disparage such a strong personality, a person who will not let himself be swayed to the left or the right because he stands firmly on the National principles in the interests of white South Africa and of the various non-White population groups of South Africa.

In the fourth place the United Party is trying to hold up an optimistic image to the electorate in this election. They are trying to create an optimistic picture of faith and confidence in the future, and they are doing so with an eye on 22nd April, but the optimism of the United Party does not arise from the possibilities which its policy holds for it on 22nd April; it is based solely on the hope that the Hertzog group will do so much harm to the National Party that that will benefit the United Party. That is their only hope; that is the only optimism which there is in the ranks of the United Party. And now I want to say the following to the hon. members of the Hertzog group: That is the optimism with which they infuse and inspire the arch-enemy of the National Party and the arch-enemy of the white man in South Africa. That is the function they fulfil. Sir, the Hertzog group is doing that on purpose. In fact, the hon. member for Innesdal said that seats would be contested irrespective of whether that would benefit the United Party. Sir, one thing I cannot understand is that one could have grown up in the National Party and could have devoted one’s best energies to the National Party all these years, and can then, overnight, come along and turn on the Party one has been serving throughout the years, the Party that has created a future for one in this country. Let one of the hon. members of the Hertzog group get up here and let him prove that they are going to contest one seat in the Republic of South Africa with the object of gaining it from the United Party. There is not one single one. Their struggle is aimed at fellow Nationalists of the past. That is what their struggle is aimed at in order to benefit the United Party on purpose, because they know that they themselves cannot win one single seat.

They are allies.

Mr. Speaker, what are the facts; what is the tragedy of this? The tragedy of this is that there was not one fundamental difference between the Hertzog group and the National Party at the moment when they left the Party. This breakaway of the Hertzog group is based on personal frustration.

Now you are talking nonsense.

The hon. member for Wonderboom shouts, “That is nonsense”, but he had a personal feud against personalities in the National Party. The hon. member for Worcester had a personal feud against personalities in the National Party.

Name them.

The hon. member for Ermelo had a feud against the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. member for Innesdal had a feud against Jaap Marais; against his own person. Sir, in order to be able to justify their breakaway in the outside world, in order to prevent an admission that they left the National Party because of personal grievances and frustration, they had to arouse sympathy in one way or another, and artificial principles were then put to the public outside. Artificial principles had to be put forward in an attempt to gain sympathy. To-day I say clearly and plainly: The National Party to-day is still what it used to be when the hon. member for Ermelo was a member of the Cabinet.

In this process the Hertzog group has committed two unpardonable deeds. In the first place they have laid their hands on National Party unity. The National Party is not merely a political instrument for a party. National Party unity is built on white unity in the Republic of South Africa. They are the people who have laid their hands on this National Party unity which means so much for this country and for the continued existence of the white man in South Africa, and which also means so much when it comes to our people standing side by side against the outside world. They are the people who have laid both hands on that unity. I say, Sir, that that is unpardonable.

But there is a second reason why what they did is unpardonable. I want to admit at once that this matter might be irrelevant here. Perhaps I should not say it here, but I think that it is significant, because it does in fact reflect what the hon. members of the Hertzog group are prepared to do in order to satisfy their personal interests and they personal frustrations which drove them from the party. In mentioning this matter, I am just pointing out that a drowning person will drag everything with him into the deep waters. Newspapers announced that some of their top men belonged to confidential Afrikaans organizations such as the Afrikaner-Broederbond. Some of them had no hesitation about channelizing to The Sunday Times what had taken place in these confidential organizations. If one belongs to a confidential organization, whether one likes the organization or not, and whether one is a member of the organization or not, and fraternises with others in that organization and then leaves the organization for one’s own political purposes, leaving that organization in the lurch, and then delivers it up to a newspaper such as The Sunday Times, then I say that is unpardonable. Then I say: One does not do that. Then I say: It is not honourable to act in that way. The question arises to what extent one can carry of f a prize for that. I am convinced of the fact that even their best friends and their best supporters cannot gloss over this action, because one cannot gloss over something like that, even if one wants to do so. Sir, this clearly illustrates to friend and foe what they are prepared to do. Even if one wants to agree with a great deal of what they say, one may not and cannot justify such behaviour under any circumstances. One cannot forgive that.

But, Sir, that is not all. Last year we were told that the Hertzog group would put up 125 candidates for the election. The date of announcement was postponed from time to time. Eventually we heard that 42 candidates had been designated. Subsequently a few more were added. The point I want to make is how did the Hertzog group go about getting their candidates? In Natal I know of at least three Nationalists, registered members of the National Party, who were approached by the Hertzog group to be candidates for them. Sir, surely that is something unheard of. just imagine the National Party asking Vause Raw to stand as a candidate for it! [Interjections.] Imagine a party which claims that it has a case in this country, in South Africa, going to another party in order to find itself some candidates. I say that it is something unheard of. Even the hon. member for Durban (Point) admits that it is something unheard of. It is simply not done, unless there is some hidden motive for doing so. Now I am going to mention three names. Mr. Jurie Mentz of the Vryheid constituency, who is a National Party candidate in this year’s Provincial election, was informed that the executive of the Hertzog group had decided unanimously to ask him to be their candidate in the Parliamentary election. Just imagine, Sir, would a proud party have been able to do such a thing? In my constituency Mr. Freddie Bondesio was approached. He was telephoned three times. He is a member of the executive of the National Party. He was telephoned by the Hertzog group and was asked to stand as a candidate in any constituency in Northern Natal.

Have you been asked? [Interjection.]

Klip River was included as a constituency for him. Then there is Mr. Haupt. Mr. Haupt opposed Mr. Harry Lewis in a nomination struggle in Umlazi. Mr. Lewis was successful in obtaining the nomination. Then the Hertzog group thought: “Here we have someone. Here we have the victim. This man would like to be a candidate. Let us approach him”. Thereupon they approached him. Kalie Haupt, although I shall agree that he, like any other person, probably was disappointed because he had lost the nomination, sent this telegram to the Hertzog group (translation):

Now I come to Mr. Heydenrych. Mr. Ben Heydenrych is the man who is going to stand for the Hertzog group in Klip River. On two occasions during the past month this gentleman made statements in the Sunday Tribune. On those two occasions he said that he was beginning to feel that he was becoming partial to the Hertzog group. He felt attracted to them. On two occasions the Nataller telephoned him and asked him whether it was true that he had made those statements. Each time he denied those reports and said that he did not have such leanings and that he did not want to go over to them. On 16th January he had an interview with me personally in the presence of Mr. C. C. L. Klopper, the M.P.C.

[Inaudible.]

We are dealing with major issues, and if the hon. member for Durban (Point) would like to hear standard 1 stories, then that is where he may safely take himself, but I know that he is sitting with them in the United Party. On the same day Mr. Heydenrych wrote the following document (translation):

That was on 16th January, 1970. On 23rd January, 1970, he was designated the H.N.P. candidate for Klip River. What happened between 16th January and 23rd January, Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you. I cannot tell you what happened there. At this stage I just want to say this: The undertaking one gives under one’s signature must mean something, even in politics. However, he and I will have that out in Klip River, and I want to say that I am looking forward to that. I understand that this same Mr. Heydenrych told newspapers that as long ago as 1967 he had warned against the way which the National Party was heading under the hon. Mr. Vorster. This gentleman applied for membership of the National Party for the first time on 13th October, 1969, and shortly afterwards was a prospective candidate for the election. But subsequently he stood down and did not make himself available for election. Someone else took his place, and he then fell prey to the Hertzog group.

But I have not finished yet. I now come to the hon. gentleman, Dr. Theunis Stoffberg. Dr. Theunis Stoffberg resides in the constituency of Vryheid. He was suspended from the National Party early last year. Mr. Bondesio was told that he could select for himself any constituency in Northern Natal. In other words, the Hertzog group is looking for candidates for Northern Natal, but they take Dr. Stoffberg from Northern Natal and they send him to Germiston District. I cannot understand why he was taken from Northern Natal, where they are in fact looking for candidates, and why they sent him to Germiston District. Let us look at what this faithful Hertzog man says. In the Sunday Tribune of 28th December, 1969, under the heading “Vryheid verkrampte wants to hurt the Government” he said: “I will vote for the United Party.” The report continued as follows—

Mr. Speaker, there you have the alliance; there you have the co-operation. I want to conclude by saying that this petty gossip may not and cannot impress the people of South Africa. The struggle is too much concerned with major issues. The struggle is concerned with profound things. We know that the people of South Africa will give their support to the National Party with its leader, the hon. B. J. Vorster, on 22nd April in order to entrust this strong man, a man one can trust day and night, with the interests of South Africa in an international world with international problems. That will give us assured rest, because after 22nd April we shall know that our security is in good hands once again.

Mr. Speaker, this is the 21st year of Nationalist rule in this country and one would think that after 21 years they would have some celebration. I looked this afternoon at the happening which was taking place here and it was really pathetic to see how this once proud Nationalist Party has dwindled into two groups of fighting cocks. I listened to the debate for just a few minutes as I could not really be bothered about what the hon. member for Vryheid was saying. He bored us for half an hour. That a man who was recently labelled as a verkrampte should now become almost a liberal, makes me think that there must be a carrot hanging somewhere. That is the kind of thing we are getting here in a serious debate.

Order! What does the hon. member mean by “a carrot hanging somewhere”? Where is the carrot hanging?

Mr. Speaker, you have probably seen a donkey that goes along with a carrot hanging in front of him.

I know what the implication of that statement is. Will the hon. member please withdraw it?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw it. There must however be some sort of temptation before him to make him adopt this attitude.

There has been a lot of talk to-day which has tended to divert this discussion from the plight of the man in the street. I want to come back to this man who after 21 years is a little fed up with this Government. He wants to see a change and is going to get a change.

If I read this statement correctly the hon. the Prime Minister gave this as one of his reasons for holding this election, namely to show the world that he has a stable Government. If after this election the Government loses 10 or 12 seats, is it a stable government? What is he going to do about that? We would like to know about that. Would he then be prepared to call another election? As I have said, the man in the street is getting a little fed up with the reckless and bad management of this Government. This is a government that is governing with blinkers on. It is not looking at the man in the street. When this Government came into power 21 years ago, they shouted: “Witbrood en skaapvleis.” That was the last time they had contact with the man in the street. He has had to pay a lot for this New Zealand mutton. Let us see what they have been doing for him. Let us have a look around. Let us see where these millions and millions of rand that they collected from the taxpayer have gone.

Let us go to the worker. The worker has an unemployment insurance fund. He has been paying into this fund year after year. This fund is growing very, very rapidly. At the moment the public debt commissioner has taken from this fund R133 million and he is investing it. The fund itself has R141 million. A total of R274 million. I want to know what the Government is doing for the worker who is unemployed now. Why do they not give him a cut out of that? What is he getting out of it. The Government is getting a share out of it. It is getting plenty out of these investments, but the worker is getting nothing. We were told some time ago that, in case there should be a wave of unemployment in this country, they will have money to pay the worker. What are the figures? We know quite well that there is a shortage of workers right through the country in every trade and occupation. What chances are there of a state of unemployment in this country? The figures I received from the department show that as far as white males are concerned, only .2 per cent of the workers are unemployed. Only .6 per cent of the females are unemployed. The total number of both brings it to .3 per cent unemployed. The Minister of Labour took away the grants that were coming to the woman who is going to have a baby. He took away the maternity grant. He has never restored it to them again, but he has these millions of rand in the coffers which the worker has paid.

The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development was very proud to-day when he told us how many Bantu were working in the border industries. How much does it cost to employ a Bantu there? It has been estimated that it costs R8,000 to establish a Bantu in an industry. [Interjections.] That figure has never been denied.

And in the white areas?

Is the hon. the Deputy Minister prepared to accept the figure of R8,000?

No, I am not.

Would he accept the figure of R5,000?

No.

He would not accept any figure. It does not cost anything! Can hon. members imagine the amount of good that could be done if those sums which are being spent recklessly and poured down this bottomless pit of apartheid, had gone to black, coloured and white students at universities? Can hon. members imagine what the standard of education in this country would be to-day? What do they have to show for these millions that have been spent quite recklessly and in some places wasted by the Minister’s department. I remember very well the Auditor-General’s report of the wastages that took place in that department.

Why do you not go and see for yourself?

I went there to see for myself, and I was shocked to see houses being built on clay that had cracked and could not be occupied. Did the hon. the Minister see those? Did he see the poorness of the preparation beforehand? Did he see the tons of zinc that was lying there and rusting? Did he see the sand that was blown away? Did he see the bricks that have been broken? And the hon. the Minister says that I should have gone there to see for myself. I went there to see and I was shocked.

Nothing of the sort.

That is the way this Government rules. That is the way our money has been recklessly spent. But let us just leave it there for a moment and look at some of the other things that are happening here. The cost of living is going up. The salary man’s wages have been fixed. The artisan has to work overtime to keep pace with the rising costs. Is that what we should have in this country? I have a letter here which I received from a railway worker’s wife who says that her husband has to work overtime. He is forced to work overtime, apparently, and he earns more in overtime than what his basic salary comes to. That is what is happening. The hon. the Minister of Labour told us yesterday that there was no shortage of manpower in this country. Yet this sort of thing is happening here. It is happening in the Railways and all over the country.

Let us see what the hon. the Minister of Community Development is doing about housing. Yesterday we had from the hon. member for Green Point an excellent survey of the difficulties that especially the young married people are having when they look for a home or want to buy a home. But there are other difficulties to-day. If one wants to buy a house of, say, to the value of R12,000—and goodness knows what sort of house one gets to-day for R12,000—one has to obtain a loan, if you are a working man, of R10,000. That is the minimum. That excludes the costs which the hon. member explained to us yesterday. The interest on that loan is 8 per cent to 9 per cent. The repayment must be R80 per month, but 25 per cent of the borrower’s salary is the biggest amount that he can pay off on the bond. If one considers the figures, one will find that, to buy a house for R12,000, the purchaser must be in a position to state that he earns R4,000 per year. The price of ground has risen. There have been no restrictions on that. Speculation is rife. But what is even worse—the speculators are allowed to sell the ground before the house can be built on it. Nothing has been done about it. The people who buy the ground have to pay interest. If perchance the piece of ground on which a house is envisaged is not passed for development, the person who pays for the piece of ground can only demand his money back and does not get back the interest that he has paid. He does not get back the interest on the amount of money he has paid for the land if that land is not allowed to be developed by the local authority or by the provincial council. It has to be proclaimed. Surely, the purchaser should not be allowed to buy ground before it is proclaimed. We have to make sure that this person is protected. If he happens now to have bought ground, he should be entitled to receive his money back if that land is not proclaimed, [Interjections] and of course he must get his interest back. We on this side of the House have pleaded for home ownership of flats. Nothing is being done about it at the moment. Why should a young couple not be able to buy a flat if they are waiting to get a house and cannot get one? And let them be allowed to sell the flat when they are able to buy a house. They are not allowed to do that. They have to hire a flat. They have to pay rent for the flat. They have to pay the block of flats off for the owner, but they must not own a part of it. We want to see those things changed.

Now let me say a word or two about the pensioner. Every now and again the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions throws some extra money to the pensioner. He says: “Have a good time. There is an extra rand for you.”

Is that the way to determine what a pension should be for an elderly person? Is that the way to fix a pension for a man who reaches 65? It would not take more than a day to find out what the minimum cost to live on is. I can help the hon. the Minister as I have the figures before me. I worked out for myself how much a person has to pay for rent, lights and water, heating, eggs, bread, butter, cheese and other bare necessities. I can tell the hon. the Minister that it works out at R42 without taking such expenses as clothes, repairs and laundry and money for cigarettes, alcohol and entertainment into consideration. The bare minimum works out at R42 and the hon. the Minister only gives them R33. What happens to these people? They just have to go without some essential things. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to reconsider the position and to work out how much it costs a pensioner to live. A pensioner cannot belong to a medical aid scheme, because he does not have the money to pay the required fees. He either has to go to a hospital or some arrangement must be made for him to be treated free at his home. It is one of the great difficulties pensioners have to face. Firstly I want to ask the hon. the Minister to provide pensioners with a sufficient pension. Secondly we on this side say that the thrifty shall not be penalized and that we must do away with the means test. To do that we should have a contributory pension scheme. My Leader has repeated this in the House over and over again and we are pleading for it again. We say that the man in the street is entitled to it and if we get into power we will see to it that he gets it quickly. This is not just a pre-election promise. We have been pleading for it for years.

For all races?

Yes, of course, all races. If they are working let them be entitled to a pension. The Government is always afraid of the black man. Why must these people be deprived of such an opportunity? If he contributes, surely he is entitled to get something back for it. I want to know what objection the hon. the Deputy Minister has to giving a Bantu or a Coloured man a pension if he contributes towards a pension scheme. He is not giving him something for nothing, because the man is taking his own money and paying for it.

Following on this I want to say a word or two in connection with medical aid schemes. In 1962 I first attempted to introduce into this House a private Bill and later I introduced a private member’s motion asking the Government to start a State-aided national medical aid scheme. Not a scheme run by the State or a State nationalized scheme, but a medical aid scheme supported by the State, supported by the employer and supported by the employee.

One scheme?

Yes, one scheme, to which the public are able to subscribe. Today there are more than 300 medical aid schemes in South Africa. Besides the people belonging to these schemes there are thousands upon thousands of people that have no opportunity of joining a medical aid scheme. It is these people we have to see to. There are thousands upon thousands of people who belong to medical aid schemes as a condition of employment, but there are also thousands upon thousands of people who want to join a medical aid scheme but who have not the money to contribute towards such a scheme. What is happening at the moment is quite distressing. If what I have read in the newspapers is correct, although there has been an increase in doctors’ fees, and these increases vary from 15 to 27 per cent, there are still a lot of doctors who are apparently not satisfied. This rise in doctors’ fees is only going to be valid for two years. In 1962 we could have started a first-class medical aid scheme for R8 per month and that would virtually have given a 100 per cent coverage. To-day the same coverage will cost R16 per month. People will have to pay R16 per month or otherwise these schemes will go bankrupt. Doctors are justified in asking for a rise in salaries and I want to plead with my colleagues to accept this rise and to see how it works. What I fear is that the gap between the medical aid schemes and private fees is going to be widened again. If that happens we are going to find that a person who does not belong to a medical aid scheme will be virtually unable to pay for medical attention. This will immediately throw a further burden on the hospitals. Even to-day hospitals cannot cope because they do not have enough nurses and there are not enough doctors in the wards. There are wards that are closed because of shortages of staff. If we are going to throw a further burden on these hospitals I do not know where these people are going to get adequate treatment. The hospitals will not be able to accommodate them.

The burden will only be in the out-patients section.

The burden will be somewhere along the medical line of treatment. We therefore plead with the hon. the Minister to start a contributing medical aid scheme now that will be open to all people throughout the Republic. The then hon. Minister of Health, Dr. Hertzog, rejected my proposals for a scheme because he said it would cost too much because Bantu as well as Whites would have to be included. That was the excuse he gave. He said he was sympathetic, but because Bantu had to be brought into it he rejected it. but I want to remind the House that Bantu are receiving good treatment today in our hospitals for which they do not pay at all. Those people among the Bantu who are able to pay towards a contributory medical aid scheme will relieve the hospitals immediately.

One of the services that makes medical treatment almost prohibitive is the cost of nursing home accommodation. I have here an account from a nursing home dated 2nd January, 1970. I want the hon. the Minister to listen very carefully to what I am about to say. It is very important as a lot of money is diverted from our medical aid schemes into this channel. This patient I refer to was in a nursing home for nine days. His nursing home account for the nine days came to R112. While he was there the patient made use of the theatre and he was charged R34 for an hour in the theatre. He paid the anaesthetist a separate fee for the anaesthetic, but was still charged R20 for the material that was used for the anaesthetic. Therefore, that amounted to R60. What medicine he received while he was under the anaesthetic, I do not know, but they charged him 88c for it. But then they had to clean the theatre and had to use disinfectants. They charged the patient R6,ll for disinfectants for cleaning the theatre after the operation. Can hon. members imagine charging R34 for the use of the theatre and, after all these extra charges, presenting this man with a bill, which he had to pay before leaving the nursing home, of R211,44 for nine days’ treatment. On top of that he has to pay the doctor’s fees too.

He went back suffering from shock.

You are quite right. How did you know? The hon. member says he went back suffering from shock when he received the account. I did not know that the hon. member knew this patient. This is what the man in the street has to pay. He cannot pay any longer. It is fortunate that this particular man was able to pay. But the ordinary man in the street still has to pay this account if he is taken in for treatment. The Minister knows what is happening. I plead with the hon. the Minister to tell us what he will do about it because we cannot carry on like this.

Your example is not true.

The hon. the Minister of Defence could not worry about this state of affairs.

The example you are quoting is not reflecting the truth. Those who cannot pay are met by the authorities

Mr. Speaker, I am willing to sit down for a moment if the hon. the Minister of Defence would just tell us why the example I have given does not reflect the truth. [Interjections.] I should like to know from the hon. the Minister of Defence what he knows about medicine and medical costs. I want to know how many times he has been into his own hospitals. I now want to compare the hon. the Minister’s knowledge to the knowledge of the hon. the Minister of Health. I do not think that we should even worry about the hon. the Minister of Defence’s views. When the hon. the Minister gets an opportunity he must tell this House how much it costs to treat a soldier in one of his hospitals. As a matter of fact I think I will put the question on the Order Paper. He does not know it. However, I will find out. I shall find out what it costs to treat a soldier in the general ward with all the facilities available. Mr. Speaker, I should like to know from the hon. the Minister of Health whether he thinks this is an exaggerated account. He must only say yes or no. If he says he does not know and if he would like to study the account I would give it to him.

I should like to return to the contributory medical aid scheme, which I think we must institute as soon as possible. What will this cost the Government? It will only cost the Government at most a third of the total costs because the contributions will come from three sources, namely from the State, the employer and from the employee. There is the exceptional condition in which a man who is a self-employed individual would have to find help as well. I think in those cases we would have to work out a formula so that such people can be included in these schemes. The nursing homes and the hospitals have to be controlled properly so that their charges can be met. The charges of nursing homes are skyrocketing. They are out of all proportion to the treatment that the patient receives especially because of the charges for the use of the operating theatre. But to-day it is almost impossible for a medical case to be admitted to a nursing home. They prefer surgical cases because they make so much out of it. If we could have a medical aid scheme whereby all types of illness can be treated we can use our provincial hospitals and our Government hospitals. The demands on the nursing homes will not be so great. The charges will obviously have to come down. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. the Leader of the Opposition launched an attack on the Prime Minister. He said that he was fighting this election solely in order to settle a difference with a new party. According to the Leader of the Opposition this is the only reason why the Prime Minister wants to fight this election. But it is surely the Prime Minister’s prerogative to choose the best time for going to the polls, the best time as far as the Opposition is concerned as well. Listening to the debate thus far, it has become clear to me that the Opposition has reached a low ebb. That is precisely an additional reason why the Prime Minister chose this time to fight a general election. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said that he was not going to interfere with this new party and that they should go their own way. But it is clear that he sees in them a very great ally, because the Press reported him as follows—

We can well understand why he supports this party. He sees here an opportunity of winning so many votes that a possible new coalition party could be formed between the Leader of the Opposition and Dr. Hertzog. That is why he is trying to support them. It is clear that the Opposition is at a low ebb at this stage. I say that they are at a low ebb because even their own Press states that they have reached a low ebb in respect of finances, and so on. Their own Press does not have faith in them. The following item about them appeared in the Press—

That is what their own Press is writing about them. It is therefore clear that they are experiencing problems, but that is not all. We find that among their own members there is a difference in approach. It is an approach about which even the Press is urging them to gain clarity. So we find one of their own newspapers writing recently …

It is untrue. We have no newspaper.

One of the newspapers which supports them … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Durban (Point) may not carry on like that.

On the eve of their recent congress at Bloemfontein one of the Sunday newspapers, which strongly supports the United Party policy, urged them on and told them to obtain clarity about this matter. In the leader the editor wrote the following—

Who wrote that?

The editor of the Sunday Times.

What is the date?

This was on the eve of your party congress, namely the 12th October, 1969. Now we find that at that same congress additional explanations of this matter were furnished. They subsequently received a reply. There was quite a bit of confusion about it. One of the other Johannesburg afternoon newspapers said that it was high time for clarification and that they should tell their voters what they mean by federation. I quote—

You therefore see that even the Press which strongly supports them has no clarity on this matter. But it is not only the Press which, on the eve of the election, entertains doubts about what they are wanting to dish up to the people. We find the same thing at their own congresses. From a Bloemfontein report on their latest congress I quote the following from one of the English newspapers—

But then Mr. Hughes came to their assistance. I quote—

[Inaudible.]

I can quite understand why the hon. member for Durban (Point) is now beginning to feel uncomfortable. Here the hon. member for Transkei stood up and said that we were not doing enough for the Bantustans. But when they reach the platteland he is one of those who says that the National Party is doing too much for the Bantustans and the blacks. We know that political strategy of theirs. Even within their own ranks there is the greatest degree of uncertainty as far as this policy of theirs is concerned. That is the policy upon which they want to fight. That is the answer they want to give to our policy of separate development. But just listen to what even a candidate of theirs has to say—

But now, their policy is “white leadership”, not so? Now he says the following—

You therefore find a candidate of theirs saying that if “White baasskap” is the same as “White leadership” he is satisfied with that. This indicates to you the uncertainty that exists even in their own ranks. The fact remains that these are the things they will have to answer to. They do not have an answer for them.

Reference was made here to the position of the Coloureds. They claim that the position of the Coloureds is a very simple one. They attacked the hon. the Minister of Labour and of Coloured Affairs on his policy which he is developing and evolving. They have only one policy and that is to have the Coloureds represented here in the white parliament. But what is their answer contained in this booklet which the hon. member for Durban (Point) has just sent across to me, entitled “You want it, we have it”? What is their answer in regard to the Coloureds? On page 17 of this booklet I quote the following (translation)—

That is their policy. That is what they have to say about this important relationship between Coloureds and Whites. It is so simple that it can be solved by a government with sound common sense. But now they go further and say that these people who must have representation in the white parliament must have six M.P.s and two Senators, who may be either Whites or Coloureds.

Is that all we said?

That is all you said. You also said there should be eight M.P.s and six Senators for the Bantu; two M.P.S and one Senator for the Indians, i.e. 16 M.P.s and nine Senators. In addition it is said that this system shall not be changed unless a special referendum or a special election is held by the Whites. It is also said, inter alia, that white leadership is guaranteed in an undivided South Africa. But this is precisely where the crux of the problem lies. Even this special election which the Whites must hold is no guarantee that the majority of white votes would prove decisive. If they call a special election and there is a majority of 15 Whites in favour of this representation not being extended, the minority could vote with the 16 representatives in the House of Assembly and then the franchise could be extended in spite of the fact that in the special election a majority of 15 white representatives voted against extension. That is the guarantee they give. However, it contains no guarantee. Therefore, even if there is a majority of Whites during a special election and even if they are strongly supported, the position is that when the 16 non-white representatives enter the House of Assembly, not the White majority vote but, in fact, a minority vote, will be carried through. That is the position which will develop. That is the guarantee they want to give. With that guarantee they want to go and tight an election. It is a farce that they are coming forward with. Even the White majority vote in this very important matter of representation in this House of Assembly and of extension of the franchise, will not prove decisive. They may say that this will not easily happen, but we know what happened. We know that those 16 representatives could, in such a case, and also in other cases, decide which party will be in power. They could be the decisive party. Our history has proved to us to what extent use was made of the non-White vote when it could perhaps keep a governing party in power or when it could bring that party to power. We know this from our history. That struggle did not bring White unity. It brought White disunity. This booklet contains the clear entrenchment that when that party comes into Office, and the extension of the voting right of the non-Whites in South Africa is at issue, the will of a majority of Whites in Parliament will not be capable of being carried through. This is what the struggle will also be about, because this is the basic difference between that side and this side of the House.

But, Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also referred to our policy of the development of border areas. He referred scornfully to this policy and said that a great many more people would have to be employed in our border areas if we wanted the policy to be a success. On Friday, I laid the latest reports of the Permanent Committee for the Location of Industry upon the Table. In certain respects this report is quite revealing. It indicates to what extent this policy, which was commenced ten years ago, has slowly but surely become firmly established and how this assistance which we are at present rendering the border areas, together with the Physical Planning Act, which is administered by my colleague, the Minister of Planning, his department and other departments, is gaining greater momentum. It will be noted from this report that where 100,500 people, Whites and non-Whites, were active in the border areas last year, it represents an increase of more than 31,000 workers of whom 27,000 are non-Whites. This increase took place in a single year. This process is still taking shape. We are therefore achieving success. As a result of this policy there is not merely a great concentration of industries in the metropolitan areas, but they are distributed over the country and other areas, which are distributed equally throughout our country, are deriving benefit from this. The hon. member referred to the costs involved. It is easy to say that the costs now amount to R6,000, but costs cannot be calculated before a place has its full complement. When a new estate is laid out on the slopes of Tygerberg, it cannot be stated in respect of the first man who purchases a house it would cost R500,000 to supply one person with a house. That is the nature of the calculation which is being made here. What is in fact of importance is what the basic non-recoverable costs attached to it are. When we analyze the costs which cannot be recovered from the industrialist, we find the following picture. As far as South Africa is concerned, the non-recoverable costs according to this report are R343. There are other countries which are also taking steps to encourage industrial settlement. A comparison was then drawn. The same process is taking place in the United Kingdom. There new areas have been laid out. Owing to unemployment in certain areas, new areas have had to be developed. In the case of the United Kingdom the costs involved were R437. In Spain the costs were more than R2,000. In France R262 and in the Netherlands almost R800. Here in South Africa the costs are R343. There you consequently have a comparable figure. We know that the greater the complement of these places, the less the overhead costs. It is clear that this policy is taking shape and expanding. We see this also in a survey made by one of the Sunday newspapers. It appears under the title “Industrial Loans to Border Areas”. They arrive at this conclusion after a survey had been made, and I quote—

There is therefore an indication of the approach of these people. We know however that if the United Party should come into power they will not proceed with this. Here the question is stated by them in their pamphlet “You want it, we have it”—

It is therefore clear that when this party comes into power it will do away with the assistance we are rendering in border areas. It is clear that if they should come to power they would do away with the Physical Planning Act. They have already said so. Now I can inform the hon. members for East London and Pietermaritzburg that if it were not for this policy we are adopting, if it were not for this assistance we are rendering, you would not to-day have that industrial expansion and that lively economy which East London, Pietermaritzburg and other towns and cities are enjoying. We shall take cognizance of the fact that this is their policy, because their policy is to do away with it They also have a further policy. They say, and the voters will take cognizance of this, that a United Party Government will not tell them where to establish a factory, but will help them to establish it in a place where the business prospects are most favourable. They say—

That is the reply of the United Party. We have adopted a course of developing other areas and in terms of which we want to stem this influx. It is clear that we are achieving success and that we will achieve even greater success in the years which lie ahead. It is clear however that when a United Party Government comes to power, these sluice gates will be opened. I referred here to the increase of 31,0 workers. During the most recent visit by Dr. Rautenbach it became apparent that the total was far greater. I am referring only to East London. These figures are based on certain particulars. For example, three undertakings were taken as an example in this area. Wilson’s had 800 non-White labourers, but they already have 2,400. You can add a further 2,200 to this estimate. It is clear therefore that it is gaining momentum like a snowball.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred here to the maladministration of this Government. The small man is apparently not receiving his share. They referred to how much they spent during their period of government. They pointed out the size of the estimates in that time. The hon. member for Rosettenville also referred to that. However, they forget that this is a different South Africa from the one when their Government was in power. They do not realize that the gross national income in those days was only R1,700 million. Now it is almost R9,000 million. They forget that then there were only 400,000 workers in our industries, as compared with the present total of more than one million. I can mention numerous figures. When it comes to Government expenditure they want to compare the expenditure at the time with the present. Now, however, it must be taken into consideration in what way that expenditure is being utilized for the improvement of the position of the man in the street in South Africa. It is then clear that far more is being done for him than was done when that party was in power. They ask what we are doing with the R2,200 million which is being spent. We can analyze it. Direct services to the community amount to more than R725 million out of the total of R2,200 million. As far as pensions and salaries are concerned, everyone in that group is better off to-day than under the United Party régime. We know how it has increased. During the period of United Party Government old-age pensions were granted to only 66,000 persons, whereas in 1969 old-age pensions were paid to 107,000 persons. We know how the payments have increased. Care has been taken of these people. The war veterans are much better off to-day than in the days of the United Party Government. I do not want to go into this aspect any further, because there are many other colleagues who will discuss it.

My colleague has already indicated what has been done for housing. It has been stated here by the Leader of the Opposition that our public servants should receive better salaries, and that it should be a better and more effective public service. That is corect; we agree that there is in fact a shortage. We agree that all the Departments do not have a full establishment. We would like to have more, but when the hon. member for Hillbrow refers to the public service, he refers to the great increase in public servants, and adds, “We are becoming a nation of pen-pushers”. That is what he has to say about the expansions which have taken place in the public service. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition states that he wants to improve their positions by increasing their salaries. He states that we only increase salaries with a view to an election. The increase in the salaries of public servants was announced at the end of 1968 already; long before there was any mention of an election in 1970. The announcement of an election was to follow much later. The improvements which were then indicated amount to a total of R107.9 million during the course of three years. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition states that they want to link these salary increases to the increase in the cost of living, but no public servant will fall for that. If his increase in salary has to be linked to the increase in the cost of living, his increases would be far less than they in fact were under the National Party Government. He referred to the report by Dr. Enslin. I also have the report here, a report which indicates the salaries of the Public Service and the increase in the cost of living. We then see that whereas the cost of living increased to 180, according to this graph, salaries increased to 220. Thus there was a considerably more rapid increase in salaries. But we see something else on the same graph. We see that this graph crosses prior to 1948, and we see that in 1948 and in preceding years the cost of living increased much more rapidly than the salaries of the officials did. Now they are concerned about that. But here we have an example where they did not look after the public servants, and now they want to link this to the increase in the cost of living. It will definitely be a retrogressive step.

Reference was made here to railway employees, that they did not receive their share, but in 1964 improvements in the bonuses of artisans and others to the value of R11 million were granted by the Minister of Railways. In 1965, as far as Sunday time and overtime are concerned, there was an improvement of R5.4 million. In October 1965 there was a general salary increase which resulted in an additional R35 million to the railway employee, and in 1968 there was a further general increase in the salaries of railway employees, when these increased by R43 million. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated that we did not give the railway employee his due. But it is clear from this that the interests of these people were looked after and that they were taken care of.

Reference was made here to maladministration. Reference was made here to the fact that things had not gone as well with us as they should have. The hon. member for Rosettenville said that there is an economic recession, but surely the facts speak quite differently. The facts indicate that there has never been a period in the history of South Africa which we have more justification in claiming to be a period of growth and progress. We can state without reservation that all the indications are there that the same rate of development can continue, and it is not only we who say this. The general public, organized business concerns, and foreigners who come here to have a look at our economy, are all convinced that under this Government we are developing to new heights. But let us consider the past six years. After all, we will have to give an account during this coming election, and let us see how our economy has developed during the past years. Then there are certain criteria we can apply. We can ask, what happened to the general growth rate if we take our labour and the natural resources of our country into consideration? When we do that it is clear that whereas we have had an average growth rate per year of 4.3 per cent during the past five decades since Union, it was 4.2 per cent during the United Party period. In the next two decades under National Party Government it increased to an average of 5.3 per cent. During the past six years the average has been even higher, 6.2 per cent, or almost 50 per cent higher than in the days of the United Party. When we take into consideration the increase in our population, a population growth of approximately 2.3 per cent, we find that the position of every person in South Africa increased by an average of 3.7 per cent. And this development has been made possible by the expansion of our mining industry, the production of foodstuffs as well as the factories, with the greatest contribution coming from our factories. To-day we find that South Africa is not only a country which exports minerals, but in terms of that policy more and more of those minerals are being processed here and manufactured articles are being exported. For that reason South Africa competes to-day on the world market with products of the highest calibre, and our metal exports, etc., are increasing. In addition our planning also indicates that that rapid rate of increase can be maintained. It is true that we have had set-backs. In certain sectors there is a shortage of labour, but that does not apply to this year only. We have been hearing since 1963 and 1964 of a shortage of labour, but in spite of that we have had this rapid growth. When we look at the predictions for the future, it is clear that all sectors of our economy have the greatest confidence as far as the future is concerned. We look at the predictions of the Economic Bureau, which pointed out that they expect a growth this year of 10.5 per cent, and that it could be 9 per cent in the ensuing year. I can refer here to American calculations which were made, to the effect that our net domestic product will grow by 6 per cent this year. Mr. Wolff, the president of the Chamber of Mines, stated in his latest annual report, since so much is being said about the decrease in the production of gold, that our production of gold will remain constant until 1975. [Time expired.]

I am still trying to work out why the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs rose to speak at all. He has no knowledge whatsoever of the problems of the working man and I suggest that from his ivory tower he is never likely to learn of these problems. After all, when the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs wants to telephone, they build a telephone exchange for him, while the ordinary man has to wait three or four years. I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister when he last looked for a house or a flat? I believe he only came into this debate to try and draw attention away from the problems of the ordinary working man, because if he were to go to my constituency and put himself up as the champion of the ordinary working man, he would be laughed out of Durban. Since the hon. the Minister made no contribution to the issues before the country, I would like to raise two very important matters. The first one is not, strictly speaking, a contentious one or a subject for a no-confidence debate, but it is one I feel should be raised in this House at this time, and that is the country’s terrible record of road accidents.

But you say it is apartheid that causes it.

I will deal with that in a minute. One cannot blame, in all honesty, the actions of the Government in regard to the deaths on the road, but one can blame in all sincerity their lack of speedy attention to try to find a solution for this terrible record we have in South Africa. Have they sought any ways or means to alleviate this problem? For the past six months our daily Press has been full of suggestions of what can be done and what the solution might be. The tragedy is that very few suggestions are alike. Experts on all sides disagree on what the solution must be. Some have suggested stiffer penalties, and others more traffic control. Some have blamed speed, and some have said it is due to drunken driving, and others have said it is due to defective vehicles, stoplights and robots, but one thing is clear and that is that it is the duty of the State now to intervene in this matter and to launch a full-scale enquiry as a matter of urgency. This full-scale enquiry must not be, I suggest, limited to only experts, however well-intentioned they may be, but must also include people from all walks of life who are interested in this subject. We have the world’s worst road accident rate, and I suggest that the Government is guilty in this respect that it seems somehow or other to be rather proud of it. I say this because if it is not proud of it, when is it going to start doing something about it?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I am not the least bit ashamed of myself, and I will deal with the hon. the Minister in a few minutes on another subject and then he will feel very ashamed of himself. Sir, does the Government not realize that all actions taken so far have been of no effect, however well-intentioned they might have been? They cannot, in the name of humanity, carry on doing absolutely nothing about it. They are certainly quick to investigate things like bananas, potatoes and the lobster industry and to have a commission of inquiry into television, but they are not prepared to have a State inquiry into the reasons for this dreadful accident rate on our roads, an accident rate which is four times higher than that of Britain, four times higher than that of Australia and eight times higher than that of the United States of America.

Sir, some of those hon. members who passed inane remarks a moment ago may wake up when they realize that the next statistics may include a member of their own family. Heaven forbid that that should be so, but I want to warn them that 350 people died on our roads during the recent Christmas period. Can any member in this House claim that he knows of no family which has not been affected by the tragedy of road accidents? Can any member of this House claim that he does not shudder when his telephone rings late at night or when there is a knock on the door late at night? Sir, there are 500 accidents a day and I suggest that it is the duty of this Government to start looking into the matter to try to see what the solutions may be. Children are killed on their way to school or on their way from school; husbands are killed on their way to work or on their way home from work, and mothers are killed when they go shopping. A record of 6,000 dead a year is certainly nothing to be proud of. The headlines in the newspapers in the last few days give this example—

Sir, the road slaughter will just carry on because the Government keeps passing the buck backwards and forwards. We have killed more people on our roads in South Africa during the last few years than were killed during the war, and all one gets from hon. members on the other side, is that this is not their concern and one can tell from their laughter that they do not intend to make it their concern. I believe that the country should know that the Government of this country seems to be very little interested in tackling this problem. It will continue to pass the buck from one Department to another and then say: “This is not our function; this comes under the provincial department.” I will show in a moment how this is taking place. In the last five years in South Africa 30,000 people have died on our roads and 100,000 have been seriously injured. A hundred thousand have been killed in 25 years on the roads of South Africa, and that is equivalent to the entire population—White, Black and Coloured—of a city the size of East London. Accidents are increasing at a faster rate than the population, and the cost in the next five years is going to total R500 million. Perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister will tell me at this stage whether he has been asked for an increase in premiums under the Motor Vehicle Insurance Act. He remains silent. I suggest to the hon. the Minister that in recent weeks he has been asked to increase the premiums charged by the consortium under the Motor Vehicle Insurance Act. But I predict that he is not going to do so because there is an election around the corner and this would not be in accordance with the Government’s usual tactics. Sir, let me show you how the Government passes the buck from one Department to the other in this matter. One of the biggest road organizations in South Africa made an investigation seven years ago, an investigation which took 18 months. They went all over the world and investigated the question of ambulance services in relation to motor accidents and casualty services. This was then passed to the Deputy Minister of Transport, who then suggested that they should try the provincial authorities. Sir, that happened six years ago and to this day nothing has been done because the thing has been passed backwards and forwards between them ever since then. This is something that we can no longer tolerate. If something is going to be done it has to be done very shortly. We had this dreadful accident just a week ago at a level crossing but this was not the first of its kind. In 1952 11 white children were killed at a level crossing; in ten years 800 people have been killed at level crossings, and the strange thing is that this year we are going to spend less money on the elimination of level crossings than we spent in 1927 when we spent twice as much as this year. Sir, is this something that the Government can be proud of? Why, for instance, does the Government not use some of its tremendously high profits on the pipe line from Durban to Johannesburg? This is a pipe line that makes money out of the motorists but not a penny of that money goes back into research into roads or road accidents. I suggest that one of the first things that the Government should do is to plough back the profits which it makes out of motorists for the benefit of motorists. We simply have to find answers and ways of overcoming this problem. Last year it was said that 21,000 people were convicted of driving without licences. The average fine was from R5 to R10, but the interesting fact is that if anyone of those 21,000 people had been convicted of fishing illegally for crayfish they could have been fined R500 and lost their boats as well. It seems that in this country we place a higher value on the life of a crayfish than we do on the life of a human being!

Sir, perhaps the time has come when we need a Police traffic reserve to help to solve this problem but I am not here to try to offer solutions because the experts in this country disagree amongst themselves, but surely the time has come when this Government should try to do something for the living instead of building monuments to our past history. To finish on this particular point, I appeal to the Government, with no political motive, to initiate a full-scale investigation into this question of road accidents, not next week but this week.

But you have already made the same speech in The Argus to-night.

That is right, and I will make it to the hon. the Minister of Transport a hundred times until it sinks in. Sir, if the hon. the Minister does not want to listen to the speeches I make, then perhaps he will listen to the hundreds of thousands of South African voters who are now beginning to look at him for doing nothing. He was reported in the paper the other day as having said, “This is a terrible thing but it has nothing to do with me; you must look to the Transvaal Provincial Council.”

I am prepared to discuss it with them.

But the hon. the Minister has done nothing about it since then. He has passed the buck, like our famous Minister of Planning, who continually does so year after year.

I now want to turn to the Minister of Community Development, who I am glad is here. I am also very glad that the Minister of Planning is here too because I want to address these remarks to him as well. Sir, every year since I have come to this Parliament I have asked for an inquiry into the Department of Community Development and every year the Minister of Community Development, whoever he may have been at that time, has said that it is unnecessary. I have said in the past that this inquiry is necessary because of the hurt it causes and because of the heartless, callous treatment of the people that it moves about the country. The hon. the Minister of Community Development got up yesterday, and he thought he was being very clever by trying to bully me. He said that I had said that they had moved 1,100,000 people, and he could prove that they were all better off. I challenge that hon. Minister to come with me and I shall show him thousands of people who are worse off. Now I am going to mention a few examples.

I accused the Department last year that it had no knowledge and that it had no officials who had knowledge of the people that it was moving. The Minister of Planning, who at that stage was acting for the Minister of Community Development who, I believe, was ill, turned round to me and said: “Oh yes, our people have qualifications. Their qualifications are that they must be members of the Nationalist Party.” You can move 1,100,000 people and your prime qualification, Sir, is that you must be a Nat. You do not have to be anything else but be a Nat first. Then he turned round and said: “Oh yes, but these people are highly qualified.” I should like to quote from Hansard to show just what he did say. Besides saying on the 30th May, 1969, that these persons had to be nats, he want on to say (Vol. 27, col. 6984)—

The Minister then went on to say that he hoped that I would never criticize the Department or the board again. Now bear these words in mind, Mr. Speaker. They are competent persons. They are fully experienced. Now I should like to refer the hon. the Minister of Planning to a court case which took place in Durban just a few months ago. When it took place, and when I heard about it, I asked a question in the House. I asked the Minister of Community Development what the position was in regard to this matter, which had appeared in the Press. His reply to me was to this effect: “It is believed that in another instance a past official of my Department, a Mr. D. P. Engelbrecht, had been arrested by the police on a charge of bribery in which relatively small amounts, ranging from R5 to R10 were involved.” But what was the truth? The truth of the matter, for the information of the hon. the Minister of Community Development, is that the amount involved was R1,250. He said in his reply that the amounts involved were amounts of R5 and R10. The lowest amount was R25, and the total amount involved was R1,250. I hope that the hon. the Minister of Planning is now going to listen. He said, as you will remember from Hansard, that these people were all highly qualified. The interesting factor here, however—and I have here a copy of the court record, no: a Press report—is that this highly qualified person earned between R80 and R90 per month because he had not passed Std. VIII. This person was doing socio-economic reports on which the removals of these people had been based. Now, I ask the Minister of Planning. Does he agree that this is a highly qualified man? Does the Minister of Community Development have the nerve to tell me that they allow socio-economic reports to be done by a man who probably did not even know what the word meant?

Have you seen those forms which they have to fill in?

Yes, I have seen these forms. The Minister replied that these people were highly qualified. I want to know whether the Minister thinks that that man was highly qualified. What right has that man to submit reports causing the removal of thousands of people? Mr. Speaker, this matter is a disgrace and the whole country should know it. The whole country should know that the behaviour of that Minister in this matter needs investigation.

Nonsense.

And then the Minister says it is nonsense! This particular person had a previous record. Did the Minister know that? If he says that this is nonsense, I would remind him that the information contained in this copy of the court record was given under oath by an official of his department. Sir, how much nonsense is that? Now tell me that that is nonsense. Let the public judge who is talking nonsense in this House. We have had enough nonsense from that Minister for too long.

Sir, I have embarrassed that Minister and the Minister of Planning just once. Now the Minister of Planning can duck his head because I have finished with him.

But surely you know that I was referring to the Group Areas Board when I talked about highly competent officials? [Interjections.]

Shall I read your Hansard? The Minister’s Hansard said that these people based their assessments on these statements, these socio-economic reports. This socio-economic report was drawn up by a man who did not even understand the word. He earned R80 per month in that department. Is it any wonder that he took bribes? At a salary like that, it would be wonder that he did not. These are the experts. Let the hon. the Minister of Planning tell me then who the experts were who proclaimed a section of Ladysmith as Indian and then nine years later deproclaimed it. What sort of experts are those? I wish we could be saved from them because the hurt they do to the million people who have suffered in South Africa under the experts of the department is considerable. The Minister of Community Development said that I must show him one person who is dissatisfied.

I did not say one person who is dissatisfied. I said one person who is worse off.

I have a letter here from a man who says “We are treated like animals by the Department of Community Development.” Is he any worse off? I have a letter from a man here in Cape Town who says “The Department moved me and I now live in a graveyard with lights”. Is he worse off?

He is not telling the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to say that I will rather take this man’s word than that of the hon. Minister’s any day. Yesterday the hon. the Minister boasted about Chatsworth. He said that everybody there was happy. I have a letter here from him in which he says that 600 Indian traders in Durban are still looking for trading premises after being evicted from the ones they were in.

That is not true.

I have the hon. Minister’s letter signed by him. In the time available to me I want to deal with another matter. [Interjections.] I will come back to the hon. the Minister at any time he likes and anywhere he likes.

I now want to deal with another matter. On the 5th August, 1964, that hon. Minister’s department bought a piece of land in Durban. On the 23rd September, 1964, five weeks later, they sold part of that land to a certain individual. The interesting point is to whom they sold that piece of land. I have the hon. the Minister’s letters here so that he can deny this if he likes. I have letters here and I will give him copies of them after I have made photostat copies of the letters. I am not accusing the hon. the Minister in this regard as he was not the Minister of Community Development when this took place. This piece of land was bought from an Indian and sold five weeks later to another person. Two years later the department put the rest of the ground up for public tender and then it was sold to other people. Unfortunately I have wasted far too much time on the hon. the Minister of Planning who is not worth it. In the time I have available I want to ask the Minister of Community Development a question about these five plots of ground. [Interjections] I shall give the hon. the Minister any documents he wants because I have investigated this matter thoroughly. He can put what implications he likes on this. Of these five pieces of ground the main piece of ground was sold to a senior official of the Department of Community Development in Durban five weeks after the ground had been bought from a displaced Indian. It was sold to this official in his personal capacity and he occupied the ground. This took place before the ground had been advertised and anybody knew about it. He bought the ground at a price lower than the municipal valuation.

I will tell you again that you are not telling the truth.

I have the information here. I want to go further. Two years later the rest of the ground was put out to tender. There can be no question about that as I have the relevant dates on which this was done. Mr. Speaker, do you know who bought the rest of the ground? It was bought by the secretary of the Nationalist Party in Natal. Mr. Con Botha bought the second piece of ground in the name of his wife.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. Minister of Community Development can address the House again next week. The third piece of ground was sold to a person who had in fact surveyed the ground for the department. This person bought the third piece of ground. I have the names of the persons who bought the other two pieces of ground but we will ignore them.

You are simply indulging in a lot of scandalmongering.

It certainly is a scandal. This is a scandal and in the name of every voter in South Africa I again, for the fifth year in succession, call for a commission of enquiry into that Minister’s department and I will do so until this is done.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pity that the debate should reach such a low ebb at the end of the day. I am not prepared to follow that hon. member with his sour tirade. He posed here as a big gun of the United Party, but what came out in front, is the wind of a small airgun. It is easy to make a lot of accusations for which one has no proof and then to make all sorts of distortions in an attempt to achieve political gain. The fact that this hon. member talks about road accidents in a no-confidence debate, in which the policy of the United Party should be stated so that the voters may know what the positive policy of the United Party is, shows the bankruptcy of that party.

Road accidents have always been a matter which has been dealt with outside politics as far as possible. I think it is a matter which should remain outside politics. It causes great suffering, misery and damage in our mother country, but to make statements here like those made by that hon. member, scandalous statements … [Interjections.] He said that it seemed as if the Government was proud of the high accident rate. Is this not a scandalous statement?

Mr. Speaker, is the word “Scandalous” not out of order?

Order!

Furthermore, he said that it seemed as if more importance was attached to a crayfish than to a human being in this country. I regard this as really the meanest statement imaginable.

Mr. Speaker, is the word “scandalous” not unparliamentary?

The hon. member may proceed.

I regard it as utterly reprehensible that an hon. member of the official Opposition, the so-called alternative government, should make statements of this kind. The fact that this hon. member runs away from politics, from the policy of his party, and tries here to gain some advantage from a matter about which the people feel very deeply, shows, as I have said, the tragic bankruptcy of that party.

Now that we have an election at hand and now that the people outside must again decide which party to send back to this House to govern the country for the next few years, it is probably good to establish and determine what the most important tasks of a government of this country will be for the seventies, which we have just entered. Then it will also be logical to determine which party is best equipped to carry out these future tasks most satisfactorily. It is probably true that the time for great and sensational happenings in our political life may have passed. During the past period of nearly 22 years, the party which is at present in power tackled major tasks and projects, projects which for many years had been dreams and ideals of many of our people and which were tackled, carried into effect and successfully completed during the past 22 years.

Great, exciting and indeed monumental events have taken place on the political front, events which will be recorded with red letters in our history for many years to come. It was active and positive construction work. These were events in which that party, alas, had no part. They were events for which this party exclusively was responsible. There was the application and the expansion of our policy of separate development; there was the establishment of our national symbols such as citizen ship, flag and national anthem; there was the establishment of our own Republic, the attainment of a great ideal. At all these proud events during the past 22 years and at all the land marks which this party placed on the road of South Africa and at every important milestone in the process of our national development, that party not only played the part of pathetic spectators, but actually resisted and demurred as much as they could. Now the future lies ahead of us and at the beginning of the seventies we are going to the people to ask it to choose again. Although I said that the time for the great and sensational happenings in our political life may have passed, the people know that a very important and very dangerous period for the country lies before us. It will be a period in which, more than ever before, the men in charge must have courage, vision and a spirit of enterprise. The people outside know that only the Nationalist Party has these leaders, leaders who, as in the past, can project the challenging message of this party into the future without fear and purposefully. What South Africa needs in the future, is courageous, responsible and balanced leadership, because to retain the Republic may be more difficult in the years ahead than it was to obtain it. One of the more important tasks which I see for the future, is the additional reinforcement, expansion and safeguarding of the continued existence of the Whites in this country. This is a tremendously important matter, with which this Government has been busy for many years, but which will have to be continued in a dynamic way in the seventies, because, as we all know, there are evil powers who intend to destroy the Whites in this southern land. It is an important matter which the people can only entrust to the National Party, because the people outside know that only the National Party is really concerned about White survival in this country. Is it not this party which, over the years, gradually placed the political power of a White South Africa in the hands of the White man? Is it not the hon. Leader of this Party who had the courage and the enterprise to do away with the last stronghold of non-White representation in this House recently and thus open new visions on the political horizon for the Coloured population? How that Party fought against the establishment of the sovereign power of the White man in his own Parliament! What is its policy to-day? It is nothing but political integration. Yes, I accuse the United Party that its policy amounts to treason against the White man of South Africa.

Order! I think the hon. member must withdraw those words.

Its policy amounts to undermining the authority of the White man in South Africa.

The hon. member must withdraw those other words.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw them. I say this because the United Party is breaking down this highest source of authority of the White man in South Africa. I wonder if the members of the United Party actually realize that the official policy of the United Party, as also presented in this “You want it, we have it” document, stipulates that there will be 25 persons here to represent the non-Whites. Of these, six will be Coloured persons. Does the United Party think that the Coloured people, should they have the choice, would elect Whites? Does the United Party for one moment think that should the Coloured people have a choice, they would send respectable, responsible Coloured persons here?

What makes you think they will not be?

They will be the greatest agitators and inciters whom they can find. Under their policy there will be eight White representatives for 14 million or more Black people of South Africa. What a ridiculous idea to imagine that the more than 14 million Black people of South Africa would be satisfied with eight Whites to represent them here! But what is more, has the United Party ever thought what sort of Whites would be sent here by those people? Would they be United Party people? Would they even be members of the Progressive Party? If they could get Communists, they would send even Communists here. They would be persons who stand for equality. Just imagine what would happen if these candidates were let loose among the Bantu to incite them and to stir up emotions. Just think, this Party is toying with a monster. Fortunately the people of South Africa know this. The United Party is busy with a Frankenstein which it will never be able to control. We shall spread this story from every platform. The people will deal with them. No, the voters will never trust such a party to ensure the continued existence of the White man in this country. Therefore, we know that the voters will reject them at the polls.

But I want to mention a second important future task for the seventies. As I see it, it is the maintenance of the traditional South African way of life and the resistance which must be offered to the increasing and tremendous pressure from outside. We are living in a very difficult world. Practically every day incidents which are difficult to handle and which could result in serious international implications for this country, are deliberately created by our enemies so that they can drive us into a corner, and so that our traditional ideas and way of life can in due course be undermined. One would surely expect that the Opposition—by this I mean the combined Opposition on the other side—would show a little more responsibility, understanding and loyalty towards South Africa when these difficult incidents about which the Government has to decide are created. This pressure from outside does not concern the policy of one particular political party. We know that also the United Party, if it is sincere in its policy and if it should come into power, would be subjected to this same pressure. We know these people want “one man, one vote”, and nothing more or nothing less. Therefore one would expect the Opposition to show greater responsibility when these difficult situations arise. But what does one find? I refer to the difficult situations about which the Prime Minister and his Cabinet have to decide, and in respect of which they must decide in a responsible, balanced manner. I have already said that South Africa needs balanced and responsible leadership. Decisions are taken in a responsible and balanced way here. And what happens after every decision, firm but responsible and balanced decisions? The first person to make a statement in the papers is the hon. member for Hillbrow. He is followed by the hon. member for Yeoville and other hon. members, sometimes the hon. Leader of the Opposition as well. I must say to his credit that he is more responsible than some of his lieutenants. These statements are of ten very harmful. They try to gain political advantage in that way, but fail to do so. In actual fact they are providing our enemies overseas with weapons. Therefore I say that the task of maintaining our South African way of life and resisting the pressure from outside, cannot be entrusted to that party either. This party, in spite of hon. members such as the hon. member for South Coast and a few others still sitting there, still have this laissez-faire policy. They will never have the courage of their convictions to resist the pressure from outside.

But there is another important matter which I want to mention in this connection. There have been in the past, and still are at the present moment, responsible members in that party, members who have a little balance.

Where?

For example, the hon. member for South Coast, the hon. member for Kensington and a few others. But in the future they will have to manage without those people. These esteemed hon. members, who have served this House with great distinction for many years, have now suddenly become too old. I do not know whether I am permitted to use the word “scandalous”, therefore I will not use it. But they are being kicked out in a most undemocratic way, in spite of what their voters say. Let us take the case of the hon. member for Kensington. No hon. member on the other side of this House has made a greater, more valuable and more positive contribution to the proceedings in this House than that hon. member. But now the hon. member for Hillbrow says that the hon. member for Kensington is too old. Now we ask where is the democracy in this? Where is the much vaunted “fair play”? The hon. member for Hillbrow says that the U.P. must get a new “image”. What “image” is this? It is an “image” of “young progressives”. This is the “image” which they must get. And this “image” is necessary because the United Party has no policy. If they had a policy which they could present to the voters without fear, it would not matter if senior members or junior members presented their case. But there is an idiom which goes, “Some people make war in order to become generals”. I noticed to-day that the hon. member for Hillbrow sat in the hon. member for Kensington’s seat. The hon. the Leader must take care that the ambitious member for Hillbrow does not try to bring about a palace revolution. The United Party does not bluff anyone by kicking out its senior front-benchers. The United Party does not bluff us by pointing to the age of these members; this is a deliberate and open move to the left. It is obvious that the substitutes of these senior front-benchers stand much closer to the hon. member for Houghton. I am told that the candidate whom the United Party has put forward in my constituency, a very attractive lady, has open Progressive convictions. A member of the United Party told me that it did not matter that she had such convictions, because they could not find another candidate.

What about your new senator?

This is what is happening there and I can only tell the hon. member for South Coast that he too must keep his eyes and ears open. I can already tell the hon. members that the few members of the United Party who will come back after 22nd April, will stand much further to the left.

Tell us about your new senator.

I am told that the hon. member for Durban (Point) is not coming back either. Therefore, the maintenance of the South African way of life cannot be entrusted to that party.

There is a third task that I want to mention. This is the task of building a nation. This is a task at which this party has been working in a very dynamic way for many years. It is a task which only the National Party can execute. We know that the United Party talks about national unity, we know that they tell the people that only they will be able to bring about national unity, but let us first examine the history of the South African Party and later that of the United Party. What did national unity really mean to them? I shall tell the hon. members what it meant to them. It meant 90 per cent English and 10 per cent Afrikaans. The Afrikaans-speaking person had to forfeit himself. He had to forfeit his language, his traditions and his customs, because he had to become a neither-fish-nor-flesh creature who spoke predominantly English. Co-operation was then at its best, according to them. But that party has never understood real, pure, national unity. National unity can only be achieved in this country according to the formula laid down by this party and so strikingly enunciated by the hon. Leader of this Party at the inauguration of the Settlers’ Monument in Grahamstown. It is the formula which is applied by this party. It is the only formula which ensures true national unity and gives each national group the assurance that it will retain its own identity. Each population group must have the assurance that it can retain its own language, culture and traditions, but all of them must be bound together by their combined, common love for the fatherland. Only by this formula can national unity be achieved.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question?

The hon. member will get a turn. He wasted his own time yesterday and now he wants to waste mine as well.