Mr. Speaker, I move as an unopposed motion—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (1) Standing Orders Nos. 54, 85 and 90 to 105 be suspended.

2. (2) The proceedings on the stages of the various Appropriation and Taxation Bills shall be limited as follows:

   1. (a)147½ hours for the Consolidated Revenue Fund Appropriation Bills and Taxation Bills;
   2. (b)18½ hours for the Railways and Harbours Appropriation Bills; and
   3. (c) 7½ hours for the Post Office Appropriation Bills:

   Provided that—

   1. (i)the period allotted under paragraph (a)shall exclude—

      1. (aa) the time taken by the Minister in charge of the main Appropriation Bill in replying to the Second and Third Reading debates on the Bill; and
      2. (bb) the time taken by Ministers in charge of the respective Votes in the Committee Stage of the main Appropriation Bill; and
   2. (ii)the periods allotted under paragraphs (b)and (c) shall exclude the time taken by the Minister in charge of the main Railways and Harbours Appropriation Bill and the Minister in charge of the main Post Office Appropriation Bill in replying to the Second and Third Reading debates on the Bills.
3. (3)The Committee of the whole House on the main Consolidated Revenue Fund Appropriation Bill may at any time, on the motion of a Minister, to be decided without amendment or debate, revert to any Vote appearing in the Schedules to the Bill and previously disposed of by the Committee.
4. (4)All Estimates of Expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, the Railway and Harbour Fund and the Post Office Fund shall, when laid upon the Table, stand referred to the appropriate Committees of the whole House.

5. (5)

   1. (a) Subject to paragraphs (b) and (c) no member shall speak for longer than ten minutes at a time in Committee of the whole House on an Appropriation Bill, but members shall not be limited in regard to the number of times they may speak;
   2. (b)The Minister in charge of a Vote or Head shall not be restricted in regard to the length of time he may speak;
   3. (c)When the various Votes or Heads in the Schedules to the main Appropriation and Railways and Harbours Bills are under consideration, the Chairman may permit two speeches not exceeding 30 minutes each in respect of a ministerial portfolio: Provided that this privilege shall not be granted unless the member desiring to avail himself of the extended period states his intention to do so on rising to address the Chair, or unless the member subsequently obtains the unanimous consent of the Committee.

6. (6)In Committee of the whole House on an Appropriation Bill—

   1. (a)the Schedules of the Bill may, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 57 (2), be taken into consideration before the clauses;
   2. (b)on the motion of a Minister to be decided without amendment or debate, precedence may be given to any Vote or Head in a Schedule;
   3. (c)no condition or expression of opinion shall be attached to a Vote or Head, or item of a Vote or Head, nor may its destination be altered;
   4. (d)the question shall first be proposed from the Chair on the largest reduction if more than one reduction is moved in any Vote or Head, or item of a Vote or Head;
   5. (e)the rule of anticipation shall not apply; and
   6. (f)a member may not move “That the Chairman leave the Chair ”, and no member other than a Minister may move “That the Chairman report progress and ask leave to sit again ” or that the further consideration of a Vote or Head be postponed, the question on such a motion by a Minister being put forthwith without debate.
7. (7)All taxation proposals shall, when laid upon the Table, stand referred to the Committees of the whole House on the respective taxation bills.

8. (8)In Committee of the whole House on a taxation bill—

   1. (a)no member other than a Minister may move an amendment which alters the incidence of a tax or which will have the effect of increasing taxation;
   2. (b)a member may not move “That the Chairman leave the Chair ”, and no member other than a Minister may move “That the Chairman report progress and ask leave to sit again ” or that the further consideration of a clause, schedule or item in a schedule be postponed, the question on such a motion by a Minister being put forthwith without debate.
   3. (c)no member shall speak for longer than ten minutes at a time, but members shall not be limited in regard to the number of times they may speak; and
   4. (d)the Minister in charge shall not be restricted in regard to the length of time he may speak.
9. (9)When an appropriation or taxation bill has been reported with amendments, the amendments may be considered forthwith.

10. (10)

    1. (a) The provisions of Standing Orders Nos. 51, 66 (2) and 68 (1) shall not apply to an Appropriation Bill;
    2. (b) Notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 68 (2), the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister in charge of the Bill shall not be limited in regard to the length of time they may speak on the Third Reading of the main Consolidated Revenue Fund Appropriation Bill.

This is the same motion as was introduced in the past two sessions of this House. It is aimed at expediting the business of the House. I hope to have these proposals incorporated in the Standing Orders during this Session, so that they will be a permanent institution.

Motion put and agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays:

2.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

8 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.

Tuesdays:

2.15 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Fridays:

10 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.

2.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

The motion is self-explanatory.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of this side of the House, I want to register our protest against the suggestion that we should have night sittings so early in the session. In fact, I protest against night sittings altogether. In 1963 the late Prime Minister, the hon. Dr. Verwoerd, proposed that a select committee should sit in connection with the rules of this House. It was a unique committee in that there was an equal number of members from both sides of the House. The Prime Minister expressed the view that when this committee sat, he hoped that it would come before this House with a unanimous decision, because he wanted both sides of the House to be unanimous in their views. There were five members from each side of the House and I would remind hon. members of the eulogies which were paid by the Government side and by this side of the House to the outstanding work done by Mr. Sauer, the former Leader of this House. I hope that it is not the attitude of the present Leader of the House that we are not bound by previous Parliaments because the understanding was at that time that when we altered the rules, we curtailed certain times and consideration would be given to the abolition of night sittings. The Opposition minority groups gave away certain rights. We had the right in those days to speak for 40 minutes and get an extension of time. We had the right to speak as often as may be necessary on the committee stages of Bills. We had the opportunity of continuing a debate as long as we thought reasonable and there were many occasions when we had all night sittings. All those rights have been curtailed and the Opposition gave up those rights in a spirit of compromise, hoping that as a result we would have a streamlining of the work of this House. That direction was followed for a few years but there is a tendency on the part of the present Leader of the House, as he said, to make the House work. I want to disillusion him if he thinks that he is going to make the House work in that way. The Minister knows that most of the accidents on his Railways occur when people are overtired and most of the accidents in this House happen when people are overworked and when they work for excessive hours. Tempers rise, there is irritation, the job of Mr. Speaker is made more difficult and the job of the staff of the House is made more difficult when members sit for lengthy hours, virtually morning, noon and night. Members are responsible daily for their correspondence. They have to attend their respective group meetings. They have to attend select committee meetings. Towards the end of the session there is a tendency on the part of the House to allow select committees to sit in the afternoons so that members are not in their places in the House.

Mr. Speaker, it is government by exhaustion. We find the position to-day that the Minister in what is virtually a budget session is coming forward with a large number of Bills, all of which he assures us are non-contentious. I have been a Whip in this House for 17 years and every session I have heard the Leader of the House say, “There is nothing really contentious this session ”. We find out whether a Bill is contentious or not by a close study of the Bill. When we do not have the opportunity to study a Bill closely, that is when the mistakes are made both on the Government side and on the Opposition side.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that it is an imposition to come at this stage of the session with a motion like this when the hon. the Minister had already curtailed our rights as regards private members’ days. This was reluctantly accepted on both sides of the House. Now the hon. the Minister endeavours to pass this motion before the House, namely to sit three nights of the week. If at the end of the session there is too little time to fulfil the hon. the Minister’s programme, he will come with morning sittings as well. Then if there are mistakes in the legislation or tempers rise and incidents occur in this House, no other person will be responsible than the Leader of the House. I suggest that this is unfair on the House, unfair on members and unfair on the running of Parliament to come with night sittings for nearly two months. It is against the spirit of the new rules which were brought in. Give and take was required on both sides of the House with the new rules. However, so far we have been doing all the giving and the Government has been doing all the receiving. I suggest that the hon. the Minister is being unreasonable asking the House to pass this motion on night sittings at this stage of the session.

Mr. Speaker … [Interjections.]

Order!

Yes, Sir, I hope hon. members on the other side of the House will be patient. They will hear what I want to say.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a case of changing an Act of Parliament. There is no Statute involved here. This is one of the rules of this House made by the House for its own governance. This side of the House, the minority, will always look with the greatest care at anything which curtails our powers and our rights in terms of the rules. The rules are applicable to that side of the House as well as this side of the House. Anything that curtails those rights and those powers which we enjoy will be examined by us most carefully. We have just agreed to Resolution No. 1 moved by the hon. Leader of the House without debate, thus giving him powers which are a restriction of the rules of this House so that he can get ahead quicker with the work which is before us. When we come to this particular motion which we are now debating, the answer is that this has a history attached to it. I was one of those who discussed the matter at the time with the late Dr. Verwoerd. What was the late Dr. Verwoerd’s attitude then? His attitude was that in the discussions that took place, he would not have a majority decision in regard to any changing of the rules. He said he was not going to be put in a false position and be made to look as though the Nationalist Party, because of its majority in Parliament, used a majority to change the rules. The precise point in this motion before us is to abrogate the rules and in particular the rights of the minority. That is the purpose of the motion before us. When that motion was moved by the late Dr. Verwoerd and he made that statement and our then Chief Whip had to bring the matter to our caucus, the gravest doubt was cast upon the integrity of the Nationalist Party and its power and will to carry out the undertaking that was given through the mouth of the then Prime Minister. Let us face it. That we brought back again and we put it to Dr. Verwoerd. We received an assurance from him in regard thereto. As my colleague the Chief Whip has said, when subsequently the Select Committee was appointed, it was appointed under Senator Paul Sauer with an equal number of members from both parties as a token of the Prime Minister’s desire to play absolutely fair and to try and get agreement in regard to the abrogation of the then rules. Those were rules which we on this side of the House had taken advantage of. Hon. members know that. We had all night sittings and so forth. We took advantage of those rules much to the annoyance of hon. members on that side of the House who were here in those days. But those were our rights. If we could get the Speaker to agree that we were dealing properly in terms of the rules of debate with Bills and motions before the House we were entitled to carry those debates on for 24, 36 or 48 hours. And we did so. Therefore, when our rights were abrogated we were naturally suspicious. I want to say to the hon. the Leader of the House that this is getting perilously near to a breach of faith. I said so the last time this matter was raised. The hon. the Leader of the House virtually says it does not matter what happened in the past. This is “die dooie hand van die verlede ”. you cannot bind this Parliament. No, this is precisely the point we put to the late Dr. Verwoerd, namely that the Nationalist Party could not be trusted to carry out this undertaking given through the mouth of its own Prime Minister. What does the Government want? Traditionally it wants to pass the Budget. We are willing to do that and give adequate time for the purpose. But that is not what the hon. the Leader of the House wants. That is not what the Government wants. That is not what the hon. the Prime Minister wants. He is the leader of that Party. The hon. the Minister of Transport cannot lift a finger nor utter a word unless he has the approval of the hon. the Prime Minister. What the Prime Minister wants is to get legislation through in a hurry which, with the adequate time provided for in the rules for a normal session, would meet with very great difficulties. So, in a session like this, primarily to deal with the Budget, these other measures are to be slipped in in bits and pieces here and there, until, as my hon. friend the Chief Whip said, by a process of exhaustion we will be sitting here during night sittings from the middle of August, until somewhere towards the latter half of October or whenever it may be. The Leader of the House has not told us what date he has in mind; until then we are to go on trying to masticate all this pabulum which is being brought from the 18 different Cabinet Ministers. It will be thrown at us here; there are only two of us to deal with one Cabinet Minister. And how adequately we can deal with them in terms of the rules! This is not in terms of the rules. When the Government, even with its overwhelming majority, is still not able to meet the opposition from the United Party, and cannot beat or cope with it, what does it do? It changes the rules. What a lesson to apply to rugby! Let us think of a South African team with a referee who says that he will change the rules to assist the Springbok team. No. Sir. this is perilously near a breach of faith. It is going back deliberately because the Leader of the House knows the statement that Dr. Verwoerd made. Dr. Verwoerd said that he would not ride through his majority over the minority in this House. That was not a principle. He would not accept it and was not prepared to play along in that way. There is no need for this motion to get the estimates through the House. The only reason why this is brought forward is to enable the Government to get through legislation which is not properly before the House in this short session. We object to this proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I should also like to add my voice to the objections which have been expressed so eloquently by the Chief Whip and the hon. member for South Coast. As my hon. friend has just said, it affects the rights of minorities, which is a very important basis of thought in a parliamentary institution. But what is more disturbing to me is that it reflects the attitude that this Government has to Parliament itself. One sees this manifestation quite often in many ways. This is all important. It affects the Opposition more than it affects any one else. In the nature of things, if this Government could go home to-morrow and have no discussion on the Budget and not have its Ministers and its activities subjected to the surveillance of this House, it would do so. It, however, also affects the hon. members over there. I think it is time that they realized that they are not just Nationalist members of Parliament but that they are in fact members of Parliament and that they have a duty as such, as opposed to their duties as members of their caucus.

The hon. the Chief Whip pointed out that there are other rights that were lost when it was decided not to have night sittings.

Times of sitting are part and parcel of the new rules. They are all related to one another. If one looks at the report of that committee on the revision of our rules one will see that it deals with private members’ rights, the rights of the Opposition as such as well as the times of sitting. When that recommendation was made unanimously and agreed to unanimously by this House, it was at the same time agreed when the hours were cut down that certain other things would have to be cut down in order to streamline the whole parliamentary procedure which had not been done for many years. It was not only those things the Hon. the Chief Whip mentioned that members on both sides of this House had to give up. It was not only the fact that they could no longer speak for 40 minutes and that they had to curtail their speeches to 30 minutes at a time. It was not only that they could no longer speak as many times as they liked in Committee of the whole House on a Bill. The times of the debates were also curtailed. For example, the Second Readings of Bills were curtailed to only 12 hours—all this so that we could accommodate ourselves; we had to give up these rights so that we could accommodate ourselves in terms of the new hours which were agreed upon. It is one and the same thing, and now we have this.

This is too important a subject to be a matter of party politics; it is too important a matter for hon. members opposite to sit in their seats and vote party when the division bells ring. This affects Parliament itself. Too often have we seen this attitude. Do you remember, Sir, that when the South-West Africa Affairs Bill was debated last year it was provided that the State President, in other words the Cabinet, could amend Acts of this Parliament applying to South-West Africa? For instance, Acts could be repealed without reference to us. Well, we objected but we got no support from the other side of the House. It is part of this particular attitude of mind.

Order! The hon. member must not go too far now. He should confine himself to the motion.

Very well, Sir. It is this attitude of mind which promotes a thing like this which disturbs one. When the hon. the Minister of Health, for instance, can say that this Government can do without an Opposition, which is part and parcel of a Parliament …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the motion.

The other day, as the hon. Chief Whip on this side indicated, private members’ rights were removed, rights which were also dealt with in this report. The motion has been adopted by the House but that, in conjunction with this motion, is going to cause a further deprivation of those rights, rights of members of Parliament as opposed to rights of members of a party. So far as I have been able to find out it has never happened before that in any single year, whether there were one or two sessions of Parliament, no time at all has been allowed for private members or for the Opposition.

Order! That is a different matter altogether. That is a resolution which has already been adopted by the House.

With great respect, Sir, it is apposite here in the sense that this report which recommended the new rules and the absence of night sittings said that amongst the most important changes was “the right of the Opposition to initiate debates on matters of public importance during Government time as distinct from debates on motions for the adjournment of the House on definite matters of urgent public importance ” …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the motion now.

These rights, as I have said, have been taken away. Now we have no time whatsoever. We have now to be subjected to these long hours and it is we mostly who have to be subjected to them.

This is not a political issue; it is a matter where Parliament itself is affected and it is to be much regretted that the hon. Leader of the House feels that it is necessary to come with this motion in a budget session. The reason for it is simply that the Government has so bungled its affairs that it has two elections in one year and suddenly has to race to the next election because it wants to get onto the hustings; they want to get away from here, from this great institution, from the surveillance of Parliament, where Ministers are constantly under the surveillance of Parliament. That is what they want to run away from and that is why I say that our country and this House does not deserve this motion.

I think that the principles involved in this matter have been thoroughly discussed by the previous three speakers. Therefore I, in turn, want to discuss this matter in terms of a personal conversation among the hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. the Leader of the House and myself. I should like to affirm what was stated so clearly by the hon. member for South Coast, i.e. that in 1963 the rules were changed in the light of a clear understanding. I have personal reasons for remembering that it was a clear understanding between honourable people. After the rules had been in force for a while, some members felt that the adjournment of one hour on Wednesday evenings was insufficient, and I was one of those who were asked to discuss the matter with the Chairman of the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders at the time, Mr. Paul Sauer. We asked Mr. Sauer whether he could not arrange for the House to adjourn for an hour and a half for dinner. His reply was that he would have liked to accommodate us, but that he was under an obligation, after the Committee had met and in the light of the attitude of Dr. Verwoerd and of the House, to see to it that none of the time of the House was taken away which could result in our having fewer hours per week to devote to the business of Parliament than when we sat three evenings a week. In the old days we adjourned according to the clock in this House, five minutes before the normal time for adjournment, but since the extra half-hour was granted for adjournment on Wednesday evenings, we have adjourned at 7 o’clock precisely—all this is done to ensure that the House will not have less time at its disposal than when we sat three evenings a week.

On the Select Committee members felt that evening sittings did not serve their purpose properly and did not contribute to the dignity and efficiency of Parliament. The purpose of those discussions was, in fact, to do away with evening sittings. Mention has already been made of what we of the Opposition had to forfeit. We even had to forfeit one private members’ day a week at the request of the Government, at the request of Dr. Verwoerd, to do away with evening sittings. We forfeited our Tuesdays and we limited ourselves to two hours, i.e. from 4 o’clock in the afternoon for private members’ motions or bills. We did so because the Government members on the Select Committee felt that we had to do away with evening sittings in the interests of the more efficient functioning of Parliament. These are facts, this is history. I remember that when we discussed this matter in our caucus some of our members doubted whether the majority of a Nationalist Government in South Africa would honour this undertaking. This was doubted, and some of us got up and said that when it comes to matters affecting Parliament—and you will appreciate this, Mr. Speaker, because I know how dear the parliamentary institution is to your heart—we could count on the integrity of the Government. In other words, we did not expect what happened last year and what is happening again to-day; we did not expect that it would happen again after the defence which we … [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Waterkloof, who is interjecting now, knows nothing of what we are talking about; he must rather keep quiet. He knows nothing of what we are talking about; it happened before his time. As I said, Mr. Speaker, we had the right to expect, in terms of the spirit of honouring undertakings, that the Government would not come forward with a motion such as this. Therefore I want to express my great disappointment and regret at the fact that the Government has nevertheless come forward with such a motion. To the hon. the Minister I want to say that if he continues with this sort of thing he must not hold it against us if we eventually come to regard him and the hon. the Prime Minister as being guilty of breach of faith. I hope it will not be necessary, but the hon. the Minister is running that risk.

I have seldom listened to more nonsense than during the past half-hour. I think in the days when Mr. Higgerty was the Chief Whip of the Opposition we had much more reasonable opposition from that side of the House. The hon. member for South Coast is one of the most senior members of this House and the leader of his party in Natal, and it is high time that he stopped talking nonsense. I was really amazed, having to listen to this type of thing.

What is the nonsense I spoke? I did not speak as much nonsense as you are speaking.

I will tell the hon. member what the nonsense is he spoke. The hon. member does not realize when he is talking nonsense. That is his weakness. It is only when people tell him he is talking nonsense that he realizes it.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for South Coast might be very aggressive and he might attack seven Coloured people with a pen-knife, but his aggressiveness is of no use at all in this House. [Interjections.]

Order!

Stop the personalities.

When the hon. member for South Coast has stopped getting excited, and when he returns to his ordinary sanity, I will continue and tell him …

What is the implication of that? That I am insane?

I have never made any insinuation or innuendo that the hon. member is insane. He might be on his way to senility, but not to insanity. [Interjections.]

What dignity!

Let me deal with the type of thing the hon. member said here. He said that when this matter of the changing of the rules came before his caucus there was doubt cast upon the integrity of the Government party to abide by the rules. Now, first of all, Sir, this has nothing to do with the changing of the rules. This is no new thing. It has been done every session. It was done under Dr. Verwoerd as Prime Minister, namely to move a motion in regard to the additional hours the House had to sit. It was done last session and also the session before that, and we never had this exhibition from hon. members. In some cases we had a dignified protest from the Chief Whip, but we have never had this type of exhibition like that of the hon. member for South Coast. Sir, it really looks as if gallant little Natal was coming to the rescue of the hon. member for Pinetown. But we never had this type of exhibition before, because responsible hon. members knew that it was essential to get the work of Parliament through in the shortest possible time.

Why?

Because it is necessary. It is the taxpayers’ money that we have to consider. [Interjections.] And those hon. members are as anxious to get away as everybody else; they also want to go and fight a provincial election, and this is merely camouflage. The hon. member was talking about a breach of faith, and also that hon. member. What does he know about a breach of faith? What evidence has he got for that?

I did not say anything about a breach of faith.

Of course you said so. You said this was coming very close to a breach of faith.

I did not say that— because I was not part of that Committee and could not say so.

If the hon. member did not say so, I will excuse him from saying this. The hon. member for South Coast talked about breach of faith. There is no breach of faith. Why has that accusation never been made in the past when similar motions were introduced?

It was done in 1966.

It was not made because there was no question of a breach of faith. In 1966 there was no accusation in regard to a breach of faith. In fact, on some occasions there was agreement between the Whips that the House should sit additional hours.

At the end of a session.

It does not matter. Does the hon. member expect this Session to last five months?

If necessary, yes, in the interests of the country.

Of course, Sir, if that hon. member has his way, he will talk for hours and hours and still say nothing and keep Parliament here. This is no breach of faith. This is no changing of the rules. It is the usual procedure which has been accepted by this House session after session, that additional hours should be sat in order to get through the work, and all responsible members in the past have always accepted that. I think this is the first occasion when the hon. member for South Coast has objected.

That is not true. Read what happened in 1966.

The hon. members do not know what happened in 1966. That was the time when Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated.

Read Hansard and see what happened.

The second session of 1966 was the short session of Parliament during which Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated. A motion to sit three additional nights a week was introduced, starting in August.

And the hon. member for South Coast objected.

He did not object the way he objected to-day, if he objected at all. The fact remains that the work has got to get through the House. Hon. members have ample opportunity to examine the Bills. They are even bragging about having nine additional members. Therefore they should have sufficient members to deal with these Bills before the House.

Why did you not plan your work differently?

The hon. member is talking nonsense. He is trying to emulate the hon. member for South Coast. The work has been planned very well. I have given notice of when the Budgets will be introduced and hon. members know which legislation has to be passed. The Whips have a list of all the Bills which will come before this House, but the hon. member still talks about planning. He was present when I gave it to them. He should therefore rather keep his criticism for the Whips’ Room. Sir, I say this is the usual procedure which has been adopted almost every session so that the work of the House can be done. And in the beginning I am meeting hon. members. They are not sitting Tuesday nights. They still have Tuesday and Friday nights free. Surely even those hon. members realize that they are not the only people who suffer from this disability. All the members of this House have to sit those nights. I also have to sit those nights, and I am usually in my place.

All your Ministers’ benches will be empty.

No, all the Ministers’ benches will not be empty. We are not the same as the Opposition. But in any case this work has to be done and I am afraid hon. members will have to resign themselves to it.

It must be very clear to everyone that the Opposition has already lost the no-confidence debate and that they are trying to run away from it, judging by the manner in which they are wasting time here on other matters.

Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned yesterday I was pointing out that, as in 1948 and again in 1960, the Opposition is at present trying to fill the role of a prophet of doom. As was the case then, they are now once more raising the cry about the national economy collapsing as a result of this party’s policy. I indicated that, as was the case then, this Government will not allow itself to be driven off course by scare-stories of this type, because this Government has a task and a calling to solve the complicated national and population problems in the interests of the Whites and the non-Whites. In conclusion I indicated that the Opposition, with its cry that apartheid had failed, is far behind the times, because the National Party is a dynamic party, progressing along South Africa’s road, and not halting at apartheid. With the establishment of the various Bantu homelands under their own Bantu authorities, with the acceptance of the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Bill, with the establishment of the Legislative Council for the Coloureds and with the disappearance of the Coloured representatives in this House, with all these dynamic developments the National Party is entering the new decade of the seventies, not with segregation or apartheid as its policy, but with separate development as its policy. Sir, it is a long road. A road which began many years ago with segregation, the natural feeling of traditional separation between population groups. It continued and developed towards apartheid, which perhaps, in a measure, embodied something that was negative, but which nevertheless also embodied a great deal which was positive. This same path is now leading to parallel development, a concept which embodies nothing that is negative. This is a road which is not a cul-de-sac. It is a road offering the most fantastic possibilities to all the population groups of South Africa. It is a policy which, in world history, will undoubtedly be known as the most humane and most effective method of solving racial discrimination and population problems. If the United Party and the world outside would only recognize the one indisputable fact that we are not dealing here with race problems, but with population problems, because we are not a multi-racial country, but a multi-national one, they will realize that we are actually far ahead of the world in this field, and that the rest of the world could come and learn from us.

In June 1965 the U.N. held a seminar about “The Multinational Society ” in Yugoslavia. One of the papers dealt with “Measures which should be taken to ensure the realization by ethnic, religious, linguistic or national groups, of the special rights necessary to enable them to preserve their traditions, characteristics or national consciousness, the right to use their language in public assembly and courts of law, the right to establish autonomous educational institutions, the right to develop their own traditions and characteristics autonomously. ” Sir, while the U.N. was still delivering papers about this matter in 1965, i.e. the important processes of ethnic groups emerging as peoples, our blueprint in South Africa had already been completed. They could at that stage have come along here to see how this could be applied in practice.

In 1965, at the 26th congress of the World Zionist Organization in Jerusalem, the chairman, Dr. Nahum Goldman, said: “The number one problem of Jewish life in the Diaspora, the problem of the survival of 3 million Jews in the Soviet Union, is the most dramatic example of the tendency of a powerful state not to persecute its Jews in the usual meaning of anti-Semitism, but to deny them the right to live their own life religiously, nationally and culturally and to maintain their identity as Jews ”. Sir, what the U.N. wanted in 1965 for its ethnic minority groups and could not get, and what Dr. Goldman wanted for his 3 million Jews in Russia and could not get, the policy of separate development ensures for each population group here in South Africa. With this policy of separate development we are laying the foundation stone for peace, quiet, prosperity and co-operation.

Now compare with this the United Party’s federation policy, a policy which boils down to an unashamed White dominance. This is a policy which points to unending political servitude for the non-Whites, and which essentially does not differ from 19th century colonialism. This policy, which wants to break down the Xhosa, Venda, Shangaan and Zulu into a neutral, anchorless group, cannot actually be regarded as anything other than wholesale genocide. This policy satisfied no-one. The position of the Whites in their own country is jeopardized. The non-White will never accept unending servitude, and neither will the world outside. By giving 15 million Bantu eight representatives in the White Parliament, representatives who would initially not even be their own people, one is committing the greatest degree of racial discrimination imaginable, and racial discrimination is, in fact, the international swear-word to-day. I do not know how those hon. members think they will get away with it. Their policy of an uncontrolled influx of Bantu from the Bantu areas, and their policy of training Bantu as skilled workers within the White areas, will all create the greatest degree of unrest, friction and uncertainty there has ever been in this country. Eventually it must lead to general integration, and this must lead to South Africa becoming a black man’s country.

Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says that it is the policy of separate development that is breaking down our economy. Does he not know that the prerequisite for economic development is, in fact, peace, quiet, order and mutual trust? In fact, it is since this Government came into power and, as a result of the order, the peace and quiet and the mutual trust existing in this country now, that this country could experience hitherto unknown economic prosperity. As our multi-national programme develops, we are establishing the basis and the foundation for peace and prosperity, thus creating the foundation for an economic boom and economic prosperity for all.

That side now wants to force the Government to move too rapidly. They want to force the Government to tackle sensational programmes in the Bantu homelands. Sir, the Government is doing its best, but we must remember that sensational programmes are not always sensible programmes. Sensational developments elsewhere in Africa, for example in the Congo, in Ruanda, in Burundi and in the Sudan, have led to sensationally bad results, and even, at times, to sensationally gruesome results. Our development of the homelands is progressing steadily, so that the people of the homelands can develop jointly in the technical. scientific, agricultural and economic spheres. Our border industries are occupying an increasingly important place. I trust that within the foreseeable future we shall be able to introduce a system of contract labour, with the possibility of transporting large numbers of non-Whites by air to the industrial areas. [Interjections.] Hon. members may laugh but this will come. In various European countries this system is already in use. The system works there, and I believe that it is also economically feasible in South Africa. I definitely believe that it will to a large extent solve our labour problem in our industrial complexes, and that it will also prevent the Bantu from being uprooted from his homeland. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Algoa finished off his speech by suggesting that we were prophets of doom because of what we had to say about the economic position and various other matters. I must say that it is quite remarkable that no hon. members on that side have so far had any adequate replies whatsoever to the charges made by my Leader and other members on this side of the House. This is of course not just what we say. The hon. member for Algoa does not even have to listen to us if he does not want to. It is what their own economists, their own academicians, their own trade union leaders and even Nationalist Party newspaper editors have had to say about these things that is really of great significance.

Sir, I want to bring the debate back to the manpower position in South Africa, and relate it specifically to the question of training. Hon. members on that side continue to play fast and loose in their official attitude towards Coloureds and Bantu doing skilled work. We know that only too well. In February of this year the hon. the Minister of Labour said that the country’s phenomenal growth rate demanded that more and more non-Whites should fill skilled and semi-skilled jobs. I quote him. He said that it would be sheer idiocy to hold back South Africa’s development by not allowing non-Whites into the trades. He went on to add that it was the Government’s policy to allow non-Whites to enter a trade if there were still not enough Whites to do the work. That was what the hon. the Minister of Labour said in February, 1969. On 28th October of last year, soon after the date of the General Election had been announced, the hon. the Minister was reported in the Press after he had made a further statement in this regard. There was obviously verkramptes and various other people about, as he was reported in the Press as saying that there must not be an uncontrolled inflow of non-White labour into traditionally White occupations because that would not solve the labour shortage problem and would disturb our industrial peace. Then in May, 1970 he made a different type of statement which I will quote a little later on. What puzzles me is why the Government is so afraid of facing this situation. Surely what we need at the moment in South Africa is the courage and the imagination, both of which are lacking on the Government benches, to do something really specific and to have some consultation with the right people about this matter. Why is it not possible, for instance, for the employers, the organized trade unions and the Government authorities to get together and work out a solution? It is all very well shouting at each other across the floor of the House but these are practical problems.

The three main factors that have to be taken into consideration, when we are dealing with this particular problem are, firstly, that the employers naturally want greater freedom in the use of labour; secondly, the trade unions quite rightly want to protect the rights of their workers and their standards of living; and, thirdly, the Government itself wants industrial peace. Those are three specific practical demands by three sections of the community. If those three sections of the community were to be got together on a proper basis of co-operation I do not see these three objectives as irreconcilable. Something must be done about the situation and I suggest that it needs to be done as soon as possible. It is hardly necessary for us in this House to make our own appeals on this matter because all this has already been said most specifically outside this House already by people who are active in this field. It is our duty, nevertheless, to hammer home what has been said by leading figures in our economy, by our trade unionists, our academicians and even by the Nationalist Press. All one has to do is to quote them. In this regard I want to remind hon. members of some of the different people who have made very positive statements and, I think, very constructive statements on this issue. As far back as 21st October, 1968, Mr. Tom Murray who is a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and who was then outgoing president of the Trade Union Council made a statement in Johannesburg. I quote from a report in the Cape Argus—

He is so right—

That was in 1968 and it came from a very respected figure in the trade union world and from someone who is a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. Then Mr. Liebenberg who is the president of the Railway Artisans Staff Association made a statement on 24th June, 1970, in which he said—

He is so right. We must get down to the matter instead of talking about who we are going to keep out on the grounds of colour. He said—

He is entirely correct.

Then finally there is the report of the C.S.I.R. for 1969 which was issued during this year. There was a report about it in the Press and I want to quote from the Cape Times of 18th June, 1970. This is what the C.S.I.R. had to say—

That was according to a report by the National Institute for Personnel Research contained in the C.S.I.R.’s report. They also make this very pertinent comment—

I know very well that hon. members on that side of the House keep saying that we must work harder. All of us, young and old, must really do something to contribute to the development of South Africa. I would agree with those sentiments but where there is no competition this becomes increasingly difficult and morale does suffer. There is no doubt about it. The most interesting thing of all is that the editor of Dagbreek en Landstem who writes a column in his paper every Sunday, last Sunday said precisely the same thing. He went even further and said this—

We know that that wins elections but when you are dealing with practicalities these attitudes have to be modified—

In regard to the Railways he says—

Then he went on to describe the whole shortage of workers through the professional, the technical and the managerial spheres in South Africa. Here I entirely agree with him. He said—

Of course he is entirely right. The hon. member for Algoa says that we are profits of doom. The newspaper editor I have just quoted is a supporter of the Government but he is dealing with facts and practicalities and more power to his elbow for having had the courage to say this.

Why do we not face reality and admit that no job can in the long run be reserved for one race only? The hon. the Minister knows it very well. If the State itself continues to educate people of different colours, as it is doing, and there are not jobs for them in their own areas—the Coloureds and the Indians do not have their own areas anyway, but they remain an inextricable part of our economic system once they are educated—for how much longer is this state of affairs going to continue? I just want to issue a warning. If non-Whites are not allowed into positions now occupied by Whites, where there are no Whites to fill those jobs, then greater demands for skilled labour will be made on the white population in South Africa than it is capable of meeting. These demands are increasingly being made. That is a situation we have already met.

One of the most important outcomes of that type of situation and one of the chief sufferers, if I may put it that way, is white education itself because, squeezed in the pinch of the demands of an acute shortage of trained people and the highly competitive offers of the private sector, white education will have to adapt at least part of its structure, if we are to maintain present standards let alone raise them to any degree. Yet we get such pathetic ministerial reaction to these concerted pleas by responsible members of the public who are concerned to maintain our economic growth rate. I just want to quote the ex-hon. Minister of Planning. Dr. Carel de Wet, the hon. the Minister of Labour and the hon. the Prime Minister himself. All three statements prove quite clearly the extent to which the Government is a prisoner of its own ideological concepts in this regard. They do not mind whether the economy suffers. The Nationalist Party just blunders on. The ex-Minister of Planning made a speech to an audience in Pietermaritzburg on 27th January, 1968. This is what he said—

Well, now we know what has happened in spite of that statement. The hon. member for Hillbrow proved that practically all applications to that hon. Minister for extra black labour in the metropolitan areas have in fact been approved.

The hon. member knows that that is not all I have said.

The only other thing that that hon. Minister said at that meeting was that there was a certain degree of uncertainty about the aims of the Department of Planning. Then he gave the assurance that he was not building an empire. In fact he never built anything. The only other interesting thing in this speech is the fact that the hon. the Minister denied that there was any verkrampte-verligte dispute in the Nationalist Party. Those who claimed there was had no understanding of the Afrikaner whatsoever. The hon. the Minister of Labour himself made the following statement on the 22nd May of this year. I quote from Die Burger. He said—

Why this should be the permanent equation I do not understand. The extraordinary thing is the assumption always that if you have a controlled system of allowing people to move up into jobs where others have moved up into still higher ones, the safety of the white man is automatically in danger. I say it is very much more in danger if we do not allow people openings of a kind as and where we possibly can. The hon. the Minister himself said this before the election. The hon. the Prime Minister, who commented upon the report of his own Economic Advisory Council in May of this year, made the most astonishing statement. I want to quote from a Press cutting of the 5th May of this year. It reads—

Well, for Heaven’s sake, with a Government of that sort in office, people who are afraid of their own shadows, how are we going to deal with the practicalities of this situation? There are certain shadows that are quite all right!

I wonder whether the hon. the Prime Minister really thought that he was replying adequately to our charge about the inadequacy of the educational position in the course of his reply to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He quoted the subsidy figures given to the universities in 1948 which, I think he said, were R2 million and, by 1970, under his dispensation, have reached R46 million. What a fatuous argument. What do you expect? Had we been in power it would not have been R46 million, it would have been nearer R80 million. Let me expose the fallacy of this argument. In every country of the world to-day the population has increased considerably since 1948, whether they are Whites or anybody else. In the second place the standard of living here, as in so many other countries, has considerably increased with the result that thousands more youngsters are demanding and, in fact, needing, higher education, as the hon. the Prime Minister knows very well. He also knows or should know that modern techniques demand a higher standard of education of our youngsters before they go out into the world of competition and business than they did in 1948. The whole scene has changed. To make a comparison between then and now is totally invalid. The hon. the Prime Minister must know that the number of students in South Africa, as is the case in practically every other country in the Western world, has increased virtually in the same proportion to the amount of money that is being allocated to the universities to-day. I should like to say that the universities could have a lot more money if this Government would permit large donations to be made, tax free, by the private sector for purposes of research on specific projects as they do overseas. The universities would be all the more free to function in the academic field under those circumstances. This can be discussed further under the Education Vote.

I want to make a few constructive suggestions about the educational position. [Interjections.] Well, the hon. members may laugh, but it is our function not only to criticize the Government but to produce suggestions. There was very little mention in the State President’s speech last Friday about the matter of education. I was very disappointed. All that the State President had to say was that the manpower shortage was receiving urgent attention and the overlapping of the work done by the universities and the technical institutes would receive attention. There was nothing imaginative about that. In fact, really, we have had so much of this kind of statement from the Government that we do not accept their bona fides or even their stated intentions on the subject anymore.

The manpower shortage as we have already been told—and we have agreed—is largely artificial in South Africa. The basic truth of the matter is that, taking the more optimistic view, however much the Government may try to adapt our labour patterns to present requirements, such adaptations will be of no lasting value whatsoever unless a really imaginative training programme, worked out in conjunction with the leaders of commerce and industry, goes with it. As far as we are concerned, it is axiomatic that any such training programme must include Whites, Coloureds, Blacks and everybody. We have had warnings on this issue by Mr. Jan Marais, by T.U.C.S.A. and Volkshandel over the years. But the Government will achieve nothing unless it gets down to the practicalities and considers our labour force as one unity for purposes of employment and training, because we have one economy and not several economies. I just want to say that apart from educationists we have had dire warnings over the years from representatives of commerce and industry, bankers, trade unions, mining houses and even the Public Service. We had warnings of the gravity of the situation building up in this country and of the need to plan ahead in the educational field, particularly with regard to training of our youngsters at an early age. Warnings have come from various commissions as well. It is really quite interesting to read the recommendations of the De Villiers Commission on technical and vocational education, which was appointed by the Smuts Government, reported in 1948. I want hon. members to listen to what they recommended in paragraph 157—

And finally in paragraph 539 the Commission said—

Mr. Speaker, it is 22 years since those words were written by the De Villiers Commission. I suggest that they have received the scantest possible attention from this Government during that whole period of 22 years. The situation remains exactly the same. There is the scantest possible correlation between the education authorities and the private sector. The big need at that stage was to introduce differentiated courses in our secondary schools and for the establishment of more commercial and technical high schools. It was not a difficult problem. It could have been handled years ago. On the subject of differentiation, we had all sorts of people calling for it. There was Mr. Bruwer, head of the Paarl Training College, who in 1966 said that it was a “nasionale ramp ” because we did not have differentiation and that the Government was not paying sufficient attention thereto. On the 26th March, 1970, the Onderwysraad executive for instance met in Stellenbosch under the chairmanship of Professor Thom. In the course of their meeting in March, 1970, the following lovely statement appeared in Die Burger—

It is pathetic that it was only on the agenda after 22 years in office.

Then we have Mr. Werner Pauw, a former President of the Handelsinstituut, who made a very important speech on precisely those lines which appeared in Volkshandel under the big heading “Kommer oor beroepsonderwys ”. Well, we are still only talking about it, and then hon. members opposite have the temerity to say that all sorts of things are being done. I am not tackling the new incumbent of the portfolio of Education because he has not been here long enough to be responsible for this. But he is still answerable for what has not been done.

What we need is a national survey of the labour position. The Government has not done it; so the Associated Chambers of Commerce in South Africa is undertaking one right now. This is something which should have been done by the Government long ago. The initiative, however, has been taken by the private sector. I should like to quote again—

It is Volkshandel who published that. Not us. This passage appeared in Volkshandel in July, 1968. It says we are a quarter of a century behind.

Who is Volkshandel?

Volkshandel is the official journal of the Handelsinstituut and the hon. member knows that very well.

Mr. Speaker, I want to give hon. members an example of the kind of thing we have when investigations are made into the educational position. There is an investigation going on at the moment in the Cape Province into the whole system of education. When the chief education planner for the Cape Province under the National Education Act addressed the SAOU in June this year he said:

Now, what did he mean by that? We all know. We know exactly what he meant by that. He simply meant that the shortage of teachers was so appalling that if he had given the figures, people would have made capital out of this situation. In fact that is the situation in a great many areas of the country. Most employers accept Std. VIII as the lowest educational qualification for the average job. A very high percentage of our pupils leave school at the age of 16 with only Std. VI and VII certificates. The academic achievement of these pupils may not be very great, but their potential for South Africa is enormous. Their capabilities are not being properly developed. Those who have no further training when they leave Std. VI or VII go into the dead-end jobs with no prospect of promotion after a certain period of their lives. These are the people who do not have enough training to move up the economic ladder and thus they prevent Coloured people, for instance, from advancing as they should.

We have advocated for many years in this House, and we do so again, various forms of State assistance for competent pupils who have to leave too early. Most of them leave for economic reasons. I wonder whether hon. members realize that in 1966—and the situation has improved very little since then—35 per cent of all white pupils in this country who left school had not studied further than Std. VI; 55 per cent had not gone beyond Std. VII; just over 10 per cent passed matric, while less than half of those went to university. The position has improved slightly since 1966, but that is not good enough.

Give us the figures before 1948.

Oh, for goodness sake! We are not talking about the days gone by. We maintain that any scheme of allowances, about which the Government should be thinking, should be established on an income-group basis, whenever a parent voluntarily applies for assistance in order to keep his child at school. This need not be a serious innovation because in practice school boards have to go into this matter already in regard to children in respect of whom application is made for exemption from school attendance where the parents cannot afford to keep them at school until they are 16. Economic assistance of this kind will ensure equal access by many more of our young people to all stages of technical, vocational and higher education. Such assistance should be based on merit. It would pay the Government and the country hands down an unlimited dividend in terms of skill and technical efficiency if such a scheme were introduced. This scheme could be applied to part-time students as well. There could be a periodical review in the different provinces of the type of assistance that is to be given. It could be assessed by the school board concerned. Once the maximum payment had been agreed upon, details of the financial scales to be allowed could be suited to local conditions and left to the local authorities. Why do we not have any ideas of this kind from hon. members on the other side? [Interjections.] Hon. members go on buzzing away at the back here. These are practical proposals and when we make them we are always jeered at because we are criticizing the Government. In making practical proposals this is what happens to us in this House. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wynberg dealt with the manpower shortage in a part of her speech. I shall deal with that in the course of my speech. I shall not follow her in the byways and highways of education. I shall leave that to other members on this side of the House.

For days before the start of this censure debate the public was regaled with stories and predictions by the newspapers supporting the United Party about the devastating attack the hon. Leader of the Opposition and the United Party were going to make on the Government. We read about the rejuvenated United Party, we read about the party that is now on the road to victory, we read about the party that is prepared to take over the government of this country at any time and they even appointed a shadow Cabinet. A shadow Cabinet! I cannot deal with the whole shadow Cabinet, but there appears to be more officers than privates, because more than half the present United Party Members of Parliament are members of that shadow Cabinet. Just imagine the hon. member for East London (City) being appointed the shadow Minister of Tourism. Well, he knows something about wool, but what he knows about tourism, heaven knows. The hon. member for Orange Grove was appointed the shadow Minister of Information. I can only say that all the information the public will get through the hon. member about the United Party will be most unreliable. Then there is the hon. member for Hillbrow. For a moment I have forgotten the shadow of what he is, but I think he should really be appointed the shadow Leader of the Opposition. He should be appointed shadow Leader of the Opposition after all his frantic efforts to obtain that position by way of interviews and statements in the newspapers and be appointed Leader of the Opposition when the United Party does not want the hon. member for Rondebosch any more. I think that the hon. member for Hillbrow makes more statements and gives more interviews in one week than the hon. Leader of the Opposition does in one year. However, he might succeed in due time. For that reason I think he should be appointed shadow Leader of the Opposition.

The hon. member for Sea Point is completely left out in the cold. He is one of the most senior members on that side of the House, but he was not even taken into consideration in the appointment of this shadow Cabinet. It reminds me of the heads of the black states. When they get into power they appoint almost all their supporters to some job or another, whether it is a Minister, a Deputy Minister, a Minister of State, or a provincial Minister. There everybody has to have a job. The hon. Leader of the Opposition had to do the same with his parliamentary party. Apparently these hon. gentlemen are forgetting that the Government still has a majority of 71 seats in this House and if the United Party had to progress at the present tempo it would take them 25 years to take office. Not one of those members of the shadow Cabinet will be in the House in 25 years’ time. Therefore, I think their expectations are not very bright.

Now, the hon. Leader of the Opposition has launched his devastating attack, but what a damp squib it turned out to be. Immediately after the Prime Minister had spoken they had to put up the most important shadow, the hon. member for Yeoville, to start the defence and what a poor defence it was. The hon. member for Yeoville spent at least ten minutes in juggling with the election figures and percentages. To prove what? To prove not that the United Party had progressed, but that it has remained static over the years.

Mr. Speaker, I will grant the United Party that it won back nine traditional United Party seats in the election, but that is nothing to crow about. As the hon. the Prime Minister has pointed out, there was no swing away from the Nationalist Party. The United Party is so easily satisfied. They have picked up a few crumbs from the rich man’s table and now they are in ecstasy over it. What they forget is that the few additional votes they received was not because they received more support for their policies. No person in full possession of his faculties will support such a stupid policy, namely that of race federation. They received protest votes, those people with grievances. Obviously, any Government worth its salt cannot satisfy all the people all the time. After 22 years it is only natural that there will be many people with grievances. Hon. members opposite should rather be very concerned about the inroads the Progressive Party has made on their strength. Let me give a few examples In Houghton the Progressive Party tripled their majority. In Parktown the Progressive candidate increased his votes by 1,500 and reduced the hon. member for Parktown’s vote by approximately that number. In Sea Point the United Party candidate retained his seat by the skin of his teeth. I can only say that there is “naught for their comfort ”, to quote Alan Paton. They are losing the support of voters. [Interjections.] If hon. members opposite interject one at a time I can reply, but if they all interject simultaneously it is impossible to hear what they say.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition commenced his criticism of the Government in the same way as he did before and after the election. In the past week the United Party newspapers flogged all these matters to death. We heard about Ashe, the Japanese jockey, about the hon. the Minister of Health, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education, etc. We heard nothing new or original. As soon as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition stands up we almost feel like singing that well-known hymn, “tell me the old, old story ”.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was very concerned about the worsening, as he termed it, of race relations in South Africa. He said, amongst other things, that the Government is destroying the loyalty of the Coloured and Indian people. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition should be the last to talk about that. Are the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party not guilty of a shameless betrayal of the Coloured people of this country? In 1950 when we proposed that the Coloured people should be placed on a separate roll we were opposed by that party for days, weeks and months. They then spoke about the solemn pledges given to the Coloured people. At that time they again made solemn pledges to the Coloured people that when they come into power they will restore them to the common roll. Do hon. members opposite deny that the United Party gave solemn pledges to the Coloured people of this country that when they take office they will restore them to the common roll? If hon. members want any proof of this, I can give it to them. I have here one of their typical yellow books with the title “Handleiding vir beter rasseverhoudinge ” which was published in 1963. From this book I quote the following:

Do hon. members opposite deny this? These were the solemn pledges they gave to the Coloured people in 1963, and before 1967. The United Party went even further. In 1962 Major Piet van der Byl, one of their leading members, addressed a meeting, and this is what he said:

Major Van der Byl gave this assurance at a meeting in the Gardens constituency in 1962. He was never repudiated. Hon. members opposite accepted that statement. The amusing part of the story is as follows. When Major Van der Byl was asked by a questioner whether he would serve under a Coloured Prime Minister, he replied: “That is a personal matter and no business of yours. ” What is their policy now? In their book “The Answer: You want it? We have it! ” they say the following:

There will be—

In spite of this hon. members opposite have the impudence to accuse us of breaking pledges. They gave these pledges to the Coloured people of the Cape. They are breaking those pledges. Again they are trimming their sails to the prevailing political wind. They are under the impression that they are gaining the support of the conservative people by breaking their pledges to the Coloured people. I am amazed that these liberal British papers in South Africa have not attacked them for breaking the pledges and undertakings they gave to the Coloured people. Is there any wonder that nobody trusts them? Is there any wonder that nobody accepts their word for anything? They talk about credibility. There is no such thing as credibility on that side of the House. And in spite of this flash in the pan in the recent election, the voters will not put them into power.

I have here a copy of a letter written to the Leader of the Opposition by a former prominent member of the United Party.

I thought you said you would win Von Brandis?

I wish the hon. member would stop his nonsense. If he makes a sensible interjection, I will reply to him.

Did you say you would win Von Brandis from the United Party?

I have nothing to do with Von Brandis: I am speaking about the letter which I want to quote. I never said that we would win Von Brandis. That is quite untrue. I challenge the hon. member to show me where I said that.

And then you gave Bezuidenhout to the Prime Minister.

No, I did not. That is also untrue. But that is typical of that hon. member. He cannot speak the truth. It is impossible. He talks about credibility. There is no such thing as credibility as far as he is concerned. He has told two lies now in this House, Sir. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

Very well, Sir, I withdraw the word “lies ” and I will say “untruths ”. The hon. member has told two untruths in succession. That is an hon. gentleman who places himself on a very high moral standard and talks about credibility. He knows nothing about credibility and he knows very little about the truth.

I have here a copy of a letter written by a former prominent member of the United Party to the Leader of the Opposition. I want to read some extracts from it. This letter was dated the 17th September, 1968. This is what he said among other things:

Harry Lewis.

No, it is not Harry Lewis. The hon. member is anticipating.

[Inaudible.]

Of course that hon. member is smiling and laughing again. He has a very peculiar sense of humour. When his Leader speaks, the hon. member for Yeoville is always wagging his tail and then he suddenly bursts out laughing and nobody knows why. He is only amusing himself. He reminds me of a story about a man walking in the street. As far as he was walking, he snapped his fingers behind his ears. So somebody came up to him and asked: “Why are you doing that? ” He replied: “Oh, I am telling myself jokes and when I have heard one before, I say, no, you have heard that one before. ” I want to read some more extracts from this letter. [Interjections.] They do not want to hear it.

Order! I want to ask hon. members to stop making all these interjections.

He said:

This is a letter addressed to the Leader of the Opposition. He continues:

Then he says:

The writer of this letter was one of their prominent members, Mr. Badenhorst Durrant. [Interjections.] I say he was one of the prominent members of that party. He sat in the second bench from the front, and he was one of their spokesmen on quite a number of matters. He often spoke on Information, before that hon. member over there received promotion as the Shadow Minister of Information. But of course he left that party, and he wrote a letter telling the truth, and now they sneer and jeer at him, as they do with all the members of that party who have left them and joined the other party.

Tell us what Jaap Marais said about you.

That hon. member is also making funny noises.

Order! Will hon. members please stop making interjections and allow the hon. the Minister to make his speech.

I do not mind interjections, but they are the first to squeal when somebody interjects from this side when they are talking. Most of them are always squealing, including that hon. member. I have never objected to interjections. Even when they kick up a row I do not mind, because it merely shows that I am getting home to them.

Now I want to deal with the manpower shortage. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said we are well acquainted with the United Party’s labour policy. I agree with him. We are well acquainted with it, if you can call it a policy. In fact, we are too well acquainted with it. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was again guilty of a number of platitudes. He said that 3½ million cannot provide all the skills necessary for a population of 20 million, or something to that effect, and I agree with him if he did say it. He referred to the vast potential amongst the non-Whites, meaning of course mainly the 14 million Bantu we have. More platitudes, Sir. Lower-paid white jobs must be done by non-Whites, and Whites displaced must be trained for better jobs. But in 1963 the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said this, as reported on 20th November, 1963—

That is what he said in 1963 about job reservation. I wonder whether they still say that? Now they do not say a word. Do they still stand by that statement made by the Leader of the Opposition in 1963? Because the implications were: Throw the doors open to all non-white labour to enter any sphere of employment. That is the logical consequence of that statement. 1963 was three years before a general election, but during this election they issued this book, and this is what they say—

In 1963 he condemned job reservation as something evil, but in 1970, when there is an election in the offing, he says job reservation is not enough to protect the white worker.

It is quite useless.

I am speaking to the Leader of the Opposition and not to that hon. member. Now let me deal with their so-called labour policy.

Have you finished with that?

I have finished with that and I will finish with those hon. members. I want to apply that so-called labour policy— he said we were well acquainted with that labour policy—to a very large extent as it will affect the S.A. Railways if this policy is implemented. First of all, they say that to meet these problems the policy of the United Party is the following. He refers to the shortage of manpower in South Africa. He says they guarantee the employment of Whites at real wages, not lower than those they earn at present, and the guarantee should last for at least 10 years in those industries where non-Whites are beginning to do white jobs. Now, on the S.A. Railways I have an acute manpower shortage, a very serious shortage. All the white workers on the Railways are protected by law. They cannot be summarily dismissed. If they are dismissed it can only be as the result of serious misconduct and they still have the right of appeal. In other words, they have this protection that the hon. member said should be given to those workers in the industries where the non-Whites are coming in. He said they would introduce a national minimum wage for Whites. That is one of their solutions. There is a minimum wage for Whites on the Railways. Unskilled Whites who are the lower-paid workers receive a minimum wage. He says the rate for the job should be applied at realistic, not minimum, wage levels in all those cases where normal wages are above the national minimum wage for Whites. But he has not given it any thought. Directly a wage for a particular industry is applied, it becomes the minimum wage in any case, whether it is the real wage or not, whether it is above the minimum or not. Directly an industrial agreement is arrived at and is published to give it the force of law, that particular wage becomes the minimum wage. It shows that they have given no thought to this whatever. They say they recognize the liberty of trade unions to negotiate agreements enforceable in law. But that has been the position since 1924. Does the hon. member not know that? The Industrial Conciliation Act was passed in 1924.

By Smuts.

Never mind by whom, whether it was by Smuts or anybody else. It was passed by this House, not by Smuts. Again, listen to that silly laughter. The hon. member finds it very amusing to say it was passed by Smuts. Sir, the Preacher says you must answer fools according to their folly, but I am afraid I cannot even answer that hon. member according to his folly. But they are trying to get away from this. That is their whole object. They want to recognize the liberty of trade unions to negotiate agreements, and they and the employers must be entrusted as far as possible to make adjustments in a changing labour pattern. This is their solution for the manpower problem. Sir, is it any wonder that not a single trade union leader has said in public that he supports the labour policy of the United Party? And they will not, because they know how foolish it is, how futile it is. I wonder why they do not summon up sufficient courage to say what they really want and what they mean, and I am challenging them to-day. That hon. member who has so much to say, and who is supposed to be the shadow Minister of Labour, I am challenging to say whether they are prepared to throw open the doors to non-Whites in all spheres of employment, even if the trade unions do not agree with it.

You have our policy there.

This? A policy? Sir, it is not a policy; it is an anachronism. [Interjections.] You see, Sir, that hon. member has not the courage of his convictions. The Leader of the Opposition said in regard to job reservation in 1963 by implication that all the doors must be thrown open, but to-day he has not got the courage, because there is a provincial election in the offing, to say that the doors must be thrown open for non-Whites even if the trade unions do not agree. What those hon. members are doing is to hide behind the trade unions.

As you are doing on the Railways.

I am doing it on the Railways, with the concurrence of the trade unions, yes, but I have the courage to say what my policy is, while those hon. gentlemen do not have the guts to say what their policy is.

But you took that over from us.

Oh, do not talk nonsense. Sir, the hon. member cannot help talking nonsense. I took it over from them! I am asking them what their policy is in this regard. Will they summon sufficient courage to say that they stand, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said by implication in 1963, for the unrestricted use of non-white labour, even if the trade unions do not agree with them and do not support them? I say that they will not have the courage to say that they will do it. They hide behind the trade unions. They are more concerned with political expediency than with the good and the interest of the country. They are afraid that they might lose a few votes, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will have an opportunity to reply. It is a very simple question. Does he still stand by his statement made in 1963? The country wants to know. Is he prepared to say that they will stand for the unrestricted use of non-white labour in all spheres of employment, in spite of what the attitude of the trade unions is, or will he continue to hide behind the skirts of the trade union leaders while he does not have the guts to say what he stands for? I challenge him to say that. He will have the opportunity to do so. Sir, I predict that he will get out of it somehow. He will not give a straight reply. He has never done it in the past. The trouble of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is that he must depend for the labour knowledge he has on the hon. member for Yeoville, and what he knows about labour is really dangerous.

But you are in labour now. You are labouring.

Sir, this hon. member is one of the first to complain when someone interjects while he is speaking and he will not reply to any questions, but as long as someone else is speaking he makes the most futile, stupid and silly interjections possible.

That’s right; be personal.

My time is very short, but there is one thing that saddens me in this debate, and that is that when the Prime Minister said that at least 140,000 English-speakers voted for the Nationalist Party, there were cries of derision from that side of the House. Do you know why, Sir? They claim a monopoly of English-speaking support. Of course, in spite of their stories of national unity they still beat the racial drum, as they did during this election—they and their newspapers. They are still making attempts to drive the English-speakers in this country into the racial kraal. They still misrepresent the aims and policies of the Nationalist Afrikaner in order to frighten the English-speakers, the same as the hon. member for South Coast did during the referendum campaign. I can quote a lot that he said at that time which he is ashamed of to-day. I have them all here.

Act your age. Grow up.

Would the hon. member like me to quote some of the things he said during 1961? [Interjections.] I say that these hon. gentlemen still misrepresent the aims and policies of the Nationalist Afrikaner to frighten the English-speakers. Any prominent English-speaker who openly supports the National Party is derided, attacked and ostracized by those hon. gentlemen.

What did you do to Harry Lewis?

And then they dare talk about national unity. Their type of national unity is the unity of English speakers with anglicized Afrikaners who are prepared to abandon their language, their culture and traditions, and I can give a number of examples on that side of the House, so-called Afrikaners who have abandoned their language, their tradition and their culture. That is the type of Afrikaner they want to form national unity with. But ours is a much broader national unity. We have recognized and maintained the separate identity of the two language groups, but we want to come together—not in the National Party; we are not favouring national unity in the National Party. We want a united nation of South Africa, outside the party. Those hon. gentlemen want national unity within the United Party, for the sake of the English-speakers and the type of Afrikaner like the hon. member for Yeoville and the Leader of the Opposition, who has abandoned his language and has abandoned his culture and everything else belonging to the Afrikaner. That is the type of national unity they want. That is why he says that when he wants national unity he does not ask whether a man is English or Afrikaans speaking; he just wants to know whether he is a South African. That is the national unity they want in the United Party, whereas we want a united nation in South Africa, because a united nation of South Africa is what we need. We want to come together, to work together, and, if necessary, to fight together for South Africa.

I hope that the hon. the Prime Minister was listening with pride to the exposition of national unity and the attitude of the Nationalist Party towards national unity and to what I can regard as nothing but a scurrilous reflection on hon. members on this side of the House.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “scurrilous ”.

I withdraw it. I say it is a personal attack on a member of this side of the House which made me feel ashamed to be classed as a South African together with an hon. fellow-South African who can make a statement like that. He made a personal attack on a person whom he accused of being an Anglicized Afrikaner and then stands up and claims to believe in national unity. If that is the national unity for which the Prime Minister and his party stands, then what is he going to say to the McLachlans whose home language is Afrikaans; what is he going to say to the Wilkins, the Lewis’s, the Langleys? Sir, one could go on mentioning others. In other words, the Langleys, the Prof. Thoms and the McLachlans are not true South Africans because they have been untrue to their culture and their language. Is that the sort of South Africanism they advocate? The last person who should talk about national unity in the future is the hon. the Minister of Transport if that is his attitude to South Africa and to South Africanism. The hon. the Minister puts Dr. Albert Hertzog in the shade when it comes to that sort of racialistic approach towards individual South Africans and their right to speak the language of their choice.

Sir, the hon. the Minister got up here and said that there had been no swing away from the Nationalist Party.

It just happened.

Yes, it just happened but I notice a few of our friends are absent. But, of course, the hon. the Minister of Transport is always right. On the 21st April of this year, which, if I remember rightly, was a day before a certain event in South Africa, he appeared in Pietermaritzburg (City) from where they had sent out an S.O.S. because they had heard that the railwaymen were going to vote for the United Party. They sent the hon. the Minister of Transport along and he said in Maritzburg: “The message I bring to Pietermaritzburg is that in the other provinces it is going very well with the National Party ”. “Mr. Schoeman said his forecasts had been accurate in the past. He now forecast Nationalist victories in Newcastle, Vryheid, Umhlatuzana, Zululand, Klip River as well as Port Natal, Umlazi, Pietermaritzburg (City) and Pietermaritzburg (District). ” Mr. Schoeman said his forecasts had been accurate in the past. I am glad, Sir, that he referred to the past tense.

The hon. the Prime Minister in talking of the election yesterday of course missed the whole point of the Leader of the Opposition, which was that that Party was out of touch with the people; that it did not know what was going to hit it; that it did not know what was happening; and now. Sir, they try to play it down. If you want evidence to show how out of touch they are I have just quoted the hon. the Minister of Transport; but there is other evidence also. As you know, it has been ruled that we as Parliamentarians do not take bets, but it is an indication of the kindness and generosity of many of my friends that having predicted the election results on the basis of their close knowledge of the situation, they were so pleased with the results afterwards that of their own free will they came and presented me with gifts.

But, Sir, there were others who spoke big before the election. The hon. the Prime Minister will remember a deputation which came to see him. When they came back they reported on the breakfast they had had of boerewors and pap and they said that they had also had an undertaking from the Prime Minister that he would personally lead the Nationalist Party on its assault on Natal. He was coming to woe Natal and would personally lead the attack. The hon. the Prime Minister nailed his leadership to the mast of the ship which was going to capture Natal, the pirate ship that was going to sail in and capture us. But the ship hit the rocks just as it got to the Drakensberg and was shipwrecked and it was shipwrecked with the Prime Minister’s flag of leadership on it. It was the Prime Minister who personally undertook to lead the assault on Natal. We also had a stirring call from the hon. member for Klip River—the about-to-be ex-leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal —in the last issue of a Nationalist election newspaper published in Natal, the Nataller election supplement. On Friday the 17th, just before the election, so that the Prime Minister’s leadership could be upheld and justified, he said in a message to the voters of Natal—

Mr. Speaker, they did. They acted very positively. In this newspaper we have the team that the hon. the Prime Minister came to lead in Natal: We had Mr. Harry Lewis. I do not see him sitting here. We had Mr. Con Botha who was going to lift me out of Point. He got shot so full of holes that I do not think we will ever see him in an election again. My majority only went from 2,100 to over 5,000. That was the Prime Minister’s leadership! We had Mr. L. Klopper, who was going to come back from Pietermaritzburg (City). I do not see him around. We had Mr. Jan Stander, who was going to come back as the representative of Port Natal. I do not see him here. We had Mr. Val Volker, the former member for Umhlatuzana, another of our absent friends. We had Mr. Ben Pienaar of Zululand.

Where is he?

Mr. Speaker, there was no swing away from the Nationalist Party! He is also just absent; he retired. We had Mr. Gary Tracey, who helped the hon. member for South Coast to more than double his majority. We had Mr. Carl Eggers who the hon. the Minister of Transport said would win Pietermaritzburg (District). I do not see him here. And then we had the three members who came back. So we are back where we were in 1948. In 1948 there were three Nationalist Party members representing Natal. We are back there, but the next time we are going back to where we were before 1948 and there will not be any Nationalist representatives from Natal at all. And then, Sir, the hon. the Minister of Transport gets up in this House and reads us a lecture firstly to show that the election did not mean a thing, that the Nationalist Party had lost nothing, and he then tried to lecture us on a shameless betrayal of the Coloured people. He will be dealt with in the course of this debate, but I would like to ask him whether he does not consider the removal of all representation for the Coloured people, after a pledge given by a Nationalist Prime Minister, to be a shameless betrayal? And that after a colleague of his in the Cabinet had said that although they gave the pledge to the Coloured people, they did not really mean to carry it out. Sir, what is now a shameless betrayal? Who has been guilty of a shameless betrayal of the Coloured people? That is the sort of argument with which the hon. the Minister of Transport tried to cover up the total failure of the Prime Minister’s damp-squib bomb which did not go off in yesterday’s debate.

But, Sir, while we are talking of the election, I think it is fair to say that not only the Prime Minister suffered in his leadership when he undertook to lead the Nationalist Party in Natal. The Nationalist Party leaders in Natal have had a tough time lately. Take the case of one ex-Minister, Mr. Willie Maree. I think he is very happy that he was not leading the Nationalist Party in this fight. But he sits at the moment on two important government bodies. I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether he believes it is a good thing that an ex-Cabinet Minister sitting on a Community Development board should be the director of a company …

He is not there; you are talking nonsense.

Sir, I have the name of the company. I have seen its prospectus.

If you say that he is a member of the Community Development Board you are talking utter tripe.

Of a board under Community Development.

You are still talking utter tripe.

Does he hold no position in Community Development?

None whatsoever.

I am glad to hear that, because it is commonly known that he held a position in the Department …

He holds no position whatsoever.

May I ask the hon. the Minister then whether at any time he held any position on a board or committee of Community Development?

Yes.

May I ask the Minister when he ceased to hold any position in Community Development?

When he became a director of a property company. He resigned two months after being appointed. I appointed him, and what is wrong with that?

The point is that that same person who was connected with Community Development became a director of a company owning land which they value at R8.4 million at Richard’s Bay. I remember the hon. the Prime Minister, when questioned at a meeting, taking strong exception to it and in fact sending police to question a man who had asked about the ownership of land at Richard’s Bay.

To take a statement.

I say why question a man when it is public knowledge that prominent politicians have interests in Richard’s Bay? What I am questioning is the Prime Minister’s action in using the police to interrogate a man for asking questions about property ownership at Richard’s Bay and I am quoting an ex-leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal as a person connected with land in Richard’s Bay. That is all.

Why cannot he have it?

He has an interest in land there but why cannot people ask questions about it without being interrogated?

That is so typically United Party.

Sir, Natal has been tough on leaders of the Nationalist Party. The hon. member for Klip River has had promotion to some sort of “kaptein ”, as I believe the job is called …

You are a gossipmonger.

On a point of order Sir, is the hon. member for Potchefstroom entitled to refer to a member on this side as a “gossip-monger ”?

Yes.

Order! I want to ask the hon. member to withdraw that word. I do not know who said it.

I said it. I withdraw it.

Order! One interjection leads to another and then we get this kind of reaction I called on only one member to speak and he is the hon. member for Durban (Point). I make this appeal to both sides of this House.

Sir, this ex-leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal who is no longer in the Cabinet was one of the first to make way. Now we have had an election and the hon. the Prime Minister announced, after the election that he would have to do a bit of “opknappingswerk ”; that he would have to improve the position; there would have to be better administration and more efficiency. So he transferred the present leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal to Nongoma; he is bringing the ex-Administrator in as leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal but he is already involved in some sort of argument. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at his first Cabinet meeting, Sir, because I see that the good lady of the future leader of the Nationalists in Natal has been having a press battle with the wife of another Cabinet Minister. [Interjections.] In Natal, this province that has been wooed for votes but is a province which one lady wants to throw to the sharks.

No. Make sure of your facts.

She was quoted as having said that. The point I am driving home is the disagreement within the Nationalist Party, which has spread beyond the Cabinet itself. I am starting with one member who is not yet a Cabinet Minister and I am showing that already there is disagreement. But now let us look within the Cabinet itself. I want to start off by referring to the case of the hon. Minister of Health, who was reported to have said that South Africa was negotiating air bases with Malawi. Subsequently he denied having made that statement. This, of course, is a statement of tremendous importance. It has been denied by Malawi and also, I believe, by the hon. the Minister of Defence.

And by myself.

And by the hon. the Minister of Health and of Mines. However, a Nationalist Party newspaper, under the control of Nationalist Party Cabinet Ministers, denied the denial. It stated that it had the evidence of what the hon. the Minister had said. Is the hon. the Prime Minister going to allow one of his newspapers publicly to say that one of his Ministers is telling an untruth? Because that is what has happened. Die Beeld has publicly stated that a member of the Cabinet had told an untruth.

Where is it? Read it.

The hon. the Minister denies that he made this statement; Die Beeld says that he did make this statement and that they have a tape recording thereof.

They only said they had a tape recording …

In other words, by implication and by a clear repudiation, they said a member of the Government was not telling the truth. What, Mr. Speaker, must South Africa think of the Government when a newspaper is allowed to make that type of allegation against one of its members and get away with it? Either the newspaper is wrong and should then apologize, or the hon. the Minister is wrong and should be fired.

But this was only one of the numerous differences within the Cabinet. We also had the hon. member for Klip River stating at a meeting held in Estcourt that a Nationalist Party government might declare war and send its army and police into an independent Bantustan if it was in the interest of South Africa to do so. The ex-member for Zululand said he had an undertaking from the hon. the Minister of Defence that should there be any danger of communism or any other danger to South Africa in an independent Bantustan South Africa would send its forces in.

Where did you get that from?

It was quoted in various newspapers in Natal.

Quote it. You are just taking a chance.

I have quoted the hon. member for Klip River and I have stated what the ex-hon. member for Zululand said at a meeting. I then questioned the hon. the Minister of Defence and asked him whether he was prepared to repudiate that statement. He replied to me without repudiating the statement.

Quote what I said.

The hon. the Minister wriggled, hummed and hawed; he said we would defend ourselves but he made no clear repudiation of the statement.

Quote what I said.

I am not going to quote what the hon. the Minister said. I say that the hon. the Minister did not give a clear indication. Now we have him before Parliament and as such answerable to the people of South Africa. So, we want to know whether the independence of a so-called Bantu state is to be complete or is it going to be an independence where we will still send forces in if we do not like what is going on there? Because the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration has been reported as contradicting the hon. member for Klip River. The Minister told the same audience that South Africa would never send a force into a country unless it was necessary. “If we are attacked ”, he said, “we would have to send in our forces ”. Well, here we have one Minister saying that only if we are attacked would we send in forces; we have an hon. member who has stated that we would send in forces; we have another member who said he had received an undertaking on this. So we expect from the hon. the Minister of Defence clarification of what sort of independence this is going to be for the Bantustans. Of course, it won’t be independence as long as you are going to hold over their heads the sword of military intervention. It is, therefore, essential for South Africa and for our position in the world that the hon. the Minister as Minister of Defence should make an unequivocal statement on the Government’s attitude to this issue.

Mr. Speaker, this is the Cabinet which has now been “opgeknap ”, which has been streamlined and which is now going to give us efficiency. In 1948 we heard of a Cabinet of all the talents; in 1970 we have a Cabinet double the size but with half the talent, unless it is the talent for making a mess of the country— because for that they have a magnificent talent. We have arguments within that Cabinet—for instance, between the hon. the Minister for Bantu Administration and his Deputy, Dr. Koornhof, and the one issues a statement while the other has to repudiate it. This is the Government under which we have to enter the 1970’s. We are entering a new decade with a cabinet and a government which not only has no clear policy for South Africa but is also unable to administer and run South Africa in the interests of its people. We, on the one hand, have given South Africa a clear vision for the new decade, a clear vision of the road ahead. On the other hand we are saddled with a government which is hesitant, inefficient and without the courage and confidence to tackle the challenges of the new decade, of the new era we are moving into. On every side we find a crisis. The hon. the Minister of Transport this afternoon admitted that he had a very serious situation on the Railways on account of staff shortages—the same hon. Minister who, wearing his halo, attacked us for having been dishonourable to the Coloured but who went into the by-election at Langlaagte to offer a R60 million pay increase to railwaymen. Now he admits that despite that he still has a serious situation. I want to go further and say that there is a crisis in transport but we shall take that further during the Railway debate.

There is a similar crisis throughout the Public Service—shortages of staff virtually in every department. There is a housing crisis, a critical housing crisis. Houses are being built to move people but not to house them.

Where is there a crisis?

That hon. Minister asks “where? ”.

The best Minister you ever had.

He came to my constituency, and my opponent during the election said he had pointed out the crisis in housing to the hon. the Minister and that the Minister was coming to offer his solution to that crisis. Now the hon. the Minister asks, “Where is the crisis? ”. Obviously he went to stay with my opponent who lives in the property which he bought from Community Development.

Who is that?

My opponent bought it from Community Development.

So what?

I am saying there is a housing crisis there.

If you had the money you should have bought it.

For the Minister, of course, there is no housing crisis. But I ask him to walk down Point Road with me and to look down the alleys and in the backyards to see how people are living. Let him see how they are living and let him then talk of there being no housing crisis. I ask him to talk to any young couple who want to get married and build a home. Let him then say there is no housing crisis. I say there is such a crisis and this is the measure of the lack of knowledge on the part of the Government of the needs of South Africa.

We have a water crisis and the hon. the Minister has to apply pressure in asking donations from people to help during the Water Year. The Government has a budget and has a responsibility and yet it has to go to private enterprise, to firms, put pressure on them and say, “You should give us so much ”. If that is not indirect pressure, then I do not know what is. It is being admitted everywhere that we have a water crisis in South Africa.

We also have a serious crime situation and administratively we have a muddle almost in every department. There is, for instance, the Department of the Interior with Japanese jockeys and with all the other nonsense we have had. All that has been done is to push a Minister from one department so that he can make a mess in another department. But nothing has been solved yet. This is the sort of administration under which we are expected to enter the new decade.

Yet we have on our hands vast potential: potential in minerals, in water, in manpower, in brainpower, in leadership—everything required to make of us a great country. We have everything except the Government to inspire the progress that South Africa deserves. We have our problems; we have the problem of the Coloured people where the Government can offer no solution. The Prime Minister once again in this debate said it was a problem to be solved in future; that it was being discussed. It is a party with no policy. Its Bantu policy has fallen in total ruins, a policy which every thinking Nationalist knows does not, cannot and never will work. But they have no alternative to offer. This is what we are saddled with—a government with its policies in ruins about them. And with such a government we have to move into the 1970’s.

My leader had every right to censure the Government for having failed to give South Africa the sort of vision and the sort of leadership which we deserve, which South Africa deserves and which we on this side of the House will give South Africa as soon as we get rid of the present encumbrance on our people.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat pointed out that we were now entering a very important decade, and I agree with him. Since this is the case and since we now find ourselves at the beginning of the life of a new Parliament with a promise on the part of the Opposition that they have come to this Parliament with new fire and that they would try to furnish guidance with new enthusiasm, one finds it surprising that they have up to now in this debate come forward with such foolish things. Since yesterday we have seen one speaker after another occupy his time with making little calculations, as if they were so pleased that they had not obtained even less than 37 per cent of the votes. Now they are beginning to play around with shadow cabinets and one speaker after another is trying to make little calculations in order to indicate that they have, with the 37 per cent of the votes which they polled, been imbued with new life. I do not think we will achieve very much if we are going to make little calculations right up to the end of this debate.

I want to return to what happened here yesterday when the hon. the Prime Minister reacted to a specific remark made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. the Prime Minister took immediate exception to it. I would be pleased if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would give me his attention now. The Prime Minister took exception yesterday when the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. as Leader of his party, deliberately and in a calculated way introduced a new element into this debate by intimating that it would be unfair that 13 per cent of the surface area of South Africa would belong to the Bantu nations. The Prime Minister did object, but one could argue that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not take note of it in this way in his argument. However, after the Prime Minister objected to it with all the responsibility at his disposal, the person whom that hon. Leader of the Opposition has appointed as his chief spokesman on planning in this country also rose to his feet and took it further. I am referring of course to the hon. member for Hillbrow. The hon. member for Hillbrow rose to his feet and raised in the idiom of the leftists and the agitators outside South Africa, as the Prime Minister described it, that extremely dangerous and emotionally-charged argument in this House when he asked: What morality is there in giving four-fifths of the black population of this country a mere 13 per cent of the surface area of the country? I now put it to the House that those two gentlemen who made those remarks discussed the matter between them. I refuse to believe that the Leader of the Opposition and that hon. member would raise that point here and proceed with the argument even after the Prime Minister had referred to it without their having reached prior agreement on it. I now put it to you that it is the policy of that party to allocate more than 13 per cent of this country to the Bantu. I think the House and the country is entitled to know what they intend doing in future. I want to point out that the way in which the point was raised was just as poisonous, just as wrong and just as culpable as it was in all the arguments which had their origin outside South Africa. And what was that? It was the impression which was given that here, within the geographical boundaries of our country, a very grave injustice was being done. Over the years, since the days when the bases of the distribution of people and land in this country were being argued, this matter, as you know, has been settled inside and outside this Parliament, first by Dr. Verwoerd, then by his successors and also by the present Minister of Bantu Administration. And what is the argument? The argument is that at the southernmost point of South Africa there are not merely areas which are at present being allocated and which are at present being purchased. Within this geographical area there are also parts which belong historically to the Bantu. They subsequently became free states, as we know, them, and they all form part of the ethnic group. The matter must therefore be viewed in this greater context and hon. members must realize that it does not merely revolve around the 13 per cent indicated in terms of legislation.

I put it to you, Sir. that with this argument an element of culpability has been dragged into politics which South Africa must be spared. I now want to proceed to the next point but I trust that the Leader of the Deposition will, when he replies, inform this House very clearly as to why he and the hon. member for Hillbrow got to their feet in this House and raised this argument and this allegation in such an emotional way. To my knowledge, this is the first time it has been raised in this House. I think it is dangerous. I think that we should proceed with caution in that connection. I also think that it is unfair. I put it to you. Sir, that it is the United Party’s intention to introduce this argument in order to try to attract new attention in South Africa with it. I put it to them, too. It is unfair to do so. They know how dangerous it is. They know who can help them—not the people in this country; they know that the only people who can help them are the agitators outside South Africa.

I want to agree with the hon. member who has just resumed his seat in regard to one point. I want to tell him that I am as aware as he is of the fact that we are standing on the threshold of the seventies. But up to now that hon. member and all the hon. members on the opposite side have not yet in this debate discussed the fundamental matters which are at issue in South African politics. Why have they avoided them? Why did they avoid them at the beginning of this decade? Surely they know that the road ahead is not going to become easier but more difficult. Surely they know that what is at issue here are not trivial matters. What is at issue is not the matters raised by the hon. member. Surely he knows that. Does he think that that is what is at issue in South African politics? No, Sir, that is not what is at issue. I shall tell you what is at issue. What is at issue is the fundamental problem in South Africa and in the world, i.e. human relations. I need not argue this matter with him. I can just say this to hon. members: If they think back on the past 25 years they will realize what was at issue in the world during that time. This was what was at issue in five continents. What was at issue? It concerns the primary and the most important question, and I do not want to elaborate on that. More has been said in this House about it than about any other matter in South Africa, i.e. human relations. What was at issue. Sir? As the hon. the Prime Minister also put it. it concerned the question: How does a plurality of peoples live together, not temporarily but permanently, and not at variance but in peace, in one country? That is what is at issue.

But give us some ideas about it then.

Yes. I am going to discuss this. All the hon. member has to do is listen. I now want to make this hypothesis: If that party had in fact been governing for the past 22 years, this matter would already have led to a revolution. It would be extremely dangerous for the survival of the Whites, in fact, for all peoples in this country, if there was even a possibility that this party could come into power. I shall tell hon. members why. In the history of the world in modern times we see that the clashes which have taken place during the past 25 years, except those behind the Iron Curtain, where what was at issue was imperialism and the engulfing of peoples, was concerned with one matter only, which is this: How does a plurality of peoples live together in peace in the same country? After the last World War this was at issue in the clash which occurred in India. What happened there, was apartheid, a confirmation of this Government’s policy. What is happening at the moment in the Middle East is not a confirmation of the standpoint of those gentlemen. It is a confirmation of the standpoint in which we believe. What is happening now and happened in the past years in Cyprus concerns the standpoint which we advocate, and not that of the United Party.

And Switzerland?

I shall come to Switzerland as well. What do hon. members think happened on the continent of Africa? Was it a confirmation of that hon. member’s standpoint? No. It was a confirmation of this Government’s standpoint. Why do hon. members think Biafra and Nigeria were until recently locked in a death struggle? It was nothing less than this question: How do several peoples live permanently together in one country in peace? That is what was at issue in South Africa, and still is. We have here the confirmation of the fact that the Government with its policy is correct, for there are only two directions in the world. There is no direction such as that of the United Party. On the one hand there is the direction of integration which has reached an impasse everywhere. There is not a single example in the entire world where that direction has been successful. Do hon. members perhaps know of one?

What is happening in Portugal, here on our borders? [Interjections.]

I shall discuss that further. There are only two directions. There is the recognition of different groups and of peoples, with their rights, ambitions and ideals. Blood has been spilled for that. That direction has failed on all continents. That direction has, however, been tried, i.e. where Whites and Blacks live together. Or what do hon. members think happened in Africa? Quite by chance I happened on a revealing article in the Daily Sketch. Here they describe what happened in America. I may just say that it is not for me to go into what the Americans are doing or are not doing. It is however interesting to know that there is no chance of peace in America. Whether they are going to succeed there I do not know. Nor is it any concern of mine. What is in fact happening is that certain voices are being raised in the U.S.A.—whether they are going to succeed we do not know. Those voices are asking: Give us a few states too which we can call our own. Here the Daily Sketch makes a very important admission. The Daily Sketch is printed in England and I understand that it is an established newspaper with a very large circulation. I want to read to hon. members what the Daily Sketch says. The article begins like this: “they tried … ” These are the Americans. This is the advice the Daily Sketch gave to the English so that they would not do what the Americans had done in America. The article begins as follows—

Thus, on one level only—

Where this manifestation is to be found in the world, there is an indication that there are either the militants on the one hand, with all their demands to drive the white man out everywhere and lay claim to everything, or there is the other side where they themselves effect automatic division, as we want to do here; but in between the two there is no United Party plan. There is not a single country in the world which supports the United Party’s standpoint. I want to go further. I challenge hon. members on the opposite side to mention one country in the world that has a pattern similar to that of the United Party. There is not one. We need not look to the outside world. The standpoint of the United Party is being rejected within South Africa by the people with whom they want to put it into effect. In South Africa there are two standpoints as well. We know that. There is the standpoint of the militants. We know who they are. Those who are quite militant and dangerous, to-day find themselves outside South Africa. There is that standpoint. Then there is the standpoint of the National Party, but there is nothing in between. There is not one important non-white party in this country which has so far stated that they support the United Party. In the Bantu areas there is not a single important authority which my colleague, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development deals with, which has stated that they want the United Party’s standpoint. He also deals with two standpoints. The greatest breakthrough of this century and this age as far as we are concerned is the breakthrough of this party to the minds of non-white people who allow us to do with them what we want to and what we are going to do with them. That is the breakthrough. The peace and prosperity prevailing here in South Africa, came about because there was a breakthrough to the minds of those people who to-day want to co-operate with the National Party in order to make a success of its policy.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition made a statement here and spoke about a “complete breakdown of the apartheid policy ”. It is not a “complete breakdown ” of the apartheid policy; it is a breakthrough of the apartheid policy to the minds of these people among whom this policy must be implemented. We on this side of the House have never required that it should be or claimed that it is easy to implement. We have never said that it is inexpensive to implement. We have never said that we will make easy progress with the people themselves. We did in fact say that it was almost the impossible, the superhuman which we were attempting. That we knew from the beginning, because what do we need? We need a great deal of money. We need a great deal of patience. We need a great deal of dedication. We need a great many people. We need a great deal of instruction. We are not dealing here with machines; we are dealing here with people and one must carry them along with the process. That is what we need. When the hon. the Leader of the Opposition speaks of a “total breakdown of the apartheid policy ” then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows that it is not true. He knows that it is not true.

Order! The hon. the Minister is not allowed to say that he knows it is not true. The hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that. The point I wanted to make is that the opposite is true. I am quite justified in saying therefore that if the United Party had been in power there would already have been problems and difficulties of colossal magnitude. If the United Party were to come to power, we would be heading for revolution. We are making an offer and that party is making an offer, and what is their offer and what is ours? We are making the offer as it is being made to people in the rest of the world and according to the longings in the hearts of peoples, i.e. an offer which will enable them, no matter how primitive, no matter how few in number, or how simple to tread their own path in future so that they can know where they are going and also have a place where they can build their ideals. We are making them that offer. We are saying to them that we will help and lead them along that road. We will also help to foot the bill. We will try to make the people who can furnish guidance available. We are prepared to take these people along that road. But what offer is being made by members on the opposite side? The offer being made by members on the opposite side is that there will be and continue to be one undivided South Africa. This greater South Africa, they are saying to the non-Whites in this country, is your country as well, but they refuse to accept the consequences, because what does that mean? If one makes the offer that it will be one country with one community in which one devotion and one loyalty will apply, you are in fact saying to those people to whom you are making this offer that all those tokens and all those privileges which a citizen of that country will receive will inevitably accompany it. What are their privileges? If you offer them an undivided country and if you expect them to serve that country loyally, if you say to them that that country is their fatherland and that it should comprise one greater community which must live together in peace, love and loyalty, then one at least has the right to demand citizenship of that country of yours, with everything which goes hand in hand with that citizenship. What goes hand in hand with that citizenship? It follows that one will have to give them the political rights of that citizenship. It follows that one must accord them an opportunity of giving expression to the citizenship socially and economically, of working and participating at all levels of life.

And what are you giving the Coloureds?

If I have sufficient time, I shall come to that. The hon. the Leader must just give me a chance. The consequences of the offer of that party is one undivided South Africa, but within that one undivided South Africa all the people, regardless of colour, must have the fundamental right to demand the privileges and benefits of citizenship. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition calls it leadership. Whom is he leading and who has accepted his leadership? No-one. Can he mention to me a single party of a non-white ethnic group in South Africa which has accepted his leadership? Can he mention a single responsible opinion which has so far been stated thus: I am prepared to accept the United Party on its basis. They will not do so. They would be mad if they did. On the other hand, the National Party offers them what is their due and what is fundamental to the rights attached to that. What does that side of the House offer them? The United Party is bluffing itself. It is making no impression on the people with whom they want to work; it is making no impression on the world outside and it is making no impression on the political opinion of the Whites in South Africa, because they think they can at all times get away with giving a little and withholding a great deal. Who will let themselves be bluffed?

What nation will allow itself to be bluffed and will at all times be prepared to receive a little while a great deal is being withheld from them, in the political as well as in other spheres? That is why I say it is not acceptable and that is why it is also very clear. Not only are the non-Whites of this country not prepared to accept it, they have rejected it up to now, but the Whites also reject it, and that White political world opinion which also has an influence on South Africa and on what we are doing here, also rejects it, because in the world outside there are also two opinions. There is on the one hand the opinion of the militants, and we know what those consequences and what those demands are, on the other hand, there is the opinion as we state it. I put it to you. Sir, that what has been successful since the year 1945 has only been the policy of apartheid of the National Party in South Africa. We are sorry that it is not officially accepted anywhere, but it is still the only policy which has ever succeeded in practice. That is why I maintain that what will be of fundamental importance in the seventies is not to talk a lot of nonsense but to know what is becoming of the people and what is fundamental for relations between people in this country, what road they are following to the year 2000 and what is going to happen in this decade to which the hon. member who has just resumed his seat referred. We can discuss these relations between the Whites and the non-Whites of this country. We can talk about how we are living together. There are many other important relations as well.

That is why I repeat that if that party had been in power it would already have been saddled with the problem of a revolution, because it would have reminded the people of everything which is fundamental. It would not have been able to resist the demands. If that party should come to power to-morrow, we expect them at least to govern as they have opposed if it wants to be honest towards South Africa and the people of South Africa, both Whites and non-Whites. If it is not prepared to govern as it has opposed it is dishonest in all aspects of the opposition standpoint it presents here. If it were to govern as it has opposed, the first demand which will be made of it will be the demand of fairplay, because if is impossible to think that one can withhold citizenship from a person, offer little and withhold a great deal. It is impossible to expect that if that party should come to power and the people should be afforded an opportunity of making demands on it, the first demand which they would make of them would not be a demand for equitable relations among people according to their expectations. That is why I say, should they come into power to-morrow—and thank the Lord that that is not possible—the demand will be on record the day after that in the place of what they now want to reject they will have to create a new South Africa in the seventies. In that new South Africa things will take their course according to relations. It will be of no avail then coming forward with foolish talk of referendums. No, we are dealing here with people and their numbers are increasing by millions every year. We cannot keep them back with something like a referendum if one is withholding something fundamental from them. In what country in the world has that succeeded? To my knowledge it has not succeeded anywhere in the history of the world. While hon. members on that side of the House are telling the people outside that they have returned with new courage and with new fire, even though they drew only 37 per cent of the total number of votes, I hope that they will inform South Africa what relations between Whites and Blacks in this country will prevail which will have an honest basis and on which the security and prosperity of South Africa may justifiably be based.

Mr. Speaker, we have had from the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs, one of the Ministers of this Government, a speech which in many respects I hope will not set the standard for debate in this House. I hope, for example, that we are not going to be reduced in this House, the highest legislature in the land, to making allegations or statements such as were made this afternoon by the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs, namely that if we on this side of the House, the United Party, come into power, this will bring about a revolution in South Africa.

It will.

What a scandalous statement to make. The hon. the Minister of Water Affairs by way of interjection, repeats his statement.

Order! The hon. member should contain himself.

Mr. Speaker, I will abide by your ruling, but I do believe that this is not the way in which the two main political parties in this country should be conducting a debate. What did the speech of the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs amount to? It was a great deal of gesticulation and big words forcefully delivered. What does it amount to? It amounted firstly to trying to prove to this House what the Nationalist Government has been trying to do year in and year out and has not succeeded in persuading the electorate about, namely that the policy advocated by us on this side of the House is not feasible in the present context of South African affairs. They continually tell the House and the voters of South Africa that there are only two courses: integration or separation, and they go on to say “as they on that side of the House propose ”. This was the main argument of the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs this afternoon. This was what all these big words and this great longwinded speech amounted to. Can the hon. the Minister tell us where under the Nationalist Government after 22 years in power, there is separation? I will tell him where there is separation. There is separation in those areas where there is no development. Where there is development in this country, there is economic interdependence between the white man and the non-White. Surely the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs will admit that this is the foundation for development in this country. There is no separation in the sense in which he was using it. Therefore, how can he say that there are only two courses left open to us in South Africa?

That hon. member will never understand in any case.

Mr. Speaker, I understood very well. It is the old Nationalist argument that there are only these two courses open. Then the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs criticized the hon. the Leader of the Opposition for challenging the Government to deny that their apartheid policy, their policy of separate development call it what you will, has failed. Despite all their efforts it has failed. What has the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs done? He has not met that challenge in any way. All he has done is to try to pooh-pooh the policy of us on this side of the House and to say the only alternative is apartheid without explaining. I challenge somebody on that side of the House to get up in this debate and to tell us where this Nationalist Government is leading the country. There were several aspects of the Government’s separate development policy that were challenged in the recent election. There were aspects of the policy that were criticized. Questions were asked about it. To this day we have not had any answers. We have had no answers from the hon. the Prime Minister.

I believe that yesterday was a historical day in this House. It was historical for the obvious reason that the announcement was made that our scientists had discovered an improved method for dealing with uranium which would make it cheaper to produce atomic power. But I believe that history will prove that yesterday in Parliament was historical for two other reasons. Firstly I believe that the speech of the hon. the Prime Minister yesterday proved beyond all doubt to any person who previously had any doubt that the hon. the Prime Minister is not fitted either intellectually or through his leadership qualities to lead this country into the important decade of the seventies. In contrast, I believe, historians looking back on the debate yesterday, will look at the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and will realize by contrast that here we have the future leader of South Africa, the future Prime Minister, the man capable of dealing with the problems which will face South Africa in this important decade and the man who is prepared and able to put forward reasonable solutions which will meet these problems. What did we find from the hon. the Prime Minister? He had a great build-up from the Nationalist press about this bombshell that he was supposed to have delivered in this House. He was going to make an important statement. It was suggested that that statement had to do with race relations in South Africa, the future direction of separate development and so forth. Surely, this is the least that this House and this country, the voters of South Africa, could have expected from the hon. the Prime Minister. At the start of a new parliament after a general election which he had won, at the start of a new decade, surely this House and the voters of South Africa could expect that the hon. the Prime Minister, getting up in this debate, would have given the House his philosophy, would have told the House where he was leading the country, particularly on the question of race relations which remains the most important problem in this country. And what did we hear from him on the subject? Very little indeed.

A lot.

Nothing new and no philosophy on government whatsoever. But let us look at the other problems of South Africa, the problems concerning the ordinary man in the street. The ordinary man in the street is to-day …

… has never been better off.

… faced with rising cost of living, problems of taxation, the burden of, particularly, sales taxes and the difficulties of getting proper housing at a reasonable price, despite what the hon. the Minister of Community Development has to say. This is an indication of how out of touch this Government is when the hon. the Minister of Community Development can make an interjection to the effect that all is well on the housing front in this country.

I said they have better housing conditions than they ever had before.

Did we hear from the hon. the Prime Minister what solutions he has to the other problems facing South Africa and what his plans are in regard to them? What is perhaps the most important problem facing this country to-day other than race relations? I suggest that it is the labour shortage, the manpower problem. Did the hon. the Prime Minister deal with this in any way? From his speech one would think that this was not a problem at all. And yet speaker after speaker, industrialist after industrialist, and economist after economist in the last few months has been drawing attention to this as one of the gravest problems facing South Africa to-day. Yet the hon. the Prime Minister made no reference to it. But what is more alarming for the country is that the hon. the Minister of Transport, who is second in command to the Prime Minister in order of precedence in the Cabinet, also made a long speech dealing with labour. And did he deal with the labour problem? No, he spent his time criticizing our policy. We are not the Government. We are not the ones in a position to put this matter right, just yet. We will be because the electorate is beginning to realize that if they leave the problems of South Africa to this Government indefinitely, there will be no solution.

I want to deal in some detail with this question of manpower shortage. I hope that some member on that side of the House, and particularly the vociferous Minister of Community Development, might tell the country and this House what the Nationalist Government’s plans are to solve this problem. Mr. Speaker, do you realize that while the hon. the Prime Minister was making his speech in the House yesterday—or may be it was during the morning before the hon. the Prime Minister delivered his speech—a delegation from the Association of Chambers of Commerce in South Africa was meeting the Deputy Minister of Finance? They had hoped to meet the hon. the Minister of Finance, but apparently he was ill. They therefore met his Deputy instead. They were meeting him in order to draw to the Government’s attention the seriousness of this problem. According to the report in this morning’s Cape Times, this is what they told the hon. the Deputy Minister—

I should like to emphasize this. They pointed out that the present business mood was not a robust one. This is a polite way of saying that the economy is slowing down. This is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition told the Prime Minister yesterday. They went on to say—

They asked, and apparently pleaded, that something be done about this in the Budget. This took place yesterday. Now, what is this manpower shortage really? According to one of the economists of Sanlam there will be a shortage of 65,000 white workers by 1973. That is only three years off. There will be a shortage of 65,000 white workers despite immigration. He points out that this is more than 4 per cent of the total labour demand. In so far as professional and technical workers are concerned, he estimates that the shortage will be 23,000. which is 11 per cent of the total demand. Under these circumstances one would have expected the hon. the Prime Minister to have dealt with this serious matter in his speech.

But, Mr. Speaker, there is even more evidence, recent evidence. A few days ago an important survey of investment intentions, 1970-’71, made by the Bureau for Economic Research appeared. One would have thought that the hon. the Prime Minister would at least have referred to this important document. He, however, made no mention of it.

But why should he? [Interjections.]

These interjections prove once again how very much out of touch this Government and this party is with realities in South Africa, so much so that it is now becoming alarming to think that they can be so out of touch and yet the future of South Africa is in their hands for at least another five years. We hope that the public will ask for their resignation much sooner than that. For the benefit of the hon. member for Brakpan, who asked me why the hon. the Prime Minister should have referred to this document, this is what this document says. It was a survey made amongst certain business houses and on page 16 there is a summary of the survey results. I quote—

Now, let us have a look at their own assessment, the assessment made by those responsible for the survey, which is based on the information they obtained from the survey. They referred to various aspects of the survey and then they say, and I quote from page 22—

Then I would like to quote the next paragraph and perhaps then hon. members on that side of the House will realize why this survey is so significant. I hope they will also then realize why this House was entitled to expect from the hon. the Prime Minister to show in which direction he is leading this country. I would like to know this because I would suggest to this House that there are only two ways in which our economy can go. It cannot remain at the same level for a very long time. Nothing remains static for long. It can only go up and if it does not go up, it will go down. From statements made by the hon. the Prime Minister after the last election, it appears that his Government and he himself are prepared to see the economy running down rather than to tackle realistically the labour problem in the only way in which it ought to be tackled. The country is entitled to know to what extent the hon. the Prime Minister and his Government are prepared to allow the economy to run down. This is the reason why, amongst other things, the speech of the hon. the Prime Minister yesterday was so disappointing. This is what the persons who produced this survey pointed out. I quote from page 23—

The hon. the Minister of Water Affairs went to great pains to defend this this afternoon. I quote further—

That is their own policy. I quote further—

What is wrong with that?

Perhaps, if the hon. member for Brakpan were listening, he would have realized when I started that I had made it clear that I was referring to this with approval. There is nothing wrong with that at all. On the contrary, this is an economic fact of life in South Africa and I would like to know from the hon. member for Brakpan or from some member on the Government side what the Government intends to do about this.

It is our object.

What is your object?

A high rate of growth.

The hon. member for Brakpan has made a very interesting remark and I am not going to let him get away with it. He says that what I have just read from this pamphlet is the object of the Nationalist Government. Is that correct?

This passage you were reading just now?

Yes. Well, then I challenge him or any member on that side of the House to say how they intend to achieve that object and at the same time maintain the clamps on labour which exist at present. I would like to quote another passage and to ask the hon. member for Brakpan whether or not he agrees with it, since he is so co-operative this afternoon. Perhaps I should deal with another passage first. This passage is from a source which, I am sure, appeals to the hon. members on that side of the House. This passage is from the June, 1970, edition of Volkshandel. I think the hon. member for Brakpan will agree that this is almost an unimpeachable source as far as the Nationalist Party is concerned. The title of this editorial is “Eiesoortige ontwikkeling en die arbeidstekort. ” I quote—

Then follows the question I would like hon. members opposite to answer—

The editor then goes on to point out that the shortage of manpower is resulting in a slowing-down of the growth rate. He then deals with the Bantu and the part that the Bantu could play but is not being allowed to play in the amelioration of the labour shortage. Perhaps the hon. member for Brakpan, or the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education, or the hon. the Minister himself can tell us in this debate whether there has been any change in thinking in the Nationalist Party regarding the part that the Bantu should be allowed to play in resolving the problem of labour shortage which there is in this country. Or is it the philosophy of this Government that we should be prepared to accept a slowing down in the economic growth? I believe that the attitude which we in this country, and particularly which any responsible government. should adopt towards the economy of South Africa has been well set out by … (Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I thought that the hon. member for Musgrave would have returned with a golden tan from the Mediterranean Sea and would have climbed into this debate bursting with energy as a result of the dolce vita—this means “good life ” —which he enjoyed in Italy. The speech which the hon. member just made is one of the most pathetic examples of his debating technique thus far. I feel very sorry for the hon. member, because his speech was clearly very much in line with what the United Party dished up to us here. This motion of censure was announced with a great fanfare in the United Party Press. Days and months before the time we read every day about the degree of vigour and fire with which they would conduct this debate, and the hon. member for Musgrave has just given us a demonstration of the energetic and fiery kind of debate they are conducting here. I feel very sorry for the hon. member, because his speech was actually in the spirit of the example set him by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Durban (Point) is now falling into my soup. All my colleagues were unfortunately not as privileged as I was. In my constituency both the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Durban (Point) addressed meetings. As a result of that the National Party majority increased considerably. I am sorry that I could not persuade the hon. member for Yeoville to hold a meeting there as well, because then our majority would have increased by a further 500 votes. I shall come back to the hon. member for Durban (Point) in a moment.

The hon. member for Musgrave takes it upon himself to say that the Prime Minister is not intellectually equipped to lead the country in this decade. Where does the hon. member get the conceit and the presumption to express an opinion of that kind here? After the poor example the hon. member set us here, using three-quarters of his time to quote from two documents, and very badly at that, is he the person to express an opinion about the intellectual capabilities of the hon. the Prime Minister? The hon. member referred to a “bombshell ”. Where has there been a greater “bombshell ” announced than in the United Party motion of censure? Sir, a motion of censure; not a motion of no confidence. In their Press this motion of censure enjoyed greater publicity than any previous motion of its kind. One understands the United Party’s problem. The recent election was conducted with all the means at their disposal. When I say all the means, I mean exactly what I say. The hon. member for Durban (Point) knows exactly what I am speaking about.

Qualify that.

I shall do so with pleasure. This election was conducted with more political distortion, political scandal and political impropriety than any previous election. The hon. member was one of the biggest grievance-agitators. In fact, when one looks at the hon. member he looks like a whole grievance commission himself. The hon. member for Durban (Point) travelled through this country with scandal stories, and he excelled himself. In saying this one says a mouthful. The hon. member for Durban (Point) went around in search of stories. In my own constituency I had examples of the depths to which he could sink. Even I was surprised at what the hon. member could do there. I did not think that he would quite be able to manage it, but I think that he result of the election there, where the hon. member held meetings, speaks volumes for the value the voters attached to the stories he bartered.

Were they true or not?

The United Party … [Interjections.]

No, answer me.

If I am invited to react to the hon. member, let me tell him that he did not even know all the facts about one of his informants who stood behind the door. It is a pity that the hon. member did not first obtain more particulars about his informants before he gossiped about other people.

It is gratifying for me also to have the privilege of addressing you while you are occupying the Chair at present. I am grateful for the particular privilege which has befallen me. A battle was fought here by the United Party against the National Party, and a debate was launched to take that battle further. Now we must determine for ourselves that the most important elements are that we are to be faced with in this country in the future. It was clearly apparent, from the brilliant exposition given by the hon. the Prime Minister, how important this side of the House regards relations among people and among nations in South Africa. In reducing all the important problems—and there are many—with which this country is faced, to the most important feature, one is left with human relationships and everything arising from this. A pattern for the future has been laid before us by the United Party, and there has also been one laid before us by the National Party. In the speeches by United Party members yesterday I looked in vain for the image they were presenting for the Whites in the future of South Africa. What does the United Party’s policy entail for the Whites in South Africa in the future? The first and most important aspect is that it entails partnership in administration for all other elements in the country. For all other national and colour groups, their policy entails sharing he powers of government over the Whites in this Parliament. In this election they consistently evaded that point. From platform to platform attempts were made to get them to discuss their policy at this level, thereby to give the voters of the country a clear image of the future. They evaded the issue, because what does their policy embrace in this connection? The United Party’s policy is based on giving the non-Whites a say in the powers of government over the Whites. What is more, with reference to his by now notorious television appearance, the hon. member for Yeoville declared in this House that he believed that Bantu would eventually represent Bantu in this House. Mr. Speaker, whenever we put this question to them in the election, they evaded it. In fact, they are now still carefully evading it, because the gist of that statement, that prophetic vision of the hon. member for Yeoville that we are going to introduce the non-Whites into this Parliament to rule over one mixed fatherland, is what is being presented to the Whites. But what is being presented to the non-Whites? What is being presented to the Bantu in this Parliament? I want to speak about that in particular. An arbitrary number— because there is no basis for determination— of Bantu representatives are being presented to the Bantu, representatives who, according to the hon. member for Yeoville, could eventually be Bantu. That number of Bantu must take their seats in this Parliament and obtain their right of say. But, Sir, has the lesson of Africa slipped by hon. members opposite? Has the lesson of Africa on the working of democracy passed them by? Only quite recently we obtained a statement from a neighbouring state to the effect that the Westminster type of democracy does not function successfully in Africa? Quite recently we saw what happened in a neighbouring state when democratic operations were suspended. The Prime Minister said it was because democracy in its Westminster form could not be applied in Africa. We are in the process of developing a pattern of military governments in Africa. In various African states coups d’état are being carried out. In 1966 there were already quite a number of states in Africa with military governments. The Congo has general Mobutu: Dahomé has General Soglo; the Central African Republic has a colonel; Upper Volta has a lieutenant-colonel: Algeria has Colonel Baumedienne; Egypt first had General Naguib, and now it has Colonel Nasser; the Sudan has a general; Nigeria has a general. Nigeria has been presented as the successful democracy in Africa. Nigeria was praised as being the one land in Africa where the Western form of democracy was applied successfully. In Nigeria we had the greatest bloodbath in Africa’s immediate history. The Reason for this is that the Westminster type of democracy, as it is called by Chief Jonathan of Lesotho, makes no impression on the hearts of the inhabitants of Africa, the Bantu. Throughout the centuries the Bantu have had other traditions and other forms of Government. Throughout the centuries the African forms of government have been patriarchal, with a line from the head of the family to the head of the tribe to the king or paramount chief, as the case may be. Throughout history this form of government was familiar to the Bantu in Africa. Throughout the years opposition took on a totally different form in Africa. Opposition was regarded as high treason, as something detrimental to the country. To the African consciousness opposition is in an attempt to take over the government in all sorts of undesirable ways.

We once more have examples of what happens in Africa when an Opposition makes attempts at taking over a government and how they set to work trying to do so. In the Congo we had the example of Lumumba, who is dead. In Kenya we had the example of an unpopular political personality, Tom Mboya. In Nigeria Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa paid the price for democracy in Africa. In Ghana Nkrumah was lucky that he was not in the country, otherwise he would have gone the same way. Sir, in Africa the concept is that the government in power is governing strongly. When attempts are made to take over the government, it goes hand in hand with assassination or a coup d’état. In other words, the whole concept of opposition in Africa is a totally different concept to what we in Western democracy have also built up with difficulty through the years.

Now this hon. Opposition wants to bring a number of people here, be they Bantu or White, to represent the Bantu, and to place them as a permanent minority group in this House. They are therefore going to give them the status of opposition members, regardless of what government is in power. They will have the status of a minority within this House. They are therefore going to attach to them the image which Africa attaches to an opposition, because this group which is to come here, would, according to the United Party, obviously never become a majority group either. In other words, the Bantu are going to be represented here by people who will be seen essentially as a group of opposition members, with the whole concept of what opposition means in Africa. They will, in other words, be a group of people who will always remain an opposition and who will be weaklings in the eyes of the Bantu, because the Bantu regard an opposition as weaklings and often, as in our case as well, with very good reason. The Bantu representatives coming here will therefore be regarded over the years by the Bantu as a small group of opposition members who are unable to achieve anything, people who therefore represent no one and who cannot speak on anyone’s behalf. Wherever opposition has been successful in Africa, it has eventually come to power in one of the ways I have mentioned. Interestingly enough, when that opposition comes into power, whether by assassination or by means of a coup d’état, it is held in high regard, because to have been able to come to power under those circumstances requires perseverance, cunning and good organization. Throughout the years the opposition which eventually takes over the government has been accepted as a good and just government, because it took a great deal to get here. But the United Party wants to condemn a number of people here to the status of opposition, to the status of a despised minority group, for all time. That is what they want to do. Sir, the frustration which is going to result from that, the contempt for their own representatives, will mean that those people are going to be a totally useless link with their own people for all time. What the United Party therefore wants to do with its non-white representatives which it wants to introduce here, and more specifically with the Bantu, is to give them a status which is disparaged and despised by their own people, a status which would have no meaning whatsoever for those people as contacts.

But they are going to obtain greater status in their own communal councils in exchange for what you are now speaking about.

I am busy speaking about the eight representatives which hon. members want to bring into this House. The United Party is therefore going to deprive these representatives of all status in respect of their own people. They are going to deprive them of all respect on the part of their own people. As a contact point with the Bantu they will therefore never be worth anything. They are therefore condemning them to an inferior status. Along those lines they achieve nothing. But, on the other hand, it is an attempt to pacify the outside word; it is an attempt at making a concession to the outside world. What are they going to achieve by this? It has been said repeatedly in this House, and proved, that a concession of that nature is altogether unacceptable to the world and to the critics of South Africa. Sir, some of our neighbouring states have gone very much further. Rhodesia has gone very much further along the road of non-white representation in their Parliament, and is the world satisfied with them? The greatest international boycott that has ever been launched against a country, and the greatest attempt at destruction without recourse to war is being launched against Rhodesia. And Rhodesia has gone much further than they are offering to go at present. As a means towards purchasing the world’s goodwill this is therefore a stillborn failure from the start. They have no hope of success along those lines. What are they then trying to achieve? This was summed up very well by one of the previous hon. speakers on this side, the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs. They are trying to give the minimum and to withhold the maximum. They are trying along these lines to affect a compromise and to present this to the voters, so as to get the voters onto their side. They are trying to bluff the non-Whites and the Bantu by giving them something which is never going to have any value or meaning for them anyway. That is why they received no single measure of positive support for the United Party in this election, and that is why they had to subsist on the grievances which they and their allies stirred up; hence the meagre tokens of support which they are now magnifying out of all proportion. There is no positive element inherent in the United Party’s policy in this regard. Sir, against this range the National Party’s policy.

As far as the Whites in South Africa are concerned, this time we have the most historic of sittings, because this is the first Parliament containing only Whites, representing only White interests. This sitting of this Parliament is an historic one because we are entering a totally new era in connection with the representation of Whites in White South Africa. But we want to offer the Bantu what he knows. The National Party would like to give him something which can grow from the unknown to the known. The National Party offers the Bantu what he has been familiar with through the centuries, what has been known to Africa, what is expected today as good Government in Africa. Out of that there is a gradual building towards democracy; with elements that are solid; and to that is added the new elements of democracy.

Mere words.

Yes, these may be mere words, but that hon. member’s nick-name is Windbuks (airgun), and in any case I cannot produce as much hot air as he can. There is a certain firm manufacturing arms in the U.S.A.. Some of their arms were successful, but their airguns are obviously highly unsuccessful. I say that the National Party is building from familiar elements, with the addition of the unknown forms of administration, for the Bantu and his future. Rhodesia has also applied the same system, and with very great success. I just want to read a single statement which came from Mr. Ian Smith—

What happened in Africa was that where the familiar was eliminated and replaced by unknown elements of democracy, chaos reigned, and Mr. Ian Smith says they had to pay a heavy price to return to the traditional tribal customs of Africa. What we need in South Africa is a consciousness in the Bantu population of their tribal context, a consciousness of the road they have travelled in reaching their present position, a consciousness of the value their systems of government have had for them in the past. From that must come development such as that which has taken place and succeeded in the Transkei, with the addition of Western democratic elements to the principles which have been familiar to them through the years. This is the road the National Party is offering. This is the policy in respect of Bantu representation in South Africa. We have one piece of evidence after another to the effect that this system works. We find the evidence throughout Africa that that system works, but the tragedy of Africa is that arbitry boundaries have been drawn through it by colonial powers, in the past century, by virtue of occupation, by virtue of the European wars which were conducted and whereby land was won or lost in Africa. Boundaries were drawn across tribal boundaries. Chaos was created as far as the division into tribes in Africa is concerned.

Today the inhabitants of Africa want to go back to what they know. Today they want to build up their peoples and their tribes in Africa once more, because from that they can build for the future. But this United Party policy specifically wants to deprive Africa of those things it desires for itself, those things which the Bantu in Africa knows and wants, and which he wants to develop. The United Party wants to afford the Bantu a misshapen representation in this Parliament, for which the Bantu can entertain no respect. Through the years a certain degree of respect has developed for good administration. I want to tell you that the Bantu population in South Africa today has respect for a strong and vigorous Government which enforces its will when necessary. In his heart the Bantu believes that you must rule with justice, but also with harsh measures. This is the language they have known all the years; this is the language which they believe should also be used in South Africa. In that connection I want to say that, as far as this Government’s policy towards the Whites is concerned, this status, which we have now obtained, will be retained for all times, whatever the measures demanded to maintain it. But the Bantu is being given what is his own, what he knows. From that he develops; from that democracy grows. It took our own forebears many years to achieve what we have built up in this Parliament of which we are proud. We hope to be able to give the Bantu what he knows, so that he may also develop his own form of democracy from that. We hope and believe that peace among the various nations will develop in South Africa from that. We believe that proper relationships will develop from that, relationships which will safeguard the future of South Africa. But that party opposite wants to incorporate frustration into their parliamentary system. They want to incorporate in the representatives the contempt of those being represented. In that way they cannot do the Bantu any service. It will be seen that only the road being followed by the National Party will be the road towards peace in Africa.

The hon. member for Middelburg started off by making a personal attack on the hon. member for Musgrave. He then set out on the impossible task of minimizing the United Party’s progress and its victory against the Nationalist Party. He also accused the United Party of using unfair tactics during the course of the election campaign. This, of course, is quite surprising because none of us has a short memory; we all remember very well reading about the truly disgraceful tactics adopted by the Nationalist Party at meetings of the Herstigte Party during the election campaign. Sir, I can say that I am honestly surprised to hear this type of insinuation coming from that side of the House. The hon. member then went on to congratulate the hon. the Prime Minister on a brilliant reply to the motion of censure moved by my hon. Leader. I do not want to be unkind; I want to rest by saying that I have heard the hon. the Prime Minister make better speeches than he did yesterday.

The hon. member for Musgrave mentioned here that Monday the 20th July was a very historic occasion. I want to say that for me too this was a historic occasion because for the first time in the history of this House there was not a single member here elected to represent the sixteen million non-Whites in South Africa. Sir, why were they not here? They were not here because they were systematically and in a calculated way removed by the Nationalist Party. The hon. member for Witbank chose this particular day of all days to compare the morality of the non-White policy of the United Party with that of the Nationalist Party. Sir, what morality is there in removing the right of the Bantu people of South Africa to be represented here and to give them in return a slogan? because this is all that separate development means. We know that separate development is a physical and financial impossibility in South Africa.

Take the Coloured people. We heard the hon. the Prime Minister say in this House that he had no solution for the Coloured problem; that this should be left to posterity; that it should be left to our children to take care of. Here we have the Coloured community who have been given nothing at all; there is no promise of a homeland for them. Where does morality start and where does it end? Sir, to a minor degree, where is the morality of the Government’s policy in the case of the growing Indian population? Where must these people go? Have they been promised a homeland? The hon. member for Witbank chose a very unfortunate time to introduce the question of morality in this House.

We heard from the hon. the Prime Minister that he was very pleased indeed to have such a measure of support from the English-speaking people of South Africa. This is rather surprising because after the débacle of Natal I was very surprised to hear that there was in fact any English-speaking support left for the Nationalist Party. When I came to this House in 1966 I looked across the floor and I saw that there were two representatives of the English-speaking people sitting on that side of the House. I have come back now and it is a question of “then there was one—Frankie ”. Sir, it has been proved, and I think proved conclusively, that there is no home in the Nationalist Party for an English-speaking person in South Africa.

That is rubbish.

If they want to confirm this, I suggest to hon. members opposite that they have a long, quiet talk with Mr. Blythe Thompson and ask him how happy he was in the Nationalist Party. He was so happy that he had to break way and form a new English-speaking Nationalist Party.

Sir, after having listened very carefully to the debate so far, I must come to the conclusion that this debate, if it has done one thing, has served to highlight the fact that the Government’s whole approach to national policy matters is as vague and as hide-bound today is it was 22 years ago.

That is why we have done so well.

The Government’s whole approach, for instance, to the question of using the available manpower in South Africa is confused. There is no firm policy and decisions are based on the determination to safeguard the rights of the white worker at any cost. What the Government does not seem to understand is that by adopting this patronizing attitude towards the white worker in South Africa, it is in fact doing him a disservice because this patronizing attitude could quite easily lead the white worker to believe that because of Nationalist ideology and promises certain work will be reserved for him merely because of the pigmentation of his skin. I want to say that the white worker of South Africa does not want this. He believes that he can stand on his own two feet, and I suggest that the only policy here is the policy of the United Party, and that is the rate for the job.

Then, Sir, we have the lack of a sound wage policy in the border industries. The lack of such a policy shows quite clearly that the Government has two standards, because it is perfectly obvious that there are thousands of Bantu today working in the border industries, doing skilled and semi-skilled work, at rates of pay far lower then those paid to white workers in the old established areas, and the danger to the white worker because of this policy is too obvious for me to stress here. Because the solution of our manpower and labour problem is basic to the future welfare, development and security of South Africa, I believe that the greatest challenge facing South Africa today is the challenge of finding a formula that will ensure the correct and constructive use of South Africa’s total population. Sir, I say this advisedly because we have reached the stage where the availability of skilled manpower and the way in which we use that manpower, is going to be the most important single factor in determining whether or not South Africa reaches its economic objectives and whether in fact we are going to maintain a satisfactory growth rate. Sir, I know—and I am prepared to admit this—that our very real and complex labour and manpower problem will not be easy to solve. It will not be easy to solve because the Government has allowed these problems to escalate out of all proportion. I believe too, Sir, that the Government is not going to be able to meet this challenge unless there is an immediate end to the perpetual conflict between the demands of political ideology on the one hand and the practical and essential requirements of the South African economy on the other. Surely the time has come where, in the interests of South Africa, there should be a thorough and far-ranging enquiry into employment doctrines and practices in South Africa, because what we need today more than anything else is a straightforward, common-sense labour policy that will safeguard the future of the white worker, but will also be fair to the mass of non-white employees who are today being very seriously prejudiced because of Government blundering and undecidedness. This Nationalist Party Government has, over the past 22 years, for some reason which is very difficult to comprehend, gone out of its way to saddle the South African economy with an accumulation of purely negative, frustrating measures which cannot do South Africa any good.

What is needed today, as a matter of urgency, is a drastic reformulation of Government policy to provide for the education and the intelligent use of our large non-white labour potential. It is impossible—and I say this advisedly, Sir— to open a newspaper today without finding in that paper comments from our top economists and industrialists in which they express dismay and alarm at the critical shortage of skilled manpower in South Africa. They tell us, quite correctly, that unless we do something about this shortage, the whole basis of economic competition in South Africa will be upset. They warn us that unless we make more intelligent use of our non-white labour there will be consequences for South Africa which will go far beyond the mere slowing down of our growth rate. In other words, what the top economists and industrialists are trying to spell out to the Government is that the time has come for it to face up to the facts of life in regard to our serious manpower and labour problems. They are asking the Government to face up to the reality of the situation, which is of course that we are not going to resolve our labour problems by bringing in 20,000 immigrants a year and that it is not feasible to trim our growth rate to fit our very meagre white labour potential. They are telling the Government that the time is overdue for it to apply itself to the building up of a sound labour force which is well educated, well schooled, but drawn from all the races in South Africa. One wonders whether, in the light of all these warnings and of all the apparent danger signals, the Government will now be prepared to adopt a more enlightened and intelligent approach to the use of non-white labour in South Africa, or whether the Government’s obsession with ideologies will again win the day, allowing the gulf which already exists between the shortage of skilled white manpower and the surplus of non-white manpower to grow. That this gulf is growing is there for everyone to see. One only has to glance at figures supplied by the Economic Advisory Board. These figures show that even with a net inflow of 20,000 immigrants a year there will still be a shortage of skilled white manpower in South Africa of 65,000 by 1973. The surplus of non-white labour would have grown to no less than 98,000.

One appreciates of course that, for the Nationalist Party Government, the chickens have truly come home to roost. On the one hand, they have this obligation to their own supporters to carry out a policy of separate development, but instead they find themselves drifting between segregation and integration. They find themselves in this position because cold hard facts will not be denied. These facts show that the South African economy is, and will always be, dependent on non-white labour. But, instead of the Government bowing to the inevitably and allowing industry to develop logically in the areas of big markets, which of course are the areas of the big cities, the Government tries to force industries to the border areas in a desperate attempt to give some meaning and plausibility to separate development. I believe that the time is coming when the Government will have to make more use of non-white labour. I think the Government is beginning to realize this, and that there is nothing they can do about it. I want to submit that this can be done without affecting the future security of a single white worker in South Africa. If they cannot carry this out, I want to suggest that we in the United Party will show them how to do it. We have had to sit in this House year after year and watch our manpower and labour problems grow. We have on many occasions offered the Government good advice in a good spirit. If acted upon, this advice would have helped them to resolve many of the problems with which we are faced today. Here I want to mention in particular the brilliant private member’s Bill of the hon. member for Hillbrow. What do we find, Sir? The Bill was discussed and the Nationalist Party voted against it.

In order to justify their border areas development policy, we are always being told by the Nationalist Party that Rosslyn provides positive proof of the success of border area development. Sir, Rosslyn does nothing of the sort. If anything it serves to emphasize what the United Party has always maintained, namely that the place for industrial development is in the areas of big cities where white markets are readily available. I want to admit that there is basically nothing wrong in encouraging the development of border industries, provided that the prosperity and the development of big towns and cities is encouraged and stimulated at the same time. This is exactly what we do under the policy of the United Party. We are prepared to encourage industries to develop in any area that offers business advantages. I want to say here that the Government has created the very undesirable situation where industrialists in established areas who apply for Bantu labour are made to feel that they are in the area only on sufferance, at the pleasure and whim of the hon. the Minister, and that sooner or later they will have to move to a border area. Is this fair? Is it fair to place our industrialists in the invidious position of deciding whether to go to a border area when they either do not want to go there or for technical reasons cannot go there? I say that this is an entirely wrong way of developing industry in South Africa. We know, too, and this is true and I think the hon. the Minister knows it, that the artificially created shortage of Bantu labour in South Africa is already showing its effect on our economy, because there are complaints from industrialists who have had to cut the production of certain items because there is not enough Bantu labour available to staff their factories. Others again have all the facilities and are willing and eager to start new enterprises, but find that they cannot do this for the same reason. Surely the time has come for the Government in the interests of South Africa to review its whole position in regard to manpower and labour in South Africa. They must discard this terrible fear that they have of the non-White. We have shown, and we are prepared to show, that we can give every person in South Africa the opportunity without the one affecting the other. I find it very hard to believe that this Government is prepared to risk a slowdown in the economy in order to chase the impossible ideal of the complete separation of the races. Surely it must be responsible enough to realize the very serious implications that this kind of attitude holds out for the future of South Africa, their South Africa and ours. There is no doubt that unless we do something, and do it quickly, we are heading for a completely impossible position.

Mr. Speaker, I want to give you one example. I want to give the example of the vitally important motor industry in South Africa. We are told that at the moment the figure for artisan staff in this industry stands at 26,000. We are told, too, that if it develops at its normal rate, this figure will stand at 42,000 by the year 1988. I am also told that in order barely to cope with the vehicle population increase, we will need at least 100,000 artisans in the motor industry by 1988. It is perfectly obvious that in order to get this number we are going to have to train many more thousands of apprentices. These apprentices, whether the Government likes it or not, will have to come from all the races in South Africa, and I will tell the House why I say this. It is because the white youth of South Africa is not interested in becoming a motor technician and therefore is not offering himself for training in this particular industry. What are we going to do? Are we going to slow down the motor trade in South Africa? Does the Government realize the drastic consequences that this will have for the economy of South Africa? I have given one example here, but this example can be applied to almost every sector of our economy. I believe that the Government will be deluding itself very badly indeed if it is naive enough to believe that because it has been given a mandate by the South African electorate to govern the country again, this means that they can carry on with their completely unrealistic labour policy. I believe that the people of South Africa to-day are not prepared to back the slogan of a poorer, as long as it is a White, South Africa. They are not prepared to back it because they know that South Africa cannot allow itself to become poor, because if we do we will not survive. I believe that, above all, the people of South Africa are ready to accept the fact that in order to have this prosperity which is so vital to our economic progress and our security, we will have to make better use of the total labour supply in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Houghton has found a new stable-companion tonight, but I doubt whether she will want him with her because he is not politically honest enough to say what their policy is, i.e. that they stand for the total abolition of the colour bar and that they want total integration here in South Africa. That is virtually all the hon. member advocated. I am surprised that he still had enough gumption to use the word “morality ” here this afternoon. After the hon. the Leader of the House had told them what “morality ” is and where they fell short of the mark, he still came forward here this afternoon with the story of morality. After the hon. the Minister of Transport had spoken he put this question to them very emphatically: Tell us how much land you intend giving the Bantu here in South Africa? Since that question was put to them three members on that side of the House have spoken, but they continue to remain as silent as the grave. They are the people who tell us that we are doing the Bantu an injustice here and that there is no morality in the majority of the population here in South Africa having the least land. He talks about morality, but where is the morality in the fact that they want to give the Coloureds only 6 representatives here? Why do they not consequently give them representation on an equal basis in proportion to their numbers? Where is the morality in that? We are honest and we tell them that we are not going to allow them into the White Parliament here. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) told us that the only difference between Whites and non-Whites was the “black pigmestation ” of the latter.

I did not say that. You were not listening very carefully.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did say it quite emphatically. I listened to it very carefully. He said that the only difference there was the difference in colour between Whites and non-Whites. Now I am reading here from page 7 of their huckstering booklet—

I now turn over the page and at the top of page 8 I read—

It meets these problems with a policy which—

1. (a) guarantees the employment of Whites at real wages not lower than those they earn at present. The guarantee should last for at least 10 years in those industries where non-Whites are beginning to do White jobs.

Mr. Speaker, what morality can be found in that? On the one page they talk about the protection of the Whites and on the other page they say that the only difference between the Whites and the non-Whites is the “black pigmentation ”. Then they say that Whites and non-Whites should do the same work. Can one look upon such ambiguity as morality? But that is the kind of election we had to fight. We had to fight an election against the most unsavoury scandalmongering and the most misleading propaganda on their part. [Interjections.] Never before has a party descended to the depths to which the United Party descended during the recent election in their propaganda and scandalmongering. The United Party presented itself as the alternative Government. They even went so far as to compile a shadow Cabinet. I find it interesting that the hon. members for Pietermaritzburg (District), Port Natal and Sea Point have been entirely omitted from this shadow Cabinet. However, all that I see in that shadow Cabinet is that it will throw a dark shadow over South Africa—perhaps I mean this in the literary sense of the word— if they should come into power one day. However, it will never happen. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) cannot simply continue making interjections. He must give the hon. member who is speaking a chance to make his speech.

Mr. Speaker, it is for that reason that he was left out of the shadow Cabinet. His own Leader has become tired of him. He will make no further progress whatsoever in that party.

Mr. Speaker, during the recent election the United Party tried to take in the voters in every sphere. They presented themselves as the alternative Government, but the goods they wanted to dispose of, the policy which they were offering, were deliberately concealed from the voters. They were afraid to inform the voters of South Africa in regard to their true race federation plan and all it entails. They were too afraid to inform the voters of South Africa as to what their policy made provision for because they were too afraid to say that that policy of theirs made provision for the ultimate representation of Bantu by Bantu in this Parliament.

What about that booklet of the United Party?

That is in fact the heart of the matter. I experienced an incident in my constituency of Boksburg where one of their canvassers told me in the street that under the United Party Government no non-White would ever sit in this Parliament. However, when I took out this booklet and showed him what was written there, he told me that he had never been aware of it. This is how they concealed their policy from their own canvassers. The only way one could get hold of this booklet was to buy it at their offices. They are afraid to send out their propaganda as we did and offer it to the voters free of charge. They did not dare do so. How many of their supporters went to buy this yellow booklet in their offices? Last year at their own congress one of their delegates who appeared there was a certain Mr. Cross of Kimberley; this is what he told them—

Not even their own congress members were fully aware of what this vicious race federation plan of theirs entailed. They did not want to inform the people fully what it entails. In the Star of 16th October, the following report on the speech made by another delegate, Mr. Oberholzer, an M.P.C. serving on their chief executive in the Transvaal, appeared.

In sharp contrast Mr. Oberholzer said the United Party would release the African giant, cut his chains, make of him an ally and ask him to walk with the White man.

That is what he said: “cut the chains of the Black giant ”; set him lose; give him equal rights; let him sit here together with the Whites in Parliament; get rid of that separation in the social and political spheres. Now I am asking the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District what this means. I know why he is shaking his head like that, and I can hear it from where I am standing. It is because in the same report it is stated that “Mr. Webber said that he supported everything that Mr. Oberholzer had said ”. It is a pity the hon. member for Houghton is not here, otherwise she would have found another stable-companion now, but I do not think she will want him. In this way they shied away from all the aspects of their policy. They speak about the “rate for the job ”. I shall come to that later. They deliberately omitted to inform the voters what that “rate for the job ” entailed. They did not tell the voters that it means that the Bantu would be able to go and work where they pleased. This guarantee of theirs is not worth the paper it is written on. If they were to come to power and there was to be a recession three to five years later, what would become of that guarantee of theirs? But I shall refer to this again later.

I have never yet come across a political party which envinced so little responsibility as this United Party. Just think of all those empty promises they made to the electorate. They promised every public servant, every worker and provincial official an increase in salary, for according to them these people are being underpaid. At the same time there is also the —I can almost say total abolition of taxes. This is the jolly party; come let us drink and be merry because tomorrow we will not be there. Everything there is must be squandered to-day. It is with promises of that kind that they may perhaps have misled certain people. It amazes me that reproaches should have been levelled at the hon. the Minister of Transport regarding the announcement of salary increases which he made shortly prior to the Langlaagte by-election. But it is the same people who reproached this Government with not having given its people increases. When should the increases then be announced? The hon. the Minister was decent enough not to announce that increase before the general election. He waited until after the election. If he had delayed that announcement until after the by-election at Langlaagte, their cry would have been that those people had to have a raise and that it would not be given to them. While we get down to actual facts, while we see our problems in the correct perspective, they come forward with all those empty election promises of theirs entailing salary increases and a decrease in or total abolition of certain taxes.