Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

I move—

On 2nd December, 1969, the Central Boland Disaster Committee was registered as a welfare organization under section 19 of the National Welfare Act, 1965 (Act No. 79 of 1965). Its object was to establish and control the Boland Disaster Fund and to collect financial and other contributions in order to grant, on an ex gratia basis, financial and other assistance to persons who suffered damage and losses as a result of earth tremors that occurred on 29th September, 1969, and subsequently.

The State decided to grant financial and other assistance to the Central Boland Disaster Committee, and amongst other things a provisional amount of R5 million, as provided in the Additional Estimates for 1969-’70. has already been paid over to the Disaster Fund.

The Disaster Committee opened a banking account for the purposes of the Disaster Fund, and proper accounts are being kept of all the transactions.

In view of the large contribution made by the State and the public sector, a request has been received from the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions that the accounts and books of the Central Boland Disaster Committee be audited by the Controller and Auditor-General. The latter has no objection to this request but is, however, not in a position to do the auditing, unless Parliament by resolution of both Houses requires him, in terms of section 58 (2) of the Exchequer and Audit Act, 1956 (Act No. 23 of 1956), to undertake the auditing of these accounts.

In the past such resolutions were also passed in respect of, for instance, the Union Festival Committee and the Republic Festival Committee.

I now move that such a resolution be also passed by this House in respect of the auditing of the books and accounts of the Central Boland Disaster Committee.

Motion put and agreed to.

When the House adjourned last night, Mr. Speaker, I was telling you how politically dishonest the United Party had been in the recent election in not wanting to inform the voters of what their true policy was and everything that it entailed. But I want to go further and state that as a party they recklessly made use of any methods and assistance in an endeavour to bring the National Party to its knees, and in that un-national, unpatriotic conduct of theirs they did not even hesitate to try to slander us abroad, [Interjections.] If the hon. member would only give me a chance I shall prove it to him. These are the people, Sir, who presented the National Party Government as a monster, South Africa as a police state, and who implied that we had nothing else but a dictatorship. According to the Star of 2nd March the United Party candidate in Randburg, a certain Horace van Rensburg, who is now their provincial candidate there, said, inter alia, at a meeting—

Does the United Party wish to deny that this is the image of South Africa they are presenting to the world? I take it that this candidate of theirs was approved by the Leader of the Opposition…

He did not repudiate him.

But that is not all, Sir. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) is the man who according to the Star of 13th March implied at a meeting in Bainsfield that no one in South Africa could express his opinion any more for fear of the Security Police.

Disgraceful.

Do you deny it?

No, he agrees; he did say it.

He does not want to deny it. I maintain that it is disgraceful, for one expects them, at the very least, to display loyalty and patriotism towards South Africa. This was not merely an election speech; it was intended for overseas consumption. I am now asking the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he agrees. Does he repudiate those people? No. he dare not do so because in his own party he has to cope with too many undercurrents; he has to cope with the ultra-verkramptes and he also has to cope with the ultra-liberalists in his party. I want to go further. I come now to that shadow Minister of foreign affairs of his, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, Mr. Japie Basson. But I am not always certain whether it is Japie Basson or Japie Suzman or Helen Basson. because if one had to divide them politically one would not even be able to get a razor blade between them. In any case, he addressed a youth symposium in Johannesburg. This is what he said there, inter alia, in respect of our Prime Minister’s foreign policy in regard to the black states:

Mr. Speaker, we enjoy good relations with our black neighbouring states, but that party is so reckless they want to disturb even that. I want to ask the hon. member this: If he wants to eliminate that humiliation, is he prepared to see all colour bars here in South Africa disappear. Does he also want to eliminate the separation which exists in the political, social and educational spheres? I am asking the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he agrees with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I do not think so. I think that he will prefer to say nothing, because he is himself a man who speaks with a split tongue. What he says to-day he contradicts to-morrow. In the no-confidence debate at the beginning of the year he said, inter alia, in respect of the urban Bantu (Hansard, Vol. 28, Col. 25):

Sir, this was nothing else but an election speech. It was made in order to mislead the voters. Then he was prepared to hide behind the policy of the National Party, and what the National Party had established. But what was his own attitude in respect of the Group Areas Act? What was his attitude in respect of laws for social and educational apartheid? They fought them tooth and nail at the time, but shortly before the election he is the man who said that those pass laws and residential apartheid must be maintained.

Sir, the Leader of the Opposition has stated that they support separate residential, social and educational facilities and that it is necessary to maintain the pass laws and influx control. Now I want to ask him whether he has seen a letter which the hon. member for Wynberg wrote to the Argus on 3rd February. She said, inter alia, that if the United Party were ever to come into power, they would repeal the following Acts: “The pass laws, the Separate Universities Act, the Group Areas Act, the Immorality Act. and especially those portions dealing with job reservation and the splitting of trade unions. ”

That is a misquote.

But it is her own letter. Sir. It is a letter which she wrote in reply to a question as to what the United Party was going to do and what laws they were going to repeal. This is what she said here. These are the laws they are going to repeal. I will give her own letter so that she can read it again herself. I read through the entire letter.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has failed to read the entire quotation … [Interjections.]

Order! That is not a point of order.

If there was any misquotation here, then the hon. member misquoted herself.

I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition what he has to say about this. Is he going to repudiate these people? I do not think so. He dare not do so because he knows that if he did his party would disintegrate, for he has to cope, as I said a moment ago, with the ultra-verkramptes there. There sits the hon. member for Newton Park. That is the man who in their innermost circles advocates that Coloured Representatives should sit here in Parliament, but when he was asked whether he would drink a cup of coffee with them here, he said: No, that I will not do. But on the other hand one also has extreme liberals sitting on that side. Now the other liberals, with Cathy Taylor and Japie Basson among them, are also sitting there.

I should like to return to what the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) said here yesterday afternoon in respect of “the rate for the job ”. He said that he supported that policy: “That is the only solution for South Africa’s labour problems. ” I want to refer him back to his own leader who told us at the beginning of the year that his solution in terms of which the Blacks were to be absorbed and we would integrate in the field of labour, offered an immediate solution— “the rate for the job ”. The solution which he offers amounts to nothing else but: Open the sluice gates, destroy that colour bar, do away with work reservation and let the standard of living of the Whites be lowered to the level of that of the non-Whites. Earlier this year the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in the no-confidence debate: “We will develop them (the Bantu) as part of the economy of South Africa as a whole and not as small independent economies struggling along on their own. ” Now I want to put a question to the hon. the Leader. What part of that economy as a whole is he going to offer to the Bantu? Is he going to offer them an inferior share or is he going to offer them an equal share? Or is he merely going to use them as slave labour? Is he going to give them a full say in industrial reconciliation? I believe that only that way, only if all colour bars have been abolished, will he be able to allow them to develop as a part of our economy in its entirety. In that immediate solution of the United Party lies the difference between our policy and that of the United Party.

The National Party recognizes the heritage of our past, but the National Party is also aware of our future so that we will be able to grant our children as well as our grandchildren a future here in South Africa. As I said yesterday, the United Party on the other hand is saying: Let us eat, drink and be merry. Let us destroy everything in a day. Leave to-morrow’s responsibilities and concerns to someone else.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman who has just sat down should have learnt by now that the House finds it very hard to forgive people who misquote other people. I can only assume that he misquoted the hon. member for Wynberg because he misread her letter. What the hon. member said was that we would review the mentioned laws and not that we would repeal them all. This very Government itself has been reviewing these very same laws, very often at our instance, throughout this period. I am surprised that the hon. member for Boksburg should try to make a speech making out that the Nationalist Party is South Africa and that South Africans cannot be real South Africans unless they are Nationalists. A former hon. member for Umhlatuzana who is sitting elsewhere here to-day, tried this very same thing and the hon. the Prime Minister repudiated him. What makes us sick and what we are tired of hearing is what this hon. member and the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs said, namely that we make statements which have a bad effect outside and that we must be careful in what we say. This hon. gentleman went so far as to say that we deride South Africa overseas.

That is exactly what you are doing.

The hon. member repeats it. When overseas, one, as a South African, finds oneself in the invidious position of having to defend this Government. But let me say that I have just come back from abroad and it is becoming more and more impossible to defend this Government.

Why did that hon. member tell them we are a police state?

That hon. the Minister knows very well that I did not. That is one hon. gentleman who should not talk in this regard about quoting out of context when he deliberately left out—does he remember— the next words of a quotation which were …

Nonsense.

I am making this speech, not that hon. Minister. Those words were: “Are we a police state? I do not believe it. ” Does the hon. the Minister remember that?

This is nothing new.

Yes, as my hon. leader says, this is nothing new. Let me tell the hon. gentleman who has just sat down that if one goes to Europe to-day one will find people who have millions to invest and want to invest it in South Africa. One does not have to say anything to them. They know about the Physical Planning Act and they are deterred from investing. That is true. Over there one sees on all the front pages of the newspapers the sordid scene about the detainees under section 6 of the Terrorism Act. Those are the deeds, the words and the acts of this Government. That is what causes us to have a bad name. They must try going over and defending it. Perhaps then they would be more careful in what they say.

Mr. Speaker, I stand up to-day to raise a matter of great public importance, namely the continued presence of the hon. the Minister of Health in the Cabinet in the light of certain events and the hon. the Prime Minister’s silence in regard to those events. Then there is also one other matter concerning the hon. the Minister of Health which I should like to refer to. The issue of veracity in public life is an all important one. The hon. the Prime Minister when he dealt with the matter of the repayment of the Land Bank loan by Mr. Haak, then the Minister of Economic Affairs, said the following:

Then the hon. the Prime Minister went on to say that Mr. Haak is repaying his Land Bank loan because he, in the same way as the hon. the Prime Minister, is concerned at the level to which our public life is descending. Those are worthy sentiments.

What is the position that we have here? We have the position that the Beeld reports on its front page a statement of the hon. the Minister saving something to the effect that the South African Air Force was using a Malawi airfield to fight terrorism. It also said in that report that the reporter of the Beeld then spoke to the hon. the Minister afterwards. The next Tuesday, after he had bad time to consider it. the hon. the Minister of Health put out a denial to the Press.

That was on Monday.

All right. It was published on the Tuesday. The hon. the Minister had had time to think about it. He denied that he said that which was quoted. He denied that there is an aerodrome being used in this manner. He denied that he gave an interview. The hon. the Minister said that it was mere speculation by Die Beeld. In fact, Sir, what he is saying about Die Beeld is that their report was a tissue of lies and that they had fabricated the whole report. This is the effect of it. Now, Sir that is the most serious allegation one can make against a newspaper. This statement was made, not in the heat of the moment, but after due consideration. The following Sunday came the most significant thing of all. The following Sunday Die Beeld not only published a denial of the hon. the Minister’s denial, in other words it said that he did say those things, and that he did have an interview with a reporter. In other words, they also after due consideration say in effect that the hon. the Minister is a liar. That is the effect of what they say on two issues, namely whether he said it and whether he had an interview. What is more, they say that they have his exact words indicating that there is something to this. Now, the hon. the Minister has commented on that. The only comment he made, which I was able to get and which appeared in Die Vader land, is that he does not want to “baklei ” with Die Beeld because Die Beeld is a paper that supports the Nationalist Party and that this was just the Sunday Times playing tricks and that he was not going to help the Sunday Times play tricks. But what the hon. the Minister has forgotten is that that repudiation by Die Beeld was handed to Sapa, the news agency, for distribution throughout all the members of Sapa. In other words Die Beeld made their statement in effect calling the hon. the Minister a liar a matter of news and not just a matter of their opinion. It was a news item. It was not a case of the Sunday Times wanting to make a fight of it. This is now put out by Die Beeld. Immediately this was challenged by Senator Horak. He challenged the hon. the Prime Minister and he also challenged the hon. the Minister concerned in these words:

It is needless to add that there was complete silence from the Prime Minister, as there has been even up to now.

And then this was followed by the same type of statement from the Sunday Times in their editorial. In other words, they said: Look, here is this insinuation; is no one going to answer it? No one has answered it. There is silence and from that silence one may deduce something. The hon. the Minister said that he could not be bothered with trivialities. This is not a triviality. This is a matter of the integrity of a Minister of the State of the Republic. Either Die Beeld did not tell the truth or the hon. the Minister did not tell the truth. It is one or the other. The hon. the Prime Minister’s silence in this regard is most disturbing because this is an issue which should be resolved one way or the other. We cannot have as one of our State Ministers a man about whom it is said that he is a liar.

Then, Sir, came the Oppenheimer issue which my hon. Leader dealt with. And then there is the Marendaz affair. This is a most extraordinary affair. It concerns a company called Marendaz Diesel Engines (Pty.) Ltd. The company was charged with certain criminal offences. As hon. members are no doubt aware, when a company is charged the directors of that company are the persons who are arraigned in court. In terms of the law Marendaz was required to give the names of the directors of the company. Now, he in his capacity as director was charged on a couple of counts and I should like to draw attention especially to count 14. Perhaps I ought to say at this stage that he did give the name of the hon. the Minister as being one of the directors. In any event, Marendaz was then charged not only with the offences alleged to have been committed by the company but also with the offence contained in count 14, reading as follows—

Now, Sir, this is a very serious charge. Thereupon Capt. Marendaz produced certain evidence, documentary evidence which was also produced in photostat form in the Sunday Times. He produced one document showing that he in fact was a director of the company and that he had attended a directors’ meeting. He also produced the minutes. Then he produced a letter signed by the hon. the Minister and which reads as follows—

This letter is dated 12th February, 1960.

What about Dr. Bruwer?

Oh yes, In a postscript of one of his letters the Minister dealt with the suitability of a certain Dr. Bruwer to succeed him as director. In any event, in the light of the letter of 12th February, 1960, the prosecutor withdrew the charge.

The issue raised here is, how could Marendaz have been indicted with that offence? Unless he had the information he would not have done it. Either he did or he did not have the books of the company. The way the charge sheet reads indicates that he did have the books of the company. The allegation was that he falsely put in the hon. Minister’s name. Surely, and this is what we want to know, if you are going to indict someone with-fraud, an offence which includes doing something without the knowledge and consent of the hon. the Minister, then you have to have a statement from that person. I cannot imagine any prosecutor or attorney-general allowing a prosecution without that evidence because “without the knowledge and consent ” is of the essence and it is within the peculiar knowledge of the person concerned whether he had knowledge and consent. The impression is that in fact there was a statement. One wonders and therefore one wants to know whether that statement was on affidavit, on oath or not. But, certainly, there was a statement. Let us now consider whose evidence would be required to prove that charge—none other than that of the hon. the Minister. However, the charge was withdrawn. This is a very serious offence and one does not prosecute in these cases unless one has such a statement. After this charge was withdrawn, Marendaz laid a charge against the Minister in terms of section 225 of the Companies Act, subsection (2) of which reads as follows—

Marendaz was then convicted by the magistrate on some of the counts. But he took the matter on appeal and was acquitted except on a technical offence. On all the offences involving moral turpitude he was acquitted.

There has been no explanation of this. The suggestion which is made is that the hon. the Minister made a statement, either on oath or not, which was not true. That is the implication. Now, Sir, this is the second occasion on which the veracity of the hon. the Minister has been called into question. The hon. the Minister must not shake his head; that is the implication. Immediately after that Sunday Times report no less a person than the hon. member for Yeoville felt constrained to say in the Sunday Times that the disclosures about Dr. Carel de Wet and Capt. Donald Marendaz, plus the fact that Dr. De Wet has kept silent in the face of certain serious implications contained in the report, not only cast fresh doubts on the accuracy of the Minister’s statement but raised the whole question of whether he was fit to be a Minister at all. The Sunday Times itself in another hard-hitting editorial wanted to know whether it was or was not the position. It is an important matter. We have asked for an explanation from the hon. the Prime Minister but nothing comes— only silence. Surely, the standards of our public life have not declined to that level where such accusations can be left unanswered. When the Profumo affair was on in Great Britain, that considered by Prime Minister Macmillan to be the gravamen of Mr. Profumo’s offence was that he lied to the House and on account of that the Prime Minister felt constrained to dismiss him. Of all the things Profumo did, this was considered to be the most serious so far as his office as Cabinet Minister was concerned. With the Prime Minister silent in this matter, the public would be entitled to accept that the hon. the Minister is a liar. There is dead silence, yet he remains in office. I appreciate that the hon. the Prime Minister might be torn between his loyalty to the hon. the Minister and his duty and loyalty towards the country, but there should be no doubt as to what he should do. We do not know, because the hon. the Prime Minister is silent. Sir, this is a matter of the gravest import. The hon. the Prime Minister has been challenged by Senator Horak and by Mr. Steyn and by the Sunday Times and by Die Beeld in no uncertain terms, and they say either he is a liar or he is not, and if he is not, resolve the issue and let us have the facts, and keep him in your Cabinet, but if he is, then he is not fit to remain in your Cabinet. That is the effect of it. Sir, if you expect the public to have confidence in the administration, then you have to ensure that the very dictum I have read out from the Prime Minister concerning public life and Ministers, not only is carried out but is seen to be carried out by the public. Sir, is this not important enough? The last time the hon. the Prime Minister appointed a commission was when he appointed a commission into the Kolver issue, and on that occasion he said that as no Government and no Prime Minister could allow or tolerate the occurrence of corruption, fraud or favouritism or any suggestion thereof, a commission should be appointed. [Interjection.] We want to know who is telling the truth, Die Beeld or the hon. the Minister. One of them is not telling the truth; one of them is lying. That is why I mention it in relation to a fact-finding commission.

But the Marendaz matter is not finished yet. After Count 14 had been withdrawn, concerning the giving of the name of the hon. the Minister, a charge was laid against the hon. the Minister by Marendaz, and then he instituted a civil action where he cited the hon. the Minister in his private capacity—he was just an ordinary Member of Parliament in those days—and the then Minister of Justice, now the hon. the Prime Minister, in his official capacity, in respect of the prosecution. He subsequently issued summons and then, after his conviction by the magistrate and before his appeal was heard, the civil case was settled by the defendants with the plaintiff, the two defendants being the hon. member in his private capacity and the hon. the Minister of Justice in his official capacity. Sir, you settle cases when you are the defendant when you know you have not got a chance or when the probabilities are that the person sueing you will succeed.

That is nonsense.

The settlement was that he would drop the civil action for damages, that Marendaz would withdraw his charge against the hon. the Minister in his personal capacity and the State would indemnify against deportation the said Marendaz. On the face of it, this is an extraordinary situation. The one letter is from the State Attorney, written to Marendaz, and it says—

This, on the face of it, is extraordinary and deserves an explanation. At that stage—he was cleared later by the Supreme Court—he was a convicted person and apparently at that stage an undesirable person. The text of the letter from Marendaz’s attorney to fulfil his part of the settlement is to the Attorney-General of the Transvaal and reads as follows—

That is the letter dated 13th April, 1966. Can this be explained? The hon. the Prime Minister was the Minister in charge at the time, and he may have some knowledge of this and he may be able to explain this. The Minister of Justice may be able to explain. But my point is that the action was against the hon. the Minister personally as a Member of Parliament and the civil claim for damages was settled by an indemnity from the State that the person sueing him for those damages would not be deported. It is an unbelievable state of affairs.

It is shocking.

But this is nevertheless what happened. He still has that indemnity. He was in fact arrested and put in gaol recently, on the basis that he was going to be deported, but he produced his indemnity and he is still here. The hon. the Minister of Police will probably find himself with an action for wrongful arrest in that regard yet and it might cost the State something in the end. I can understand the difficulty that the hon. the Prime Minister might personally be in with his silence in relation to the second matter of Marendaz, but so far as the first matter is concerned, one cannot understand it. Either the hon. the Prime Minister is going to resolve this issue—it has to be resolved, because you cannot have a Minister who is called a liar. For him, in the light of the circumstances surrounding it, that gave rise to it and the events which support the accusation that he is a liar, to remain there as a member of this Cabinet, is something which South Africa will not put up with in its public life.

The hon. member used virtually all his time this afternoon to continue against my colleague Dr. De Wet the campaign of disparagement which was conducted so frantically by the Opposition and their allies during the past election. I do not think I can do anything better for the hon. member than to leave him to my colleague himself, who will probably reply to him in his own time.

Why does he not reply?

He will answer in his own time.

In this debate several Opposition speakers have raised points and put questions which, in my opinion, justify fundamental replies, which will probably also give them some perspective. Thus the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, for example, made several generalizations on what he claims to be the failure of the policy of separate development. Like the hon. member for Hillbrow, he too discussed the issue of the so-called 13 per cent of the land. I want to thank my colleague the hon. Minister of Water Affairs for replying to that so effectively that I need say no more about this 13 per cent story.

The hon. member for Durban (Point), as well as the hon. member for Musgrave, spoke about the challenges and directions about which there must be clarity in the seventies. They also asked questions in that regard, but made no attempt to indicate to us what directions are to be followed in terms of their own policy. What I want to say this afternoon in fact links up with what I said here in the past, on one occasion as recently as in February this year, and of course on earlier occasions as well, when I summarized our duty and task as a Government and as a National Party in respect of the implementation of the policy of separate development in six words by saying to everyone, “Do your duty by the nations. ” In a debate such as this, I would say there should not be so much squabbling about minor matters and personalities and there should not be so many antics of a political nature as we have had from the other side in the past three days.

This debate is concerned with—and this was raised by the Opposition—the competence of a government; this debate is concerned with the possibilities of the Opposition as an alternative government; a debate such as this is concerned with the needs and interests of the white people. It is also concerned with the assistance to be rendered by the white people to the various developing non-white peoples we have in South Africa, such as the Coloured people, the Indians, Xhosas, Tswanas, Vendas, Shangaans, etc. It is concerned with visions of the future far beyond the horizon, now that we are standing at the beginning of the decade of the seventies, about which everyone on that side has so much to say without saying anything, the decade of the seventies which will prove to be a dynamic third decade of the National Party Government, as the decade of the sixties proved to be a dynamic second decade of that Government.

Dynamic?

Yes, a dynamic third decade—three letters, D.T.D., which the hon. member can remember very easily. As far as I am concerned, as far as my two departments, their officials and all our auxiliary bodies are concerned, and also as far as the Government as such is concerned, we are entering this dynamic third decade of the seventies with pride in our past and most certainly with fresh inspiration for rendering service and for the policy implementation that lies ahead. On this wave-length, or in this mood, Sir, I prefer to confine myself to major matters in my own field, the field of my two departments.

We have heard during the past months and we have heard during this debate, and we will again hear it shouted out from the other side in a many-voiced choir, that separate development has failed. But see, Mr. Speaker, what is quoted to us as proof that it has failed. Our policy of separate development embraces a tremendously wide field of human activity on the part of all these different peoples that are involved, but of all these things we actually hear only two tunes in this many-voiced choir; it is not even a theme with many variations; it is a theme with repetitions. All along we actually hear only two things which are described as failures. These are: the large number of Natives who are present in the white area, and the shortage of manpower in South Africa. These are the two themes; these are the two notes which they always sound, and our opponents, especially on the other side of this House, with their slavish Press outside, incessantly boom at these assertions of failure. They try to make people believe this and to make them echo it, and the louder they shout it out, the more they prove to us that we are succeeding more and more in our aims and in our work. But intelligent and well-informed Nationalists, Sir, should and will not let themselves be caught by the fulminating type of propaganda that comes from the Opposition about these matters, because the successes which we have achieved under our policy are strikingly clear. It is also realized generally, albeit silently, by many of the members on the other side that South Africa’s great prosperity, and not so much the policy of separate development, is the cause of the manpower shortage that exists.

Thirdly, it is realized that the prosperity we are enjoying in South Africa, the business stability we have here, is in fact very largely due to the stability we have as a result of the application of the policy of separate development in South Africa for more than two decades now. We owe our prosperity to the policy of separate development and we do not blame it for the state of affairs in South Africa.

Sir, as regards the Bantu who are present in the white area, whether they be many or few, surely we know that the Bantu are present in the white area under the control of laws and in terms of a policy as formulated and applied by us, and not in terms of a policy of integration such as the United Party and its Press would like to see. It is on the basis of our policy of separate development, with the position assigned to the Bantu that he may stay here in terms of that policy, that they are here. We also know that if this Government, with the policy applied by it, had not been in power in South Africa during the past 22 years, there would have been tens of thousands and probably hundreds of thousands more Bantu in the white area of South Africa. This would then not have been the United Party’s complaint, because it is their aim, if not directly, then at least by implication. You will recall, Sir, that in the previous debate here in February, I repeatedly, but in vain, asked the Opposition what policy they offered to South Africa for limiting the number of Bantu in the white area if they reproach us for there being too many Bantu in the white area. We do not hear this from them, Sir; all we get is a resounding silence; we hear nothing about it.

They do not want to limit it; they want integration.

Mr. Speaker, I will briefly mention to you the most striking successes we as a National Party have on our record book, and I am not going to elaborate upon them; I hope other members on this side will be able to do so. I mention to you the recognition and the development of our Bantu authorities in South Africa, which are exclusively the work of this Party and this Government. I mention the take-over and re-organization of Bantu education, including the establishment of the three universities for Bantu in South Africa. I mention to you the tightening-up of influx control and the organizing of our country-wide system of labour bureaux, which introduced a very good system of control and supply of Bantu labour in South Africa such as never existed before. I mention to you the clearance of slums and black spots and the establishment of proper Bantu suburbs in our urban complexes as well as the establishment of dozens of townships in the Bantu homelands; the development of an infra-structure and of services and many essential things in the Bantu homelands—too numerous to mention in a short, limited debate such as this— about which I should prefer hon. members to ask me when my Vote is taken, so that we can discuss them. However, our old complaint, as you know, is that they never discuss these matters then. Furthermore, Sir, I mention the unparalleled development within the homelands in respect of agriculture, trade, mining and industry. In respect of industry I just want to mention to you a very recent example in order to show how during the past few months alone we have concluded nine agreements with white entrepreneurs whom we are establishing in the Bantu homelands on an agency basis, while more than 60 applications in this connection are still under consideration. This is a system which has been initiated in the course of the past year at most.

Then I draw your attention, Sir, to the establishment of our border industries and the accompanying Bantu townships and the accompanying transport services over the whole of South Africa. I also mention to you what you have repeatedly seen and experienced during the past two years, namely the introduction of their own governments for the Bantu peoples, each with its own departmental administration, so that nearly all our Bantu peoples have them to-day. These and many other positive steps have brought about another very great achievement, and that is the extremely fine spirit of goodwill, the support and the co-operation that is forthcoming from all the Bantu peoples with their own governments.

In our dynamic third decade, which I mentioned a little while ago, the seventies, we shall continue with this policy of ours in all its facets, and naturally produce fresh or new manifestations of it, because our policy is not a policy of stagnant waters as in a rotting pool, but is like a stream darting forward.

In this vein I should now like to elaborate upon a few matters which we envisage. In the near future we are going to carry out the implications of our policy of multi-nationalism even more fully among the Bantu, so that established, linked to its own homeland. Here each of these separate peoples will be properly I once again remind hon. members of what I said in February this year when I piloted the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act through this House. I quote what I said then. I repeat it now and perhaps I shall have to repeat it ten times every year. I said—

Each of the Bantu peoples which are established under our policy will receive its own country in this evolutionary process. This is what we are engaged in.

To full independence?

Yes, it can end in that. For the hundredth time we say that. I am going to say more about this. That excited member need not become over-hasty about it. He must just give me a chance. In this regard there is still a tremendous amount of enlightenment to be done, and not least for the hon. member for Orange Grove over there, in order to bring home the reality and the consequences of multi-nationalism in South Africa to the Whites and in the administration of our country. Thus there are still too many who through unwillingness or thoughtlessness do not distinguish between the white nation on the one hand and the Coloured people, the Indians, the Xhosas, the Tswanas, the Vendas, the Shangaans, the Ovambos and all the other nations we have in South Africa, on the other hand. In addition, there are still too many who do not understand the multi-nationalism in the ranks of the Bantu themselves and who too easily regard everything in terms of “the Native ” or “the Bantu ”, instead of thinking of the Xhosas, the Tswanas, the Shangaans, the Ovambos, etc., because they are not one people. I, who have emphasized this multi-nationalism for so many years, am thankful for the much wider recognition it is receiving to an increasing extent, even outside our borders. This process of making people conscious of the differentiation among the many peoples is a continuous task, especially the consequences thereof for all the different Bantu peoples. Sir, this is why you often hear me speaking of what I prefer to call our policy of multinational development.

Is this a new name again?

No, it is not a new name, just as little as that hon. member is a new member. That hon. member could have heard me speak of “multi-national development ” ever since 1958, when he opposed me so unsuccessfully in my constituency. There are different names for it.

This name was not yet known then. It was still “apartheid ” then.

No. The position is that that hon. member was much more of a Nationalist then. Even now, because of my loyalty to him and his colleagues, I shall not reveal everything he told me in private in the magistrate’s court about those people with whom he is sitting on one bench now.

Sir, this classification of the citizenship of every people in terms of the Act we introduced earlier this year, will be a very important and of course a very time-consuming task for us in the seventies ahead, because individual citizenship for each of these Bantu peoples is going to assume increasing significance as regards the concessions, the opportunities and the privileges which Bantu persons will enjoy in the white area, as well as for the inter-national relationships between the white people and the many Bantu peoples here. The citizenship context of the Bantu persons in the white area will also be of decisive importance in order to seal their political ties with their homelands and focus their political realization on their own national institutions. In addition to this there is the exercising of some or other form of franchise for the Bantu towards their own governments, and not towards this Government, as is of course fitting, in the way in which the Bantu national government concerned wants to arrange it, according to its own peculiar nature.

As is known, nearly all of the Bantu peoples now have their own governments, and therefore it is necessary to supplement the old Bantu Authorities Act, which was passed in our first decade of service in this Parliament, with new legislation in order to make provision for their political progress in our dynamic third decade. The governments of all these peoples are being consulted on this at present, and we hope to come to Parliament next year with the necessary legislation.

In connection with the establishment and development of a government of its own for each of the Bantu peoples, it is a very gratifying task for me to-day to announce that we hope to be able to grant the Natives of the Kavango area in the north of South West Africa their first form of government in October this year. In the recently completed first round of discussions with them, they—I can almost say with acclaim—decided in favour of it. They decided that they must also have such a government. Therefore we hope that we will be able to make it a reality in October this year already. It will be the second in the territories of South West. It must be foreseen that other peoples in the S.W.A. homelands will follow before long.

Talking about new Bantu governments, it is also of importance to me to be able to announce that a further manifestation of how our policy of a national government for each Bantu people is finding increasing favour, is the fact that the Tswana territorial authority very recently decided to approach the Government of the Republic with a view to establishing a parliamentary system of self-government for them as well. I may add—and I am not anticipating anyone when I say this—that I look forward to this development among the Tswanas, i.e. that they will receive their own parliamentary form of self-government, because the Tswanas have able leaders. They are equal to the responsibility of such an enhanced political status in their own homeland. For the sake of the sceptical interjection which was made a while ago, I want to point out again that this further development in the case of the Tswanas which will take place in the early seventies, is at the same time a confirmation of what the hon. the Prime Minister said in this very debate the other day, namely that the further road towards complete self-determination for our Bantu peoples is not at all barred under our policy.

They can join Botswana, for example?

No, that has nothing to do with it. It has much less to do with it than Senator Horak’s proposal that, in terms of a race federation, Botswana should join this Parliament, as well as Lesotho and Swaziland. That is what he said. Sir, without being over-optimistic, I can only say that early in this dynamic third decade which we are now entering, there will be other Bantu peoples who will also attain a parliamentary form of self-government, and will soon develop to the ultimate stage (end-uit).

Linked with this political development of each homeland is what I want to call its geographic adjustment, for example the consolidation of the homelands, with all the practical problems which, as we know, are coupled with it. While there are homeland governments everywhere now which can help us with this, and I expect a great deal from them in this regard, I want to point out that the white communities too will have to give a large measure of co-operation in regard to the geographic adjustment of the homelands. What is actually of much more immediate importance in this connection is the establishment of homeland districts and the excision of the Bantu areas which are still included in certain of our white districts. This establishment of their own separate districts is very necessary for separate homeland administration and of course for obtaining a correct broad statistical picture of all the peoples and their areas, including the white people, in South Africa. As I have said, I again remind you that we shall be more and more active in order to help every people to form its own homeland. Indeed, these countries, with their districts, must still get their own names and capitals as well. I want to ask those hon. members a question. I almost feel like acting the schoolmaster and asking the hon. members opposite to put up their hands. Which of them know, for example, the situation of the capital of a certain developing Bantu people whose administration and country are now being built up from scratch. This capital with the name Giyani was chosen by these people themselves and they provided the name as well. Nobody on the other side knows of it. This is the interest which they have in the people along with whom we live here in South Africa. I can ask them more such questions.

Another task to be, performed in the seventies is the very exacting one of further checking and reducing the influx of Bantu to the white area, and also to establish in their own homelands those Bantu who are in the white area illegally and to no purpose. In the coming decade we shall experience great developments in this regard, because we are now receiving assistance and support to an increasing extent even from those who were previously unwilling, for example from city councils which are now becoming enthusiastic collaborators in regard to the building of townships in the homelands where these people of theirs can be resettled. They are assisting us in a very imaginative way, not only with the building of the townships and with transport services, but also in various other ways, financially as well.

While I spoke about the political realization of the Bantu present in the white area, it must be faced that the systems, the areas and the authorities for the administration of Bantu persons in the white area call for revision after all these years. We will undoubtedly have to reorganize their administration in the white area too in this new decade; and in fact with the correct fundamental approach to the Bantu who are allowed to be here and move around here, on the basis of their labour and considerations directly concerned with that and in terms of the recognition of their citizenship and political ties with their own homelands—and therefore not according to the incorrect approach of a demandable presence on their part and supposed rights which are interpreted as integration with the Whites in one national context.

I hope that what I had to say briefly in a limited time will make it clear to everybody, not only to some in this House, but to people throughout the country and in every State Department, that the old view in regard to Bantu administration has changed. It did not change suddenly, but evolutionarily, and this will be emphasized more and more in the coming years. Where everything, for example, was directed at an administration of control over the Bantu or the Natives in general, it will become less and less of an administration of control in the coming years, but an administration of development through and for each of these different and separate Bantu peoples. In this the human factor plays a tremendously important and in fact a decisive part as regards the Bantu concerned. That is why I emphasize all along that all development in the homelands must not be hurried forward from outside these peoples by external entrepreneurs. The members of each of these peoples and their institutions must be activated towards as much creative participation in their own development as possible. They themselves must do what is necessary for their development, supported and led by us where they cannot manage. Rather than the control approach of the past, this development approach, with its inseparable accompanying activation of the people, is one of our most unavoidable and most definitely one of our most difficult tasks. A start has already been made with it and we are engaged in it, but it will make heavier and heavier demands on us in the near future and the sooner this is grasped, the better.

I could mention to you many more tasks beckoning and challenging us in the near future in this dynamic third decade of ours, but I want to say just one more thing, and what I want to say now, I say in the form of an appeal rather than a prediction. I want to say that in the coming decade many tasks calling for dedication await the Whites, in order to carry out our common task in regard to these peoples, as I said at the outset. We have a duty towards our own people as a white people in regard to these peoples. In addition to this, we have challenging tasks in respect of all the Bantu peoples and the developments which they must undergo. I do not like it that we must so often hear—also from that side in this debate—about the tremendous amount of sacrifices which we must make in South Africa. I never speak about the so-called sacrifices which the Whites must make, because what is right to do we dare not call sacrifices. Let us rather call it adjustments, because for many of us there are indeed adjustments to be made.

In certain circles it is not understood clearly enough that we must have a definite approach to the reality of our multi-national situation in South Africa and that it must be such that we handle our multi-national situation in South Africa as a policy of security and a safety procedure which is of great importance especially to the white people. The United Party’s policy of integrating the non-Whites with the Whites into one whole with a strong, thick ceiling over the Bantu peoples so that they cannot rise to the top is no policy of security, but an explosive policy. Our policy of full development possibilities along their own lines, to their own destination, in perspective for each of these Bantu peoples, is a policy of security for us as well as for the whole fabric of different peoples next to one another in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development brings a dangerous enthusiasm with him for his hopeless task. He has a crusading spirit which I personally find rather frightening because I have no doubt that this hon. Minister actually believes what he has been telling us this afternoon.

I would not be here if I did not believe it.

No, I am sure he would not be her? if he did not believe it. Unfortunately, he is here and in his hands there is a considerable amount of power. That is why I have found the words he uttered this afternoon distinctly frightening. He talks about a dynamic third decade of the National Party’s régime.

I hope you will see it.

Yes, I hope I will, but what I see at the moment is a shrinking economy in this dynamic third decade. I see a shrinking economy which is in this state simply because of the policies which this country has been following for the last 23 years. The hon. the Minister says that the shortage of labour is caused by the prosperity of this country. He does not know what he is talking about. If he had listened to any of the experts who have been speaking on the subject of labour shortages in South Africa for the last few years, he would know that all of them have stated the shortage of labour is an artificial one. It is a shortage of labour created by Government policy. The entire economy is being hindered by the Government’s policy of refusing to let up on labour restrictions. The hon. the Minister does not understand cause and effect. He does not understand it because he has no practical experience of running a business. He does not know what it means to train labour. He does not understand that there is something to having stabilized trained labour.

Do you have any experience?

I at least have studied this, if nothing else.

What about the hon. the Minister?

No, I do not believe he has made any study of economics. If he had made any study of economics he would know that labour is not a unit which can be substituted one man for the other as happens in a migratory system of labour, which in any case is unsuited to an economy which is highly industrialized and which requires more and more skilled and semi-skilled labour. The hon. the Minister reveals his ignorance at every turn. However, there is another aspect which he has brought to the attention of this House this afternoon, namely his grandiose schemes for creating dozens of governments in South Africa. As I remember it, there are to be 11 in South West Africa, eight in South Africa for the Africans, one for the Coloureds, one for the Indians and one for the White people. That makes 22 governments for 20 million people. A government for every 1 million people roughly is not a bad average. When one remembers that something like 36 per cent —I think this is the figure—of the gainfully employed White population in South Africa is directly or indirectly in State employment in this so-called free enterprise country of ours, one’s mind absolutely boggles to think of the number of people who will now be absorbed in absolutely unproductive occupations in manning 22 governments, but leave that aside, in manning 22 civil services. The whole situation for 20 million people is so absurd that one cannot understand how the hon. the Minister can find any enthusiasm for this job.

According to you there should not be as many in Europe.

There are not 20 million people being governed by 22 governments in Europe. Perhaps the hon. the Minister has forgotten his geography and his demography.

And they always had as many people in Europe as they have to-day?

There was one third point that the hon. the Minister made on which I want to take issue with him. I hope the hon. the Minister will stay and listen to me because most of my speech concerns his department. Many of the matters he mentioned are answered in my own speech. The third point that he made was that he, Merlin the magician, will give to every single African a tribal identity. He will link him to his tribe. Each one will have his own country. How does the hon. the Minister know that the African wants this? Who is he to tell the urbanized African that he has to go back to a tribal culture? How does the hon. the Minister know this?

Because I am in contact with them.

The hon. the Minister’s contact with urban Africans consist of telling them what he wants them to do and telling them what they must do. It does not consist of asking them or consulting them. Nothing of the kind. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that he has forgotten that among the 3½ million urban Africans there are at least two generations that were born in the urban areas, that have lost their tribal contact and that want to have nothing whatsoever to do with all these ethnic grouping that he is forcing on them. The hon. the Minister is forgetting all about 150 years of contact with Christianity. Does this mean nothing at all?

You talk of Christianity!

Yes, I talk of Christianity. I know the influence of Christianity on tribal people. The hon. the Minister ought to know the influence of Christianity on tribal people as well. They do not retain their tribal culture once they have adopted Christianity. One cannot promote both for they are incompatible. The hon. the Minister cannot promote Christianity and tribalism any more than he can promote tribalism and a modern system of agriculture for those are incompatible as well. The hon. the Minister has forgotten that the African has had decades of contact with Western civilization and with modern industrial systems. He has forgotten that those people do not want to return to the tribal culture and tribal customs. If the hon. the Minister does not believe me, why does he not ask them? Why does he not give them the choice? Why does he insist on imposing his will on people who may not want it?

I do not impose it on them.

Of course the hon. the Minister imposes it on them.

They ask for it themselves.

Just as the Africans here are not forced to go back to the rural areas. They are persuaded. Just as the Africans who are moved from one area to another are not forced to do so. They do it voluntarily. I do not know whom the hon. the Minister thinks he is fooling. He certainly cannot fool anybody who knows anything of the way in which his department operates.

You are the know-all.

I did not interject when the hon. the Minister was talking. I hope he will have the same courtesy and just keep quiet.

Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to this debate in general. I will also come back to the hon. the Minister because, as I say, I largely cover his portfolio in my speech. I want to say that I am disappointed in this debate. I must say I was expecting fireworks. We had all sorts of anticipatory articles in newspapers, but we have not had any fireworks. We did not even have an interesting little travelogue from the hon. the Prime Minister. I was looking forward to some sort of account of his travels. However, we had nothing of the sort. All we had was a rather grumpy statement that he was not going to behave like Bobby Kennedy and mix with the common people. Let me tell him that from what I read of his tour, it sounded extremely dreary. He could have done with a bit of the charisma of the late Bobby Kennedy. He should have mixed with some of the common people. It might have been difficult for him, because he says he does not speak other languages. But that does not matter. He could have gone heavily disguised as an ordinary human being, if necessary, and sat himself down at a table at a boulevard cafe and watched the world go by. He would have learnt a great deal from that. One of the things that he would have learnt is that it is completely irrelevant to bring in examples of what happened in the pre-war world. It means nothing anymore. It is irrelevant. The whole world has changed. It has changed not only geographically, it has changed politically and sociologically. Most of all perhaps, it has changed in its attitudes to race. That the hon. the Prime Minister would have learnt if he just sat at a boulevard café and watched the world go by. The attitudes to race are completely different in the post-war world. It is for that reason that we appear to be so weird to the outside world. That is one of the reasons why the hon. the Prime Minister finds it so difficult to sell separate development or apartheid or South Africa’s Colour policy to the outside world. We are the only country that has moved backwards. Every other country in the world has been extending rights to people of colour. But this is not the position in South Africa. This is the only country where there has been a steady whittling away of the rights of the non-White people. Any independent observer, anybody who is prepared to make an honest assessment of the situation will come to the conclusion that what has been substituted for those rights, the territorial authorities that we heard so much about, the Coloured Representative Council, the Indian Council or the Transkeian Assembly do not mean anything how can they measure up to the rights in the Parliament which legislates for or rather, against, those people who do not have any representation in this House any more.

Tell me when were the Indians represented here?

Well, they were not but they should have been. If I had any power they would have representation in this House. They would have been on the common roll. The hon. the Minister to whom I shall return later, knows perfectly well what my views are.

You can return to me any time.

That is nice, though we have never been together.

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping there would be some sort of dramatic change and that the hon. the Prime Minister and his Cabinet would come back with some sort of fresh attitudes after the election. We all know they were severely afflicted earlier this year. The whole lot of them had a dread disease known as Hertzogitis. It is a terrible disease. It manifests itself in a sort of rush of blood to the head and then all sort of rash statements come from the mouths of Ministers like the hon. the Minister of Health who has been having a pretty bad time in this House lately. However, that is over now. Hon. members need not be so upset. They are recovering from this disease. I was hoping we would have a bit of a new outlook. However, it is the same old mixture as before. And it seems to me from what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration has been saying that it is going to get worse. It is going to be a stronger mixture, although he is a rather different man to-day from the man who was complaining rather bitterly at one stage during the election about how little money was voted to his portfolio. I think one of the Herstigtes was complaining that too much money was voted …

Where did I say that?

Well, I can produce the cutting and give it to the hon. the Minister if he does not remember. I am sure that he would rather forget most of these things.

Oh no!

The hon. the Minister was complaining that only, I think, some R5.9 million was voted.

It is so much per cent.

Yes, so much per cent was voted for his portfolio out of the total Budget. It was 5.9 plus another 1.2 per cent for education, bringing it up to just over 7 per cent. The hon. the Minister was complaining and I complain too. I do hope that this money which is going to be used, if it is going to be used, is not going to be used in the creation of authorities and the building of those miserable resettlement areas where people live in idleness, poverty and unemployment. Because that is where most of the money, it seems to me, has gone so far.

The hon. the Prime Minister has an idea— and he got it I think from the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration—that if we only stop calling this country multi-racial and start calling it multi-national, we will be able to pull the wool over the world’s eyes. This “multi-national ” is a new one. Then we will apparently get over this whole business of a minority Government, because it almost puts the Whites in majority: in this country. In this way it is thought that that argument would be disposed of. Does he really think that the world judges us by the myths that keep Nationalists happy? Or does the world judge us by the realities of the South African scene? The hon. the Prime Minister found the policy difficult to explain, because the world judges us by the realities of the South African scene. You cannot explain away overseas the treatment of the urbanized Africans. People do not believe that urbanized people want tribal culture. And they are quite right in not believing that. You cannot explain away the harshness of the policy as it is implemented to-day, by telling people that in the future there are going to be rewards coming from this policy. All the world sees is the harshness of the policy as it is implemented to-day. It is no use trying to give explanations to the outside world as its views on race have moved miles ahead of South Africa. You cannot explain the obvious unfairness of separate amenities when there are not even pretentions that these amenities are separate but equal. We cannot explain that away. We cannot explain our sporting policy away at all, because it is based on a completely unacceptable principle. People do not realize in South Africa what a highly emotive issue the race issue is overseas. It is highly emotive. They do not just consider an all-white team sent by South Africa as a team that comes from a country whose policies they disapprove of. They consider a South African all-white team—and now I quote from a newspaper— “as a roving embassy for racialism ”. And that is why we will never get our sporting policy accepted even though we offer to send two teams to the Olympic Games. It is not going to work that way.

What happened to the Rhodesian soccer team?

Rhodesia is a different issue as the hon. the Minister knows. Rhodesia is constitutionally a pariah in England and that is what happened to the Rhodesian soccer team.

Their soccer team was 80 per cent black.

That is not the point. The point is that Rhodesia is an issue in England over other things. Does not the hon. the Minister know that? South African must stop bluffing themselves that the cancellation of the cricket tour was only the work of what they care to think of as long-haired demos and a bloody-minded Labour Party government. Nothing of the sort. This issue became something far greater. It had become a race relations issue inside Britain itself. It had become a Commonwealth relations issue. Both parties knew that it had become a law and order issue. That position will remain until we change our actual attitude inside South Africa. We cannot just leave it to the sporting bodies to do as they like as the Opposition seems to think will do the trick. We have to change fundamentally our attitude on sport. We have got to have multi-racial sport and we will have to pick our teams on merit. Otherwise we are out of sport internationally. We can forget about it. The tide which has swept us out of the Olympic Games, out of the Davis Cup, out of international soccer and out of international athletics is simply going to roll on and sweep us out of any remaining international contests in which we hope to participate.

Do you kow what you also cannot explain in England or elsewhere irrespective of whether you call this country multi-racial or multi-national? You cannot explain away why a country, which is not in an emergency situation, cannot control its population presumably, without the use of Acts, such as the Terrorist Act, particularly section 6 thereof, and the 180 days detention law. You cannot explain away why there are powers still in force allowing Ministers to detain people without trial. It is obvious that many more people are being detained without trial than any of us know anything about. Why is this so in a country where there is no emergency situation? Why should this be in a country where we are spending millions on the Army and the Police Force? Can we not control any attacks that might come from abroad? Only the other day the Prime Minister was telling us that not only could we control people that attacked us, but if necessary we could arm ourselves to attack other people. He however hastened to add that we had no intention of doing so. Why do we need these powers which are only taken in democratic countries under the most stringent emergencies?

Are you objecting to the law passed by Parliament?

Of course I am objecting to the law. The hon. the Minister knows that. Of course I am and I have made that quite clear. I voted against it. I voted against it in principle. I have never denied that for a minute and the hon. the Minister knows it.

You are against a white Government in this country.

I wanted a multi-racial government in this country. I do not want a black government either. I want a multiracial government for a multi-racial country. That is exactly what I want.

With who in the majority?

What cannot be explained abroad …

(Inaudible.]

Are you not going to make your own speech some time or another? What cannot be explained is why a young vigorous country like South Africa with natural resources that are the envy of the world, should be running into economic difficulties as it is. Why is the rate of investment slowing down? Why is the rate of growth slowing down? Why are there labour shortages when there are millions of people waiting to be employed? Why is there lack of confidence in the business community? Why is there growing inflation? Why are these things happening in this country that has every economic resource at its disposal? How can one explain the deliberate inhibitions on the rate of growth? How can one explain that you have a Government that turns deaf ears to all the admonitions of businessmen and people who keep this country ticking over? How do you explain that to reasonable people? How do you explain that the Government absolutely ignores all the cries about bottle necks and the crippling effects of the industrial colour bar? This is what you cannot explain to people overseas. It all seems mad to them, and you know what, Sir? It all is mad. That is exactly the position. It all is mad. That is why you cannot explain it to people.

I have not even touched on petty apartheid which is humiliating and disgusting. There are also those silly incidents that made fools of us overseas, such as the Japanese jockey affair, But none of this really touches the fabric of society in South Africa as such. It does not undermine civilized society as such, as major apartheid does. That is why I want to stick to what I consider to be the major issues, namely not petty apartheid but major apartheid. That is what is ripping the very fabric of society in South Africa. What concerns me particularly is what we are doing here in this all-white Parliament of ours, where we are legislating for the lives not of 3½ million people but 20 million, to the very fabric of society of the remaining 13 million people, the gay abandon with which we pass laws that wreak havoc in the ordinary lives of ordinary people. These are conditions which we have created by policy, conditions that cause delinquency, crime, illegitimacy, poverty, malnutrition, insecurity, frustration, resentment and ultimately hatred. Why do we go in this fashion creating these conditions, deliberately creating these conditions?

I say it is no exaggeration to say that Government policy is deliberately creating conditions of social instability in South Africa. Every sociologist who has made a study of conditions in South Africa would agree with what I have said, more particularly in relation to the whole of the migrant labour system which the Government insists will be their basis of labour for the rest of time. This hon. Minister who has just left the House said that the Government has brought stability. Stability of what? Stability to whom? Could it bring stability to the non-Whites who know that they are doomed to poverty and second-class citizenship? Is that the sort of stability that people want? We have heard talk again of all being quiet and peaceful in South Africa. Does nobody realize how our crime rate is rising in South Africa? Does nobody take any notice of the fact that we have the highest daily average prison population in the Western world? Does this not mean anything to these hon. members when they talk about peace and quiet in South Africa?

The Prime Minister stated that the Coloured people are contented. He says they like their Coloured Representative Council. Do they? They are complaining it has not been called together, they have never been consulted. They are complaining. They have put in a resolution wherein they asked for equal pay for equal work, particularly as far as teachers, nurses and other civil servants are concerned. What is going to happen to that cry of equal pay for equal work? Is this Government going to listen to it? I am prepared to take a small bet that nothing will come of that resolution. I wonder whether the hon. the Prime Minister has seen the statement by Mr. Justice Steyn the other month wherein he stated that 50 per cent of the Coloured people are living below the poverty datum line. Are these people satisfied with these conditions? I wonder if he thinks that the Coloured people enjoy being shunted around under the Group Areas Act. Certain areas are proclaimed for them where they can build their houses and where they can settle down again in a sort of new community, but then suddenly they are deproclaimed. This has happened in Ceres and may well happen in Paarl in the School Street district and elsewhere. Does he think that people like this sort of stability? I wonder if he thinks that the Coloured people really think of their Representative Council as anything other than a façade when everything that is significant in their lives is ruled by this Parliament. It is not the Coloured Representative Council which dictates and controls the Group Areas, whether or not they have compulsory education, the amount of money they may spend on social welfare, the types of jobs they may do; it is this Parliament. I wonder whether the hon. the Prime Minister really thinks that the Indians are really satisfied with what they got and the treatment they are getting under the Group Area proclamations.

Now I want to refer to the Africans. I am sorry to see that neither the hon. the Minister nor his Deputy Minister is present at the moment. Both of them have disappeared. As to the Africans, their whole lives are disrupted entirely by the Government’s insistence on converting them into migratory labour. In the homelands there is evidence of poverty, of hunger, of malnutrition and of widespread unemployment. Yesterday I read in the newspaper that the Transkeian Authority has voted money for famine relief. I have cuttings here where mission doctors complain about the widespread incidence of kwashiorkor and other diseases which result from malnutrition because of their inability to purchase protein foods because they are too poor. Are these the conditions which we think are ideal in this country?

Surely those are not the only reasons.

No, there is drought and I do not blame the Government for the drought …

Ignorance is another.

Ignorance is only one of the factors, but poverty is the main factor, and the hon. the Minister knows it. The Africans in their natural state, before the lands of the Africans were captured by the Whites, had a very good natural diet. They hunted animals and they ate meat and the cattle yielded milk because there was plenty of land. There was always sour milk and they had vegetables. They had wild spinach and it all added up to a good diet. It is a fallacy for white South Africans to pretend that Africans enjoy the staple diet of maize, because that is all they are used to. It is not true. They had a very good natural diet before we encroached upon their natural homelands. What employment is there in these resettlement areas the hon. Minister has been talking about so proudly? What must these women, many of whom are widows, or children do when they are sent back to the resettlement areas? Many of these widows were in gainful employment; they are endorsed out of the urban areas; where they are not allowed to have houses, but there is no employment for them in the resettlement areas with the result that there are no means of maintaining the family in those areas at all.

In other societies the aged, the sick, the widows and the very young are treated with special care. In our society they are singled out for especially harsh treatment. They are sent away from the urban areas. These are the famous “superfluous appendages ”, a phrase coined by the then hon. member for Heilbron who is now no longer with us. His absence is something which I, for one, can bear bravely. What does the hon. the Minister think the endorsing out of African families does to them? He is very proud of the number of people he has kept out of the urban areas but he never stops to think what has happened to the people he has pushed out of the urban areas. He never thinks what they live on and what their family lives are like. This sort of consideration never comes to the hon. the Minister. The urban Africans are in a constant state of apprehension, because they have a very shrewd idea of what is going to happen to them. Heaven knows, they have been told over and over again by this hon. Minister that section 10 is to go. They have been told that section 10, which gives them a certain amount of protection, is not in keeping with the basic tenets of Nationalist policy and that it must therefore go. Already there have been many assaults on this policy. The 30-year leases have gone, showing that permanency is not considered to be an intrinsic part of the urban Africans. There is also the question of the building of high schools in the towns. The Africans know that schools are being built in the rural areas and in their homelands in order to orientate their children towards the homelands. I would like to know what sort of jobs are going to be provided for the new generation of urban-born Africans if the Physical Planning Act is carried out to its fullest extent. Where are the job opportunities going to come from for the young generation of urban-born Africans who do not want to go back to live in their homelands? What is going to happen if the Bantu Laws Amendment Act is in fact enforced on the educated African, the white collar Africans, who have dragged themselves up by their own efforts? One of the worst things that is happening in the urban areas is the cutting down on housing. The hon. the Minister was proud of the houses provided for Africans. There was a time when one could say that the Government had done a good job in providing houses in the urban areas. That was soon after it came into power. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that the same conditions of overcrowding and squatting are manifesting themselves again in the urban areas, and particularly in Johannesburg, because no more money is being granted on Government edict by the Housing Commission to municipalities to build houses for urban Africans. In Johannesburg alone 11,000 legally employed families are on the housing priority list. There are 18,000 single men also on such a list. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, normally I do not reply to speeches made by that hon. member, for the one great advantage we share is that we like each other very much. She is very fond of me, but the greatest advantage we share is that we at least know on what we differ. After listening to her speech this afternoon, I just want to tell her that the worst enemy of South Africa could not find a better representative at the UN than she would be. I think she should report to Tanzania.

The hon. member said that she wanted a multi-racial government in this country. I now want to ask the hon. member whether she would mind if it were a multi-racial government where the Blacks had a two-thirds majority? After all, the hon. member is so honest. Does the hon. member have any objection to the possibility that the Government of this country and this Parliament could be two-thirds black? [Interjections.]

Our policy is based on merit.

That is the way the hon. member replies to me! These are the honest people. I shall leave the hon. member at that. They are almost as honest as these world sporting organizations. She said here that we should have mixed sports, for then we would be accepted everywhere. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) said the same thing, he and his mixed soccer teams. He must speak up, I want to hear what he is saying. I want to ask him, does he still think that if we were to have mixed sports teams, we would be accepted by the world sporting bodies? He is afraid to say anything. I know why he is afraid to say anything. I was in Rhodesia recently. The Federation of International Soccer Associations suspended Rhodesia for two years, despite the fact that 80 per cent of the Rhodesian soccer teams consisted of Blacks.

For what reason?

I shall tell him precisely for what reason. Because that sporting body said that Rhodesia had an illegal government.

Precisely.

Good. I am very glad the hon. member for Transkei—I do not know who his shadow is—agrees that it is because they maintain that Rhodesia has an illegal government. What is the hon. member’s reply going to be if we were to send mixed teams overseas, but the world body maintained that they were not going to receive us because we were retaining South West Africa illegally? Who said Rhodesia had an illegal government, except these people? For that is the kind of honesty and frankness one finds in them. They want mixed sports teams, but they are too afraid and too dishonest to say it in public.

I come now to the hon. member for Durban (North). He carried on so viciously here about my hon. friend and accused him in the most extravagant terms of being a liar. Now I want to ask that hon. member whether or not he ever said that South Africa was a police state? I now want the young hon. members to take note of him. I am going to put very simple questions to him, but he who has had such a lot to say about the immorality and the mendacity of other people, will not dare reply. Did the hon. member ever say that we were not a police state? Yes of course, now he and that blond-headed fellow are having a nice conversation. Did the hon. member for Durban (North) ever say we were a police state? I am telling him now that he denied it during the session last year. But then I found another quotation from Hansard, for there he had said “are we a police state ”, and in the next sentence “I don’t think so ”, while the insinuation was very clear. But I then found something else in Hansard, where he had stated explicitly that South Africa was a police state, and he still went and denied it. Does he want to deny that he said it? I shall read it to him in English. because his Afrikaans is rather shaky. This is what he said—

Does he want to deny that he said it? But then he did deny that he had said it, and he goes around pretending to be a friend of South Africa. This is the man who accuses other people of being dishonest, that they are not speaking the truth. The less he utters the word “truth ” the fewer sleepless nights he will have.

Sir, I looked forward to this debate, for I am not one of those who wants to or who will belittle the progress the United Party has made: I am too much of a political realist to do that. That is why I looked forward to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. I expected a searching, penetrating speech on our gravest problem in South Africa, i.e. our relations problem. I am only too well aware of the vulnerability in this country of any government on this question of relations problems: for only the uninformed, the wilful elements and the enemies of South Africa, of which the English-language newspapers and a large section of the Opposition are such a tragic example, would pretend that these problems could be solved by a simple formula. But not only did I expect criticism in depth of our major problems from him; I also expected him to present a clear alternative. But what did we get? A superficial, unoriginal, and an almost more ridiculous speech than those to which we have been forced to listen for the past ten years. It was not a serious analysis, but a cynical exploitation, damaging to the nation, of delicate situations which must inevitably arise in a multi-national country like South Africa. He exploited those situations, such as the position of the Chinese, about which I shall have something more to say in a moment, and he will not like what I have to say. He exploited these things and that was the high-water mark of his speech, and I am now levelling the accusation at the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that he is not interested in a solution to our relations problems. He is only interested in them in so far as he can exploit them for political gain, and he simply does not care how much damage he and the English-language Press in this country do abroad in this process. Who followed him? He was followed up by the hon. member for Yeoville. We have in the past derived a great deal of pleasure from his clowning in this House, but I want to congratulate him, for his performance last Monday was the best example of clowning which I have ever witnessed in this Parliament. If the hon. member for Hillbrow has now ousted him as leader of their party, he will probably not remain in politics much longer, and I want to suggest to him that he report to me, because I have quite a lot of influence with circus companies in South Africa.

Who was the next star in the U.P. firmament? No one else but the hon. member for Hillbrow. I have great respect for his intelligence, for his vocabulary and for his presentation. He suffers from one defect however and that is that he always spoils everything by trying to be cleverer than he really is. What is his theory now? The theory in which he found comfort is that we are living in a democracy and that it is inherent in a democracy that a Government must fall at some time or other, it makes no difference whether it is after 20 or 50 or 100 years. But he is wrong. That is not inherent in a democracy. All that is inherent in a democracy is that one can effect a change of government without a revolution. But there is nothing in democracy which says that a Government cannot remain in office for a hundred years, as this Government intends doing. After all. the man with even the most elementary knowledge of our history knows that the United Party has been in control of the Natal Province for all of 60 years, and also knows that the Free State has been controlled by the National Party for 50, and that it has been 16 years since there was last a United Party man in this House. Does that mean, now, that there is no democracy? No, I said at the outset that I do not underestimate their victory, but after having listened now to those three stars. I have changed my mind and I am not going to overestimate it either. There was a time once when I felt the same way, when I made the same analysis, and that was when I was still a United Party man. In the 1948 election we all said that it was a fluke that the National Party had come into power. The next year we had a by-election, after the unfortunate and tragic death by drowning of Mr. Jannie Brill of Mayfair. A by-election was then held. Jannie Brill had won that election in 1948 with more than 300 votes. The next year a by-election was held and then Hennie Luttig, the National Party candidate, won it with four votes, and then you should have heard us U.P. men!

With 10 votes.

Yes, six more! Then you should have heard us U.P. men. We said that it had merely been a fluke that they had come into power. But we have seen how the United Party continued to deteriorate until they kicked me out, the best man they ever had. And now they are going to fool themselves just as they did with the Mayfair by-election 20 years ago if they think that they are going to make progress.

Just before I come to the Chinese and the resettlement problem in South Africa and the position in regard to housing, I want to pause awhile and deal with the hon. member for Durban (Point). Yesterday he made a base insinuation here.

Order! The hon. Minister must not say that it was a base insinuation.

Well, Sir, it was as close to base as one can get! But I withdraw. He levelled the insinuation at Mr. Willie Maree —and he could easily have found out that it was an untrue insinuation, but it does not suit their election propaganda—i.e. that Mr. Willie Maree when he was a member of the Development Council, enriched his company with land which he had purchased at Richard’s Bay. I want to tell him that it is an absolute untruth and an infamous lie. [Interjections.]

On a point of order, Sir. may the hon. member say that another hon. member told an infamous lie?

I did not say that he had told an untruth. I said that the words which were used were undoubtedly an infamous untruth. For two months Mr. Willie Maree was a part-time member of the Development Council, and then he was appointed director of a development company and immediately tendered his resignation to the Development Council. But what else can one expect from the hon. member for Durban (Point) after the propaganda his leader made during the election? The Prime Minister said here the other day that we had been dealing in this election with the basest attacks on and insinuations against individuals we had ever experienced, and now I should like the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to listen. Here I have a front page of the Sunday Times: “Graaff raises national concern about stories of strange ways of making money. Nats. and money; rumours fly, ” and then they say this, and in quotation marks—

Did the Leader of the Opposition say this or not? Did he make the insinuation against National Party politicians that they were making money in dishonest ways? Because, Sir, I know of only two ways of making money. The one is an honest way and the other is a dishonest way. Now the Leader of the Opposition says these things on the front page of the Sunday Times and he makes an insinuation against National politicians, including National Party Ministers and National Party Members of Parliament to the effect that they were making money in a dishonest way. Did he say it or not? But now he is both deaf and dumb. He makes an insinuation like that and does not have the courage to deny it, and now I want to say this to him. He is held up to us as such a true gentleman in South Africa. I want to ask him whether there are any of these people who make money in “strange ways ” in this House? Of course he will not say. He has a lot to say when he is in the platteland; he has a lot to say when there are no people who can test his facts against the truth. But now I am saying this to him. Up to now I have had respect for him. He must either apologize for this, or he must have the courage to move that a select committee be appointed to investigate the ways in which National Party politicians are making money dishonestly, and if he does not do so, then I am saying to him that he is the disseminator of the most disgraceful scandal which I do not expect from even his basest backbencher. He can laugh about that if he likes, but he ought to feel ashamed. [Interjection.] Would the hon. member repeat what he said?

Just go on with your speech. [Interjection.]

You cannot even remember what you said just now. But I would rather keep quiet. But this is the type of thing, and then they accuse other people of impropriety. just as the hon. member came along and spoke a lot of nonsense here about the Chinese, as well as this utter nonsense that the Cabinet had decided that eight Chinese children should remain at the nursery school. That was not decided by the Cabinet: it was I who decided that. There was a misunderstanding in this regard. I happened to be in Rhodesia and there was a new official, a very good official who dealt with this, but he did not know about the regulation, i.e. that I had said that all these things were to come to me, and he then refused. But fortunately I dealt with the matter before the refusal was conveyed to the lady who ran the nursery school, and then I allowed matters to remain as they had been. But I went to the Cabinet with it, not in order to ask their approval, but owing to the unholy row which the English-language Press in South Africa was kicking up in order to besmirch our name abroad. Because, for some inexplicable reason, X have during the last three months been receiving applications for permits for Chinese to enable them to go to skating rinks, to play putt-putt, to go to a billiard saloon, to play soft ball and to attend that nursery school, all of them from Port Elizabeth and from nowhere else. Why do we find this there? I maintain it is either a United Party organizer or an English journalist who is active there in Port Elizabeth. I deemed it my duty to inform the Cabinet of this, and the Cabinet approved my mode of action and decided that I should make a statement in regard to what our attitude is towards the Chinese in South Africa. And this statement was made approximately five years ago by the present President of the Senate when he was still Minister of the Interior, and I am reading only a portion of it—

That is the policy of this party towards the Chinese. I admit that one is going to have difficult cases. One finds very delicate cases. I intend dealing with each of these cases on an ad hoc basis and on its merits, but I am most certainly not going to ask the Leader of the Opposition and his party or the English newspapers for their permission as to how these matters should be dealt with. Sir, I can say this, that in my two years as Minister of Community Development I have had the most cordial co-operation from the Chinese Consul-general and from all the leaders of the Chinese in the various areas in South Africa, and we are solving this problem in a completely satisfactory way.

But now they are asking us why the Chinese may participate in one sport and not in another? Of course this is so. And now I want to ask the hon. member for Newton Park, from whom all these difficulties to-day originate and who asked me why we allow them to participate in one sport and not in another, the following. If the junior branch of his party in Port Elizabeth wanted to give a dance and the Chinese asked for a permit, should I grant it or not? Come now! Should I grant it or not?

He will not reply to that.

No, of course he will not reply to that. He maintains that I should allow the Chinese to participate in all forms of sport. If they request permission to attend a dance party of the junior branch of his party—and I am expecting the application any day now —must i say yes or no? Sir, that is precisely their attitude in regard to the question of the resettlement of Indian and Coloureds as well. They pretend to the public that they are in favour of separate residential areas, but then they always come forward with the basest stories against this Government, such as the statement by the hon. member for Port Natal that we had uprooted 1,100,000 people without giving them houses.

Dead right.

The hon. member said “dead right ”; I say to him “You …! ” He said that we threw 600 Indians out of their business premises without giving them alternative accommodation. I said during the last session that it was an infamous and total untruth; I said this in Durban and I challenged him to bring a libel suit against me and up to now I have only had one ridiculous lawyer’s letter from him.

You will get it; you do not frighten a mouse.

I am looking forward to nothing as eagerly as to that. No, Sir, I say that it is an untruth that 600 Indian families were thrown out. What happened is this: Of the 100,000 Coloured and Indian families in South Africa 50,000 have already been resettled and all of them are living in better residential areas than those they had before.

Nonsense.

I challenge that hon. member to bring me one Indian who was evicted from his house and who was not resettled in a better house. I challenged the hon. member for Houghton to bring me one Indian businessman who had been deprived of his subsistence as a result of the declaring of group areas. She then went and gave the Sunday Times 26 names. We investigated each one of those 26 names and not one single one of them was experiencing hardship as a result of group areas. I am now challenging that hon. member to mention to me, under my Vote, the name of one single Indian trader who was ruined as a result of group areas.

I gave you one.

Yes, and do you know what happened there? The business belonged to this man’s father and he died. The son then moved in there illegally. We allowed him to remain there illegally for two years and then he went bankrupt on his own accord. He then wanted to lease his shop; he offered the shop to the United Party, but they did not have the money to pay for it and then the National Party leased it. [Interjections.] I am asking the hon. member now to stop making such a noise and to raise the matter under my Vote.

Then the allegation is also being made that we are not providing enough housing for our people. The hon. member for Durban (Point) spoke here about slum conditions in Durban. Why does he complain to me? Why does he not complain to his city council to whom the responsibility has been entrusted in terms of the Slums Act and the Housing Act to look after their own people? Sir, it is because the city councils of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and all those places did not want to make provision for housing that we stepped in and are to-day engaged in the largest urban renewal scheme which has ever been tackled in South Africa for when they are finished—and that ought to be in seven or eight years’ time —there will be virtually no slums left in South Africa. I am referring to District Six (Cape Town), Cato Manor, Prospect Hill, Riverside (Durban), South End (Port Elizabeth), North End (East London), Newclare (Western Bantu residential areas), Goodhope area (Pretoria), Georgetown (Germiston), etc., etc.

But, Sir, let me tell you what we have done in regard to housing for Whites in South Africa. In 1964-’65 we spent R23 million on that; in 1969-’70 we spent R52 million; in other words, more than twice as much within five years. The Building Research Institute instituted an investigation to see what our requirements as far as white housing was concerned would be over the next 15 years. Their finding was that during 1970-’75 slightly more than 2,000 units would have had to be supplied; in 1980, 27,000 and in 1985, 29,000. In the past five years we and the local authorities and the private sector have already built an average of 26,500, therefore 4,000 more each year than are needed at the present moment. That indicates that we are making up the backlog. Sir, hon. members complain about a housing shortage here in Cape Town and in Durban. Unfortunately I cannot furnish all the facts to the House now for my time is limited, but I looked through the Argus of the 17th and what did I find there in the smalls under “houses for sale ”? [Interjections.] Does the hon. member not know that these things are always advertised in the smalls? These people are simple and know when to do things on a small scale; they are not always playing at being the big noise as the hon. member does. This is supposedly the shortage of housing in South Africa! “Houses for Sale ” advertisements cover 29 columns; “Houses wanted to Purchase ”, twelve inches of one column.

At what prices?

From R6,000 to R50,000. I know the hon. member cannot even afford R6,000; he should actually live in a hut. “Flats to Let ” advertisements cover one-and-a-quarter columns; “Flats wanted to Let ” seven inches of one column; “Board and Residence Offered ” twelve inches; “Board and Residence Wanted ” a half inch—and I am not so certain that it was not placed by the hon. member for Port Natal, because that is the cheapest rate he could find in the Cape!

Sir, let them continue with their pettiness. Let them continue to try to exploit South Africa. This is a story which is more than 22 years old now. This great announcement of the Prime Minister about the uranium miracle in South Africa met with a rather cool reception on their part; the mighty Saldanha project met with an even cooler reception on their part, but the young members must not be too concerned about this; that has been their history throughout. They were opposed to Iscor; they were opposed to Sasol; they were opposed to the Orange River Scheme. [Interjections.] Sir, in the days when I was a United Party man, I pleaded for an Orange River Scheme and then they wanted to kick me out. The trouble with those hon. members is that they can tell me nothing about the United Party because I was a better United Party man than any of them. [Laughter.] They are laughing because I said that they were opposed to the Orange River Scheme, but I can go further: They were opposed to the Republic itself. Do they want to deny it? They say that we are out of touch with the people. May I just remind them that the Republican majority was less than 75,000? We did not even get more than 75,000 votes than the United Party. In this year’s election we got more than 200,000 votes more than the United Party. This is the extent to which we are out of touch with the people and this is how we will remain out of touch in future. Sir, they ridiculed our aircraft factory. Let them continue with their pettiness. The Prime Minister and the National Party will proceed with the solution to the major problems of this country. The National Party Government is looking after the people in every sphere in this country, and I say this to the Prime Minister: Continue to build up this beloved Republic and the people of South Africa will support you. To the Leader of the Opposition, who is so afraid to reply to a decent question which one puts to him because he knows that it will impugn his honesty, I say this: Your ridicule will still turn bitter in your mouth.

Sir, we who have been in this House for a long time know only too well that when the Government calls in the assistance of the Minister of Community Development they are in great trouble.

They want a clown.

What surprises me is that they have not called in his assistance earlier. This is the third day of the debate; they have fared extremely badly and only now have they called in his assistance. He used to enter the debates here, blustering and shouting and cracking jokes. All I can say is that he is as rude as he ever was and that he has lost most of his fire.

Sir, the hon. the Minister joined issue with my colleague, the hon. member for Durban (North), on his alleged statement that South Africa was a police state. That question has been raised and argued here ad nauseum over the years, but to-day the hon. the Minister again comes along with the same accusation. All I can tell him is that during this last election there was a symposium in Durban on whether South Africa is a police state. All parties took part in it. The hon. member for Durban (North) also took part in the symposium and his attitude was that South Africa is not a police state because we are still able to kick this Government out in a democratic way.

The hon. the Minister also referred to the speech made here on Monday by my Leader. He was evidently very disappointed. We are still waiting for anybody on that side of the House to get up to answer the charges made by my Leader. For my part I too can say that we are very disappointed. We were led to believe by the Press supporting the Government that we could expect a bombshell from the Prime Minister. We had headlines reading: “Alle oë op Vorster. ” We are still waiting. We had the same old story from him. He said nothing new and, above all, he answered none of the charges against the Government. The hon. the Minister, as usual, puts the blame for the ills of this country on the English-language Press and on members of the Opposition. Sir, the position is that what gives South Africa its bad name overseas is the deeds and statements of members of the Government and the Acts passed by the Government. That is what gives South Africa a bad name, not the English-language Press.

We are also very surprised to hear from the Minister that there is really no shortage of housing. He is a stranger in Jerusalem. There is a shortage of housing everywhere. Of course, be cannot complain. He bought himself a house in Pretoria for R71,000 and he has another one in Cape Town. He has two motor cars to visit his homes; he does not know what a housing shortage is.

You could have the same if you had my capabilities.

Here again we have proof that this Government has lost touch with the common man.

Sir, I listened with great interest to-day to the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and I was surprised that his pronouncements here were received with so little enthusiasm by his own members. Seeing that we got nothing from the hon. the Prime Minister we thought that we would get something from the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development but we got nothing from him either. Even his own people did not seem to like what he had to say regarding his plans for the future of race relations in this country.

I want to come back now to the hon. member for Houghton, who unfortunately is not here. I am surprised that she with her talents and her party with its resources do not do more to fight this Government. One would think that she was very anxious indeed to get rid of this Government but nothing of the sort. As long as we have a “verkrampte ” Government as we have and they continue to make the silly sort of mistakes that they are making, so long will it suit the hon. member for Houghton. It gives her an opportunity to get headlines throughout the world and in her own Press.

You are in partnership.

Sir, the tragedy of it all is that her actions, her criticisms and her attacks on the Government in this House have not the slightest effect. On the contrary, if she champions a cause, it hardens the Government against that cause and she achieves nothing. I have yet to see this Government accept a single amendment or a single suggestion from her. She pretends that she would like to get rid of this Government; she pretends that she is the Government’s greatest and only opponent. I want to ask her and her party …

Where is her party?

… what they did to fight the Government on the 22nd April?

Nothing.

They did nothing. I should like to quote a few figures here. This so-called party—I call them a political sect—contested 20 seats in the election. In five of these their candidates lost their deposits. The strange thing is that in those constituencies where they lost their deposits there was a United Party candidate against a Nat candidate. Wherever there was no Nat candidate they did not lose their deposits. So, wherever the Progressive Party stood against the United Party alone every Nat in that constituency voted for them, and I do not blame them for they are the Nationalist Party’s best allies. And yet no less a person than the Prime Minister tells us that the Progressive Party has made inroads amongst our people but all the time it is his people who have voted for them, because wherever there was a Nat candidate the Progressive Party candidate lost his deposit. In my own constituency, for instance, every Nat and every hippie voted for them. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that this so-called party is doing nothing but helping this Government to stray in power; they assist the Government and hamper the Official Opposition. If it had not been for them we could have won a few more seats on the Rand, not even counting Randburg which is coming our way in any case. We must realize that while we as Official Opposition were engaged in a deadly fight against the Government on the 22nd April, this so-called Progressives did nothing but hamper us thereby assisting the Government. I think it is time for the public of South Africa, those misguided people, to realize that that is the position— every support given to the Progressive Party is support for the Government. The Progressive Party is the best ally this Government has ever had. One wonders what would happen if the Government was to reward this party for its excellent service. One wonders what would happen if this Government were to relax influx control in Houghton …

The hon. member for Houghton is the only honest United Party supporter.

Order! Does the hon. Chief Whip mean to say that all the other United Party supporters are dishonest?

No, Mr. Speaker. Both they and she are honest United Party supporters.

I wonder what would happen if they abolished the pass laws in Houghton and if the Government was to introduce mixed schools, mixed swimming baths and the rest of it. I think it is time that the public of Houghton and of the rest of South Africa should realize that that is what they are voting for when they voted for the hon. member for Houghton and for the Progressive Party candidates. The fact that one has to waste time in a debate like this on the efforts of such a party, illustrates that they are hampering instead of assisting. One should be able to spend all one’s time that one has available on criticizing the Government and on going for them.

I should like to tell the hon. the Prime Minister that the country is hopelessly disappointed at his feeble efforts in reconstituting his Cabinet. He got rid of only one Minister and, Mr. Speaker, let me say not by far the weakest of the team. There are others who deserved much more than Mr. Haak to get the order of the boot. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that these Cabinet changes came a few weeks before the cancellation of the cricket tour. One wonders whether if the Prime Minister had got rid of his rather ineffective Minister of Sport and of his bungling ex-Minister of the Interior, the cricket tour could not have been saved, and not only the tour but also cricket for South Africa. If he had done that the public and the world might have realized that the Prime Minister was an outward looking Prime Minister and that he meant business in wanting to lead South Africa outwards. But he did nothing of the sort. Unfortunately his own hands were not clean either if we think of his handling of the D’Oliveira affair. That is where the rot set in.

As far as the Cabinet changes are concerned, these are nothing more nor less than a game of musical chairs and we could still expect the same old bungling, the same ineffectiveness and mismanagement we had before. And when I say this I include the hon. the Minister of Community Development who is so out of touch with realities that he too should have been replaced.

We have heard a tremendous amount of the waste and misuse of manpower in South Africa. There is in fact a lot of this going on in one specific department which affects us all. I want to say at once about the officials of this department that you can go to them at any time and they will go out of their way to help you but unfortunately their hands are tied by red tape and by the wrong policy. I am referring to the Post Office. I am not going to speak about telephones; I shall leave that to my hon. friend the member for Orange Grove. Not so long ago the Post Office organization was reorganized. The Minister was very enthusiastic about it and told us that the new organization was now really going to be run along business lines. Well, all I can say is that he is not very good for business. On the contrary, business is going badly. There is hardly a member of the public who is satisfied with the services rendered to-day by the Post Office. In the first place, there is not the necessary personnel to run the show properly and this leads to delays in the service to the public. You can go to every post office and everywhere you will find a queue of people waiting to be served. It is not a question anymore of walking into a post office and straight up to the counter and buy a stamp. Always you will find two or three clerks at the counter trying to serve the public while four or five sit at the back writing furiously. Goodness knows what they do. It is a type of Parkinson’s law—they create more work for somebody higher up to check. So it goes. It seems to me that what is required are simple procedures.

Another silly habit is for white clerks to serve both Whites and non-Whites even where there are separate counters for them. Why should that be necessary? After all, we have a shortage of Whites. Why, then, cannot we have a Coloured or Bantu clerk serving their people? After all, in the backrooms of every post office you will find many Coloured and Bantu clerks sorting out letters and carrying them out. There can therefore be no objection working with Coloured and Bantu clerks.

But the Post Office is only one department suffering under the silly idea of the Government that Black and White cannot work in close proximity.

Yesterday I listened with close attention to the hon. the Minister of Transport, who unfortunately is not here now. He seemed to have been very concerned about the so-called shadow Cabinet of this side of the House. But let me advise him that he ought not to be concerned with our shadow Cabinet but rather with the real Cabinet over there. They are the people who are making the blues; they are the people who are not doing their work properly; they, and not the shadow Cabinet, are the people who have failed this country miserably and will go on doing so.

In the Cape we are going through a very bad time at the moment. There are, for instance, many homes here in Cape Town tonight without any coal for their fires and yet the hon. the Minister is worrying about our shadow cabinet. He also was worried about the inroads which the Progressive Party, according to him, are making into our party. He should rather examine the position carefully, when he will find that it is the Nationalist Party into which the Progressive Party is making inroads.

Mr. Speaker … [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I should like to tell the hon. member for North Rand that I am not worried about their shadow Cabinet Ministers or their deputy shadow Cabinet. On the contrary, I regard it as a great compliment to me especially in view of their acknowledging the necessity of a shadow minister and shadow deputy minister for the Department of Sport because as you know, Mr. Speaker, originally that side of the House did not accept the Department of Sport. They said it was unnecessary. [Interjections.] I thought their memories may have failed them and therefore I think I should remind them of some of the things that were said originally about the Department of Sport. Now, however, they have accepted it to such an extent that they have even appointed their own shadow Minister and shadow deputy Minister. [Interjections.] When this department was first initiated by Dr. Verwoerd, a leading front bencher of their side talked about an “unnecessary department ”; he said it was unpatriotic and said to Dr. Verwoerd that he should be ashamed of himself. All these things were said. The then members for Karoo said it was a “Fascist move ”.

Look what you have done to sport.

Just let me read what the hon. member for Wynberg said. She is the only one left, and I do not think that she will stay long after this. She said: “The Nazis also had a Ministry of Sport ”. Now they have a shadow Minister of Sport. I hope they do not regard themselves as Nazis because they have a shadow Minister of Sport. This is what she said: “The Nazis also had a Ministry of Sport. You can bet your bottom dollar that this new portfolio will not be confined to bodily exercising but it will be used to influence the minds of our young people and be a kind of brain washing in disguise ”.

Sir, this sport issue was going to be one of the main attacks during the motion of censure. There is the hon. member for Johannesburg (North). He is the big man in sport. Let me read to you what the hon. member said. This is what the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) said: “Sportsmen should form a pressure group to force a change in the Government’s policy. The provincial elections are due before the end of the year and there is no better place to lodge a protest than through the ballot box ”. The hon. member had a great chance here. He had 30 minutes, and he never mentioned sport.

We shall come to you. [Interjections.]

But this was to be a big issue during this debate. I should like to know what has happened. Sir, do you know why they are not making an issue about sport? It is true that we have had a snide remark from the hon. member for North Rand about D’Oliveira. The Leader of the Opposition mentioned the D’Oliveira and Ashe affair, but nothing more was said. Do you know why, Sir? It is because they do not have a case. Let me analyse this matter with them. The new U.P. line has been: Leave everything in the hands of the sports administrators. The hon. member for Hillbrow made a great speech about this. He said: Leave these matters in the hands of the sports administrators. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said: Do not interfere in any way with the sports administrators. Now I want to know whether that is their policy. [Interjections.] I want them to answer me. Hon. members cannot say that it was Connie Mulder. This Government interfered, and that is their objection.

Tell us what your policy is.

Yes, I shall tell you, because I want to know what yours is in relation to ours. Our policy has been stated, but the United Party does not state its policy. Hon. members just make a lot of snide remarks. I should like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition a question. He said: Sport to-day has become an extension of foreign policy. I can even quote the hon. member for Johannesburg (North). He said that he did not know whether the Government realized that the whole issue of sport was a political manoeuvre by the Afro-Asian communists. Now must we leave decisions involving that foreign policy issue to the sports administrators?

Very clever!

No, of course it is not clever, but it is actually the position. I want to know whether that side of the House is standing on their principle, namely that all should be left to the sports administrators. It sounds very nice when the hon. member for Hillbrow wants the plaudits or when he wants to get political support, but it does not cut any ice.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? Was the present rugby tour by the New Zealand team left to the sports administrators or not, and if in fact we are paying multi-racial rugby …

Order! The hon. member may not make a speech.

Sir, he had the opportunity of making a speech, but he did not use it. I shall reply to the hon. member in due course. I am coming to that very issue. [Interjections.]

Order!

Sir, this is the way things are done by that side of the House. They make fatuous remarks all over the world and in South Africa. They say: Leave sport to the administrators. Through the Leader of the Opposition they say that sport is an extension of foreign policy. The hon. member over there says that the communists are using sport for political ends, and then they say: Leave it to the sports administrators.

Who invited the New Zealand team?

You see, Sir, that is the situation. I say that we are not prepared— and this is the policy of this side of the House —to leave foreign policy and issues involving international politics in the hands of sports administrators. [Interjections.] Is that your policy?

Do you want to regulate sport?

No, I have told you what our policy is. We are not prepared to allow decisions involving foreign policy and international politics to be taken by sports administrators.

In other words, you want to regulate sport?

No. Sir, that hon. member speaks of regulating sport. He is trying to get away from the real issue. He is trying to evade the fact that they said that all sport should be controlled by the sports administrators. Let us get down to bedrock. I want to know from that side of the House whether there should be mixed sport in South Africa and whether there should be white teams playing against non-white South African teams.

You tell us your policy.

I shall tell hon. members what the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) did. He arranged a match in Swaziland between a South African white soccer team and a South African non-white soccer team is that the policy of the United Party? [interjection.] Oh, it is all right in Swaziland?

I do not know. I am not a Swazi.

No, but you look like one. [Interjections.]

Order!

All right, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that. The hon. member is very broad and to that extent he is that way inclined. [Interjections.]

Order!

No, we must not run away from the essential facts. Number one: Do you believe that we should have mixed sport in South Africa—yes or no? [Interjections.] Do you see? Where is their policy? If you will not have it in South Africa, will you then have mixed sport in Swaziland, like the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) wanted to arrange?

But you will allow a mixed Olympic team to go overseas?

I shall come to the Olympic team. I just want to argue this issue with the hon. member. Does he believe in it? Is that the reason why the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) would not talk about sports policies in this debate?

Your Vote is coming up.

The hon. member could have raised the matter during this debate. My point is that these people make broad and wild statements which they do not live up to with their policies. They make these statements because they think that these will catch them a few votes in an election. That is all.

It cost you a few votes in the election.

That is not the point. [Interjections.] The shadow Minister over there now says: “What harm? ” I do not care what harm it is, but we have a policy in this country in terms of which we will not have a non-white side playing a white side in South Africa. [Interjections.] I am speaking of a South African non-white side playing a South African white side.

What about mixed South African teams playing each other?

The hon. member has always maintained that there should be mixed sport, but those hon. members do not. When they enter the platteland they say that they do not believe in mixed sport, but the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) tries to get around that by arranging a match between two South African sides, one non-White and the other White, in Swaziland.

But that is not true and you have been told repeatedly that it is not true.

What is untrue? [Interjections.]

That the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) arranged that match.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, that hon. member said it is untrue and that the hon. the Minister knows that it is untrue.

Which hon. member said that?

Mr. Speaker, I said that it is untrue. It has been denied and the hon. the Minister knows that it has been denied in the House.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) is not addressing the House.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that remark. I said that it was not true because it is not true.

I appeal to hon. members not to make any further interjections. The hon. the Minister may proceed.

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

No, the hon. member can put his question after I have said what I want to say. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) is president of this soccer association. All the public statements were made by him when the Government refused to grant visas or permits or whatever was required for that match to take place. Now he says that he did not arrange the match.

They were invited by the Swaziland Government.

No. I checked up on that immediately and no invitation came through the Department of Foreign Affairs from the Swaziland Government. There was no invitation. I wanted to find out whether it was a foreign affairs matter and I found out that it was not a foreign affairs matter. It was an arrangement by a soccer association of which he is the president. What is more, it was arranged against the wishes of the Bantu soccer body which was affiliated to F.A.S.A., the body of which he is president. It was a manoeuvre. He thought that it would embarrass us if we said no because the match was to be held in Swaziland and he thought that he might get a few cheap votes out of it. These are the facts, and I want to know where is now the lack of confidence in the sports policy of this Government?

Let me come to the D’Oliveira case, to which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred. I remember so well when the hon. the Prime Minister laid down three conditions in connection with overseas sides coming to South Africa. Firstly, he stated he would not act as a selection committee but there should be no politics in the selection of the team; there should be no ulterior political motives; and, finally, it should not embarrass South Africa should a team come to this country. I remember the hon. member for Yeoville getting up and saying that that was their policy and that we had taken over their policy. I know that the hon. Leader of the Opposition expressed similar remarks. I remember so well that when this matter came up at first, D’Oliveira was not chosen for the team. I can quote the remarks of the selection committee of the M.C.C. They said that he could not be chosen on his merits.

They did not say that.

I will show the hon. member Press quotations which emanated from the selection committee of the M.C.C. immediately after he had not been selected. Then the Anti-apartheid Movement, Sanroc and Bishop Reeves led a deputation to the Minister of Sport in Britain. This Minister of Sport had already indicated how he felt about the matter.

Are you impugning the integrity of the M.C.C.?

I will come to that; that was the point the hon. member also raised last session. Then the pressure was put on the M.C.C. A bowler dropped out and D’Oliveira was put in his place. This Government then said that we do not welcome a team on this basis, If the hon. members felt, as they said they did, that these conditions that the Prime Minister laid down were acceptable to them, I want them to tell me something. The hon. member for Pinelands asked me across the floor of the House whether I doubt that the selection committee of the M.C.C. chose a man without politics being involved. I replied that I was not going to make any accusations. At that time the Press in Britain stated that there was no justification for saying that politics were involved in the choice of that team. They kept on in that vein until D’Oliveira got the O.B.E. for his services to cricket. Then there were columnists in the overseas papers who asked how he could have got it. Cowdrey had played in 100 tests and had captained England for many years. D’Oliveira had played in 17 tests. How, they asked, could D’Oliveira get the O.B.E.? Then they said it was politics.

It was the Labour Government.

Was the Minister of Sport a Labour Government Minister or not?

Was the M.C.C. connected?

The pressure was put on them. Let me ask the hon. member a question. The M.C.C. wanted to go on with the last South African cricket tour. Was it because of political pressure that they had to withdraw their invitation? Of course it was because of political pressure.

It was because of public opinion.

No, political pressure was put on them and this Government said that the team was not welcome under those conditions.

You have impugned the integrity of the M.C.C.

The hon. member talks about the integrity of the M.C.C. What is at stake? As far as the integrity of the M.C.C. is concerned, I have no doubt that they wanted this cricket tour but political pressure was put on them and they had to withdraw the invitation. The hon. member knows that and now he tries to pretend that no pressure was put on the M.C.C.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. Minister a question? I want to know whether the hon. the Minister does not think that the hon. the Minister of the Interior introduced the political motive in the D’Oliveira matter when he announced the non-selection of D’Oliveira at a political meeting in Potchefstroom.

I appreciate that the hon. member would like to help the United Party out of their difficulties, but they cannot escape the difficulty about the question of political pressure. That is the situation and I want to follow it up.

Let us tackle the Ashe issue, which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says was a gaffe. I can read what was said by the hon. Leader of the Opposition. The view of the leader was stated by the hon. member for Yeoville in an article he wrote and I want to quote from that article. He said:

That was his way of describing the reaction of the Leader of the Opposition. I do not want to go into the whole issue of Ashe. AU I want to tell hon. members is that he made an application to play in the South African championships. His application to play was accepted by the South African Lawn Tennis Union. If I believe in U.P. policy, it ends there; he comes. They say that we must leave it to the administrators, but the Government said no. Let me tell the House why the Government said no. I want to refer to only one issue. I do not want to refer to the statement he signed and the fact that he agitated that South Africa should not take part in the Olympics. He said that he wanted to take part in the South African championships, as he put it, and I want to quote him very carefully “to put a crack in the racist wall in South Africa ”. Then he added that South Africa was “the most bigoted country in the world ”. He wanted to come here to cause political trouble— “to put a crack in the racist wall ”. What does that mean? It means that he wanted to cause trouble in South Africa.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will answer questions in due course but at the moment I want to continue with what I am saying. I know that the hon. members jump up to put me off. Ashe said that he wanted to put a crack in the racist wall in South Africa.

And yet he was welcome as a member of a team.

I shall come to that. He knew that the South African tennis championships were white championships. But he wanted to come here as an American negro and put a crack in the racist wall in South Africa. The difference between the Opposition and this Government is that we said: “No, Mr. Ashe. The tennis people may accept you but we have the authority and we will not give you a visa. ” That broke the heart of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

Did you not see our leader’s statement on that?

I am reading what Marais Steyn said.

Read what I said.

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition not accept what Marais Steyn said? I remember what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said. He wanted to know why Ashe could come as a member of a team but not as an individual. I will tell him why. This Government laid down a policy that if a team comes and the Davis Cup game is to be played in South Africa, there is no argument about visas. Ashe then comes as a member of an American team.

And D’Oliveira for instance?

No, D’Oliveira was chosen on a political basis. If Ashe came as a member of an American team the Government said that he would get a visa as an American and a member of the team.

And the Japanese jockey?

Now the hon. member refers to the Japanese jockey. I wonder if I should just enlighten him as a shadow minister of sport. The Department of Sport, according to its terms of reference, deals with physical participation in sport by humans and not by horses. The matter of the Japanese jockey did not even come into the sphere of the Department of Sport. Let us get that right straight away. This is the situation. That side of the House is prepared to support the idea of a soccer game between a South African White side and a South African non-White side as long as it takes place in Lesotho or Swaziland or in adjoining territories. We on this side of the House are not. That is the difference. If an overseas side is chosen on merit and without any political motives we say that we accept the side because we do not want to act as their selection committees. When it came to D’Oliveira that side of the House said he should be allowed to come with the team. We said no: we were not prepared to do that. They said Ashe should be allowed to come and take part in the South African White championships. We said no, Mr. Ashe was coming to try to crack the political wall. That is the difference. Now let me come to the New Zealanders.

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

No, not now. I am sorry. Let me come to the New Zealanders. I should like to tell hon. members about my own experience in my constituency. All the unpleasant questions about this New Zealand tour, all the Hertzogite questions, the questions about whether Maoris were going to dance with White girls if they come with the side and whether they would be allowed to swim in the swimming baths, came from the party organizers of that side of the House. There was no Hertzogite there because there was no need for one. They asked all those questions to try to embarrass the tour. My reply was definite. I said I was not prepared to reply to any of these questions because the object was to try to stop the tour. I said that I saw no reason why this tour should be stopped. I still say there is no reason why the tour should be stopped. That is why I say to those “skynheilige mense ” on that side of the House who talk about a sports policy and about how they are trying to maintain the sport bonds in South Africa, that when it suits them they see how much damage they can do to sport in South Africa as they did with this New Zealand tour in my constituency. I accept it as party-political propaganda when they say that we do too much for the Coloureds, but they are not satisfied with that. They even tried to get into the Hertzogite line when it came to the New Zealand tour. The New Zealand tour is going ahead and I am only sorry that Colin Meads is still not playing in the team. There is nothing that we on this side of the House are going to do to wreck the tour. If hon. members on that side of the House want to wreck the tour, they can do so.

We are in favour of the tour.

Then you should tell it to the party organizers at Caledon. Now they are very much in favour of the tour, but when they fight an election they use any tactics to try to get a few cheap votes. I should like to put a few words to hon. members on that side of the House. I know I am the English-speaking Nationalist in the Cabinet.

The last one.

Mr. Speaker, that is their attitude. I am proud of being an English-speaking member of the Nationalist Party and of being in the Cabinet. I know that side of the House and the Press which supports them have done everything in their power to break any English-speaking person who decides to be a Nationalist. They did it with Trollip. They did it with myself. They are doing it now with Senator Horwood. I want to show hon. members what low level their Press can get to, the Press that supports them. I want to show hon. members why there is a bitterness created, to which the hon. member for South Coast objects. Read in the Sunday Times what they said. They said they knew who would succeed a Trollip in the Cabinet, a Horwood. Hon. members on that side of the House laugh. This is the sort of language they use. Hon. members on that side of the House must know that a paper like that with language of such a low journalistic standard, is something that any English-speaking South African like myself and every Afrikaner is ashamed of. I agree with the hon. member who spoke before me. I say the United Party may get more seats. Good luck to them. But they and their newspapers will never run this country. I want to tell them—and I do not do it with bitterness— that because of the basic difference and lack of understanding of language and thought which go behind the Press that supports them, which is a very powerful instrument in politics, they will never run this country. Let them carry on. I do not even want to refer to the hon. member for East London, who wrote that unpleasant letter when he was fighting in the Queenstown constituency. They create the feeling that any English-speaking person who becomes a Nationalist is something you must abhor and hate. When it comes to the sports policy, they are not prepared to face up to the issues. They let the Government face up to them. And we this Government have the courage to face up to matters which those hon. members run away from.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to say how sorry we are that the hon. the Minister of Finance is not in the House and that we hope he will soon be recovered from his indisposition. I do not propose to follow the hon. the Minister of Sport because our policy on sport was enunciated by our leader and appears in Hansard. After listening to the hon. the Minister for half an hour, in so far as the Government’s policy is concerned, I am more confused than ever. He took his stand that the differences are on political issues. There is a very thin line between what is a political issue or political pressure and what is norm. We will have an opportunity of discussing this matter with the hon. the Minister under the Votes.

I have been sitting here now for three days and I would have thought there would have been some reaction from members opposite on the guide lines which my leader set out in his opening speech for a greater South Africa. One would have expected that at least there would have been some criticism of these guide lines, not on emotional matters, but on the practical matters. I do not suppose one could have expected any constructive criticism. What have we had in these three days? We have had the old clichés, the old fears, the old “swart gevaar ”, the old stories that we have heard in this House in the nine years that I have been here. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I want to get on to matters which I think are more important. To-day we are living in a world which is grappling with economic problems of great magnitude. Share prices of the major stock exchanges of the world, as you know, have dropped to almost all-time lows. Inflation is a matter of major concern in every country of the world. Credit controls and restrictions are the order of the day. The classic controls and restrictions have not as yet produced the results expected and in many cases have produced results that are strangely contradictory.

Interest rates are going higher and higher throughout the world. The grey market is booming and enormous sums which normally find their way into the banking sector are now appearing outside that sectors. But at the same time wages and salaries are spiralling. In short, what we see abroad to-day is an irreconcilable picture of inflation and wage increases running side by side with high unemployment, a stock market slump and a drop in corporate profits.

It is becoming increasingly clear that while the classic demand-restraint method of combating inflation may work, given time, a new vital factor, the social factor, has been introduced into the finding of a solution to our economic problems. To-day we can no longer deal with economic problems per se. What we have to deal with are socio-economic problems. It has become very clear that it is our ability to find the correct solution to our socio-economic problems that will determine whether we progress or retrogress, whether we have economic expansion or recession.

I have sketched a thumb-nail picture of the stresses and strains beyond our borders. I have done so for one specific reason and that is because there are too many people in this country who are apt to believe that what happens in the United States or in England or on the Continent must happen here in South Africa. While I believe that we cannot be impervious to what may happen in the great economic countries of the West, I also believe that our own position is so vastly different, our problems so divergent that we must not be trapped into equating our situation with that of others. It is often said that when the United States sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. This may well be true but I would suggest that it is a question of degree. Our position in South Africa is so different from that of the United States that I believe that if our economic policies are right, then the most the American sneeze might do to us, is perhaps to give us a slight chill. Besides, I am not at all convinced that the problems at present being experienced overseas might not well be solved in the not too distant future. The inherent strength of the United States’ economy, her enormous reserves, her amazing ability to recover and her immense resources, could well produce a completely different picture far sooner than we expect.

I therefore regret that the hon. the Minister of Finance on his return from abroad, should have thought fit to paint the thoroughly gloomy world economic picture that he did. Recession thinking in South Africa is already deep enough without the hon. the Minister adding fuel to the fire. The hon. the Minister of Finance it would seem is apt to underestimate the strength of the United States. He did so in his strategy for a higher gold price and he may well be doing so again. We do not have to import recession. Our resources are vast and our economic potential is unlimited. We are still a developing country and if we use all our resources wisely, there is no need to fear the future. I hope that in this debate and in the Budget Debate that follows we are not going to hear too much of “it happened there, therefore it must happen here ”.

We know that to-day the world is living in an era of managed economy. Governments, by means of fiscal and monetary measures and by control in many areas, seek to find what one of our ex-Ministers of Finance called the golden mean between expansion and inflation and at the same time to secure a better way of life for their peoples. To attempt to fulfil these objectives, a government must act. If its policies, when put into practice, are found to be the correct ones, and if they prove long-term to engender prosperity and stability and particularly if they point to a future that is certain and assured, then a government can continue to enjoy the support of the voters. But if these policies are found to be wrong, then the public soon begins to understand where the government is leading them.

The people of South Africa now know that their well-being and security are being sacrificed on the altar of impracticable ideologies. They now realize where the true interests of South Africa lie and are turning to the United Party to lead them along a road which will point to the real fulfilment of their hopes and ambitions. I believe that it is in this context that we must review the general election of 22nd April and the by-election in Langlaagte thereafter. The lessons to be learnt are very clear. They are there for all to see. The turn towards the United Party has begun, despite the figures the hon. the Prime Minister gave us, and in the months and years ahead this turn will accelerate until the United Party is the government of this country. The reasons for this turn are not hard to find, because we are at the moment of truth. The public knows that the Government, caught in the tangled skein of its own policies, is unable to break the threads of the ideologies that hamper its manoeuvrability and tie it to strategies that are outmoded and antiquated and that have proved illusionary and barren. The result is that the country is in a state of malaise. The current climate is one of hesitancy and perplexity, instead of decisiveness and optimism, despite the performance of the economy in 1969 where the emphasis has been on the commercial and construction sectors and not in manufacturing.

The slack in production capacity created in previous years, would appear, with the resources that we have available, to have been fully taken up, and unless the factors that are retarding the further expansion of production are removed we must expect a continuation of heavy importation of goods which is already exceeding our exports by a large amount and which could place our balance of payments position in jeopardy. One would not be over concerned if these large imports were for capital goods, because they are the tools of production. But the imports are primarily consumer goods.

On the grey market where funds are reasonably easily obtainable interests rates can be as high as 11 per cent. Bank ceilings are not achieving their objectives. On the contrary, they are forcing funds out of the banking sector into the grey market, and we have the position to-day where certain of the commercial banks are guaranteeing grey market loans. I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance is aware of that fact.

The infra-structure of our country has not expanded and is not expanding to meet current demands. The lack of rail transport, road and telephone services is slowly choking our industrial efficiency and is the subject of informed criticism from all over the country. The Railways cannot move our base minerals, our coal and agricultural production. Our harbours, in their antiquity, are completely unable to meet modern requirements. The lack of road facilities is clogging our cities, costing a fortune and creating air pollution while we are still waiting for the Borckenhagen and Schumann Reports.

Two years ago, as has already been said, we gave the Post Office semi-independence. The only apparent result is an increased cost in postal and telephone services. The telephone service has never been worse. The backlog of telephones of 89,000 in March this year keeps on showing an upward trend.

There is no sign of any immediate improvement in the provision of water for industrial, commercial and household uses, and the public is getting very, very weary of constant water restrictions. Yet side by side with all this, there has been a constant and sharp rise in Government expenditure, year after year, and much of it is inflationary, previously through short-term borrowing and now through the use of accumulated surpluses. We might well ask ourselves where all this money has been spent. Was it on ideologies or was it on improved services? The taxpayer and the man in the street is asking the not unusual question, “What has there been in all this spending for me? ” and the answer is unfortunately: “Very little, if anything. ”

Long-term capital funds are becoming more and more difficult to get, both in the private and public sectors. Bigger and bigger inducements have to be offered, either by way of higher interest rates or by tax benefits, to try to obtain this additional capital. But the results have not been very encouraging. In the past years the Public Debt Commissioners always had a “carry over ” to help them in the next year but at the 30th March, 1970, all available funds had been expended and the Government is going to have a great deal of trouble to be able to fund its capital requirements for the immediate future.

The Stock Exchange has dropped to a level which even the prophets of doom did not foresee and the public has become a little cynical of the statements which the hon. the Minister of Finance made on the 18th June last year, when he announced the relaxation of exchange control. According to the Rand Daily Mail of 20th May, 1970, for the period January 1st to 31st December, 1969, the crucial period after the 18th June, a period of six months, only R13.7 million of investment money was allowed to leave this country. When the hon. the Minister made his statement our reserves were something of the order of R1,000 million. So what was allowed out was a mere bagatelle which began the crack in the Stock Exchange of South Africa!

Gross domestic expenditure is increasing faster than the gross domestic product and gross domestic savings declined in the first quarter of this year. Inflation has become a slippery customer. It rises, we contain it and it rises again. At present inflation is running at an annual rate of 3.4 per cent, with the employment situation serious and wage inflation dangerous.

Despite the figures given by the hon. the Prime Minister our annual expenditure of 4½ per cent of the total national product on education still lies far behind that of other countries in the world. Russia spends 6.8 per cent of its total national product, the United States 7 per cent and Great Britain 10 per cent. We remain at 4½ per cent, which is very little more than that of Zambia.

On the fiscal front the Government sits with the surpluses of almost R500 million largely as a result of over-taxation in the past years. The Budget surplus this year will be far in excess of R100 million, which is a far cry from the anticipated surplus of R2.8 million given by the hon. the Minister of Finance in his Budget speech in March last year. The sales tax, as we warned the hon. the Minister, is bearing heavily and unfairly on the lower income groups and the major impact of this tax for the man in the street is on articles which are necessities in his every-day life, namely, soap, razor blades and toilet paper. The hon. member for Durban (Point) named 40 items last year, which included matches, candles, etc. The hon. the Minister of Finance told us that in the case of matches it was not really very difficult because match manufacturers were going to take four matches out of each box with the result that the price of matches would remain the same.

The pensioner is trying to exist well below the bread line. The salaries and conditions of the civil servant and the teaching profession are still far below the standards required in a modern and dynamic economy. Although we have asked for them year after year, the man in the street is still without a contributory pension scheme and a national health service.

The is the record of this Government. These are the shortcomings and the lack of foresight that caused the change on 22nd April. These are the facts, but let us have a look at the reasons. As I see it, it was the basic mismanagement of the economy since 1967 that caused the present degree of structural imbalance to emerge. The disturbing effects of excess liquidity resulting from the post-devaluation financial events had their effects on consumption spending and on investment attitudes by the public. But it did not have an effect on the entrepreneur because at the same time intensified ideological restraints on manufacturing investment prolonged the decline of that type of investment. In 1967 we had the Physical Planning and Utilization of Resources Act which gives the hon. the Minister of Planning full control over the establishment of new industries and the expansion of existing ones. At the same time this Act gives him practically full control over the use of Bantu labour. We have had a more rigid implementation of job reservation. Last year we had the amendment to the Bantu Laws Act. giving the Government full authority to determine which non-Europeans should work where and in what category.

The Government makes no apologies for these actions. It regards them as its avowed policies. They are completely unconcerned about the fact that these policies will bring about a falling-off in our national prosperity as long as their fundamental ideologies are maintained. They have said so. The hon. the Minister of Finance has said that non-Whites should not be absorbed to an increasing extent into the economy of the White man. Mr. Haak, when he was Minister of Economic Affairs, said that “although the implementation of the non-White employment regulations was causing uncertainty amongst individuals this policy would be progressively accelerated even if it did involve a sacrifice of overall economic performance ”. This is exactly what is happening at the moment. My hon. friend, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, took pride in his Bantu Laws Amendment Act when he said: “This brings an end to labour integration; I am proud to announce it ”.

And then he withdrew.

He ran rather quickly.

The juxta-position of a euphoric financial atmosphere with a depressed real investment scene, permitted a high degree of consumption to take place without the necessary additions to capacity. Subsequently, the financial scene was affected by the pyrations of the Stock Market to an extent that we now find ourselves in a situation of full employment, rising wages and consumer spending as against an investors’ and entrepreneurial mood which mitigates against the re-expansion of manufacturing investments. In the past we had reached a point of over-full employment at the end of a great upsurge in investment, we are now faced with a similar employment situation before the economy has entered a new phase of manufacturing investment. This is the critical difference between say three or four years ago and to-day. There we led into an upsurge and eventually utilized all our labour and now when we should be at the beginning of a new upswing where do we find ourselves? All our labour is committed and there just is no more labour under present Government regulations. This comes at a time when there seems to be uncertainty about the strength of the growth of consumption demand, even though present trends and profit performances might well not justify the prevailing gloom. This is where we stand to-day. To argue that the greatest danger that we face is inflation, must simply imply that we have to attack consumption and thus depress the investment mood even further with serious consequences for future growth. If investment had been rising, we could perhaps have shifted our resources from consumption to investment and export, but manufacturing investment is, in fact, falling. If the Stock Market were not disillusioned, the Government could have contemplated taking funds from the private sector. But the position to-day is, of course, that the Stock Exchange is an important inhibiting factor. We are now paying the penalty for having allowed the imbalances that developed in the past three years, which was due in no small measure to our gold strategy. We arrive at the position to-day that the hon. the Minister’s options are closed. He has only one option open, namely to train and to retrain labour. He has no other option in the economic climate that we face to-day. We need to spend more than the 4½ per cent of the total national product that we now spend on education. We need to ease, not tighten, labour restraints so that we are able to legally utilize all our labour forces to the optimum advantage. To-day thousands of Bantu are being illegally employed in industry, commerce and in homes. If this were not so, our economy would be in a sorry state. We are forcing people, through dire necessity, to break the law. We have to plan boldly for the future, acknowledging the facts as they are, not as we would like them to be. The Government’s Economic Advisory Council tells us that although it is essential that industrial investment should again begin to show a satisfactory upward trend, it cannot recommend any stimulation of investment in industry, but only the easing of bottle-necks impending investment as they show up. The bottle-necks are not going to show up. They are here already, and the main one is labour. Without adequate labour we cannot hope in the future to meet even the target of the economic development programme of a growth rate of 5½ per cent. The public knows this now. The white worker knows that his own position can only be maintained and bettered if the labour need in all sectors of our economy is met, while at the same time his own position is protected. He also knows that if this is not done, his own standards, which we admit, and about which we are glad, have vastly improved over the past years, might and probably will deteriorate. He has also learned that in supporting this Government he is gambling with his future and the future of his family. It is a gamble he is not prepared to take. He showed this on the 22nd of April. He showed it even more recently in Langlaagte. He is going to show it even more firmly on the 28th of October, 1970. For him the dreams and visions of the Nationalist Party have crumbled He has to live with the facts and not with fiction. He knows now that he must look to the United Party, with the guide-lines which were set out by my hon. Leader so brilliantly on Monday, to give him the things he wants in life. He is not impressed in any shape or form with the dictum of the late Dr. Verwoerd “that the public does not need more; it only wants more ”. The man in the street is not ashamed to say that he wants more. Wanting more is an admirable human trait, as long as that want is backed by hard work and honest endeavour, which the South African man in the street does give. Wanting more has been responsible for the advance and progress of the world. In wanting more, the average South African does not differ from his forefathers down the ages. To-day he knows that it is only a United Party Government that can give him more.

South Africa is a country where industry should be expanding to its fullest potential, where job opportunities are readily available for all, where the standard of living is constantly rising, where our people are educated to the maximum of their capacity and where the Stock Exchange reflects the strength of our prosperity and our economy. Taxation should not be a burden on the under-privileged in the lower income groups; it should be a service willingly given by the taxpayer to the State for the things the State will provide him with. South Africa should be a country where poverty is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. My hon. Leader dealt with this subject and pointed out that in ten years we can wipe out poverty completely. South Africa should be a country where there is security and stability, peace and tranquility for all. It should be a country where our economic strength is not only a shield against internal strife, but also a shield against external pressures. But this South Africa can only come about when we see the end of this Government.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Parktown very quickly called attention to a few points. He touched upon a whole series of matters which, in the long run, supposedly constitute the sins of the National Party. When the hon. Opposition introduced this motion of censure I really thought that, as far as finance was concerned, they would come forward with something positive. It is, however, unfortunate for the Opposition that there has to date never been a better Government in South Africa than this one. On the basis of certain facts I am this afternoon going to explain to the House what this National Party has done over the years. Unfortunately we do not have any past, in respect of that party, with which to compare ourselves, because they have not been in power for decades. They are primitives as far as government is concerned.

I am in any case going to quote a few figures, and on the basis of facts and statistics I shall prove what the National Party has done for South Africa; it has done more, and it has done it better, than any party, even abroad, has done. The hon. member for Parktown complained of wage inflation, but in the same breath he says that our officials and other employees are receiving too low wages. If public servants are to receive higher wages, as that hon. member advocates, how is the hon. member going to oppose that with a wage inflation argument? In this country we are combating wage inflation. As the hon. the Minister of Finance has already said, we are going to keep this figure below 2 per cent, which is one of the lowest figures in the world. In a moment I shall quote statistics to indicate how low South Africa’s rate of inflation is. This Government has always looked after its people as far as wages and salaries are concerned. We are grateful that this National Party could do so much for our people. I want to indicate what this Government has done in the past 22 years in which it has governed, and the figures I am going to supply cover the period from 1948 to 1969. During this period our gross domestic product increased by 370 per cent, i.e. an average annual increase of 8.1 per cent. The hon. member for Parktown knows that this is so. Except for Japan, this figure is the highest in the world. Even Western Europe and America cannot compete with us where this is concerned. All branches of industry enjoyed greater prosperity. The manufacturing industry, for example, contributed the most to our greater prosperity. Measured against the estimates in the gross domestic product, the production in this industry was six times greater in 1968 than in 1948, thanks to this National Party. Manufacturing industry’s share in the national economy increased from 15.9 per cent in 1948 to 20.9 per cent in 1968. Its share in our national income was therefore 5 per cent higher. This could only have happened because this Government supplied the basic services, and it could only have happened because this National Party provided for what the hon. member termed labour training. In this country there was occupational happiness and contentment, and for that reason the figure for our manufacturing industry could increase to such an extent. Eliminating our price increase and taking the gross domestic product at constant prices, the increase from 1948 to 1968 was 175 per cent. Hon. members may say that there was inflation, but that was the percentage at constant prices.

Let us take another aspect, i.e. the volume of production over the same period. The volume of production increased by 5.2 per cent. Let us take the national growth rate from 1961 to 1968, the years the Opposition are concerned about. The annual growth rate then was 6.1 per cent, which I consider phenomenal. Hon. members will have to acknowledge that I am right; this is so, because over the 20year period the growth rate per capita of the population was 2.7 per cent, which means that this was the annual percentage increase in the prosperity of our people. This figure is tremendously high by comparison with the rest of the world. Hon. members know that this is so. We cannot dispute it. During the period from 1955 to 1965, a period for which figures can be calculated on the basis of the facts published by the United Nations, the average annual growth rate of the gross domestic product at constant prices compares as follows with the rest of the Western world: South Africa 4.7 per cent …

Where do you get those figures?

They appear in the annual statistics as published by the U.N.

What about the South African statistics?

The South African statistics are supplied to the U.N. They compile them. This is what I am now quoting to hon. members. South Africa’s growth rate of 4.7 per cent is the highest. The growth rate in the U.S.A. was 4.1 per cent, Canada 4.5 per cent, Australia 4.1 per cent and the United Kingdom 2.9 per cent. These are not the National Party’s statistics, they are those of the U.N. This was calculated on the same basis at constant prices. Surely this hon. member ought to know. After all, he and I often discussed statistics in the Post Office debates. If we use the U.N. statistics, surely there is uniformity.

His statistics are always wrong.

His statistics are not always very accurate.

South Africa’s production capacity has expanded tremendously over the past 20 years of National Party rule. The total amount spent on the erection of buildings and other constructions, and on the purchase of machinery, installations and equipment, increased from R470 million in 1948 to R2.318 million in 1968, i.e. by R1,848 million, or 400 per cent over the 20-year period, an annual growth rate of 8.3 per cent. I readily concede that this is too high. No country in the world can actually afford to grow so rapidly. Had it not been for this National Party, this Cabinet and the previous Cabinets which governed the country so well, such a good growth rate could not have been maintained. But this National Party looks after its people; it looks to the future. As the Minister of Community Development said, we look ahead to what must happen in the next 100 years.

The increase in capital investment in recent years was also tremendously high. This points to a further increase in the growth rate of the economy in the next few years and further into the future. This Government has not planned ahead for three or five years; it plans ahead for 50 years. Let us look at construction works, the buildings that have been completed. In the 18 major urban areas the value of all buildings, residential as well as non-residential buildings, additions and alterations completed for the private sector, totalled R194 million in 1968, as compared with a mere R60 million in 1950. This indicates the tremendous expansion from 1950 to 1968, an increase of 223 per cent, or more than three times as much as it was in 1950.

The construction industry flourished. It is as a result of the basic services, the judicious policy of this Government and the sound administration. foresight and single-mindedness of its officials, that this development could take place. The gross value of the construction industry’s production was R137 million in the year 1950-’51 and it increased to R388 million in 1963-’64, i.e. an increase of 183 per cent.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, I want to tell that hon. member that I know that these figures hit hard. Unlike him I do not simply dish up a lot of stories and say things in the outside world that are untrue. Here are facts, and the hon. member knows it. We simply cannot get past that.

We can also see the expansion in the production of building bricks and cement. Let us then forget monetary value, because hon. members will again say that there is inflation. Let us take actual figures. The number of building bricks manufactured in 1958-’59 was 1.415 million, and this increased to 2.071 million in 1968. In 1958-’59 there was frequently an actual surplus of bricks. To-day we have a tremendous shortage. Our factories cannot produce sufficient bricks for our people to build with, in spite of the tremendous increase. The quantity of manufactured cement increased from 2.8 million tons in 1961 to 4.8 million tons in 1968. This is how we have grown.

But the hon. member for Parktown had quite a lot to say about industrialism. I want to come back to that. That hon. member knows that our gold is a vanishing asset. He will have to acknowledge that I am right; he himself has also said it in the past, if I remember correctly. He will have to acknowledge that I am right in that, on the strength of our manufacturing industry, we shall have to become an exporting country in order to substitute for our gold production and, in addition, in order to become more self-supporting. Let us look at the gross value of our sales in the manufacturing industry. The gross value of our factory production at current prices, i.e. at market prices, increased from R1,563 million in 1950-’51 to R4,641 million in 1965-’66, nearly fourfold. In no country in the world can there be a more rapid growth than that. It is excessively high. We can virtually not improve on that. I shall come back to the hon. member’s argument about our labour in a moment, as well as to the hon. member for Houghton. The physical quantity of factory products manufactured doubled during the period 1956-’57 to 1968. We therefore need not only look at the monetary value and say that there has not been tremendous and phenomenal expansion. There has also been a tremendous expansion in physical volume. The basic metal industry increased two-and-a-half times during the same period, while the manufacture of transportation equipment expanded more than threefold. Other factory groups, such as the textile, paper and printing industries, exceeded the average expansion in the manufacturing industry.

Give us the figures.

The value of the physical assets of the manufacturing industry, i.e. the value of land, buildings, installations, machinery and transportation equipment was a mere R487 million in the year 1950-’51, and according to the census of 1963-’64 it was R1.271 million, an increase of 260 per cent. This is how the National Party governed this country.

So much for the manufacturing industry. I now come to the other section, our motor industry. We may indeed say that the development in the manufacturing industry is not so apparent to the public. But let us look at the motor industry in this country. The total industrial revenue in respect of motor dealers increased from R538 million in 1956-’57 to R1.142 million in 1968. This is a tremendous growth rate. In 1950-’54 the new motor vehicles licensed here totalled 48,000 per year; this increased to 197.000 per year for the period 1965-’69.

How many mechanics do you have to work on them?

I shall come to the hon. member in a moment. I’ll still make a mechanic of him. He would do well. This represents a fourfold increase in the period concerned In a place such as Pretoria 2,000 new vehicles are licensed every month. Looking at the number of motors cars in the country, this is. after all. an example of the prosperity of our people. It is striking to compare the number of motor cars our people have in comparison with the numbers in other countries, and I am considering only the Whites in South Africa. [Interjection.] The hon. member must tell me now if I am wrong. This is again according to the statistics from the U.N. Yearbook for 1966. I am considering only the Whites in South Africa. They gave their numbers, and into those I processed the number of Whites in South Africa. It points to this pattern, i.e. that in the U.S.A., for every 1,000 members of the population, there are 396 motor cars. In South Africa, for every 1,000 members of the white population, there are 315 motor cars. [Interjection.] I say that these are only the motor cars owned by the Whites in South Africa. In New Zealand the figure is a mere 280, compared with 274 for Canada. But we have 315, and Australia has 265. Then you get Sweden, with the highest standard of living in the world, and there the figure is a mere 241 motor cars per 1,000 people. So I could continue with France, with 215, and the United Kingdom, which that hon. member always mentions as an example, which has a mere 180. West Germany, which is at present perhaps the strongest country financially, a country which recently also impressed the world when it had to revalue, has a mere 167 motor cars for every 1,000 members of its population. This is as far as the Whites are concerned. [Interjection.] In South Africa, if we take the whole population into consideration, the figure is 66, Whites and non-Whites included. And this is higher than in any country on the continent of Africa. There are more motor cars in South Africa than in the rest of Africa put together. [Interjections.]

Order!

But we want to look at what this Government has done. The first function and task of any government is to see to it that its people have food to eat. One must have work, because if one cannot work one cannot earn anything, and one must have money in order to have a roof over one’s head and food for one’s family. I now wonder why the United Party Opposition is angry at the Government because we do not have unemployment in South Africa, because there is no surplus of labourers here, because that is what all the whining is about. They hold it against the National Party that there is not a surplus of labourers on the labour market. That is what the hon. member spoke about just now. He said that there were too few labourers, and that this was as a result of the Government’s actions. Thanks to this National Government we can supply work to all our people in this country, Whites and non-Whites. I really do not regret it when all my people have work. I am proud of it and grateful for it. It is this National Party which saw to it that its people had work. But if the Opposition were to come into power we would have unemployment in this country. This is what they want. What is the position on our labour market to-day. I once more want to compare it with the U.N. figures, because this hon. member says, does he not, that the National Party cooks its figures and that they are wrong. I want to give the 1966 figures, which are the latest available ones. At that time the unemployment in South Africa among the Whites, Coloureds and Asiatics, was a mere .6 per cent. This is over the entire country and includes Whites, Coloureds and Asiatics, but not the Bantu; they are separate. It is accepted that throughout the world 2 per cent unemployment is a normal figure, but we have brought it down to .6 per cent. In other words, the less well-endowed in South Africa, as far as intelligence is concerned, the aged, all obtain employment. They do not need to approach the Government to beg for alms and pensions. It is because the National Party succeeded in doing this that it is governing with this large majority, because it looks after its people. This is the number one priority. West Germany, as you yourself know, is the country which, of all other countries, shot up the quickest after the war; what happened is actually a wonder. Its unemployment was .7 per cent, in the Netherlands it was 1.1 per cent, in the United Kingdom it was 1.5 per cent, in Australia 2.5 per cent, in Canada 3.6 per cent, and in the U.S.A. 3.8 per cent. And these are developed countries. There is an abundance of capital. These are countries who have no shortage of capital. They have sufficient industries and manpower and all the know-how, and they know how to set about supplying work for their people. Take America with its tremendous projects and programmes which it has on the go. It could not supply all its people with work, as South Africa did. This is something we are proud of and for which we all ought to be thankful, and we should not, like the United Party, try to discredit the Government and to cast suspicion on it, not only in South Africa but even overseas.

Let us look at the average family income. Now they may say that I have mentioned the overall amount which the people as a whole earn. There is the large number of people who are rich, but you also have very poor people. What is the situation? In 1955, and subsequently in 1966, there was an official survey of the family incomes and expenditures in respect of White families in the major urban areas of South Africa. We found that the average family income for the 11-year period, 1955 to 1966, increased by 68 per cent; and during the same period the consumer index increased by a mere 28 per cent, while each family’s income increased by 68 per cent, a difference of 40 per cent. Again I say that it is thanks to this National Party and its Cabinet which supplied such excellent services to South Africa. The average standard of living in this country therefore increased considerably, in respect of all our population groups—not only that of the Whites alone, but also that of all the other groups, the Coloureds, Asiatics and Bantu. If this were not the case, there would long ago have been a greater outcry from the public, and not only these few representatives sitting here. Then the people would have rejected this Government and placed that Party in power. But our people do not have such short memories. We know what went on in the war years under their rule, our days without bread and meat, and how we had to queue up for everything under the sun. But from the first day this Government took over things immediately went well, and things will improve the longer this Government remains in power. As the Prime Minister said the other day, it will continue to go well with us; it cannot be otherwise.

Apart from the fact that people could get more money to buy themselves houses, food and clothes, our people also got hold of very much more money over this period with which to maintain a much higher standard of living. According to the surveys, 78 per cent of all the heads of families in the major urban areas had motor cars in 1966, while only 61 per cent owned motor cars in 1955. The possession of a motor car is the first sign of welfare and prosperity. A motor car is an expensive item; it is not like a loaf of bread one buys over a counter; a motor car costs a lot of money, and surely the fact that the figure increased between 1955 and 1966 from 61 per cent to 78 per cent, is truly an achievement which no party can improve upon.

Hon. members on that side also know, surely, that we in South Africa have a tremendously high standard of living. The standard of living of the Whites in South Africa is the fourth highest in the world. Only Sweden, America and Canada have a higher standard of living than do the Whites in South Africa, and we are grateful that we have this high standard of living. We are also glad that even our Bantu in South Africa have a higher standard of living than the Natives of any other state in Africa. Our Bantu in South Africa also receive better training and higher education than the Natives of any other state in Africa. Let us look at what happened to our consumer prices. Let us compare the consumer price tendencies in South Africa with those in the Western countries during the period 1960 to 1968. Unfortunately we cannot compare the consumer price tendencies under our rule with those under the United Party rule, because the position under their rule was so pitiful that the figures are not even comparable. Mr. Speaker, I just want to give you the average annual percentage increases in a few countries for the period 1960 to 1968: In the U.S.A. the increase was 2.1 per cent, in Australia 2.2 per cent, in South Africa 2.5 per cent. The increase in South Africa was the third lowest. There are only two countries, the U.S.A. and Australia, where the average annual increase in the price index was lower than in South Africa. The increase in countries such as Canada, West Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (3.9 per cent) was much higher than in South Africa. Sir, I now want to quote to you from a pamphlet “Economic Spotlight ”, of May 1970, published by Volkskas. From this you will see in what a state the rest of the world is, and in what a state our economy is. I quote (translation)—

And these are the largest companies in the U.S.A.—

This is the situation in the U.S.A. Then I just want to read one further paragraph—

This is the prevailing situation, and it emphasizes how essentially sound our economy is.

Then there is only one further point I want to mention: What is our future task in South Africa? It is not only the National Party’s task; it is the task of every businessman, of every citizen, male and female, of this country. The National Party Government’s function and task is to ensure peace of mind for our people. As far as our Defence and our Police are concerned, we have taken care of the safety of this country. In addition we have, though our labour and other legislation, ensured peace and quiet here. The accusation could perhaps be levelled at us that we spent too large a sum on our basic services. We now have a period before us in which we shall have to consolidate. We shall have to ensure that our growth rate does not get out of hand, that it remains sound and does not shoot up to the skies. The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council expressed the opinion that a growth rate of 5½ per cent is a healthy one. We could, in fact, exceed this, but we have reached the stage where we may not exceed this to any great extent. In addition, in respect of a labour shortage in the country, we shall have to take note of two things: We shall have to ensure that we make better use of the manpower we have. Too much manpower is still wasted in South Africa. This is something to which we shall have to give our attention. In the second place we shall have to give more attention to mechanization and automation, so that we can make better use of the better training which our people receive under this Government. If we do this, then we can and will maintain our position as the country with the second or third highest standard of living in the world. I say thank you very much for the good service the National Party has supplied.

Sir, the hon. member for Sunnyside—may I say a most inappropriate name in a place like this and in weather like this—has given us a long list of statistics this afternoon, which no doubt we will be able to read and study at our leisure in Hansard in due course. The hon. member claimed with pride that his Government was providing opportunities and jobs for all, irrespective of race, here in South Africa. Sir, I marvelled when I heard the hon. member say that. I do not know whether he realizes that he is living in South Africa in a world of reality. How can he claim that there are jobs for all in South Africa? I wonder whether he would come down our way and let me take him round and as a realist show him some of the people who are Bantu who are trying to get jobs and cannot get them.

He does not think they are people.

As I say, I am a realist.

They are offered employment.

That is not true.

I believe that if you have large groups of people who are workers, irrespective of their race and irrespective of the colour of their skin, they themselves eventually create difficulty and trouble for the country, for the Government and for the other people if they cannot find employment. Had the hon. member been right then I would have said that he has gone a long way in so far as his praise of the Government is concerned in finding something to their credit but, Sir, I do not accept the criterion which he lays down and that is that the first duty of the Government is to find jobs for all. That is not its first duty. The first duty of any government in South Africa is to find and to make conditions under which we will all live in harmony together.

That is what we are doing.

That hon. member did not make the speech and does not know what he is talking about. Sir, there we have the first principle—people living in harmony— and who can say as realists, looking at the broad pattern of life in South Africa, that we are living together in harmony? I want to deal with one or two of these cases.

Firstly I want to come back to the hon. the Prime Minister and the speech that he made here on Monday. The hon. the Prime Minister was scathing in regard to the difficulties which hi, party had to face in fighting the recent election. He obviously does not like the result, and I think he said so. By implication at any rate he accepted it. That is fair enough.

I said so.

Yes, I said that he had said so. For once the Prime Minister and I are of one mind entirely—a rare occasion, but true. When we were not of one mind was in 1966 when the Prime Minister came to Margate, to the centre of my constituency. I see a smile on his face; he knows what is coming.

Is that a smile?

Yes, that is a smile. The hon. the Prime Minister came there and made a speech and started off by saying in that jovial spirit which we all recognize and know so well, that he had come down there to kiss Douglas Mitchell goodbye or to bid him goodbye—I am not sure which.

Certainly not to kiss you goodbye.

Well, it was just to bid me goodbye then. Sir, I remember, with some little warmth in my breast, when I returned to Cape Town after that election coming to pay my respects to the hon. the Prime Minister and saying: “Will you welcome me back now with the same warmth with which you bid me goodbye in Margate? ” Because, Sir, another election has come and gone. The hon. the Prime Minister did not honour me by coming to my constituency this time to bid me goodbye; he sent six of his Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers and a flock of Senators. What bad psychology! He sent a Senator who stood against me 10 years ago, and was soundly thrashed! That man, believe it or not, was sent by the Prime Minister to address meetings to try to gain support for my latest opponent. Sit, you send winners to try to win seats, not men who have been defeated in that constituency. Six Cabinet Ministers made their appearance in that constituency as well. Sir, may I here in public, and for the record, thank them for the part they played in more than doubling my majority? The Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration shakes his head sadly, Sir. Was he one of them? Does he agree? Yes, unwillingly and reluctantly the Deputy Minister nods his head. He was one of them. He helped me to more than double my majority. And so the election went its way. I want to point out that, although the Prime Minister narrated to us the difficulties with which he and his party had to contend, they did not have six Cabinet Ministers from our side fighting each one of his candidates. He could pile on the load, but he now says: Amongst the other difficulties, we had a form of election such as we have never had to face before in South Africa. I want the hon. the Prime Minister, through the mouth of one of his Ministers, to be specific. I challenge him to be specific. Who is the Prime Minister to make an allegation like that, without giving us chapter and verse? He mentioned the name of a Senator on our side. Who is the Prime Minister to make that kind of allegation and then not to give us chapter and verse? I think he should do so. He must do so now, the appropriate moment, through the mouth of one of his supporters, or otherwise when his Vote is before the House.

Sir, what kind of election was it that was fought against the Hertzogites? Where is the hon. member for Paarl? He was sitting as chairman of a commission in Johannesburg at the time. He adjourned the commission so that he could come down to Paarl to take part, the leading part I believe, in breaking up Dr. Hertzog’s meeting. [Interjection.] Sir, I know what hon. members are going to say next. They are going to say that we on this side are defending the Herstigte Party under Dr. Albert Hertzog. That won’t wash. What did the hon. the Prime Minister say to my leader at the time when he was pressing and pressing to get a clear statement from Dr. Albert Hertzog in this House in regard to his verkrampte attitude? Could we get the Prime Minister to take a strong line? No, Sir. You know what happened. Those of us who were here know what happened. The Prime Minister fiddled. He waffled. He went from side to side. He did everything except tackle that difficulty and grasp the nettle. He left it to the Leader of the House, the Minister of Transport, to take a definite line in regard to Dr. Albert Hertzog. It is no good saying now that we are defending Dr. Hertzog, when at that time he was complaining to the Leader of the Opposition, as appears in Hansard: “That was a most unfair speech. ” Sir, the Government cannot have it both ways. We did not defend Dr. Hertzog and the Herstigte Party, and they have not helped us in this election campaign. Far from it. Before the hon. the Prime Minister makes allegations that we have not played fair—because that is what it amounts to—in this past election, he should first look at the history of his own party. Let him clean his own doorstep and then let him be specific as to what practices were indulged in by the United Party which he condemns. He will have the opportunity of placing those allegations clearly on record.

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Community Development can stop interjecting. We had him for years on our side of the House. We know what we used to use him for against the Nationalists. They use him for the same purpose against us. [Interjections.]

Did you not vote me on to your Executive Committee? I was a Big Noise on your side. [Interjections.]

Yes, a big noise.

The leopard has not changed his spots, Sir, and there are several leopards on that side. None of them has changed his spots. We can identify every one of them. I must say that the hon. the Minister of Community Development was his old self to-day. Hence he was called “Blah ” as distinct from “Blaar Coetzee ”.

Sir, I come back to the point. I want to do so particularly in the light of some of the noise we have had from the hon. the Minister of Community Development to-day. I want to say to the hon. the Prime Minister that I fought this election. I had six Cabinet Ministers, Senators and M.P.s against me, including the hon. member for Stellenbosch. All of them came along and all of them contributed. I have been 37 years in public life, since I won my first election, and let me tell the hon. the Prime Minister that he is on his way out. When the time come he will go without a tear, because I personally believe that he is basically a courageous man. He will take it when the time comes. Let me tell him, as he sits there, that there is not one member of his Cabinet that he can trust—bar one. He cannot trust them, let alone the members who sit behind him.

Who is the “bar one ”? [Interjections.]

Sir, I was challenged to say here what I have said outside, namely that he does not have more than three years left. We on this side of the House will not break him; he will be broken by his own people, because they cannot stand failures. Just in my time, look what they have done to the leaders whom they did not like. What happened to the late Gen. Hertzog and Klasie Havenga?

And Strauss?

Strauss was never a leader of the Nationalist Party. Sir, the pattern will be followed: To the political ash-heap with the Nationalist political leader who fails them and lets them down. To-day, through the Lobbies, the talk is rife. I am not talking about the Cabinet now. I am talking about hon. members opposite. They do not even lower their voices when they discuss this.

Mention to me one single name. [Interjections.]

The hon. member did not hear me say that I have been in public life for 37 years. I have heard most peculiar things during that time. In 1966 the Prime Minister came to kiss me goodbye at Margate. I say to him in 1970: “Get ready. Be prepared for it; it is coming. Keep a stiff upper lip because you are on the way out. I will be saying goodbye to you before ever you say goodbye to me from this Parliament. ” That is the position, Sir. The speech the Prime Minister made on Monday was one of the weakest and most pointless that we have ever had from any Prime Minister in this House. The speech fell completely flat after the buildup it had enjoyed. Then, as usual, the Leader of the House, the hon. the Minister of Transport, the man who steps in to save all his colleagues when they get into trouble, stepped into the breach yesterday to try to save the Prime Minister. Sir, where did that one go? Sir, it was like some of the trains I have back on my narrow gauge railway: They stop running when they do not have coal. I am afraid that that is what happened to the hon. the Minister of Transport. He only got so far and then he ran out of coal. The result was that his speech really shows up very little better than that of the Prime Minister. There were two failures in this debate. They were absolute and abject failures. These were the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House. I may say that a very large section of our people will be made aware of these failures in Hansard, because we are going to read these features to them in coming elections. We are going to show up the calibre of the men who are the heads of the Government in this country. We are going to say: There you are. Is that the kind of man you want to govern South Africa? That is what we are going to put to the electorate. We will put their own speeches before the electorate for our propaganda to show the type of man that has governed South Africa.

I now want to come to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. He took part in the debate to make a big statement and I want to tell him something. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development this afternoon gave us a speech which I gather was for the purpose of taking us forward into the new decade of the 1970’s and beyond. He gave us his vision. That vision was a vision of the development of the Bantu areas and so forth but at the same time he seemed, for some reason or other, to glory in the fact that a piece of land which I think was 2,000 morgen in extent which was to have been set aside for industrial development, was not in fact to be so set aside. I think that some 100,000 Bantu will now be sent back to their homelands and will never leave their homelands because there will not be work for them in this industrial development which would otherwise have taken place. Why he should be proud of that I cannot understand because no other work has been provided for them. So this vision glorious, as I see it, is very similar to the same kind of vision he has had in the past. There is not a great deal of substance in them. Then we get down to what he has done. Mr. Speaker, may I say that as far as the hon. the Minister and some of the things he has done are concerned, a man recently said something to me when I was speaking about some of the members of the Cabinet. I said that they talk and talk and this man said to me, “As far as this Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is concerned, if he would talk more and do less, this would be a much happier South Africa ”.

One of the Minister’s recent achievements was to initiate the new Zulu territorial authority. In this regard I should like to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister. I should like the hon. the Minister to issue as a White Paper to members of both Houses of Parliament the speech he made at that inaugural meeting, the speech made by Chief Buthelezi and the speech made by the Commissioner-General for Zululand, Mr. J. J. Boshoff. I should like those three speeches embodied in their White Paper. The contents of the White Paper would then be known to all Parliamentarians and it would be a public paper. I think that that would be advantageous and I hope the hon. the Minister will appreciate the seriousness of this matter and agree that this is highly desirable. I would therefore ask him to do that.

In his speech to the Zulu people the hon. the Minister painted the forward path towards their final independence. I think that is fair. The hon. the Minister does not want to agree. That is the way I read it. I want to take his mind back to a former Prime Minister, the late Dr. Verwoerd. On the 20th May, 1959, the late Dr. Verwoerd said in this House (Hansard, Col. 6220):

He was referring to the Bantustan development which is now proceeding and of which the inauguration of the Zulu Territorial Authority is one step.—

My question to the hon. the Minister this afternoon is: Has he done something in Zululand which nobody can stop? Is this Parliament not able to put back the clock as far as what he has done in Zululand is concerned? He has created the Territorial Authority there and the late Prime Minister said 11 years ago that neither he nor the Leader of the Opposition could stop what he had set in motion. Has the Minister of Bantu Administration at the inaugural ceremony for the Bantu Territorial Authority in Zululand set in motion something which is past the point of no return? Can Parliament now bring Zululand back to the status quo ante?

We have done more than that in many other places.

No, that is not the answer I want. Can Parliament bring Zululand back?

Parliament is supreme and can do whatever it likes.

Yes, Parliament is supreme and can do whatever it likes.

At this juncture.

Mr. Speaker, now the hon. the Minister qualifies what he said. This is what I am so interested in. What is the point of no return when Parliament can no longer step in?

That is for you to judge.

I know that we are going to be the Government before long, but I did not think that it would be as soon as that, because presumably only the Government can determine it. Here is the Minister now saying in effect that there is a point at which Parliament can no longer turn the clock back, so that Parliament is not supreme in this regard. The Minister nods; in effect he says that Parliament is not supreme in this regard. This is a new philosophy and this is why I am so interested. Here is a Minister who is now saying that Parliament is not supreme and that Parliament cannot undo that which he has done after a certain point is reached. Will the Minister be prepared to say when he anticipates that point will be reached? He says that it has not yet been reached, but it will be reached. Is it any wonder that Chief Mangosutu Buthelezi said that one of the things he wanted was to have a territory over which he could hold sway as Prime Minister of the new Territorial Authority? Mr. Speaker, do you wonder at it? Do you know, Sir, what Zululand looks like at present? I have a map of Zululand here which I should like to show to the House. That is what it looks like. Mr. Speaker, can you imagine any White government controlling White areas split up and carved up like that? How can we go to the Zulu people and ask them to accept that as a territory? In 1959 at the time of the so-called Mitchell Resolution in Bloemfontein when the Progressive Party broke away from us, the third point we made, and we have hammered it ever since, was to get the Government to tell us where are the boundaries of the Bantustans. Where are the boundaries of that Bantustan? It is one Bantustan, not a group of them. Where are the boundaries? Will the hon. the Minister tell us whether he is prepared to gazette the boundaries of those areas which fall under Chief Mangosutu Buthelezi and the Council of Zululand?

Do you not know that they are gazetted already for the present?

What about the future? Are you not interested in the future?

Mr. Speaker, of course we are interested in the future. What did the hon. the Minister say the other day at Ladysmith about Loch Sloy? He said that it was true that the previous Minister, Mr. Daan de Wet Nel, had said that that would never be taken away from the White people. But, he said, those times are past. Things have changed. Mr. Speaker, he is the man who has gone back on what his predecessor had promised the White people of Ladysmith. Now he says that the boundaries have been fixed for the time being. We say to him that we do not trust this. How long is “for the time being ”? Five minutes? If we cannot trust it, how much can other people then also trust it? I have the answer I wanted. Parliament, in the opinion of the hon. the Minister, cannot go back when he has gone so far with his development of Zululand and the Zulu Territorial Authority. The South African Parliament at that point will be powerless. That hon. Minister can commit the people and the Government of South Africa past redemption by the Parliament of South Africa. Where is our sovereignty now? This is a Cabinet Minister who speaks like that; he speaks like that not in regard to some enclave, but in regard to a proud people, three million of them who have their hinterland in Swaziland, a self-governing area, and on the Portuguese territory across the Usutu River. This is what we want to know. We want a clear statement from the hon. the Minister in this regard. When his Vote comes under discussion I hope he will give us a full and detailed explanation of precisely where the people and Parliament of South Africa stand in regard to the newly constituted authority which he has created to-day. By doing this he has moved away from the concept of Gen. Hertzog and the 1936 legislation. We on this side of the House are prepared to carry out the Land Act of the late Gen. Hertzog. Our resolution in 1959 said so. What we want is a detailed statement from the hon. the Minister. This is too dangerous for three million people who are in our midst. We have lived with these people in harmony since 1906, since the Bambata rebellion. These people have played the game. They have been pressed, coerced and pressured into the position where Mangosutu Buthelezi has come forward and said that he was prepared to take the job and would be Prime Minister of this new organization into which the Government has pressured them. He said that he would obey the Government’s will and accept the position. This is a man whom we could make a friend of the White man. He is our friend to-day. Let us keep him, his tribe and his people as friends of the White man. Do not let us make an enemy of this man. The Government, through its hamhanded handling, is likely to do just that and make us the most bitter enemy on our northern border.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for South Coast is the leader of the United Party in Natal. It is difficult to accept that it is possible for a leader of a province to act on such an opportunistic basis as was done here this afternoon by that hon. member. I have always held this hon. member for South Coast in esteem, as I have always felt that he is a man of firm principles. But the manner in which he attacked the leader of this side of the House this afternoon is, however, very poor. Natal is the Official Opposition’s strongest province in the whole Republic. In other words, the hon. member for South Coast is a very important person on that side of the House. But when a person rises and tells the hon. the Prime Minister that he will have to say goodbye to his office within the space of three years, I want to tell him that he is talking sheer nonsense, even if he is an old grey-head.

What about your grey beard?

Mr. Speaker, I would prefer to associate my grey beard with Mr. Speaker’s grey beard and wisdom. It is simply outrageous that the hon. member for South Coast can make a statement affecting the hon. the Prime Minister which is being totally repudiated by the reaction of the people outside. Is the hon. member for South Coast not aware then that at every meeting addressed by the hon. the Prime Minister there were huge crowds and that the hon. the Prime Minister’s personal following in South Africa is tremendous?

And we improved our position in every seat.

The hon. member for Durban (Point) is feeling just as unhappy as the hon. member for South Coast does. But what annoys them, is the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister has gained acceptance amongst the English-speaking people in South Africa. This chafes. As an English-speaking South African the hon. member for South Coast is a person whose past is not a very pretty one as far as the political set-up of this Republic of South Africa is concerned. On the occasion of the establishment of the Republic, one of the greatest political events in the history of South Africa, the hon. member for South Coast was a person who wanted to march. But that very same person has risen here this afternoon and launched an attack on the hon. the Prime Minister. I want to make it very clear—and I have experience of this matter—that there was clear evidence of scheming, of joint political intrigue, between the H.N.P. and the United Party. It is without mincing matters that I say, and I can prove it, that there was the greatest measure of political intrigue between those two parties. The hon. member for Yeoville always manages to look so indignant, but then I know that what I am saying, is finding the mark.

I am not interested.

That hon. member says he is not interested. I shall tell hon. members what happened. Out of a common hatred borne against the party which governs South Africa, against the party which cares for the future of South Africa, against the party which is purposefully, with ideals, seeking to develop and build up South Africa …

We do not hate you.

You may not hate me, but all your actions show that you hate South Africa’s future. Out of the common hatred they bear against the National Party, they schemed together politically.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? Can the hon. member tell me whether he or his party have asked the H.N.P. supporters to come back to the National Party?

Mr. Speaker, I take pleasure in replying to that question. Persons who voted for the H.N.P. because they had been given the wrong impression, persons who were unfortunately susceptible to malicious gossip and had fallen under bad influences, are very welcome back in our party. But I can tell that hon. member that some of the old traditional U.P. supporters have become H.N.P. supporters. I simply cannot understand that hon. members on that side of the House can be politically so foolish. Some of the old traditional U.P. supporters were too shy to walk over to the National Party. Then they jumped out of the political desert into a political morass. This is what happened. When we make the statement that the United Party and the H.N.P. schemed together politically, we can prove it. What people were responsible for the applause and pretended to be H.N.P. supporters at the H.N.P. meetings? It was the United Party’s branch committee members. If they were to investigate the position, they would find that in the constituency of Rustenburg the chairman of their own branch committee was present at the first H.N.P. meeting

But, surely, they were present at your meetings, too?

That hon. member will never come to Rustenburg, for he is not equal to the task in Rustenburg. At the first H.N.P. meeting in Rustenburg the chairman of the branch committee of the United Party jumped on to the platform to become a registered member of the H.N.P. The co-operation between these two parties was there for anybody to see.

Perhaps Dr. Hertzog will become a U.P. supporter yet.

That hon. member is talking about Dr. Hertzog as a U.P. supporter. The hon. member for Orange Grove addressed a meeting in Rustenburg. Can hon. members believe that that hon. member got up there and said that Dr. Hertzog was a true and a good Nationalist? The protective hand of the United Party was held over the H.N.P. by a man like Etienne Malan, who had previously disparaged Dr. Hertzog time and again. This is the conduct we get from hon. members on that side of the House.