Reference has been made on both sides of the House to the position of the Public Service and to the salaries of public servants. In reply to that I firstly want to point out that the improvements made in the salaries of public servants in recent years amount to R107 million having been voted since 1968 towards the improvement of salaries of public servants, apart from the R69 million announced by the Minister of Finance in his Budget speech, which will come into effect on 1st January, 1971. Since this Government came into power the salaries of public servants were revised as follows: In 1953, in 1958, in 1963, in 1966, in 1968, in 1969 and now again as from 1st January, 1971. These increases certainly demonstrate the Government’s sympathetic approach to the position of the public servants. As the Minister of Finance announced in his Budget speech, the R69 million now being voted for improvements includes improvements for non-white as well as white public servants. Teachers are also included in this. When his Vote is discussed, the Minister of National Education will give further details of the salary position of teachers.

The hon. member for Houghton spoke about the salaries of non-white public servants. Non-white salaries were just recently consolidated. The percentage increase which non-Whites will receive from the recently announced improvements is exactly the same as that which the white public servants will receive, i.e. 10 per cent. She also referred to the salaries of non-white nurses. The position is that the increases on the lowest scale amount to as much as R240 per annum, and on the highest level R750 per annum from 1st April, 1970. In addition, the key scale has also been improved to such an extent that they will derive considerable benefits from the increases which come into effect as from January next year. Since 1st April, 1969, an amount of R22 million has been spent on the improvement of the salaries of non-white public servants. This includes the latest increase. The hon. member spoke of 273,000 non-Whites which were allegedly employed by the Public Service. Of course, that figure is not correct; the correct figure is 130,000. The fact that there are fewer non-Whites than Whites in the Public Service is of course related to the fact that, generally speaking the non-Whites are not qualified to such an extent that they can be appointed to the high, skilled positions and can so earn high salaries. This is a development which still has to take place in future.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) made a plea in regard to the efficiency of the Public Service. Of course, every effort is being made to train officers and to equip them better for their task. A committee of inquiry has just been appointed to place the training of officers on a sounder basis. I also want to point out that we are making a special recruiting effort abroad in order to recruit technical and professional officers. An important consideration in the latest salary increases is to retain people in the Service and to bring their salaries closer to those paid by other bodies.

The hon. member referred, inter alia, to health inspectors. We must note that the salary structure of the Public Service takes into account the nature of the work and the responsibility attached to it. We therefore cannot base the salary structure of the Public Service on a few unrealistic examples.

The hon. member for Umlazi made a plea for the Police Force to be represented on the Public Service Commission. The position is that two years ago we appointed a representative of the Services to the Public Service Commission. The reason for this was that that representative would be better able to look after the interests of the Services. The request made by the hon. member has therefore already been met.

The hon. member for Von Brandis and the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) made contrary pleas in regard to the question of the participation of public servants in politics. As far as public servants are concerned, I believe that one should adopt the attitude, firstly, that they are also citizens of the country in which they live and in which they render their services. The public servants are citizens of South Africa just as any other group in the country. In addition, we realize that they have enough common sense and enough sense of responsibility to maintain an efficient and sound Public Service by always placing their political convictions in the background in the performance of their duties. I think that, as far as this sense of responsibility is concerned, we can deem ourselves very fortunate in this country with the kind of public servant we have and the sense of responsibility of our public servants. I think we have very little reason to complain—just to take the period in which we have been in power—that officers in our time have abused their position on account of political considerations The fact of the matter is that public servants have for years been tacitly participating in political activities, in the sense that they belong to branches; in addition, they do canvassing during election times; they do this on both sides It is being done tacitly, and the officers have been doing it in a judicious way too, in the sense that they have avoided catching the public eye unnecessarily. But the Public Ser vants’ Association has now taken a resolution requesting the Government to give statutory recognition to this right which the Public Servants have been exercising tacitly. The Government is giving attention to this. I have referred this request by the Public Servants Association to the Public Service Advisory Council for its comment, but on account of the limited duration of this session it will not be possible for any recommendations made by Public Service Advisory Council, on which the Cabinet will still have to decide, to be embodied in legislation during this session. It any constructive proposals flow from this, as I personally expect will be the case, we shall be able to introduce a Bill in this regard during the next session of Parliament. But I should like to give the Committee the assurance that, irrespective of whatever form in which these political rights of the public servants may be cast, our public servants will continue to maintain the fine Public Service tradition of impartiality, as they have in fact done in the past.

Then I just want to make one further announcement before I sit down, and that is in connection with the Government Printing Works. The Goverment has decided that a new Government Printing Works will be erected in Pretoria, in the Koedoespoort-Silverton area, a Government Printing Works which will cover one million square feet and which will, according to the latest estimates, cost R13 million. The fact of the matter is that in recent years we have to an increasing extent been giving out work to private printing works. In the past year work to the amount of R4 million, which would normally have been done by the Government Printing Works, has been offered on tender to all other printing works. But despite the fact that such a large amount was spent, the volume of work done by the Government Printing Works increased by 37 per cent. Unfortunately the machines of the Government Printing Works are obsolete; the accommodation is very limited, and I may say, very much outdated as well. In view of this and of the increasing demands made on us by this developing country, the Government has thought fit to take the step of having a new Government Printing Works erected at Koedoespoort. I may just mention that at present new machinery to the value of R500,000 is being purchased for the Government Printing Works, and that we have sent officers overseas to acquaint themselves with this modern machinery. This will enable the Government Printing Works properly to meet the ever-increasing demands made on it.

This is all I have to say to hon. members for the time being.

Before I react to some of the matters raised by the hon. the Minister, might I first of all take this opportunity—and I think it is appropriate on Settlers’ Day—to refer to the two contributions which appear under the Interior Vote for the current year, the first being the contribution towards the costs of the Republic Festival of 1971 in an amount of R250,000, and secondly a further contribution of R750,000 to the costs of erection of the 1820 Settlers’ Monument. It is fortunate that one can on this day record the gratitude, I think, of the whole country for these contributions, and particularly the second one for the 1820 Settlers’ Monument, and to record also our gratitude for the fact that this monument will be useful for the development and the continuance of the traditions intoduced into this country by those ancestors of so many South Africans who arrived here in 1820.

The hon. the Minister has referred to the question of politics in the Public Service and I do not want to take the matter any further, because obviously no final decision has been taken. But there is one matter which I do believe is important and that is that there should be clarity, and clarity as soon as possible, because at present there are certain regulations which have to be conformed to by members of the Public Service, but there is a rather lax method by which those regulations are being applied. I trust that there will be no delay in reaching finality as far as the Government is concerned, so that this House and public servants will know what they can and cannot do in the realm of politics and that we will not have the position, as we have at present, where there are discretions and uncertainties and where one Minister may take up a certain attitude whereas another Minister may decide to adopt a different attitude.

I want to refer to one matter which is still unsatisfactory in so far as the Minister is concerned, and that is the handling and the issuing of passports. I refer in particular to the position in regard to Athol Fugard. I have studied what the hon. the Minister has said so far in reply to the debate, but one matter which is not yet clear to the people of South Africa is how it is that a playwright of the standard of Athol Fugard can enjoy in South Africa, State support for a play which he did in fact receive from the Transvaal Peforming Arts Council and the Cape Performing Arts Board, and then be refused a passport to attend a production of that very play in the U.S.A. The answers which have been given and the evasiveness which has arisen in regard to this matter, do not satisfy any section of opinion in South Africa, whether it is opinion which normally supports the Government or which normally does not. I believe that this position has to be clarified. We have it in reverse to the question of visas. How can the country feel confident that these matters are being promptly adjudicated upon when one can have a Minister saying in regard to a visa that new facts came to light? When a decision is made as to whether a passort is to be granted or a visa refused, the full facts should be before the Minister, and if there is any doubt the person concerned should have the opportunity of appearing before a tribunal in camera in order to deal with those doubts which have been raised. Sir, this is not a matter which is impossible of solution.

But I want to leave that alone for the moment to deal with the question of the Public Service Commission as it exists at present and to make an appeal to the Minister please to do something in so far as the Public Service of South Africa is concerned. The Public Service Commission, as the Committee knows, came into being in terms of the South Africa Act. In 1912 it consisted of three commissioners. In 1970 there are five commissioners. But the extent of the Civil Service has changed out of all recognition in the intervening years. We have a Public Service now which is faced with great shortages of staff and technical and professional posts which cannot be filled. If one looks back only to 1920, one finds, in the report of the Public Service Commission, that 30 vacancies in the Public Service were advertised and 1,123 applications were forthcoming. And at that time there was a commission of three members. At present the Public Service is too large, too cumbersome and too complicated a machine to be dealt with under one commission. Changes have taken place. The S.A. Railways and Harbours now deals with its own establishment and salary scales, etc., and in terms of the Post Office re-adjustment Act of 1968 the Post Office Staff Board has now taken over from the Public Service Commission and deals with the 46,500 employees of the Post Office. In 1968 we had a further move in so far as Defence is concerned and the special requirements of the Defence Force have now led to the determination of the establishment and the organization of the Defence Force being removed from the Public Service Commission.

I believe we have to go further. The time has come that the 18,000 to 19,000 employees on the staff establishment of the Defence Force should be under a Defence Force Staff Board. It is also time that the 33-34,000 odd persons who form part of our Police Force should be placed under a Police Staff Board. The teaching profession of South Africa, from the professional staff down to the teaching staff, should also be dealt with by their own particular staff board. I believe that modern scientific and technological progress in mechanization and in sophisticated and business methods, makes it necessary that there should be an evaluation within the sphere of activity of these specialized groups of public servants. I also believe that that time is overdue and that our Public Service Commission as such could well be utilized to see to the speeding up and the efficient management and control of what I might refer to as purely administrative aspects of the Public Service of South Africa. At the present moment there are so many anomalies that heads of the departments resort to all types of subterfuges. It is much easier now for a head of a department to upgrade a post and to call the person a senior assistant instead of an assistant to get a salary increase for that person than to have the salary of that post reviewed and amended. In other words, we are getting a top heavy echelon, in name only, of staff because it is a way of getting an increase for those efficient persons on the staff whom you would like to see advanced. I am sure the hon. the Minister of Finance knows that in his Department there is upgrading of posts because it is much easier to do that to get past the Public Service Commission than it is to get a review of the salary structure of a particular post. That type of practice is not good for the Public Service.

Let me for example refer to the number of Generals, and by that I mean Brigadiers and upwards, in the Defence Force. A lot of those ranks are unnecessary, but these posts were created in order to give appropriate remuneration to a person who holds a position of responsibility. It is not always necessary to increase the title in order to compensate a person for the work which he is doing, but that is what is being done at the present moment in various Departments of the Public Service. I think it is an unhealthy procedure.

I believe that the Public Service Commission has another statutory function. That is to give greater attention to departmental efficiency, the speeding up of mechanization and the introduction of modem business methods. These are not the days when the public will tolerate interminable delays in getting replies from the departments. The public expects efficiency in the Public Service and it will pay for efficiency, but it wants to know that efficiency is being maintained and it wants to know that a few are not carrying the load for the drones in the Public Service. I hope the hon. the Minister will give regard to this division of the responsibilities of the Public Service and to the establishment of particularly those three staff boards to which I have referred, namely the defence, the police and the teacher staff boards.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad the hon. member for Green Point is back in this House and I can assure him that the hon. members on his side of the House missed him during the few days he was away. They missed him because the debate on this Vote was without the usual lamentations which this hon. member brought back into it this afternoon. I shall not react to his whole speech, but just to a few points. The first is in respect of what he said in connection with the 1820 Settlers. I do not differ with him at all in that respect, and am in complete agreement.

The second matter which the hon. member raised was in connection with the political rights of public servants. I want to say to the hon. member that I also had experience of political rights when his party was in power. In those days the Nationalist in the Public Service had absolutely no rights. If he wanted to express his national feelings in any way, he was victimized to a tremendous extent. However, what is the position under this Government? This Government was elected to govern the country and to do it well. In respect of political rights, and I am not talking about rights which are laid down by law, the public servant has complete freedom to do what he wants. Ex-public servants are sitting on that side of the House as well. For example, I am thinking of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District). One does not land up in Parliament as a politician after resigning from the Public Service if one has not previously entered that field. I am thinking of the hon. member for Umlazi as well. While he was in the Public Service, he continued to exercise his political rights. No National Party Government victimized him. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana is sitting here as well. I take it that he was interested in politics all these years, otherwise he would not have landed up here.

However, I want to discuss another matter, namely the control of elections. I am in a position to discuss this, because in the past election I was one of the candidates who were almost voted out. They could not count me out, but I was nearly voted out. I should now like to draw the attention of this House to a few irregularities which I want to lay directly at the door of the United Party. I should like to tell this House what my experience was in my constituency. During the registration campaign last year, which ended on 31st October, both parties carried out registration. My party carried out a certain number and the United Party carried out a certain number. I kept a record of what my party did. I also kept a record of what the other parties did. To my dismay I established, after the supplementary voters’ roll had become available, that people were registered at certain addresses who should never have been registered there at all. People were registered on vacant plots where no houses had ever been built. They were not supporters of my party.

That is an old Nationalist Party trick.

Unfortunately for him, the hon. the Opposition’s candidate for Germiston (District) lives very close to me. At his address, seven voters were registered, while not more than three lived there at any stage. They were not people who had been registered there five or ten years ago so that one could say that they had moved. Those people had registered in Germiston (District) for the first time in October last year. I saw them. They were officials who helped the United Party in the election and who had for the sake of convenience been registered at that address in order to vote in that constituency. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to ensure that his Department keeps a close watch on these matters in future.

I want to say at once that I have the greatest respect for the way in which the officials of the Department of the Interior handled this election. I have absolutely no complaint to make against them. They performed their task excellently under difficult circumstances. However, I want to point out another matter to the hon. the Minister. On election day the United Party actually held demonstrations. At one of the large polling booths in my constituency they shouted slogans from 5 o’clock like virtual lunatics and blocked the people so that they could not reach the polling booth. Mr. Chairman, these were United Party supporters. I would not have expected anything like this from educated people. They kept people away from the polling booths by blocking the booths with cars which they had brought from all over the country, because they were so keen to take Germiston (District). They can thank Heaven that the result in Germiston (District) was not in their favour, because then they would have been involved in the most comprehensive election court case ever. I think they are very pleased that they lost, because all their misdemeanours would otherwise have been revealed.

I take pride in having the most detailed statistics of my constituency. I know who lives in every street, who should live there, who votes there and who should vote there. I also know of everyone who voted. This large block of flats happened to be in one man’s block of flats. I can tell hon. members that on polling day, 708 persons voted at that particular polling booth who did not live in that constituency. They had moved or were unknown. By means of my statistics, I have traced some of those votes in the meantime. But that is not the worst. While we were counting that night, their assistant agent at that polling booth, and old, shrewd and skilled politician, strutted about outside the hall where we were counting and boasted that he personally was responsible for the fact that more than 500 people had cast ghost votes. Sir, it is an absolute disgrace. Now I want to ask the hon. the Minister that his officials should be on the look-out for these ghost votes, especially in marginal constituencies. I can assure him that in many constituencies that party on the other side is applying stratagems in order to lay their hands on those marginal constituencies. Since we as a democratic country, with a democratic government, want to see that justice is done and that the voters’ wishes should prevail, I want to ask the hon. the Minister that when polling officers are appointed in marginal constituencies to be on duty in the booths competent, trained and experienced people should be appointed, although I know it is impossible to do so throughout the country, and that we should not have the present position, where volunteers who have never worked at a polling booth before, offer their services. I think this is very important, not only in the interests of the governing party, but in the interests of the whole country, that nothing should go wrong in those constituencies, so that the wishes of the voters may be carried out.

United Party speakers complained about postal votes in this debate. I want to say to hon. members that the postal vote system is much better in comparison with this shameful attempt of the United Party to employ every means in order to regain one single seat.

Mr. Chairman, it is unfortunate that I have only ten minutes at my disposal, because the hon. member who has just sat down, raised so many matters to which I can reply. In the first place, he accused the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) and the hon. member for Umlazi of having been politically active while they were still employed in the Public Service. I want to say to the hon. member that he should make sure of his facts. He should try to prove that any of those hon. members participated actively in politics while they were still employed in the Public Service.

What about yourself?

I challenge anyone to prove that I participated actively in politics while I was a member of the teaching profession. Sir. I should like to associate myself with the plea which was made by the hon. member for Green Point, and that is that education should be divorced from the Public Service Commission. We should see this plea in the light of the deep desire which exists among teachers to obtain professional status for the teaching profession eventually. This is an ideal towards which teachers have been striving for a considerable number of years. However, teachers have reached a stage where they realize that the mere establishment of a statutory body will not be adequate to restore the status of the teachers. Therefore it has become necessary for the teaching profession to be divorced from the control of the Public Service Commission. This is why I am now drawing the attention of the Minister of the Interior to the matter. The mere coming into being of a professional status will not be the magic wand which will remedy everything which is wrong in education to-day. As long as teachers have to work within the framework of the restrictions laid down by the Public Service Commission, we shall find that from time to time they will be forced to take part in salary campaigns. If there is one action on the part of teachers which causes damage to their profession, it is the fact that they become involved in public campaigns to increase their own salaries. I can give hon. members the assurance that the schools where teachers act militantly, are in fact the schools which produce the smallest number of prospective teachers.

The Teachers’ Associations agree that it is necessary to revise the post and salary structure. I have learnt that the Minister of National Education is to make an announcement in this regard, but I want to say at once that this is not going to help in any way, because as a result of the restrictions laid down by the Public Service Commission and as a result of the way in which formulae are being applied, one will be able to do nothing but patch work under the present system. What we need in South Africa, is the creation of a completely new post structure. As long as it remains restricted by the Public Service Commission, it cannot possibly come about. I shall explain why I am linking this matter to the ideal of a professional status. Hon. members might say there are engineers and architects to-day who are in the employment of the Public Service and who fall under the control of the Public Service Commission. The fact is that we cannot compare teaching to any other Public Service structures. It differs in essence from other professions. In this regard, I have in mind engineers and architects in particular. They have a measure of uniformity. As soon as a person qualifies, he is an engineer or an architect. What happens in the case of teaching? In the case of teaching, we find that a person who has qualified, may start in one of six different categories of teachers. We cannot do away with this, because some people have completed post-graduate studies, while others have completed only a two or three-year diploma course. We cannot expect all of them o be fitted into the same scale on the same basis. Here the problem starts, because different categories must necessarily be created as far as commencing salaries are concerned. Because there is a difference in commencing salaries, that is eventually reflected in maximum salaries.

In addition to this, there are other problems with which the Public Service Commission has to contend. There is the question of promotion posts. I think it is a sound principle that the salary attaching to a post should be a reflection of the responsibility that post carries. We shall never be able to do away with the different gradings we have in various schools, because there is a difference in responsibility if one is principal of a high school which has 300 or 400 pupils and if one is principal of a high school which has 500 or 600 pupils. There is also a difference in responsibility when one comes to colleges. This also holds true of primary schools. These ratios must be determined. I can give hon. members the assurance that the Public Service Commission has my sympathy because a stage has now been reached where one cannot remove by means of salary increases the anomalies which have been created. In the second place, it is virtually impossible to create certain new posts which are necessary. I refer here to a specific case as an example. As a result of the salary changes announced in 1968, there is a system at present according to which more senior assistants may be appointed in high schools. In the past there was one senior assistant per subject. But as a result of this new adjustment, the position has been reached where certain schools and certain subjects have a senior assistant and suddenly three or four other teachers have also been promoted to senior assistants. The result is that the Teachers’ Associations desire the creation of a post such as head of a department. But one cannot fit in a post of head of a department. The gap between the various posts is such that no new post can be created. The end result is that even if increases are announced and adjustments are made, we shall always find a group of dissatisfied people. The gap between promotion posts, for example, is so small that it does not really serve as an inducement to certain teachers to accept the added responsibility. These are the problems with which we have to contend as a result of the fact that the present Government obstinately refuses to regard the teaching profession as something which can be independent of the Public Service Commission.

My advice to the Teachers’ Associations in South Africa is that, although we have sympathy with their pleas concerning professional status for teachers, they will have to put first things first. We shall first have to separate the teaching profession from the Public Service Commission and then create a post structure which will not require patch work every time any change is made. This post structure will have the result that it will not be essential for teachers to participate in salary campaigns. We conduct debates here on manpower problems in South Africa and on shortages in certain fields. I know that there is a shortage of teachers in the teaching profession and there is adequate proof that in certain cases there is a decline in the standard of the people who enter the teaching profession. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, on Friday I envisaged that I would give my views on the Publications Control Board later and I also mentioned that I was considering a plan to bring Parliament and the public outside into closer contact with the work of the Publications Control Board. To know means to understand better. The Publications Control Board was established seven years ago, after a heated debate in this House. Although there was difference of opinion on how the principle should be implemented, there was no disagreement on the principle itself. On 18th April, 1962, a Select Committee of this House adopted the following unanimous resolution—

In other words, both sides of this House agreed that we should have some form of control. The Publications Control Board has now been carrying out its functions for seven years, and I think it has rendered excellent services in these seven years. I pay tribute to them for that. As I said here last Friday, I do not think this Board is beyond reproach. There can be no doubt about the integrity of the persons who constitute the Board, about their academic abilities and about their sound judgment, as seen from the point of view of the general public. Furthermore, the Board has revealed a measure of flexibility which proves that they take note of what is going on in our changing world. They take note of what is good and what is bad. In fact, they must take note of a Western world which is sliding downwards as far as morality is concerned. I am sorry to have to say this, but it is true. To-day we have reached the situation where those who are in favour of control think they are letting through too much, while those not in favour of control are becoming increasingly militant. We have now reached the stage where there are two irreconcilable points of view Over the past few weeks, mainly the English Press has been conducting a continual campaign with the object of bringing the Publications Control Board under suspicion among the general public. The whole purpose of the campaign was to have any form of control abolished. The taps must therefore be opened.

Who asked for that?

If the hon. member is not a stranger in Jerusalem he will know, by reading the daily newspapers and the weekend Press and the opinions of persons such as Prof. Hugo of the University of South Africa, that there is a consensus of opinion which wants no compromise and no control. Let me read out. a few of these opinions. We have a certain gentleman, Mr. Owen Williams, who regularly writes in the weekend Press, but I shall not quote what he has been saying lately. Then there is Mr. Stanley Uys, who also declared under great headlines in the weekend Press: “A very dull society in a backward country”. In the Cape Times of a few days ago, we heard that “Every man is his own censor”. Four “hardboiled journalists”, as they called themselves, went to see different films, but could not agree in their views. This “every man is his own censor” reminds me of the days of the Wild West, when it was a case of “every man is a law unto himself”. Prof. Hugo said that there was no middle course; we must either have control or no control at all. I have here a file of letters which were written to the Publications Control Board, letters in which people expressed their appreciation and praise for the work of the Publications Control Board and asked for even more control. There are other people whom we can regard as experts in this field and whose opinions we can quote. Mr. Felix Barter, a film expert in London, said—

In Newsweek of a short while ago, we read—

On 15th September, 1969, the Pope said—

We cannot simply disregard opinions of this nature. To me the best opinion is that of a young, brilliant scientist and politician, a man of sound judgment in this respect. I am referring to Dr. Jeremy Bray, who was a Parliamentary Secretary in the British Ministry of Technology under the Labour Government. He is a Baptist. Recently he said—

Here we have the two sides of the matter. We know what the attitude of the Afrikaans churches is. In yesterday’s Sunday Times we read that the Church of England also welcomed the action taken by the Publications Control Board; in fact, the Board was encouraged to act even more strictly—

I think the truth perhaps lies between these two extremes. In fact, the Publications Control Board is not too enlightened or too conservative; it is sensible. Six of the persons who serve on the Board are professors in various fields. In my opinion, the Publications Control Board has enough intelligence and background to be able to make a sound judgment. It is not subject to any pressure either. When the Board makes a mistake, it will be prepared to admit it. In any case, decisions of the Board can be taken on appeal to the courts or, in the case of films, to the Minister. [Time expired.]

Votes put and agreed to.

Revenue Vote No. 27.—“Bantu Administration and Development”, R80,309,000, Loan Vote N.—“Bantu Administration and Development”, R67,000,000, and S.W.A. Vote No. 12.—“Bantu Administration and Development”, R13,133,000:

Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this very first opportunity, right at the beginning of the debate on my Vote, to react to certain statements made by the hon. member for South Coast during the censure debate. I would like the hon. member to hear what I have to say; I would not like to speak in his absence. Sir, subsequent to those statements made by the hon. member for South Coast, other leading spokesmen of the United Party also made certain statements, and I want to devote special attention to the statements made here by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, whom I would also like to be here. Sir, it is necessary to deal with the statements made by these three hon. members in close association. The hon. member for South Coast put two questions to me and to the Government. He asked me whether the establishment of a Territorial Authority for Zululand was as he put it, something which nobody could stop. He also phrased his question differently and asked whether we had reached the point of no return there. He would like to know whether this Parliament can nullify the establishment of the Zululand Territorial Authority and whether Zululand could be brought back to the status quo ante—as he put it. Secondly, the hon. member for South Coast asked me what was the point of no return where this Parliament could no longer step in with regard to this Territorial Authority in Zululand? He asked, “Is Parliament not supreme; cannot Parliament undo what you have done in Zululand?” The hon. member for South Coast, in his very typically tempestuous mood, gave a melodramatic description here of the dangers which he regarded as inherent in the new constitutional development in Zululand.

And Natal.

Yes, in respect of Zululand and greater Natal. The hon. member very clearly indicated that he was opposed to this political development in respect of the Zulu people and said that he would like to nullify or undo this, if possible. Sir, I wish to give the hon. member very clear replies to his questions. This matter of the constitutional development not only of Zululand but of all the Bantu nations in South Africa has a legal as well as an ethical or moral aspect, and may I say that the moral, ethical aspect is stronger than the legal one. Primarily it must be remembered that the Territorial Authority there exists in terms of a Government notice and of a Proclamation issued by the State President, and it is functioning there on the basis of the Bantu Authorities Act, 1952. Now, in a narrow legal sense this Parliament can take steps to have that proclamation repealed, and the Bantu Authorities Act of 1952 can also be repealed by this Parliament, legally speaking, and another Act can be substituted for it. This Parliament can even repeal the constitution of the Transkei and substitute another in its place with even less powers for the Transkei.

But that would be immoral.

I would not like to hear anything from that hon. member in regard to the moral aspects of our policy; I will state it myself. [Interjections.] For ethical and moral considerations this National Party Government will not ask this Parliament for anything of that nature, neither in respect of the Transkei and its constitution nor in respect of the Territorial Authority of Zululand or any other territorial authority. Although we have the legal power to do so, on moral grounds we will not approach this Parliament to do so. That is very definite. I therefore very emphatically say to all and everyone, and particularly to the hon. member for South Coast, that this Government, my Ministry and my Departments have taken steps with regard to the political development of the Zulu nation and of all the other Bantu nations in South Africa which cannot be nullified by any Government whatsoever.

Even by Parliament?

I dealt with that matter when the hon. member was not here. Sir, if you will allow me to repeat what I have said, even though it is against the rules, I will do so for the benefit of that hon. member. [Interjections.] Sir, I hope that hon. member will be able to control himself. I made an agreement with that hon. member that I would reply to him to-day under my Vote and I was doing so in his absence and I will, repeat what I said for his benefit if you, Sir, will allow me to do so. I said that this matter of the Territorial Authority of Zululand, as well as the constitutional position of all the other Bantu nations, including that of the Transkei, has an ethical as well as a legal aspect. I said, and I repeat, that legally this Parliament can take steps to have the Proclamation and the Government Notice repealed in respect of the Zulu nation, and I have said that this Parliament can also take steps to repeal the Transkei Constitution if it likes and to put another Act in its place, even one giving lesser powers to the Transkei than they have to-day. In other words, this Parliament is supreme and it can do that legally, but I said that this matter also has a moral aspect. I said that for moral and ethical reasons—now the hon. member must listen to me because I am repeating all this for his benefit only. The hon. member for Zululand must now make it possible for me to repeat what I have to say to the hon. member for South Coast.

You are running away.

I am not running away in the least. My Hansard is there and you can quote it. [Interjections.] I also have the hon. member’s Hansard. I will repeat what I have said and I must say I am very glad that this hon. member is taking an interest in this debate, because I will refer to him later in my speech.

Stop threatening.

I am certainly not threatening him. I am asking him to be present and I would also like the hon. Leader of the Opposition to come because in due time I am going to speak to him as well. I repeat what I have said just now, and that is that for ethical and moral considerations this Government of the National Party will not ask this Parliament to nullify the Transkei Constitution and it will also not ask Parliament to take steps to have that proclamation of the Zululand Territorial Authority nullified. For ethical reasons we will not ask this Parliament to do so although we have the legal right to do so. I will go further to say, and I will say very emphatically to everyone concerned, that this Government, my Ministry and the Departments have taken steps in regard to this matter of the political development of all the Bantu territories, especially in regard to this one in question, namely that of Zululand, which cannot be nullified by any Government except—and I wish to stress this—if such a Government is prepared to be reactionary and unethical and if it wishes to drag those Bantu nations back from their courses or their roads to their independent destinations.

That is the back door which is left open.

No back door is being left open, but a moral door is being left open for that hon. member to walk through if he wishes to do so. I want to say to this Committee and to all persons who are interested, that the hon. member for South Coast is beginning to realize, and so is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and particularly the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, that the United Party will not be able to stop the political evolution of the Bantu nations and homelands. They realize that they will not be able to stop it. The hon. member for South Coast is one of the persons who realizes this very well. In view of all the protestations by the hon. member for South Coast, I want to know from him unequivocally whether he and his party, if they return to power in South Africa and in this House, will abolish the Territorial Authorities of the Zulus and of the other Bantu nations in South Africa. Will they abolish these Territorial Authorities, yes or no. Not both! The hon. member for South Coast is laughing at me.

I am always laughing at you.

Secondly, I want to ask him if they will reverse the political evolution or development of the Zulus and of the other Bantu nations from the stages which they have reached to-day, if they return to power. Will they reverse that political evolution, yes or no? We want to know that and not only we want to know it, but also the people of South Africa, and especially the Bantu people, want to know what they will do if they come to power. That hon. member who is so patently against our course of action will surely be prepared to give good and proper replies to these questions of mine.

*I said I wanted to speak to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and I am grateful for the fact that he is here.

So far your questions have been easy.

Yes, I agree with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I know what the hon. member will reply to my questions. He talks easily, but it is the hon. member for South Coast who does not talk easily. The Leader of the Opposition does not talk easily either.

I want to refer now to what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, particularly during the Budget debate. During that debate the hon. member for Bezuidenhout made several important points, which I want to bring to the fore very clearly. I want to say in anticipation that I want to know from the hon. Opposition what they, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for South Coast by name, have to say about these points. In the first place, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, and here I have his Hansard with me, that he and the United Party recognized the multi-national position in South Africa. I know the hon. member for Bezuidenhout recognizes and accepts it, but I say that the other hon. members on that side do not recognize and accept it. Later on today I want to come back to this point that was made by the hon. member. In the second place, the hon. member said that a position had to be created where people would be able to realize themselves without the one dominating the other. The hon. member very obviously meant that the one people should not dominate the other people. This was recorded very clearly in Hansard. In the third place, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that the United Party was, amongst other things, also in favour of large-scale political development in the Bantu homelands. We have now heard that the hon. member for South Coast wants to undo what has already been done in the homelands.

That is not true.

He did say that.

He did not say that.

He did say that. The hon. member can read his Hansard. The hon. member can prove to me in a moment whether or not this is true. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is frank, and I appreciate this quality of his. I have no bones to pick with him. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that under their policy those Bantu territories could be taken further than provincial status until they were local politically autonomous units. In the fifth place, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that the broad principles of the Tomlinson Report were being accepted by him and the United Party. And what is the broadest and most important principle of the Tomlinson Report?

I have read that out on many occasions.

I have no quarrel with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I laud his frankness, and I want to know whether the other hon. members on that side are saving the same thing. There are a number of principles, but we know what the most important principle of the Tomlinson Report is, i.e. separate Bantu homelands with a separate political development up to eventual independence. This is a basic principle of the Tomlinson Report. This is also the principle of this Government. As the hon. member for Bezuidenhout accepts the principles of the Tomlinson Report, he also accepts this principle. Now I want to ask the hon. member for South Coast very pointedly to tell us whether we have already gone too far with Zululand. He must tell us now whether he agrees with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout as regards his statements which I quoted a moment ago.

†The hon. member for South Coast must tell us whether he concurs with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout on the five important statements which I have taken out of the Hansard speech of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, He must tell me whether he agrees with them, yes or no.

Is this your Vote or mine?

This is my Vote, but hon. members opposite try their best to get my Vote for themselves. They must then be prepared to explain to us how they will handle this Vote if they should get it.

*It gives me pleasure to be able to get under their skins this way, and I am not through yet by a long shot. The hon. member for South Coast and his party must now tell us unabiguously whether all of them are in favour of its being possible for the Bantu homelands to develop further politically than is the case with the provinces to-day, with more status, and with local autonomous status, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, and then, of course, further, in terms of the Tomlinson Report, to full independence. That is what we want to know from the Opposition. [Interjections.] Yes, wait a minute. The backbenchers can also speak in a moment; all they have to do, is to wait until I have finished. There is something I should like to know. The second statement which was made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and which I quoted, was that the one people should not dominate the other people. This is my question: Do the hon. member for South Coast, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Cadman and all the other members opposite also say this? They say that under their policy of race federation with white leadership, the Whites will always have to be on top and the Bantu in a subordinate position. Do they also agree with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that, in a country where he accepts multi-nationality, the one people should not dominate the other? But, of course, they do not accept multi-nationality. I shall prove this in a moment. I am asking the hon. member for South Coast this question: Would he, too, promote that large-scale political development to which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred?

You are setting up your own skittles.

No, I am not setting up skittles here. I am hitting the hon. member’s targets. I am asking the hon. member for South Coast whether he and his whole United Party agree that they accept all of the most important principles of the Tomlinson Report. I should also like to know from the hon. member for South Coast whether he also accepts that we have here in South Africa many peoples, various nations. This is what we want to know from the hon. member for South Coast, Sir, for the hon. member is a person who, in 1964, told me in this very Chamber that the Bantu man and the Bantu woman who entered the white area, were my co-citizens. At that stage I was still a Deputy Minister, and he said: “They are the co-citizens of the Deputy Minister.” I am asking him whether he still adheres to the view that the Bantu man and the Bantu woman are my co-citizens as members of one nation, whereas the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is saying that we have multi-nationality in South Africa. I want to know from the hon. member for South Coast whether, in referring to the point of no return with Bantu authorities, in referring to turning back from the realities, he wants to reverse this situation, if they shall come into power, in order to carry through the hon. member for Bezuidenhout’s ideas of a status higher than provincial status. He must tell us this.

Now I am also coming to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I understand that he cannot be here, and I am sorry about that. But there are many others here who are only too keen to take over his role, and they may as well reply, and so may the others who do not want to take over his role, such as the hon. member for Transkei. I know he is a modest member. He does not try to rival the Leader of the Opposition. But what I am going to expect him to do, is that he should at least reply to these questions. I want to know from the hon. Opposition, and from the Leader of the Opposition by name, how it reconciles these divergent views which are held by the hon. members for South Coast and Bezuidenhout and which I have just pointed out. But, in the second place. I also Want to know whether he wants to confirm that, if his party came into power, the Zululand Territorial Authority, as well as all the other territorial authorities, all of which have in actual fact reached a slightly more advanced stage of development than the Zululand Territorial Authority has, will be nullified. This is what I want to know from them. It is essential that they say this.

In the third place, I should like to go into the so-called challenge of the Leader of the Opposition which was issued here during the debate on the previous Budget. I quote (English Hansard, 1970, Col. 2055)—

This is his challenge. I am going to deal with that challenge of his. Then I shall also, quite modestly, come forward merely with a request, not even with a challenge. I hope he will also reply to mine as I shall reply to his. Sir, basically I reject the entire basis of the challenge issued by the Leader of the Opposition. I reject that challenge in toto. I am now coming back to the details of that challenge. I appreciate that that hon. member cannot understand why I reject the challenge basically. For the sake of his comprehension I am going to deal with the matter in detail. On close examination there are, in particular, two aspects of that challenge which one should examine more closely.

Whereas the hon. the Leader referred to the economic position of the Republic, I want to say that we as a Republic are economically so strong and will in the future still become so much stronger that we shall be able to contribute our share as regards the development of the homelands to fully independent status. This I want to state very clearly. In the second place, I say, with reference to that challenge, that the Leader of the Opposition and all the other members who are echoing those sentiments, are totally wrong in saying that every homeland has to be economically strong enough to support its own population by itself. That is a wrong premise. No less a person than the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has already said that before now. No country in the world is so self-sufficient that it can only enter its independence once it has become completely self-sufficient economically. Let us compare this position with that of the three African countries or black states, which are situated nearest to us and which have become independent. I just want to do this very quickly. More detailed comparisons can be drawn.

I want to point out that the gross national income of each of Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland is smaller than that of the Transkei I think that the gross national income of Botswana and that of Swaziland is smaller than that of the Tswana homeland. I am not even referring to the Transkei. Secondly. I say that the gross domestic product of each of these three independent states is also Smaller than that of the Transkei. Thirdly, the 1968-’69 Budget of each of those three independent countries is also Smaller than that of the Transkei, as expressed in terms of money. There is also a fourth criterion which we can use. The percentage of the population of the independent country of Lesotho working in the Republic, is roughly just as large as the percentage of the’ population of the Transkei working outside the Transkei. Now hon. members must tell me why my argumentation is wrong.

While I am referring to this matter, I want to come back to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and call attention to a major inconsistency between him and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, i.e. as regards this very point. Both of them discussed the question of the economic strength which a Bantu territory must demonstrate before it can become independent. Once again this is a major inconsistency in respect of our Bantu politics, and this is also an utter unreliability which must be attached to the Opposition’s statements and policy. In that challenge of his, which I have just read out to the House, the Leader of the Opposition says that the economy has to be very strong before the Bantu territories can be granted independence. In his speech during the same debate the hon. members for Bezuidenhout levelled the reproach at us that we had not yet granted independence to the Transkei and other Bantu territories, whereas other states in Africa had gained independence although economically they were in a weaker position than was the case with our Bantu territories. In other words, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says that none of our Bantu territories can be granted independence, as their economy is too weak. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, on the other hand, says that we could already have granted independence to those territories, in view of the fact that the economies of other countries which have already been granted independence, are weaker than those of our homelands.

Sir, whom must I believe? Whom must the people believe? That Opposition is blowing hot and cold to such an extent that its own members, especially its new members, really do not know whom they must believe. I would not be dumbfounded if my good old neighbour from Florida were still to come and ask Uncle M.C. whom to believe in this regard. I now ask hon. members whom of these two, i.e. the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. is correct. The National Party says very clearly that the Bantu homelands can gain their political freedom before they are economically as strong as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition believes they have to be. In this regard the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is much closer to the National Party’s views than the lion, the Leader of the Opposition is. However, this is not the only point in regard to which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is close to the National Party’s policy.

He merely has to walk over to us.

No, he will not come again, [Interjections.] I am pleased to hear from that side of the House that one never knows whether the hon. member will not perhaps do so yet. I wonder whether they distrust him! The National Party will continue the political development of the homelands along with the general economic and agricultural development within those homelands and also along with the positive consolidation of the homeland territories. In this regard I want to call attention in particular to the establishment of the Economic Committee as a branch of the Bantu Affairs Commission. By this time this has already become common knowledge. This Economic Committee is a great help to me in regard to the general economic development of the homelands, not only in respect of the development of the agency work, but also in respect of investigations. In fact, this Committee assists in regard to all sorts of economic projects which must be undertaken, and it is very successfully being assisted by the Bureau for Economic Research and Bantu Development (BERBD), which has its headquarters with the Bantu Investment Corporation. There are members in this House who are also members of the Economic Committee. They can elaborate further on this matter.

Over the past two years I have already formed eight homeland governments with their own legislative assemblies, with their own executive committees, or call them cabinets, and with their own government departments in those particular homelands where previously there were only territorial authorities with quite limited powers and functions. I established these eight governments, not in order that they might sit there and become rigid and bleed themselves to death as governments, but in fact for the purpose of promoting the process of evolutionary political development on the road to their separate independent destinations. At the moment, therefore. there is in each of these Bantu territories in the Republic a representative and responsible government, which can in its own development be involved by us in our planning and with which we can negotiate on all sorts of matters relating to its own territory. But most important of all is the fact that in each of those Bantu territories there is at the moment a proper people’s government which can lead its own people in the process of development in the future. Previously there was no such thing. Along with the governments of these peoples we are moving along the road ahead with internal development, with political development and with the consolidation work of the Bantu homelands. Before long what is being accomplished in this regard, will become increasingly apparent. As theoretically-minded foreign visitors have often asked me, hon. members, too, should kindly refrain from asking me what my timetable is. They should not come and ask me what the date, the day and the hour of every event is.

Just name the century.

We are not introducing into the Bantu homelands the independence, in particular, but also the other developments, in a precipitate and rash manner. I want to remind hon. members of the fact that a little more than ten years ago it was also said that on 30th June, 1960, at 12 o’clock midnight, that specific territory would become an independent people. We also know what happened in the country concerned when the former colonizing power withdrew from that country without ever having trained one single member of the native population to face their independence at midnight, 30th June, 1960. We know what happened there—chaos, bloodshed, murder, disorder and even fragmentation of the country. This, too, may be what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and other people who are in such a hurry, want to have here in our country, but we shall not do that. We are opposed to presenting itemized timetables to the country. We insist that the Bantu governments of the various Bantu peoples should themselves do all the preparatory work and design their future in conjunction with us. In other words, they will, as training, have to go through a political evolution on the road to their gaining independence. For that reason we do not give any date or hour down to the midnight hour. Every day, every moment, we are doing everything that is practicable and desirable. Then it must come when it is right.

Who will decide when it is right?

We, in conjunction with them; this Parliament and they. The Transkeian government is definitely going to be granted even more responsibilities, even more functions—inter alia as regards police, prisons and health services. The Departments concerned are at present carrying out the necessary investigations in this regard. They are definitely going to reach the top rung of the political ladder vet. And we are not going to leave them to their own devices, as was done elsewhere in Africa; we are going to help them. This holds good for each of the Bantu people in South Africa. Correspondents, spokesmen and journalists talk about these matters far too easily and too superficially. They should kindly not create the impression that they obtained their information from me, neither directly nor indirectly. The United Party, which have so much to say about the internal development of homelands, should also say whether they stand for development to the maximum, to the maximum political development, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout suggested and to which I referred. Otherwise they must say whether they want the political development of the Bantu homelands to be frozen in order to keep the Bantu in a subordinate position, as was suggested by the hon. member for South Coast. This is what we want to know from them.

While we are referring to the inconsistency, the unreliability and the discord with the Leader of the Opposition and his party, I must also call attention to another caper in regard to multi-nationality. I pointed out a moment ago that in the course of the Budget debate the bon. member for Bezuidenhout had pointed out that he recognized the many peoples in South Africa. I appreciate his doing this; he is, at least, realistic. But the Leader of the Opposition, as well as some of the other members opposite, does not admit this. I am now going to furnish you with proof. As far as the Leader of the Opposition is concerned, as recently as in the past Budget debate he was still referring to the “20 million society” in South Africa. But better still, I want to remind you of their slogan at their Bloemfontein Congress a few years ago: “One country, one nation, one loyalty.” But if that is still not enough, I want to hurry on to something better. Let me read out to you what the Leader of the Opposition said in this House on 8th June, 1961. In column 7559, it was recorded as follows—

“Unity and nationhood in the true sense of the word,” irrespective of race. And the following year, in the Cape Times of 24th April, 1962, the hon. member for Durban (North) examined the policy of separate development and contrasted it with the United Party’s policy of race federation. At that time he said, amongst other things, the following—

Now, ten years after that, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout says that he accepts the multi-national situation of South Africa. I thank him for accepting it, and I pray that the others will do so, too. Perhaps they are doing this now, after ten years. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is honest, and we appreciate that. The others must do this, too; they must put a stop to their antics and ambiguity. Or is the party of the Leader of the Opposition, as far as multi-nationality as a principle is concerned, also adopting the National Party’s standpoint and policy, as is being done in regard to so many matters? In that case, they must tell us. We praise them and we laud them for having adopted the Republican standpoint of ours subsequent to our becoming a Republic; we shall also praise them if they were to do so in this respect. We are merely waiting for them to do so.

As regards the politically free homelands within the borders of our country, there are here in South Africa two realities which no other country could offer its emancipated, subordinate territories in Africa. We have two things here; they are an asset to us, and the National Party accepts them. In the first place, there is the situation of South Africa, as the country which is granting freedom, bordering on and surrounded by all the homelands which are gaining their freedom. None of the colonizing countries themselves had common borders with their African territories, which would have enabled them to assist such territories. We have common borders with and are surrounded by the homelands which can be granted independence under our policy. This fact is of great material value and benefit to both Whites and non-Whites, also of security value—of greater security value than it is a danger to us, the danger with which hon. members opposite want to scare the country. The second characteristic is one which I have often mentioned, i.e. the interdependence, mutually between us as Whites and the peoples of the Bantu homelands. Let me mention a number of examples of this. There are others as well, but I am now going to confine myself to a few only, and I am not going to elaborate on them either. Hon. members are welcome to reflect upon them by themselves. We as a white state have already granted a great deal of assistance and will in future have to grant much more assistance once the homelands are independent, i.e. assistance in regard to professional, technical and academic manpower for the Bantu peoples in their homelands and also in regard to the establishment and maintenance of the public administration of each of those homelands. A moment ago I referred to the eight governments which we had established. Nearly 50 government departments are already in operation in respect of those eight governments, and a few are still to be added to each of them. By these means we are helping to maintain them. We have not withdrawn from them, as was done by the other powers of Africa, for we are here close to them and with them and for them.

Sir, in the third place, I shall mention the economic development within those homelands in respect of mines, in respect of commerce, in respect of industries, etc. I mention the marketing of their agricultural produce, with which we are helping them; I mention the fact that we are providing them with infrastructures in respect of such important matters as railways, freeways, post and telegraphs, radio service, water provision and numerous other matters which I could mention, all of them for the purpose of providing them with an infra-structure. We are assisting them directly in these respects. They are making use of our railway network, of our system of harbours and of our post office system. They are freely making use of these, thanks to our mutual assistance to them. Sir, I could mention to you what we are doing in respect of defence against aggression and, last but not least, what we have been doing over all these years and will still be doing in the form of funds or appropriations for their budgets in order to initiate their own development—not disguised or false loans, which are called soft loans”.

Sir, these are but a few of the things which we can mention under this principle of interdependence and which have been flowing from us and will continue to flow to them, also when they are independent. And from their side to us, Sir? This is an inter-dependence. We are also indebted to them for certain privileges; we also receive certain assistance from them. The homelands have already granted assistance, and that to the Whites of South Africa, and will always grant assistance in regard to the necessary, permitted labour in the white area and in regard to the marketing of many products which we can get from them. They are also helping us with food production and with the supply of raw materials for processing in our factories. They will also help us—and of that I am more convinced than perhaps any other person, for I come into contact with them every day—if it should ever be necessary, with a united resistance to communist infiltration if this should ever happen in South Africa, for we have already received their offers in this regard, which we need not broadcast.

Sir, I am telling you that the judicious implementation of this principle of inter-dependence or, if you want to give it a different name, the inter-dependent independence of each of these countries, implies unlimited security to all of us. That is why one expects the Opposition to act responsibly towards the Bantu homelands and not to try in every respect to belittle and disparage everything as much as possible.

Sir, how are the homeland territories going to become independent, when they eventually become independent? [Interjections.] That famed member for Maitland may as well listen to this; it will do him good to listen. How are they going to become independent? Sir, the question answers itself. How does any subordinate territory in the world become independent? There are only two basic ways in which independence can be gained. The first is by means of revolt and revolution, and I am telling you, Sir, that not one single homeland of ours is aspiring after that and will ever want to become independent in the revolutionary manner.

What does Matanzima say?

Sir, you have heard what that hon. member has just said. I have just tried to reprimand him in anticipation by telling him that he must act in a responsible manner, and now he wants to know, “What about Matanzima?” Sir, I am telling you that neither the Xhosa people, nor the Zulu people, nor any one of our Bantu peoples will ever try, for they do not have the inherent desire to do so, to become independent by means of revolution. I come into contact with them in the homelands and with their fellow-nationals outside the homelands more often than any other politician in South Africa does. I come into contact with them every day, personally and impersonally, and I am telling you that there is not a single one of them who will ever dream of becoming independent in a revolutionary way.

That is not necessary either.

As the hon. member behind me has rightly said, that is not necessary either, for all of them are very clearly aware that we are helping them in the second way, the best way, along the road leading to independence, i.e. in the evolutionary way, the development way. Yes, and that process is in progress, and because they know it is in progress, they are not interested in any other process and have every confidence in us. As they so often tell us from place to place where we go, “Hold our hand on the dark road ahead.”

And protect us from the U.P.

When it comes to such an evolutionary gaining of independence of the Bantu homelands we know, or hon. members opposite ought to know, how they become independent. They become independent on a basis of mutual agreement. They become independent by way of a treaty which is concluded, and subsequently each of us who has *to do it, takes the necessary steps to create the constitutional instruments for that purpose. In those future relations, in that treaty, the two parties concerned, those who are gaining independence and we who are granting it, lay down all sorts of points of agreement and, amongst other things, these things which a moment ago I mentioned as being elements of interdependence plus other points which will, of course, still have to be added. Then hon. members want to know how and when they become independent, as though they do not know how the Transkeian Constitution came into being and how any other country which became independent, gained that independence.

But in terms of this policy of ours, i.e. that of gaining independence or of the multi-nationality of the Bantu territories, we should also look at the basic position in regard to labour. Labour is one of the most Important things, as I mentioned a moment ago, which we, white South Africa, will need as one of the means for inter-dependence, and in this respect there is a profound and fundamental difference between us and the Opposition. Especially over Col. 3510: Line 41: Delete "not" the past week we have heard this time and again in the debates in progress here. Essentially it only amounts to this, i.e. that the Opposition’s cry which they are raising here, and which is also being raised on their behalf by the people outside, is that the labour shortages in the white area should be met out of the ranks of the Bantu, and not only the lowest strata but especially the higher strata of the labour community. The hon. member for East London (City) was so frank as to admit this very candidly, and this was recorded in his Hansard. This is the object of their campaign, i.e. that the Bantu should be trained and prepared for being introduced into the higher strata of labour. The National Party’s reply to that is an unambiguous “no”, not only because this implies errors of reasoning, but also because basically it is in conflict with our policy of multi-national development to independence for each of these homelands. For allowing the Bantu to enter the top strata of labour will lead to labour integration and labour equality It will also lead to many other forms of integration, such as in respect of residential areas, social matters, territories, political authority in this Parliament, education, recreation, etc. People who are guilty of this error of reasoning, by advocating that labour shortages be met in this way, are people who are also shirking their duty in respect of the responsibility for the large mass of people of the many peoples in South Africa; for in this regard, the supplementation of labour, a colossal irresponsibility is being committed by people who only see the possible worker in the Bantu person.

Sir, the Bantu persons in South Africa also have other human interests and human needs They also have a partnership with their people and the development of their state, even if these are a people and a state in embryonic form. Those people who are advocating that are only mindful of the material aspects, they do not see the human beings in the Bantu being, but only the labourer. There are two types of these people. The first type is those who do not mind that in every other respect the bantu are placed on the same level as the Whites in the white area; and the other type of person who does not notice this, is the one who only concentrates on the material aspects and with whom the human and sociopolitical aspects do not count at all. Both of these types are dangerous to us as Whites in South Africa.

The only correct approach and the best solution to these problems are to be consistent in carrying through the National Party’s policy of multi-national development with all the implications it involves for both the Whites and the Bantu population. The National Party’s policy is based on principles and not on such opportunism as we have to hear and read as coming from that side of the House. The consequences of the broad policy are many, but I merely want to mention a few which are relevant in this regard. I refer to labour as seen against the background of our policy of multi-national development, where every ethnic group is on a course leading to a separate destination of independence. The first consequence which I want to mention to the hon. member, is that, on the basis of the reality of multi-nationalism, the white people and every Bantu people have to go through a separate development connected with their own homeland and their own people. By those means it should be possible for every people in its interests and rights, to realize itself fully within the framework of its own context and within its own ranks. This must be done without the people concerned being dominated by any other people, as was also said by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, or threatened by any other people. Here we have the major gulf between the approach of the Opposition and the approach of the National Party members must bear in mind that I said a moment ago that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and other members on the other side of the House see the large mass of people in South Africa as one large comprehensive unit and nationhood. Those were the words of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in 1961. In short, the National Party approaches the mass of people in South Africa multi-nationally, whereas the Opposition approaches them uni-nationally. Another consequence of this is, that no matter how important all the other facets of development may be to any people, the political development of every people is of primary importance. It is given priority in order that it may as soon as possible, be made clear, unambiguously, that the Whites do not want to share their own political authority with any other people in South Africa. When I talk about any other people in South Africa, I am referring not only to the non-white people in South Africa.

We do not want to share our, independence with the Coloureds, in case that little hon. member does not know it vet The second point which I want to mention to the hon. members in this connection, is that the Bantu peoples will therefore be granted every opportunity of realizing themselves and obtaining political authority. Thirdly, in so far as the presence of Bantu in white areas is concerned it is in a loose capacity and not in terms of a shared citizenship with us, as the hon. member for South Coast tried to indicate to me in 1964. Therefore, it follows logically that the white entrepreneurs and the white people who require labour in the highest strata, must not look to the Bantu for that, but must apply themselves to the improvement of the standard of labour and training an improvement of the labour methods, the more effective use of time and, last but not least, more white people in South Africa. In so far as Bantu can in fact be employed in the lower strata, it is being done in a controlled and systematic manner, as has often been said here in previous debates. This is, of course, always being done with due regard being had to whether that labour is available. A day may come that there will no longer be any Bantu labour available for those posts, and then they cannot be made for that and we cannot terminate the development in the homelands so that the Bantu may be released to go and work in the white areas. Surely, this is obvious. A public department such as the Railways, which handles these matters as a Government Department, can be trusted twice as much as any private employer who is not as closely connected with the Government as a Government Department is. It is this view we take of our policy, this view we take of labour in terms of multi-national development, of which our employers, the people of South Africa and the newspapers will have to try to gain a much better understanding. It will pay them to try to gain a better understanding of it. It will also pay them to come forward with their ideas within the framework of this interpretation of policy and to accept these ideas rather than to try to divert us from the basis of our policy by means of all sorts of plans and skilful manoeuvres, sometimes even by means of misrepresentations. The pattern of the presence of the Bantu in our white areas must be revised by those employers who are trying to divert us from the basis of our policy by means of such skilful plans.

Who are “they”?

“They” are those members of the Opposition and also those employers in South Africa who ranted so loudly in the past few weeks to try to divert us from the basis of our policy. They must ensure that they adapt themselves to the requirements within the framework of the Governments policy, as I stated them, i.e. the requirements of the employers as well as those of the Bantu, who is not merely a worker, but, as I said a moment ago, also a human being who is a member of a people, who has a political affiliation and also a political future which he must realize. If they would rather devote the larger expenditure which they want to incur to create this type of adjustment facilities, it would be better for them, much better even than all the profound ideas of large monetary levies which they are prepared to pay in order to, as it were, buy Bantu manpower from the Government in order to work here in the white areas. Those matters will not be of any use. They should rather make adjustments and use that large expenditure which they want to incur to buy Bantu for themselves from us, to adjust themselves in the right way within the framework of our policy. This, and nothing else, is what the speech made here by the hon. the Minister of Finance means. This is the background against which hon. members, and especially the employers in South Africa, should see it to-day.

Then one surely does not need a conference in order to discuss it.

They can come to learn from the hon. the Minister of Finance.

In the light of the general features which I have mentioned here, the policy of the National Party is soundly based and its course is very clearly indicated, with clarity and with firmness on our side. However, what is the position at the moment in regard to the United Party? They must speak up now. They must not play hide and seek now and say that this is not their Vote. In the discussion of this Vote, they must tell us in what other way it should be spent in terms of their policy. The United Party cannot do this. Why not? Because the United Party is full of contradictions and doubts, because they are so unreliable, because they are sitting at the crossroads and because they are divided on this matter of Bantu development. One cannot deal with these questions and the labour matters which I brought into this matter, without keeping an eye on the political development of each of these Bantu peoples. Note the doubt in the United Party. For that reason the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also said in the Budget debate, “Let us make it the task of the 1970’s to make our South Africa so strong that we will be able to choose between several possible solutions of our non-European problem.” The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke blatantly and openly of “several possible solutions for the non-European problem”, and then hon. members on the other side laugh and snigger when I say that they have doubts. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition still wants to choose, but we on this side and the people chose a long time ago. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, however, still wants to choose in the 1970’s between various possible policies. yes, Sir, then the same hon. Leader of the Opposition and the member for Bezuidenhout tried in their clumsy way to implicate the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council in this matter. Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, once again honestly—I take my hat off to him—what the terrible implications would be for the Leader of the Opposition if the Advisory Council arrived at certain findings. In other words, they admit that there still is for them the possibility of a different policy, and that the Advisory Council should kindly devise this for us.

The new mirages of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout about the high status, higher than provincial, is also proof of their doubt. Yes, Sir, also his covert reference to the effect that we can grant independence to the homelands, which are economically weaker than Lesotho is, is a manifestation of their doubt and ambiguity. But while the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, with his doubt, inclined towards the National Party, the hon. member for South Coast kicked against it with both feet, and he wished he had more, and wanted to undo everything which we had done. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout wanted to elaborate on that towards a greater measure of freedom in future. The hon. member for South Coast wants to undo everything and takes a stubborn stand. He never wants to reach any point of no return. This is the conflict and the dilemma of the United Party. Some of them tend towards the National Party standpoint on the homelands; others stop short of the idea of supremacy in this mixed unit or nationhood.

I have spoken in detail about the present and the future. I have replied to the hon. members for South Coast and Bezuidenhout and to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, those three members, whom I should like to call a politically active triangle of the United Party. They are not radio active, Sir, but politically active.

Now I am asking and challenging, if it is necessary to challenge them, both the Leader of the Opposition and the member for South Coast—I am not concerned with the member for Bezuidenhout, who has spoken his mind— to reply to the questions which I have put to-day. I am asking the Leader of the Opposition to admit that he and his party are in doubt and are sitting at the crossroads between the hon. member for South Coast, who obstinately refuses to budge, on the one hand and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, the restless anticipator. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must tell us which of the two represents the United Party’s present course, i.e. that of the man who obstinately refuses to budge, or that of the restless anticipator. Or is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition still waiting for the “possible solution of the 1970’s”? It seems like it.

The hon. member for South Coast and the Leader of the Opposition must speak up, because the members of the United Party differ so much among one another that nobody can believe them and nobody wants to trust them. If these two hon. members remain silent, it is just a confirmation that the United Party has fallen into doubt, that my charge of falseness is correct, and that they are untrustworthy and unreliable. Sir, the tragedy, a deep tragedy, is that nobody believes the members of the United Party any more, even if they speak the gospel truth.

Mr. Chairman, the United Party’s theme in the censure debate, in the Budget debate and under the Labour and other Votes, has been consistent, namely that under the policy of this Government there cannot be the necessary development to make the homelands viable and to enable this Government to carry out its policy. Under this Government’s policy there can be no proper use made of our manpower. That has been our theme. We little dreamt that we would be so successful, although the Press gave it a lot of publicity, until the hon. the Minister intervened in this debate. The Afrikaans Nationalist Press has been forecasting that we were going to get an important announcement of policy from the various Ministers. According to one we were going to have a bomb, and according to Die Vaderland we were going to have a “nuwe plan” from the Minister of Labour. This Minister got up at the outset and addressed us for over an hour …

That is my liberty.

Yes, I know. I am not saying anything about that, but the hon. the Minister did it with the purpose of trying to sidetrack us in a desperate effort to put us off by attacking us and asking us to state what our policy was, because he knew what our line was going to be again in this debate and how embarrassing it is to him and his followers. Sir, this desperate attempt of his is not going to succeed. Even if I wanted to, I could not possibly in the half hour at my disposal reply to a speech that took the hon. the Minister over an hour to make and other hon. members could not either in their ten minute speeches. I do not intend being sidetracked and shall go back to my theme. I just want to say that, seeing he asked some more questions, I did not realize … [Interjection].

You are running away from me.

I sat quiet while the hon. the Minister spoke and did not interrupt once, because I wanted to be given a fair chance against him. Sir, I did not realize how ignorant the hon. the Minister was about the policy of the United Party as he showed by the silly questions he asked us here to-day. Surely we have made so many statements that he knows that our policy is to develop the reserves politically and economically? Surely he knows that our criticism against this Government is that it is not developing the reserves fast enough and economically. Our Leader, Sir De Villiers Graaff, has often stated in this very House that our policy is to develop the reserves beyond even provincial council status. He likened it to the status of South-West Africa. Surely the hon. the Minister knows that that is our policy and that that was the theme of the address by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout? There was nothing wrong with what the hon. member said; it all fits in with our policy. Surely the hon. the Minister knows, too, that when the Government passed either the Promotion of Self-government Bill, or the Transkei Constitutional Bill—I cannot remember which one it was now—our Leader said here that he was telling the Bantu and the rest of South Africa that we did not consider these promises of independence to be promises from the white man, and we would not carry them out. Sir, our policy is quite clear in that respect. Now, the hon. the Minister attempts to throw some doubt as to which line we are taking. There is no doubt about it. Regarding the point of no return, I want to ask the hon. the Minister why he did not reply to the hon. member for South Coast, when this question was raised, and why he had to wait all this time to work out his long speech in reply to that.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. the Minister could have got up and replied.

Mr. Chairman, may I offer an explanation?

No, the hon. the Minister can do that afterwards.

Sir, could not the hon. the Deputy Minister have done that? Somebody could have done it. I also dealt with the question of the point of no return. Our criticism of both the Progressive Party policy and the Nationalist Party policy is that they can reach a point of no return, whereas with the United Party that point is not reached. The hon. the Minister mentioned there being a legal and a moral aspect. Of course there are these aspects to the policy. As far as the legal aspect is concerned, the hon. the Minister cannot bind future Parliaments and he cannot bind the United Party as to what may happen in the future. On the moral issue we have made our position quite clear. Nobody is under any misapprehension as to what will happen when we get into power. So on the moral basis we are clear as well.

When the hon. the Minister got up, I was expecting some important announcement from him that the other hon. Ministers had not made. Again we have been disappointed. The hon. the Minister has said absolutely nothing that is new. He spent over an hour talking, but said nothing.

My attention has been drawn to a leading article in Die Vaderland of the 20th August in which there is a complaint that I incorrectly quoted from a main news report in an early issue of this paper, issued during the Budget debate. I had said that the Government was preparing the country for economic integration and amidst interjections I went on to say that Die Vaderland had said so. The main news article actually stated that an important statement was expected, probably from the Minister of Labour. It also said that political observers thought that more skilled Bantu would be employed in the white areas and that there was speculation at this stage that it would be within the framework of the Government’s policy on separate and multinational development. And it goes on to say that the mere fact that Bantu work in white areas does not mean integration. When reading Hansard one might get the impression that I said that the report in Die Vaderland had used the words “it would be said this is economic integration.” It did not use those words, and I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression and the paper feels aggrieved. But why it should feel aggrieved I do not know because I used the words they used, i.e. “this is not integration” and, surely, they cannot object to the fact that I used “economic integration”. This Government always claims that what is happening under the policy is not economic integration. Therefore there can be no objection to the word “economic”. This jitteryness is symptomatic of the Nationalist papers today. They are all on edge. No one knows what the other will say or what the Minister will say for that matter on any of the major colour problems which are daily coming to the fore. Why is this so? It is because of this Government’s fetish for restricting by legislation every conceivable point of contact between the different colour groups and promptly nullifying these restrictions by granting exemptions. Die Vaderland has no more idea than Hoofstad about what is to happen to the Chinese in any area or to Bantu mineworkers in the reserves. Why was it necessary for the news reporter referred to, to mention that there was speculation that the employment of Bantu in more skilled jobs in white areas would be within the framework of Nationalist Party policy? Why was there this speculation? Why was it necessary in the very next paragraph to say that this would not be integration? It was necessary because the writer knew very well that people would look upon this as integration. And this further employment of Bantu in the white areas in industry or in any other way, is integration. The leading article then went on to challenge me to prove that the Minister of Labour had not said anything which was not reported in that article. I did not say he had not said anything. I said he had said nothing new. If one looks at this leading article, one sees that the heading is printed in large letters, about three-quarters of an inch thick which reads: “Arbeid —Nuwe plan verwag.” This is Die Vaderland. What did the hon. the Minister say that was new? He said absolutely nothing new. Now I want to challenge Die Vaderland to tell us what the hon. the Minister of Labour said that was new in regard to this employment of Bantu in the white areas.

Is this Die Vaderland’s vote?

The point is that what the Vaderland tried to do here, is typical of what the Afrikaans papers are trying to do and what Nationalists are trying to do outside, to pretend. Die Vaderland keeps on challenging me. Now I challenge them or any other paper to say what new announcement the hon. the Minister of Labour made. It is time they realized that there are two Ministers who control the pattern of labour in South Africa. The hon. the Minister of Labour is not one of them. The first is the hon. the Minister of Transport who does what he likes on the Railways irrespective of Government policy. The second is the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development who dictates the policy for the rest of the country. The country, and especially industry, was all excited after the speech of the hon. the Minister of Finance where he invited industry for a dialogue with him. I should like to remind hon. members that he made this statement when he delivered his Budget Speech. Therefore it could not have been something which was not considered. It must have been approved by the Government. Then again, in his reply on the debate, the hon. the Minister repeated that if industrialists were to help in the development of the homelands the Government would be in a much better position and more willing to help them in the development of industry in the white areas. All this is idle talk; all this talk by the Minister of Finance is idle talk. There is only one man who can talk to industrialists—the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. Once the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Labour agreed to the amendment of the Bantu Labour Act at the beginning of this year authorizing the Minister of Bantu Administration to prohibit Bantu from doing certain work in the white areas, they handed over the control of labour to that Minister. In terms of section 20 (a) of the Bantu Labour Act, the Minister can prohibit the performance of work or the employment or continued employment of Bantu in any specified area, in any specified class of employment, in any specified trade or in the service of a specified employer or class of employer and he can make the prohibition apply in a specified area or right throughout the country. Consequently, it would have been idle for the Minister of Labour, had he tried it, which he luckily did not, to talk of “’n nuwe plan” of his own for labour. Equally the industrialists will be wasting their time to talk to the Minister of Finance if they hope thereby to be able to employ more Bantu in white areas. At the time the Bantu Laws Amendment Bill was passed, I pointed out that this Minister controlled the entire destiny of South Africa that he controlled the entire economy because he can deny labour in the white areas and frustrate development in the Bantu reserves. So, how can the Minister of Finance have a dialogue with industrialists on development in the reserves without the approval of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development? What quid pro quo can the Minister of Finance offer to industrialists as far as Bantu labour is concerned? After all, that is what the industrialists are mainly interested in— Bantu Labour. But after having listened to the talk of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration here this afternoon, I wonder why industrialists would want to see the Minister of Finance. I should like the Minister to tell us what he thinks the Minister of Finance meant when he made that statement. We have had various opinions from the other side about what the Minister actually meant. We say he meant one thing and they say he meant something else. This Minister should tell us what the Minister of Finance meant. I also wanted him to tell us what he intends doing. The Minister of Finance must have consulted him. What new incentives is he going to give industrialists? This Minister is all-powerful and he should tell us what he is doing about the manpower crisis in the country. After all, they must admit that there is such a crisis, otherwise we would not have had the discussions we have been having and the Minister would not have stepped in to prohibit the employment of Bantu in jobs they have not been doing before. The Nationalists have now been in power for 22 years and if the Bantu had only been doing traditional work, it would not have been necessary for him to take this power to maintain our traditional way of life. The first notice of the Minister’s intention to prohibit was published on the 3rd April. It was quite clear that the Minister’s thinking was that no Bantu would be employed in the white areas, other than in a border area, as a counter assistant, a salesman in a shop or café, as a receptionist in a commercial or professional undertaking or as a telephonist in a shop, office, factory or hotel or as a clerk, cashier or typist in a shop. This notice was not lightly published; on the contrary, great thought must have been given to it. The hon. the Deputy Minister with all the publicity he could get said he was responsible for it; he said he was proud of it. In terms of that notice we were entitled to expect one month later a final notice as to what the position was going to be.

You are talking nonsense and you know it.

I am not talking nonsense. In terms of the Act the Minister has to give one month’s notice of his intention to do certain things. However, the first month passed and so the second, the third and the fourth without a final notice and yet just before the election the Deputy Minister was proud of it, proud that he was going to stop integration. On the 7th August, there was a further notice of his intention to prohibit Bantu from doing certain classes of work except on certain conditions. But what a difference there was in the two notices! The first notice was a blanket prohibition, without any exceptions; the second allowed all the prohibited classes to be employed under certain circumstances. In the meantime entrepreneurs had been waiting for four months uncertain as to what the future was going to be. Meanwhile a fifth month has gone by. What made the Minister change his mind so drastically about the type of work he is going to prohibit? Are we now going to hear the specious argument, that it is economic integration if the different colours work together in the same room and at the same time but not integration when they work for the same business but in different offices, or in the same offices but at different times? If it is integration when a Bantu shop assistant or a salesman works alongside a white man, why is it not so when he works as a petrol pump attendant or as a waiter? There must be a reason for these distinctions, and the Minister must tell us. We also want to know why we cannot be told what surveys have been taken into account in coming to a decision about the type of work to prohibit?

You had all that in February.

We have not had the information. We have asked for it but the Minister said he would not tell us. So, I say the Minister is not telling the truth when he says he knows how many people will be involved by the proposed prohibition. He does not know because he does not know how many people are employing Bantu. There are heaps of people employing Bantu that he does not know about. The Minister is not being frank with the House or the country. He is treating this House with contempt; he showed it again this afternoon in his speech. His contempt is in keeping with his arrogance. He has been given so many powers that he now has an empire of himself and has become the most powerful man. He has become arrogant and conceited; he has become too big for his boots. It is either that or he is slipping; he is getting afraid of all the criticism that is coming and he feels he is going to be bowler-battered or, as they may say in his Department, Commissioner-general.

After all, why is the Government in trouble? I am not talking about their minor troubles—about the veracity or otherwise of the Minister of Health, or of the blunders with the Japanese jockey, D’Oliveira and Arthur Ashe, or of the hamhanded handling of the Haak loan or the Chinese community; I am not talking about these. I am talking about the big problem facing South Africa, the problem our financiers, our economists and our industrialists are worried about. It is not necessary for me to tell them what this problem is because they too read the Afrikaans press, the Nationalist press and also the English press. They know what is worrying everybody. They know that what is worrying everybody is what is worrying Sabra and the intellectuals in the Nationalist Party, people who support their policy of separate development to eventual independence. What is worrying them is the lack of development in the reserves. And, Sir, this Minister is responsible for the development in the reserves. He is the responsible Minister and he has failed. That is why he now pretends that the reserves do not have to become viable before they can get their independence. The hon. the Minister got up and said in answer to the Leader of the Opposition: “I say that the homelands do not have to be viable in order to get their independence”, and he mentioned the example of the protectorates. Sir, we do not agree that those Protectorates should have been given their independence. We could not interfere because this was done by the British Government. Sir, when he says that we are in a better position to know what to do because we live alongside these people, we say that that is the very reason why they should not be given their independence; that is why the British and the French and other governments could afford to give independence to their former colonies because they were thousands of miles away. But we are in a different position in that we live right alongside them.

We do not agree with the Miniister’s statement that the homelands do not have to be viable before they can get their independence. We say that unless you make them viable you cannot give them their independence and we say that these reserves cannot be made viable and we have told the hon. the Minister that. Sir, Dr. Verwoerd was wrong when he first embarked upon this policy.

Why?

Because Dr. Jansen, a previous Minister of Native Affairs, as the portfolio was then known, appreciating the problems that lay ahead of the implementation of the policy of apartheid, as it was then known, appointed the Socio-Economic commission, the Tomlinson Commission, to go into this very question as to how we could bring this about and to report to him.

Do you accept that report?

I am dealing with the Tomlinson Commission now, and I will deal with it in my own way. Sir, the Tomlinson Commission made its recommendations and one of those recommendations was that the Government, if it was going to carry out the policy of separate development towards independence, must embark upon a dynamic plan of development within the reserves. The commission said that the matter was one of urgency and that it must be tackled with dedication. The commission recommended that a lot of money must be spent on the development of the homelands. Dr. Verwoerd rejected that. I know that this Minister is spending the money now, but Dr. Verwoerd rejected the commission’s recommendation with regard to the expenditure of money there. He said that it was not necessary to spend all that money; he was going to spend less. Well, Sir, he has been proved wrong and the Government is now trying to catch up as far as expenditure of money in the homelands is concerned. The commission also recommended that white capital and initiative should be encouraged to enter the reserves and Dr. Verwoerd also rejected that.

There was a minority report on that issue.

Yes, there was a minority report signed by two civil servants. I am surprised that the hon. the Minister should even make that interjection. Those two civil servants signed the majority report and after the report had been seen by the Government they asked whether they could alter their report. The chairman said that this was most unusual but he allowed them to submit a minority report and what did they do? They said that they disagreed with the idea of white capital being allowed into the reserves. Sir, I will say this to the credit of Mr. de Wet Nel: He stuck to his guns; he refused to withdraw and adhered to his recommendation.

Do you accept that report?

Sir, I only have half an hour.

You are running away now.

Sir, the hon. the Minister has now turned to agencies to try to help him to develop the reserves. Why did Dr. Verwoerd reject the idea of allowing white capital to go into the reserves? He did it for one reason; he said: “If you have white capital going into the reserves, then you have to have white management and all the other requisites that go with it and you would then establish white colonies.” That is what he wanted to avoid. But now that this Government has adopted the agency system, they are going to bring about what Dr. Verwoerd feared would happen. White capital will go into the reserves together with white management. Sir, we are in favour of white capital going into the homelands and we do not foresee the troubles that Dr. Verwoerd foresaw. This Government is now running away from Dr. Verwoerd’s policy on that point. Sir, it does not help this Minister to tell us that it has always been Nationalist Party policy to establish industries through agencies. The fact is that they never did it; it is only now that they are starting. We are often told how successful this method is but we do not believe that it is successful because we can get no information. The Minister hides his failures in secrecy and it is most difficult for us to find out exactly what is happening. If you question him too closely, Sir, then the ex-school master becomes a petulant school boy and refuses to speak.

I want to ask him this. In reply to a question by me, he said there were employed under the agency system 1,610 Bantu. When I said that a small number like this was infinitesimal he said that I did not understand it. I asked him to explain what he meant and he said: No, he would not. He repeated that twice and then he said he would not tell me, for a good reason. [Interjections.] The Minister said he would not tell me about the agency development when I asked him about it. But the point is this. We are entitled to know. The Minister is not dealing with his own money. He is not giving concessions on his own bit of land but on land owned by the State, and he is using State money to develop it. I Was told that I could get a general form of agreement. I have asked for that and the Department has promised to get me the general form, but unfortunately it has not come yet so I did not see it. Why cannot we know what this agreement was? There is a news item in the Star of the 1st about a platinum mine being developed under a lease to a company, in the Bapa Reserve. It was estimated that the tribesmen would receive R1,200,000 a year from this mine, being 10 per cent of the profits. Now will the Minister please stop talking to the Deputy Minister and tell me this? Is this correct? Is it expected that they will get R1.2 million a year, as being 10 per cent of the profits? Then I want to know whether other companies were also given the opportunity to tender for this lease, to enter into a contract, and under what conditions are the Bantu working in that mine? You see, Sir, on 4th June the hon. member for Orange Grove was informed that the Impala Prospecting Company had applied for permission to allow Bantu labourers to do work normally done by Whites in the mines at Rustenburg and that the application was being considered. On 13th April, 1969, just about a year later, the hon. member for Parktown asked the same question and he received the same reply, viz. that the matter was being considered. Now what is the Government’s policy with regard to mines in the Bantu areas, and what is their policy in regard to the employment of Bantu in those areas? Are they being restricted in the work they do? We could not find out from the hon. the Minister of Labour and I think this Minister must now tell us what he is going to do. Is this mine which is now going to make this terrific profit in the Bapa Reserve, which belongs to the Falconridge Group, according to the newspaper report, which is all we have, a member of the same group as the Impala Mining Company which was referred to earlier by the Minister in answering the previous questions? Is it the same company or is it not, and how do these companies become interested in mines? Are they invited to go there and prospect, or do they go and ask the Government for a contract?

It is important for us to know the terms of this contract in connection with the agency business as well. There are rumours—I do not know whether it is true—that an industrialist will be given a lease of premises built by the Department for 25 years and the rental will be, I understand, 4 per cent of the cost of construction. We have to go by rumours, by what we hear, and I would like the Minister to tell us whether this is correct too. How are they trying to encourage industrialists to go into the Reserves? Is any assurance given to the industrialist that the wage determination will not be applied in the Reserves? We know it has been suspended now. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat broached a multitude of minor matters to avoid the question of their stating a policy. Firstly, arising out of his reaction to what the hon. member for South Coast asked the Minister. I want to quote to him from Hansard of 22nd July. The hon. member for South Coast said—

He was referring to the measure of self-government which had been established in Zululand. That hon. member then put the question very clearly to the hon. the Minister. When the hon. the Minister replied to that to-day, the hon. member for Transkei came forward with a lot of stories and said that the reply could have been presented in a different way. The hon. member for South Coast went further and said—

He wanted to know something further, and I quote—

This is the reply we want. Here the hon. member for South Coast came along and stated that the hon. the Minister had gone too far. He said it was too dangerous, and there the hon. member for Transkei rose to his feet and said that they were in full agreement with the development of the Bantu areas in both the economic and political sphere. It is those differences in that party on which we want clarity. The people of South Africa, the electorate, want clarity as to where they stand with that party. The hon. member touched on a lot of general matters here, but we want clarity on basic principles.

The hon. Opposition are going to the polls with a great clamour and are saying that apartheid has failed. But the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member who has just resumed his seat come and make these statements here. That hon. member supported the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but he spoke against the hon. member for South Coast. That is not what the hon. member for South Coast was in agreement with; he stated that he did not go along with that. We want clarity as to where we stand with him. I now want to mention a few other matters, and it is necessary that we focus attention on them, The hon. the Minister gave a comprehensive elucidation here, and before I go into the dissension in the Oppotion further, I want to state very briefly that we have in 10 years, with the policy of multi-national development, given the Bantu more in both the economic and the political spheres than has been given to them in the previous more than 300 years. This is what we have accomplished, and the various Bantu peoples have maintained their soul under the legislation of this side of the House and under the development which has taken place as a result.

What do we find in regard to the United Party? I want to quote what a few of them have said, because I want to get clarity from them. They are not going to the nation with a clear picture, and they are spreading stories about lack of development and matters of that kind which they want to give out is inconsistent. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said: “Here sits the only party which stands for large-scale political and economic development in the Bantu areas”. He said that they were the only party which did that. Now I should just like that hon. member to clear something up for us. What does he mean by “the only”? Is he turning Nationalist? After all, he knows what development the National Party has very systematically brought about. There are still a few other matters. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout also stated that they admitted that a situation must be created in which people were able to realize themselves without the one dominating the other. The hon. the Minister also referred to that. What did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say in the debate on the 20th July? He said—

How does one reconcile these two things? We want clarity in this country on these matters. The standpoint of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, that this will be shared with the white elite, is not clear to us. We want clarity on this, and the electorate wants clarity on this. To what extent do they want to share? Will it be “one horse, one rabbit”, or what is the position? The hon. member for Bezuidenhout stated that they firmly supported economic and political development. The hon. member for Transkei confirmed this and stated that that was their policy, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not say that. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated here in the debate on 20th July that “The non-Whites will in time share responsibility on a federal basis with the white elite”. Now we want to know, and it is necessary for the electorate to know, where that party wants to go. Does it want to go the way of the hon. member for Houghton and the Progressive Party? Hon. members on the opposite side who do not want to do this, must say so very clearly to us. On these two basic aspects, i.e. economic and political development, the United Party must give the Bantu clarity. It must also give the electorate of South Africa clarity. The hon. the Minister this afternoon issued the following challenge to the United Party: Let us therefore thrash out these various matters now so that we know where we stand. Hon. members on the opppsite side must cease this double-talk.

Then there is the question of the economic development of the homelands, which the United Party wants to have take place so rapidly. Various hon. members on that side referred to this, while a few things are also said about it in this yellow statement of policy booklet of the United Party. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition maintains that the great mass of the non-white labour force should be made into more productive workers. He said that they should as a whole be made more productive. However, how is the United Party going to fit this into our labour pattern? In this yellow booklet the following is said: ’’job reservation is not enough to protect white workers, while lower paid Bantu workers in white border areas are threatening the security of white workers everywhere”. In the policy statement the United Party therefore states that the white worker is being afforded insufficient protection. They state clearly that: “Job reservation does not go far enough”. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition maintains that the mass of non-Whites must be admitted to the labour force and trained to produce greater productivity. It is in regard to these matters that we must have greater clarity from the hon. the Opposition, so that the people of South Africa can know what their policy is. The Whites want to know, and so do the Bantu.

We on this side of the House have a proud record. It is often intimated that the development is not taking place rapidly enough, and then we have the contradictory statements by hon. members on the opposite side. But let us see what happened. The hon. the Minister has already pointed out that in the political sphere there are already eight territorial authorities in various stages of development. In that way we have already set them on the road to development. We are not setting about this matter in an irresponsible way. We are doing so slowly, systematically and step by step, as these people are able to absorb it. There are two factors which play an important role here. The one is the ability of these people to absorb what is being offered to them and to apply it beneficially and in their own interests. The other is the willingness of the Whites to give. We cannot proceed at a pace which could disturb the balance to one side or the other. It is very clear that the National Party is applying its policy systematically and according to circumstances in both the economic and the political sphere. As far as economic development is concerned, I just want to make one further point. The United Party has stated that they will bring in white capital. The National Party policy is that this should only be done on a controlled agency basis. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that the homelands represented one-seventh of our agricultural land. However, one cannot discuss the size of the area as a basis, only the agricultural potential of an area. When one examines the agricultural potential of those areas from the north down to the Transkei, one finds that it will in future probably be as great as the industrial potential. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, nothing has been more illustrative of the defensive position of the Government to-day than the speech by the hon. the Minister and the speech that we have just heard from the hon. member for Nelspruit. One thing that the hon. the Minister learnt very well from the late Dr. Verwoerd. was something which he demonstrated so well to-day, namely “when in difficulty, resort to the pure theory of separate development; get up into the clouds with separate development and you are all right”. We know very well what the theory of separate development is. We have listened to it for the best part of 20 years. We know to the finest detail the theory of that policy. But what we, the country, and especially the Minister, more than anybody; are concerned with and that is why he is trying to hide it, is how the pure theory of separate development is to be applied in the harsh reality of 1970. That is what we are concerned with. That is what we want to hear from the hon. the Minister. The object of this debate is for us to vote money to the hon. the Minister, which he will spend on applying his policy to the reality of South Africa to-day. So far, having listened to the hon. the Minister for an hour and 10 minutes, we have heard not one word of that. But I suppose, Sir, in the course of the discussion in the next day or two, we can hope at least that something of reality will emerge from him.

But let me come to one or two of the questions which the hon. gentleman put to this side of the House. First of all, there was the question of “the point of no return”, which will be dealt with by my hon. leader in Natal later this afternoon in this debate. It was the hon. the Minister’s Commissioner-General who raised this issue. The hon. the Minister was at the inauguration of the territorial authority in Zululand. He heard the Commissioner-General not once, but two or three times, emphasize to a large audience that the point of no return had been reached. He raised it. So, dealing with a matter of this importance, it is quite right that we should expect something in detail from the hon. the Minister as to what he intends in that regard. The hon. member for South Coast will deal with that later on.

The hon. gentleman asks us and others whether we accept the Tomlinson Commission’s report. What is that report, Sir? It deals with a factual analysis.

Do you agree with Basson?

Let me make my speech now. It deals with a factual analysis of the facts of South Africa. It makes certain recommendations which it says are indispensable to the success of the hon. the Minister’s policy. We agree with the factual analysis, by and large. We agree that in order for their policy to succeed, the recommendations, by and large, of that commission had to be accepted. But one of our main criticisms of the hon. gentleman is that he has run so far away in the application of his policy from what that commission has recommended that there is no prospect whatever of it succeeding.

Now we come to this semantic argument about “veelvolkige land”, “nasiedom”, and so forth. It gets us absolutely nowhere. The term “nation” is inappropriate to any multi-racial or multi-national state. One never hears it used by the Prime Minister of Malaya in regard to his people, who are Chinese and Malayans. One never hears it used by the Swiss President in relation to the Swiss people. One seldom hears it, indeed, used by a British Prime Minister in regard to the various peoples who make up Great Britain to-day.

What one can talk of with some measure of intelligibility, is the South African people. That is the term which is used by this side of the House. Let me say to the hon. gentleman opposite, do they include the Coloured people as part of the South African nation?

No.

Very well, Sir. I was hoping to get that answer. Then I take it it is accepted that for the future they are to be part of the South African people, although not part of the South African nation.

Population.

Yes. One seems to get general acceptance of that. Now, Sir, this is precisely the standpoint of the United Party. When we had at our congress “een volk. een land, een nasie”, it was a congress which was representative of the white people, and related to them. Just as the hon. gentlemen opposite cannot see their way to accept the Coloured people as part of the South African nation, but would prefer to use the term “the South African people” when dealing with the various races which they accept as being indigenous to this country and part of the people of this country, so do we use that term in respect of the Bantu people as well. I may say, in regard to an earlier debate, that the Leader of the Opposition has never used the term “nation” in respect of the Bantu people.

Sir, let us come to the question of the repeal of the territorial authorities. The hon. the Minister is so busy at the moment dealing with other matters that he seems to have no interest in this debate at all. Perhaps his Deputy will make some notes and pass them to him later. What is the position of this side of the House? We shall repeal or modify anything which this Government has enacted and which is inconsistent with the Bantu people remaining part of the subject population of the South African sovereign Government. At the same time, as we have said over and over again, we stand for the development of the Native reserves. As the hon. member for Transkei has said to-day, we stand for the development of the Native reserves as parts of the South African State, both economically and in the sphere of politics. There are many aspects of the development which has taken place under the hon. the Minister which can be adapted and modified, to fit in with the United Party’s view of South Africa as a federal state in which the various Bantu races represent some of the federal elements.

Let us come back to the question of the application of the hon. the Minister’s policy to the realities. I referred, the last time I spoke, to the proceedings at the inauguration of the Territorial Authority. As I have said, we are to-day concerned with the application and the reality of this policy. I should like to point out what the very first thing was which the new executive officer, Chief Buthelezi, demanded on the occasion when he was given his new authority by the hon. the Minister.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I am afraid my time is very limited. The hon. member can make his speech later. Chief Buthelezi said: “This raises quite a number of issues. The first of these, which I consider a priority, is for the Government to give the Zulu nation more territory, for without more territory our scheme will not make sense.” This is what the hon. the Minister’s Chief Executive Officer said. I have only two minutes, left, but I want to say that this very point is dealt with in the latest edition of the house journal of the hon. the Minister’s Department. It talks about the “creation of homogeneous administrative areas concentrated in coherent homelands where possible”, The journal then goes on to say: “There are formidable obstacles to be overcome in the immediate future if the rather scattered Natal homelands are to form an adequate basis for a viable state under the Zululand Territorial Authority.” Every document one can find points to the fact that this is an essential part of the hon. the Minister’s policy. They all point out that, if the policy of the Minister is to be implemented, enormous obstacles have to be faced. This is the main debate on the hon. the Minister’s Department, and all we have had is an airyfairy discussion on the philosophy which is behind the Minister’s policy. We all know that. We have heard it a thousand times. What we do not know and what we and the people want to know, is how the hon. gentleman is going to implement this policy, in its various aspects, the very first of which is the provision of land which can form the basis of a viable state. We have not heard a single word here to-day in that regard.

In addition, a commission was appointed almost ten years ago by Mr. Sauer, when he was Minister of Lands. This commission was to inquire into this very problem of the reallocation of the boundaries of the Native reserves in Natal. It has done its work on two occasions. We have not yet heard which aspects of that commission’s report, whatever they may be, this Government has accepted and what they are going to do about it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Zululand, who has just resumed his seat, is, after all these years, still under the illusion that separate development is a mere theory. That hon. member has accompanied us on tours to go and see what is actually being done within those homelands. What did that hon. member see there? Why did he go there? Did he go there to see what was being done and what was being achieved there, or did he go there merely to suck poison from the tour which he could subsequently use? When reference was made by way of an interjection while the hon. member was making his speech to the Report of the Tomlinson Commission, he said that they only accepted the factual findings of the Tomlinson Commission, According to him they accepted it only in part. In contrast to that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout stated very clearly in this House that when the Tomlinson Commission Report appeared he and his party accepted its general principles. He said:

There we immediately have now the double-talk of the United Party. The hon. member for Transkei rose to his feet here and requested the privilege of the half hour. In a brilliant speech the hon. the Minister had put an elementary question to him. The least we expected was that he would reply to that question in the course of that half-hour speech. It ought to have been easy for him to reply to the question whether the United Party, which is laying claim to taking over the reins of government, would or would not repeal the political development which has already been in the Transkei and in Zululand. I would be pleased if the hon. member for Bezuidenhout would refrain from distracting the attention of the hon. member for Transkei. I hope the next speaker on that side of the House will furnish a very clear reply to this question. In the short while this debate has been in progress, it has become very clear that the United Party has no well-considered Bantu policy on our relations politics. It has been shown very clearly during the past six weeks, but particularly during the past few minutes during which this Vote has been under discussion, that there is a profound division in the United Party. [Interjections.] Yes, hon. members on that side of the House may laugh about this, but it is an embarrassed laughter. There is a profound division in the United Party on our relations politics. To every member in this House and also to every political observer outside it has during the past six weeks of this Session become strikingly obvious that there are three different streams in the United Party. Firsly, there is the Douglas Mitchell stream in the United Party. How much sympathy and how much support this stream enjoys, I do not know. The hon. member for South Coast will know better, because he stands for a particular direction in that sphere. Secondly, there is the Japie Basson stream. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout indicated clearly to us here for what stream he stands. I want to say that he has already placed his party in a very embarrassing position, but this afternoon he placed it in an even more embarrassing position after the hon. the Minister had finished speaking. Then there is, in addition, the Jacobs stream in that party. The hon. member for Hillbrow is the man who says that we Nationalists are wearing chequer-board spectacles, to use his own words, and that we only see either white or black. Then he added at once that, after all, there can also be shades of grey. This reveals another stream in that party. The members of that party will themselves know how much support and how much sympathy each one of those streams has. What is most tragic of all is that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is alternating between these three streams. He is going from pillar to post and he does not know where to next because he evidently does not himself know which is the strongest stream in that party. On the 20th July of this year the hon. the Leader of the Opposition levelled at the hon. the Prime Minister the accusation that the race policies of the Government were isolating white South Africans to an increasing extent from all the major European powers, as well as the Anglo-Saxon powers. This can be read in Volume I, column 33 of Hansard. In other words, this is the situation which has resulted from the policy of separate development. I should now like to put a question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I am sorry that he is not present, but perhaps one of the front-benchers there will have the courage to reply to this: How far is the Leader of the Opposition prepared to go to satisfy the outside world; how far is he prepared to go with our relations politics in South Africa to satisfy the outside world? We should like a reply to this. Will his 25 representatives in this House satisfy the world? Sir, hon. members on the opposite side must reply to this. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is levelling the accusation at us that our race policy, our policy of separate development, is isolating us from the major countries of the world. Will they follow a policy which will not isolate us from the world? That is a very clear question. How far is the Opposition prepared to go? Did the policy which was followed in Kenya, the policy of “partnership” under the old British Colonial Office, satisfy the world? Did the white man retain his identity there, or has the white man left Kenya?

There are still thousands of Whites.

Yes, but what say do they have there: who is governing Kenya; who is the Prime Minister of Kenya? Must I deduce from that argument that the white man will remain here in South Africa, but that the Prime Minister of this country, according to that recipe, will be a black man? Has the Federation of the Rhodesias satisfied the world? Did Africa satisfy the world? Do hon. members on that side want to take South Africa along the road taken by Africa, when they level such accusations as were levelled by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition at us here? What would satisfy the world? No, Africa has given the answer: Absolute equality will satisfy the world; absolute equalization and the elimination of all colour bars will satisfy the world. Sir, I want to say this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: When he makes such utterances and accusations, then he influences the World Council of Churches to adopt resolutions such as the one they adopted last week. Yes, Sir, those bodies, the enemies of South Africa, see here within South Africa an ally in the United Party when its leaders make such statements, because they know that that party will not follow the policy of separate development, contrary to what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout says. For that reason we can safely accept that the United Party will never sit on this side because no nation will allow any speculation with its survival and its future, and that is why the people will not vote the United Party into office. Until such time as we are given a more acceptable alternative from the Opposition side, I know and I believe that the problems which arise out of the policy of separate development are not political problems, but problems of national importance. We have over a long period been placing legislation on the Statute Book; we have authorization to act; we are giving shape to the Bantu homelands. Because of its multi-nationality one can govern a country like South Africa according to the principles and the policy of only one party, and those are the principles and the policy of the National Party, and that is why we will abide by them. Sir, I maintain that the plans have been drawn up; it took a long time; we had to demolish old ruins to make room in order to build, and there is no doubt, these building operations are under way. Just look at the progress which has been made in the sphere of political separation; look at the achievements which have been made in the sphere of politics. Sir, I want to say this to the hon. the Minister: He deserves a vote of thanks and appreciation not only for this clear policy line which he indicated here to-day, but he and his officials, who have an enormous task in South Africa, deserve a vote of thanks and appreciation from every white man and from every black man in South Africa for the clear guiding lines which have up to now been laid down.

[Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the degree of importance which hon. members opposite attach to me. I want to say at once that when the hon. the Minister got up and spent more than an hour of our time at the beginning of this debate …

My time.

Yes, his time; I am not denying that. I am saying that he took his time at the beginning of this debate. Sir, when he did that my mind went back to previous Ministers of Bantu Administration, because it proved at once that he was going to try to get in first and try to meet the case which he knew was coming against him by putting up all this mass of meaningless verbiage. But he was not prepared to discuss the native policy of the Government, which is the issue before us. That is the one issue which he was determined not to deal with it, nor was the hon. member who has just sat down. Do you know, Sir, that he devoted less than half a minute of his speech to an outline of Nationalist Party policy; the rest of the time he was asking policy; the rest of the time he was asking questions. Not since my eldest son was five years old have I known anybody who could ask so many questions within such a short time as the hon. member did this afternoon. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Nelspruit is in exactly the same position. Sir, they do not want to discuss their policy; that is the one thing they do not want to discuss. Then, Sir, the hon. the Minister comes along at this late stage to deal with the position that arose in the Censure debate. Let me read to you what happened on that occasion, because he took half an hour to deal with one issue, the sovereignty of Parliament. That is what he was dealing with here this afternoon. That is the issue which I put to him in the Censure debate and to which he gave his reply this afternoon. I want to read out what he said, and it is no good his trying to get away from it; he said this clearly and one of his most senior officials said to me afterwards: “I never believed that I would hear my Minister say that there was a limitation to the sovereignty to the Parliament of South Africa”.

That is an untruth.

Sir, I do not expect that from the Minister. When he has recovered his equanimity he will probably be sorry for that remark. He may even come to me privately and apologize afterwards. Sir, he has to accept my bona fides as I have been trying to accept his. Let us get down to exactly what happened. Let us have a look at Hansard, seeing that he has been so fond of quoting Hansard. Sir, I quote from col. 257 of No. 1; this is what I said—

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.

“At this juncture.” You notice, Sir, that he qualified it at once. I went on to say—

I did not nod my head; I gave my reply to-day.

Sir, on this page the hon. the Minister interjected four times and never once in respect of that matter …

I gave you my reply to-day.

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 …

[Interjections] I am sorry if the Minister does not like it. I cannot help it if he does not. I am not here to tell the Minister what he likes; I am here to tell him what is Hansard whether he likes it or not. Let him stop becoming so flustered about it, whether he likes it or not—

Then I asked him about the boundaries of the Bantustans—

Now, why did I raise this particular point? The Minister has a bad memory; The Minister has looked at my Hansard, but why did he not look to find out why I raised this point on this occasion? Let him turn to Column 196 and look at his own speech and at the interjection by the hon. member for Orange Gove—

Then the Minister goes on—

To full independence?

Yes, it can end in that. For the hundredth time we say that.

From that he went on, and when I dealt with sovereignty he said yes, there was a point of no return beyond which Parliament could not act at all.

I said it to-day. You are in a trance.

No, the hon. the Minister has already forgotten what he said to-day. What did he say to-day? He said that there were moral as well as legal reasons and he said that there was no legal reasons; in other words, there was no limitation on the sovereignty of Parliament. When I discussed the matter here on 22nd July, he said that there was a limitation on our sovereignity and I finished my speech then by asking what had happened to the sovereignty of our Parliament. Because he denied it, He limited the sovereignty of Parliament, but to-day he leaves that door closed and says there is morality. What does he know about morality in his policy towards the Bantu of South Africa? What does he know about morality in regard to the Zulu people, when he made that speech at the opening of their territorial authority the other day. What a shocking speech he made! Did he talk about independence? Did he tell them he was promising them independence? Morality? That word does not lie in the mouth of the hon. the Minister. Sir, I say he denied the sovereignty of Parliament and to-day he is trying to get around it.

Mr. Chairman, it became very apparent from the speech made by the hon. member for South Coast, who has just resumed his seat, precisely in how much difficulty the United Party finds itself this afternoon. If he had looked carefully at his own Hansard and read it, he would have read the following statement there. After he had himself dealt with the questions which he had put to the hon. the Minister, he said the following, and I quote—

Now I am asking the United Party and everybody present here to-day what the hon. the Minister did if it was not to furnish the replies under this Vote at the request of the hon. member for South Coast. If one does not have a case, one does what the hon. members did here this afternoon.

Now I want to point out the following. The hon. member for South Coast did not try to reply to one single question put by the hon. the Minister. He was unable to do so, and we know it. I now want to know why those hon. members are unable to reply. I think that in regard to this question, i.e. the independence of the Bantu homelands in South Africa, the United Party finds itself in a domestic crisis. They cannot evade the implications of what they have entangled themselves in. In 1959 when Dr. Verwoerd rose to his feet here in this House and, made the speech on Bantu self-government, they had the choice, but they allowed the opportunity to pass. This domestic crisis of the United Party is absolutely inevitable and unavoidable. Why? Because the United Party has arrived, and will have to arrive at the crossroads where it will have to make its choice as soon as one of these Bantu nations gains independence in South Africa. They will do so. I am convinced that even the hon. member for Houghton will still live to see this. Why will they be confronted by this inevitable choice, and why are they trying to avoid it? The reply is very clear, it is namely that the point of departure of the Opposition is that South Africa is “one multi-racial people of 20 million’’. That is the standpoint of those hon. members.

If one were to ask what the basic view of the United Nations and the outside world is on the Republic of South Africa, they would say, and they do this in season and out, that South Africa consists of “one complex society, a multi-racial state of 20 million people”,. If we were to ask the hon. member for Houghton what her basic view on South Africa is, she would tell us, South Africa consists of “a a multi-racial state of 20 million people”. If one were to ask the Opposition what their basic view of South Africa is, we see that it is the same as that of the U.N., the outside world and the Progressive Party, i.e. that South Africa is a “multi-racial and complex society consisting of 20 million people”. Between those four there is no difference. They are four udders on the same cow, i.e. the outside world, the U.N. the Progressive Party and the United Party. All that is happening now is that the United Nations organization and the outside world are making certain deductions from this basic view and hypothesis. They stand apart, they view this matter objectively, and they are honest and because they are not directly involved in the matter, they take it to its logical consequences by advocating equality for all, regardless of colour. The Progressive Party, a little less honest, makes certain deductions from this basic hypothesis, but the United Party in its attempt to be obliging and to gain the favour of its voters so that it can regain power, finds itself the furthest driven into a corner of all these three bodies as a result of the fact that they have been carrying this basic view along with them since the days of the old Domion Party. This is the choice facing the Opposition, and they are welcome to laugh about it if they want to. The fact of the matter is that the United Party, in respect of our relationships policy, has never severed the umbilical cord linking it to its past. That is why the United Party finds itself in this position.

Now, as the hon. the Minister said, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is beginning to see these things. He is the restless anticipator and the hon. member for South Coast is the stubborn recalcitrant. Now the United Party finds itself caught in a position from which it cannot extricate itself. We on this side of the House have great respect for the hon. member for Zululand, and I, personally, also have great respect for him because in my opinion he is an honest politician. He was the only one on that side of the House who tried to furnish a reply to a very important question, i.e. whether the United Party, if they were to come into power, would undo what had been accomplished with the Bantu homelands and what their policy in that regard was. If I understood him corrently, he said something more or less to this effect: “That we will repeal or modify anything” if it were opposed to the concept of one nation in South Africa.

No.

Then the hon. member must tell me precisely what he said. I could not hear his last words properly.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must proceed.

The hon. member for Zululand said “We will repeal or modify …” And I now want to hear the last part of the hon. member’s statement.

Anything which is inconsistent with these Bantu homelands remaining part of South Africa.

In other words, I did understand the hon. member correctly after all. If I understood the hon. member correctly, the hon. Opposition must adopt the attitude that if a Bantu homeland were to be made independent, they, when they come to power, will “repeal or modify” such a statutory provision.

No.

It is an extremely important reply which we are now getting from hon. members on the opposite side. An honest politician states that if any of the Bantu homelands were to receive independence … [Interjections.] The United Party has a terrible problem. The hon. member for Zululand has just this moment, and in the presence of everyone here in the House, admitted and stated that I was interpreting him correctly and that if some of these Bantu homelands were to gain their independence, they would “repeal or modify” it if they should come into power. [Interjections.] If the hon. the Opposition does not want “repeal or modify” it, they must then tell us what they will do with a Bantu nation living in a homeland which has obtained its independence. What will they do? We will afford hon. members on the opposite side another opportunity so that they can make it clear to us what their policy in regard to this important matter is. Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout must also tell us how he explains his standpoint in regard to this matter. We have reached the crossroads of relations politics in South Africa. The United Party is going to come up hard against this principle and consistency of the Government in respect of the honest, fair, just and Christian manner, based on sound principles, with which we are applying our policy of multinational development. They cannot escape it. Why not? Because they will have to agree with me that it is clear that in Southern Africa, in the seventies, there is no future other than the mutual and inter-related co-operation of Southern African states with each other. Surely this goes without saying, and the hon. Opposition cannot dispute it. How is one going to achieve co-operation among these States, including Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi and others which may still be added, if one is not prepared to give, that right of self-determination to the Transkei as well, our own Xhosa people, to the Zulus, to the Tswanas and to all the other peoples? How can one reconcile those two things? It is quite impossible and one can never do so. The Opposition must realize that it will have to furnish an honest reply because it is now standing at the crossroads and there is a crisis within the ranks of the party. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, to anyone who has been following the debate up to now, it must be clear that we have been speaking at cross purposes. The United Party or any other party that comes into power may obviously change laws regarding matters over which this Parliament still has jurisdiction. Therefore, if Parliament still has jurisdiction over the Transkei and Zululand when any party assumes the reins of government, that party has the power to amend or repeal laws regarding those territories. [Interjections.] Ten minutes pass very quickly and there is a great deal to which I want to reply. Surely this is clear, and this is the only thing hon. members on this side of the House are saying. We add to that, however, that when a territory has become independent and has been removed from the jurisdiction if Parliament, this Parliament can do nothing about that; it cannot revoke that. What is this argument about? It is a sclear as daylight. We have never denied that the matter is over and done with once a territory such as the Transkei has acquired the same international position as Lesotho, and that this party, if it should come into power, will have nothing to say about that.

May I ask a question.

To couch this in legal terms, I shall say that if a territory has passed out of the jurisdiction of Parliament, surely it goes without saying that Parliament will have no further authority over the territory.

Do you also want to bring the Transkei back from its present stage of development?

I want to repeat that if the party comes into power and has jurisdiction over the entire country, as the position is at the moment, it can act according to circumstances and pursue its own policy. But it has never been our policy that the Transkei should be led back from the position in which it is at present. Our standpoint has repeatedly been put in black and white.

What about Zululand?

The hon. the Minister raised a whole number of points about which I want to say a few words. But before coming to that, I want to say that as I was listening to him certain questions occured to me and I hope the hon. the Minister will enlighten us. A great deal has been said here about independence. That is the point at issue now. As I understand it, the policy of the Government is that a territory such as the Transkei should have the right to become independent. He must tell me whether this is so. Dr. Verwoerd said in one interview after the other, inter alia, in the one with Field Marshal Montgomery, “I am not saying those territories should leave South Africa and become independent; all I am saying is that they should have the right to become independent”.

Put them on that road.

Yes, but there is a difference between the two matters. Let us for once and all get the Bantu debate on a sound basis and let the Government tell us exactly what it means. We shall be prepared to say what we mean. In other words, in that case the question is not that they will be pushed from the jurisdiction of South Africa but that they have the right to become independent. That right of becoming independent is based, according to the leaders before them, on the right of self-determination. In other words, if I understand this correctly, those territories will have the right to say whether they want to become independent or not. We, as a responsible Opposition, should also take notice of the wishes of those people. There are no representatives of the non-white peoples in this House. We cannot simply adopt the point of view that they want to become independent. There is the right of self-determination. Therefore, I want to ask the hon. the Minister if the Bantu do not have that right of self-determination already, at this very moment, when does that right of self-determination become operative? Does Parliament, or do those people, have the final say? At what point shall we know when the right of self-determination becomes operative? I see here in the Government’s standpoint a contradiction between independence and the right of self-determination.

Do you recognize that right?

We have always recognized the right of self-determination. I want to go further and ask the hon. the Minister this. When the right of self-determination becomes operative, how will he have that right exercized? Will he have that right exercized by the entire people, for example, of the Transkei? This is very important, because at present the Parliament of the Transkei is not elected entirely by the Xhosa people, wherever they may be living in South Africa. A very large percentage of members are appointed. If the day had to come when the right of self-determination was being exercized by the Parliament that was not representative of the Xhosa people, we would have created a very dangerous situation for ourselves.

You are doing an egg dance.

No, I want the Minister to reply to the points I am raising now. We want to know how that right of self-determination will be exercized.

I have already replied to that.

Will it be exercized through the voice of all the Xhosa? If a parliament that is not representative of all the Xhosa, because many of its members are still nominated, has to decide to withdraw from the Republic, the descendants of the Xhosa will always be able to say, “We have been fooled. We as a people never took that decision”. I am prepared to concede that if the majority of the Xhosa in South Africa were to decide to-day that they wanted to withdraw from the Republic, we would be faced with a situation where we would have to take the wishes of those people into consideration in all seirousness. We want the Minister’s reply in this regard. When we have had that, we shall be able to continue with the debate.

There are a few points which the hon. the Minister mentioned. In the first place he rejected the challenge of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. At the same time he also rejected the invitation of the hon. the Minister of Finance by adopting the attitude that businessmen who came to talk to him, should come to the Government only “to learn”. The Leader of the Opposition gave the Government an opportunity of placing its cards on the table. I want to tell the Minister that if he ever wants to have any hope of making the ideas for which his party stands acceptable to the people, they should not be afraid to reveal the full consequences thereof in the political and economic fields. It never goes any further than words, intentions and formulas. Not once has one hon. member on that side said, “Here are the full consequences of what we want to do; we are submitting them to the people”. The attempt made by the Leader of the Opposition is also rejected. Will the Minister explain the full consequences to us?

We have heard a great deal about multinationalism and multi-racialism. I can probably bring 100 quotations of leaders of that side in which they have used the word “multiracialism” in connection with South Africa. Even the present Prime Minister has used it. It has been used in official documents of South Africa. Our standpoint is that there is no difference between the two. We are multiracial and we are also multi-national. I should like to indicate where hon. members on the opposite side go wrong. They attack the Leader of the Opposition on a legalism. They attack him on a constitutional concept. When we as Afrikaans-speaking people speak of “volke” (peoples) and “nasies” (nations), we confuse the words. For example, we speak of the “Boerenasie” (Boer nation) and we also speak of the “Afrikanervolk” (Afrikaner people).

It is the same thing.

There we have it now. The Minister says it is the same thing.

“Race” is something different.

We confuse the words “ras” (race), “volk” (people) and “nasie” (nation). [Interjection.] I beg your pardon, I mean “volk” and “nasie”. Years ago Dr. Diederichs wrote a book on the subject, and his definitions of “volk” and “nasie” differ completely from those of other authors. My point is this: In English the concept “nation” is a legal concept. For example, we speak of the “Swiss nation”. This does not mean that there are not different peoples in Switzerland. “Nation” is a constitutional concept, a legal concept. It is not a biological concept. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, multi-nationality in South Africa is a simple concept which the National Party has accepted. To put it to the United Party in simple language: As a result of historical facts, we have in South Africa certain ethnic Bantu peoples who are settled in their own areas. We, as a National Party, accept this.

We accept it.

If you accept it, it is surely a simple matter to accept that the National Party’s policy is aimed at leading those peoples along the road to eventual independence within their own national context. Does the hon. member for Bezuidenhout understand this? The United Party must accept that the basic point of difference between us is that while we say that those people must be homogeneous in their homelands, where they are developing, the United Party wants them brought in within the overall federal context. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout must state his policy here clearly and distinctly. Is it also the United Party’s policy to allow the multi-national peoples that are here to obtain their own autonomy and independence in their homelands if they want it?

That is not the policy of the Party.

Is it not your policy?

Our policy is a federation.

Your policy is a federation? Let us just take the federation policy further.

The Tomlinson Report states it as such.

No, the Tomlinson Report does not. The Tomlinson Report states that those people can obtain their independence within their own homelands and develop accordingly. I now want to deal with this federation plan. We have many peoples in South Africa, of which 19.6 per cent are Whites, 10.6 per cent are Coloureds, 3.1 per cent are Asiatics and 66.7 per cent are Bantu peoples. That 66.7 per cent of the Bantu peoples is divided up into the following ethnic groups: the Transkei Xhosa, totalling 16.1 per cent, the Ciskei Xhosa totalling 3.7 per cent, the Zulu people totalling 18.5 per cent, the Tswana totalling 7 per cent, the Southern Sotho totalling 7 per cent, the Northern Sotho totalling 6.2 per cent, the Shangaan and the Tsonga totalling 2.4 per cent, the Swazi totallig 1.9 per cent, the Southern Ndebele totalling 1.9 per cent, the Venda totalling 1.6 per cent and the other groups totalling 4 per cent. In the United Party’s policy they propose that 8 representatives be given in this Parliament to the Bantu people, consisting of about 13 7 million people. The hon. member knows that this House of Assembly consists of 166 members, representing in this Parliament 19.6 per cent of the population of the Republic of South Africa. In a federal House of Assembly the 10.6 per cent of the Coloured population would be represented by six people, the Asiatics, totalling 3.1 per cent, by two people, and the Bantu peoples, totalling 66.7 per cent, by eight people. According to the United Party’s ideas the 66.7 per cent of the Bantu peoples are subdivided into 10 historically ethnic-divided peoples. How does the United Party suggest should these eight representatives in this House be divided up among the Bantu peoples? This question was put clearly to the United Party when, in the Langlaagte election, I published a pamphlet in which I stated that the logical consequence would be that these 66.7 per cent of the Bantu peoples in South Africa would not be satisfied to have eight representatives. Mr. Chairman, can you imagine how the United Party will allocate these people? How are these eight representatives going to be elected? Are 16.1 per cent of the Xhosa going to obtain one representative, or will the Venda population of 1.6 per cent also obtain one representative? Eventually there would be a Parliament in the Transkei, another one in Zululand, one in Tswanaland, and one in Vendaland, and in each of the other countries which is eventually going to become independent. We want to know how the United Party is going to divide them up. The United Party says that the 20 million people of South Africa will be represented in this Parliament. I then want to ask whether 66.7 per cent of the people will forever be satisfied with just eight representatives in this House of Assembly, when 10.6 per cent of the population, i.e. the Coloureds, is given six representatives, and the 3.1 per cent Asiatics are given two representatives? Sir, surely it does not make sense; there is no logic to it all. The logical consequence is going to be that 66.7 per cent of these people are going to revolt in South Africa, and you must remember that those people are going to sit in this House. You are going to create a legal forum here for those people to agitate and say: “Why must we, who constitute 66.7 per cent of the population, be satisfied with eight representatives in this House, while you, who constitute 19.6 per cent of the population, obtain 166 representatives?” Sir, you must not forget that those eight representatives, who are going to sit here, are going to be people of the calibre of the hon. member for Houghton, of the calibre of Sam Kahn who was here previously, of Margaret Ballinger and people of that kind. That is what those eight representatives are going to be like. We know them, after all; we know what kind of people will be elected. They are going to be the people who will represent 10.6 per cent of the population, i.e. the Coloureds; also the people who are going to represent 3.1 per cent of the population,i.e. the Asiatics. One would have an agitation block here which is going to agitate unanimousely that more representatives be given to those people and that their representation should be pro rata in respect of the representation of the 19.6 per cent of the population of South Africa, i.e. the Whites. Sir, if those people did not agitate for that they would be the biggest political fools in South Africa. Of course they would agitate for that. How is the United Party going to satisfy the world with that kind of representation; how are they going to satisfy the U.N.; how are they going to satisfy the hon. member for Houghton? No, Sir, we want clarity about the federal policy of the United Party. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and other members on that side who are still going to speak, must clarify this matter for us. Sir, the National Party has a clear, consistent policy of multi-national development in South Africa; it is logical; it is moral; it is ethical and it is of a high standard.

Sir, I just want to dwell for a moment on the point which the hon. the Minister mentioned, i.e. that there is an economic committee, which was established as a sub-committee of the Bantu Affairs Commission to work out the further development in the homelands. I am fortunate in being a member of that committee, and I want to say that the committee, under the chairmanship of Prof. Lombard, will shortly make its recommendations to the Minister in respect of the economic development of the Bantu homelands. Emphasis is being placed, in particular, on the practical settlement of the Bantu ethnic units in their homelands. A comprehensive task, which required a lot of study and research, has virtually been completed. The committee is already engaged in final recommendations to the Minister, and we hope to be able to submit them to him within a tolerable space of time. The settlement task will be a comprehensive one. The purpose is to make a determined and co-ordinated attack on this problem, through a maximum effort in terms of money and manpower. [Time expired.]

I have listened for more than an hour to a speech of the hon. the Minister which I thought he would make at the beginning of his Vote and not at the end, and I also listened to the hon. the Deputy Minister, and the whole affair is a big smokescreen in an endeavour to drive a wedge between the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, the hon. member for South Coast and other hon. members. Then there were such elementary questions. If we were now to come into power, what would we do with the constitutional rights, or the right of administration, which have thus far been given to the reserves? And then there was another question, and there the hon. the Deputy Minister was actually in his element. Once a country is sovereign and independent, would we try to destroy this by means of this Parliament? I cannot imagine a more ridiculous question. If a country has obtained its sovereign independence we have no control or jurisdiction over it; it may do as it likes, and that has nothing to do with us. But with all these smokescreens we do not come to the cardinal point, and that is that if we have 14 million Bantu in the year 1970, and if by projection we shall have 30 million Bantu in the year 2000, with all this Government’s idealism and ideology, this Minister will be the first to admit that with the best efforts of the Whites here in South Africa, those areas, which have been allocated to them, will not be able to contain half of them.

The hon. the Minister has, after all, become the creator of peoples.

No, that is surely the work of Providence.

The hon. the Minister has appropriated the right for himself. He does not want to acknowledge that there will be a large Bantu population as such here within the Republic of South Africa [Interjections.] We have debated this previously, and we said that while all the white elements that have come together here have made one people in the Republic, he does not want to acknowledge that the Bantu that have come here can also become a people. What applies to the one applies to the other. But I want to come back to the practical point and ask where, in the year 2000, even though eight independent sovereign areas have been created, covering 12 per cent of the land in South Africa, with an additional 1.6 million morgen which must go to them—making it 13 per cent in all—will these 30 million people work, eat and live? For whom do they work? And do you know, Sir, what this Minister said? He simply said that the white area in South Africa would prosper to such an extent, and its economy would be so strong that it could pay for the development of those areas, m order to make them self-sufficient, that is what he said. He does not take into consideration that the over-all majority of those millions will still have to work in the Republic of South Africa.

In other words, you simply want to make them one people.

The overall majority of them will still have to work in the Republic of South Africa, and it is in connection with that work that we have been debating for days and days, and this is what this Government would so much like to get away from. After all we know why the smokescreen was created this afternoon. We know why we had this long speech of 1¼ hours. It was because we say that all the Bantu, or the overall majority of them, will have to work in the Republic of South Africa. And the hon. the Minister goes further. He accuses us of advocating uncontrolled employment. Since when? Who advocated that? We have never advocated uncontrolled employment. We advocated controlled employment of the labour which industry and commerce needs, on the basis that we shall discuss with the trade unions where they can work and in what categories they can work. But do you know what the hon. the Minister is doing. For him there is only a top and a bottom step. For him there are only the top and bottom rungs as far as labour is concerned, and there is nothing in between. He says we speak of the highest rung.

You spoke of the highest.

I did not speak of the highest rung of industry. You are now accusing me falsely. I spoke of the categories in which they could be employed, whether in the Post Office, the motor industry or the engineering industry. If those categories in which the Bantu could be employed in the Republic of South Africa, are determined in co-operation with the trade unions, it is our duty to ensure that he is available, because if this is not done then the economy weakens, and if the economy weakens, we do not have the money which the Minister wants in order to help the Bantustans along. I pointedly want to ask the question, and the Minister must reply to it. Where must that shortage of 6,000 workers in the engineering industry come from? The Minister, the Minister of Labour or the Prime Minister will have to tell us. How does he want to supplement them? And that is only one industry. As if we do not know that in the engineering industry every qualified person has a crowd of black people working next to him and learning how to do this work. Through doing this work they learn increasingly more and become increasingly usable in the economy. Let us, after all, be reasonable in this connection. Not every person needs to be qualified as an engineer in order to play a part in engineering. Usage is also something whereby a person learns. Where did we all learn to do these things in engineering that we do as practical farmers? In no other way but by doing them. And this remains a fact that is as plain as a pikestaff. The Minister tells us that the economy can grow and become even stronger, but the Whites will have to learn to get along without the Bantu, because the Bantu areas would be so prosperous that there will no longer be Bantu available to the Whites. That is only a dream, a smokescreen, that will get us nowhere. It has no correlation in practice. It is simply a dream that he is dreaming. But the hon. the Minister goes even further, and this surprised me. He spoke of the wonderful dream that he sees in respect of the white area; the Republic of South Africa is a white man’s country, and then an hon. member on this side asked, by way of an interjection, but what of the Coloureds? And do you know what the hon. the Minister’s reply was? We want a Republic without the Coloureds. It is not the Coloured Vote we are discussing now, but the Bantu Administration Vote, but if a Minister goes as far as saying on his Vote, and in connection with the Bantu, that we want a Republic that is devoid of Bantu labour, in other words a Republic that eliminates all non-Whites, then we have reached the stage where things are so ridiculous that we cannot speak about them any further.

The hon. member for East London (City) dealt with a few matters here, and with your permission I shall first reply to his last statement, where he said that Bantu will no longer be available for work in the Republic of South Africa and for the sale of their labour here. I want to tell the hon. member that it is a misrepresentation of the policy which has been adhered to until now and which shall also be adhered to in the future. We would welcome it if South Africa could develop in such a way that only Whites worked in the white Republic, but this will never happen because the Bantu will always make his labour available in the Republic, not only for the benefit of the economy of the Whites, but most certainly also, and to a very large extent, for the benefit of the Bantu himself. That is why this idea, which the hon. member expressed here, is really very childish, to say the least. The hon. member was actually advocating a form of integration, and I believe that if the United Party were to come into power it would immediately begin with a policy of integration, because, after all, they reject this National Party policy of job reservation. But what the Opposition also loses sight of is that if we want to develop the Bantu homelands until they become independent and self-sufficient, who else is there, other than the Whites, to bring them the knowledge, the expertise, the technical knowledge and the academic knowledge, etc.? This must surely come from the Whites. I do not know why this hon. Opposition is so grievously hurt by those matters. However, I have other ideas. I regret having to express this idea here, but I think that there is something else underlying this kind of game. They want the Bantu in the white area, and they also want to give them a measure of franchise, even though it be a qualified kind of representation. What will they eventually use the Bantu vote for? They will use it to do what they have already said in the past they would like to do, i.e. to plough the National Party under.

That is a scandalous accusation.

I think it is the hon. gentleman’s underlying idea. I want to speak about another matter. In the censure motion debate the hon. the Leader of the Opposition mentioned the question of the Bantu’s proprietary right. I think I had better quote, because then the House will gain a better understanding of what I mean by that. They say, and I quote—

Since the word “apartheid” was used for the first time here in South Africa, the Opposition and the English language press have made it their aim to make a monster of this word “apartheid” and later “separate development”—every one surely meant throughout that apartheid means separate development Since it was broadcast to the world that that meaning attaches to the word “aparheid”, the world has increasingly intensified its opinion against us in such a critical attitude that to-day we find its opinion against us in such a critical attitude that to-day we find that the World Council of Churches has decided to assist terrorists who are being used against us. As a result of what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said another idea was expressed here about our apartheid policy and about how monstrous it is. With reference to land tenure he went further and referred to the 1936 legislation in which the promise was made. The hon. the Prime Minister pointed out that the establishment of the Progressive Party was attributable to the United Party’s breach of faith at the Bloemfontein congress, when they said that they did not want to make the land available to the Bantu. Now we repeatedly have them mentioning the question of land tenure here in a debate. It has already been laid down by way of legislation, but this argument is used by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition because Matanzima and Buthelezi have already referred to it. What is wrong with that? When any of the ethnic people move along this road, and they definitely are doing so, they will try to obtain whatever territory they possibly can. Living space is, after all, necessary, but we already have legislation laying it down.

Those arguments are used to imply that this could cause a revolution in the future. I ask the United Party, if that policy which was advocated by the hon. member for Yeoville, that proprietary rights would be granted within the white area, were to be implemented, would there not also be subsequent demands for larger and larger property ownership? What would then be the difference between the Bantu who wants more and more property ownership in the white areas and the one who, in his own Bantustan, already thinks he may ask for more? What will the eventual difference be? We must accept it as such, The difference is that those who have now asked for more territory are doing so under the guidance of the whites. The whites have led them along the road to independence, have led them along the road to where they can administer their own affairs and work out their own salvation. On the other hand the United Party has been guilty of the greatest measure of discrimination towards these Bantu peoples. If there is one aspect of this situation, in which we find ourselves to-day, that will cause a revolution to take place, then it is the policy of the United Party, which allows a certain measure of discriminatory representation in this white Parliament. The hon. the Minister also stated it very clearly here. According to the National Party’s policy we do not begrudge the Bantu development towards total independence along his own road. Any person with the smallest amount of intelligence can realize that one cannot immediately give peoples such as the Tswana or the Southern Sotho their independence. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout asked very dramatically in this House when it would be D-Day. A people surely develops systematically. Did it not take the Afrikaner nation 51 years, i.e. from 1910 to 1961, to make, South Africa free independent Republic? I think that throughout the years the white man had a great deal more knowledge at his disposal than the Bantu peoples have. They will also have to walk the path to full maturity. Who is going to hasten that process? No-one. By way of the assistance the Whites are giving the Bantu to-day, as is the case in terms of the National Party’s policy, we know that that road is the right one. It is not the road of revolution. The Opposition speaker who follows me up must explain to me and offer me proof that this road which the National Party is following is the road to revolution, in contrast to the road being followed by the United Party. The National Party at least has the honesty to tell, not only this House, but also the people of South Africa and the whole world, that our final objective, with respect to the Bantu, is independence. That is the task. It is morally right, good and Christian. However, the road of the United Party leads us to a precipice.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Harrismith had a few things to say that I just want to dwell upon for a moment. He said, for example, that on this side of the House we had made a monster of apartheid. I think that the hon. member has got it slightly wrong, and that what he actually meant was that apartheid has made a skunk of South Africa. That is probably what he heard. It was not the United Party that said it either, but the Burger. The Burger said that aparthedi had made a skunk of South Africa, and not that we had made a monster of apartheid. However, I want to say something of a more serious nature to the hon. member. It appears to me that until such time as hon. members in this House are prepared to accept each other’s bona fides accepting as a basis that all hon. members in this House in their turn will look after the security of the white people in South Africa, it is difficult for one to put forward arguments. Just take, for instance, the example of the hon. member for Harrismith. Can a responsible hon. member sitting in this House have something so scandalous to say, i.e that we want to use the Bantu franchise to plough the Nationalist Party under? If the hon. member for Harrismith has the least sense of responsibility and recognition for the goodwill of this side of the House, he surely knows that he is not only talking nonsense, but that he said a very scandalous thing. The hon. member ought to apologize for that, To speak here of the policy of integration! He of all people ought to know, after all the years of discussion, that integration is no policy It is an economic fact, and whatever hon. members on the other side, or ourselves, say it will not offset the fact.

That is what Sakkies Fourie said.

What is the hon. member talking about? It is a fact. The hon. member must not tell me what Sakkies Fourie said. He nows hat happened to Sakkies Fourie.

I want to dwell on a few basic ideas. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and the Deputy Minister asked a lot of questions. I should just like to ask the hon. the Minister one question. He made a very important statement this afternoon about black labour being made avai1able to the white economy. The substance of his statement may be summed up as follows. He must now help me if I am wrong. He said that as far as the higher occupational levels were concerned, they would not make the Bantu available to the white economy. But as far as the lower levels of labour are concerned, he was indeed prepared to make Bantu available. Is that correct.

No you are distorting it a little.

Am I more or less correct?

No.

Order! Will the hon. the Minister withdraw the word “distort ?

Then I am very close to the truth.

Sir, I shall withdraw it and simply say that he is giving a terribly wrong impression of it.

Yes, that is a different word. The hon. member may proceed.

I do not really care what the hon. the Minister says about my presentation of it. All I want to say is that he must clarify it for us. The question I am putting to the hon. the Minister is that when he speaks of the higher levels of labour, to what joubs is he referring? Is the job of motor mechanic one of the jobs at the higher level? The hon. the Minister is now “zip” He does not want to listen. When are we dealing with a low-level job and when are we dealing with a high-level one? When will the hon. the Minister be prepared to make labour available to the white economy, and for which levels of the labour field? These days that hon. Minister is no longer only Minister of Bantu Administration and Development; he has, as it were, also become the ruler over the labour sources in South Africa. The extent to which South Africa’s economy can develop will to a large extent depend on his policy formula, and also whether we shall be able to implement the Bantustan idea, if he wants it. He will have to tell us. The South African economy cannot get along without labour. The hon. the Minister does not reply. I shall continue.

The basic idea from which the Bantustan ideal emerged, the basic though underlying the idea of partition, is one that eminates from the danger of numbers. That is where the old Bantustan policy came from. The people argued that if the Bantu were to form the majority here we would not always be able to keep the reins of Government in our hands. That was the argument. Partition was therefore thought of as an attempt to deal with that danger. Now, Sir, we come to a basic question I want to put to the hon. the Minister. When the hon. the Minister tells me that his policy is one of partition, because that is what it amounts to, he must also tell me whether I am right in saying that one of the main requirements of his policy is to make the ground, the land, available for the Bantu.

Surely that is what he said.

Sir, South Africa is still teeming with black spots. The hon. member for Zululand told us the other day how many times one travels through areas belonging to the Zulu in Natal. When is the consolidation going to begin? We have only one consolidated area, i.e. the Transkei. The hon. the Minister is going to have a struggle with the others. My point is that unless he consolidates, one of the basic requirements of his policy falls away. He knows it. The hon. gentleman will have to consolidate. Up to now he has given no signs of realizing the seriousness of the matter.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Mr. Chairman, before dinner I was pointing out, to give substance to the policy of separate development, that one of the prime requirements is that the Government must continue at high speed with the consolidation of the Bantu areas. I also pointed out that unless the Government could do so, they did not have a hope of succeeding with their idea of separate development. When I listen to the remarks from the other side, it seems to me as if the Government accepts that one of the main requirements is that the Bantu areas, as countries, should be consolidated.

What do you mean by “consolidation”?

Sir, the hon. member must just read the reports about this matter, because it is very clear that his political background is inadequate. I should like to come to a second requirement. Mindful of the numerical danger, on which the Bantustan philosophy is based, a second requirement is, in my opinion, that the Government must succeed in decreasing the number of Bantu in white areas until there are fewer Bantu than Whites in white areas. In other words, the over-all majority of Bantu must be accommodated in the Bantu areas. We know that for years now the Government has been of the same opinion. That is why they have said that 1978 is the date when the black stream will be turned back. We also know, at this stage, that nothing at all will come of that whole idea. Instead of the stream being reversed, we know that it is increasing. Let us, however, for the sake of argument. accept that the philosophy is correct and that the stream must be reversed. Regarding it from that point of view, I want to ask the hon. the Minister this evening; If he wants, to a large extent, to remove the Bantu from the white area, where is he conseauently going to find the necessary labour to keep the economic machine going in the white areas? In order to keep the white economic machine going and also to develop the Bantu areas, it is of the utmost necessity that we have the necessary Bantu labour. Even if the hon. the Minister were to tell me that it is not necessary, and that we could also develop the Bantu areas with the white machine alone. I want to ask: What is he going to do with the Bantu he removes from here? Where is he going to find jobs for them in the reserves? Those areas will first have to be developed. If the Government wants to be fair they must accept that it has to be an extremely long-term policy, if it ever succeeds. Now the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration asks: “What are you going to do when independence comes?” Sir, the hon. the Minister has not yet even begun with the realities of independence. He does not have the right to ask that question here. At this stage it is nothing more than a hypothetical question, which contains not the slightest element of political truth. We could continue in this vein. If we remove the Bantu from here, the Whites cannot get along without them to keep the machine going. If the Bantu is removed to his area, another machine must be created for him there, in which he must be able to participate in order to live. The Whites do not only have a responsibility to themselves. They also have a responsibility to the Bantu. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Maitland, in actual fact, only repeated the speech which the hon. member for Zululand made during the censure debate.

You have never replied to it.

He also repeated a few statements which the hon. member made earlier this evening. In the course of what I have to say I shall come back to that. The interesting aspect of this debate is that the United Party is only now coming to the rude awakening that we are now in the midst of a constitutional development which can be described as the constitutional emancipation of the Bantu homelands. This emancipation has taken place so peacefully that the reaction of those hon. members this evening puts in one mind of Rip van Winkel. The National Party, as represented by the hon. the Minister and his predecessors, could handle this constitutional development because they, and ourselves, have the experience of how constitutional changes can be brought about in a peaceful way. Was it not the National Party which took part in the Imperial Conference of 1926? Was it not the National Party that helped to engineer the Statute of Westminister of 1931. whereby the Colonial Laws Validity Act was repealed and followed by the Status Acts? Hon. members ought to know that the steps towards independence of the Republic of South Africa were taken by negotiation and agreement. This will also be the course that will be adopted in leading the Bantu homelands to independence. Those agreements that we shall conclude with the Bantu homelands will rest on mutual trust and an inter-dependence, dictated and demanded by the collective, strategic and geographic circumstances. It is possible in practice that agreements similar to the Simonstown Agreement, can be concluded between ourselves and the homelands.

The hon. member for Zululand made a number of statements in the no-confidence debate against which he wanted to test the viability of the Bantu homelands. The hon. member for Maitland wanted replies to them. It is surprising that the hon. member for Zululand made a few highly intelligent statements, exceptional for that side of the House, but when he comes to the conclusion that the Bantu homelands policy, tested against its requirements, is not viable, he is using altogether superficial arguments. Those arguments do not support his conclusions. For example, he referred to the question of territory. In that connection the hon. member asked: Is it possible that the economy of the Bantu homelands will be able to support that Bantu population? The hon. member took no cognisance of easily obtainable and self-evident information. We know, for example, that although the Bantu homelands will eventually cover approximately 13.7 per cent of our total land area, those homelands are situated in areas within a climatic belt which is highly beneficial to development. Only ½ per cent of the 27.5 per cent of the Republic’s desert climate is located within the Bantu areas. The republic only possesses 11½ million morgen of the moderate, humid climate which is regarded as the world’s most productive climate. Almost half of this, i.e. 5,700,000 morgen, is situated in the Bantu homelands. An analysis has indicated that 100 morgen in the Bantu areas has, on the average, the same potential as 147 morgen in the white areas. About 75 per cent of the Bantu area receives a rainfall of more than 20 inches a year, while 35 per cent of the Republic is blessed with such a rainfall. It is very interesting to rote that the Transkei alone is 506 square miles larger than Switzerland. The Transkei, with a population in 1965 of about 3 million people, has a surface area of 16,500 square miles, while Israel must accommodate a population of 2 million on a surface area of 7,992 square miles. Sir, the hon. member for Zululand took his argument further and specifically drew the line back to Zululand. I want to tell him immediately that this side of the House is burdened with the task of correcting past mistakes in Natal. It was the antecedents of members on that side of the House whose policy it was to divide and rules it was they who brought about the dispersion of more than 100 small groups of Zulu over the whole surface area of Natal.

Paul Kruger as well.

It is the result of their policy of dividing and ruling, and it is now the task of this side of the House to correct it. Sir, when the hon. member came to the conclusion that those areas are not viable, did he take proper cognisance of scientific analyses? I refer here, for example, to an article in the Journal of Racial Affairs, in a recent issue of which they come to the conclusion that those areas afforded the entire Zulu population of Natal sufficient subsistence potential. Thereupon the hon. member for Zululand put forward a further requirement. I am not going to dwell on all his requirements now. He said that firstly a territory should exist which can form the basis of a state. You know surely, Mr. Chairman, that we have the example of a country such as Portugal, which administers a state by means of provinces. In other words, even if no consolidation took place in Natal, it is not impossible, where we have a central homeland, for the other areas to be administered as provinces or as areas independent of the main area. This is altogether practicable.

120 of them.

Although we acknowledge the ideal of having the greatest possible consolidation, we shall ensure, where it is required in practice, that administration takes place properly by way of a main central homeland, with its provinces or sub-units. Sir, I refer also to a further requirement which the hon. member put forward. He said: Fourthly, have the Bantu themselves accepted that all their interests—material, social, spiritual and political—are really centred in that territory? He comes to the conclusion that this is not the case, but at the same time he said in his speech (translation): “I believe that an exclusively white state, if this could be achieved under reasonable circumstances, will be almost generally accepted”. From this I conclude that it will also be accepted by the Bantu, if the ideal of such an exclusive white state can be achieved. I do not know what the hon. member will say to that. Since I am asking the hon. member to give us greater clarity about certain of his standpoints, he could perhaps also tell us what he meant when he said that. [Time expired.]

Sir. as a backbencher I listened to the speech of the hon. the Minister with a certain amount of amazement and disillusionment. One has come to expect that in speaking to a Vote the Minister in charge will at least give an account of the work of his department during the past year. There are few persons in South Africa more involved in the Minister’s portfolio than the Bantu themselves in this country. I think it is fair to say that economists, housewives, other South Africans and the Bantu have been waiting for some time to hear the Minister’s reaction to criticism of his policy. Sir, I would like to test the Minister’s success in handling his department against four of the recommendations contained in the Tomlinson report and to see to what extent the Minister has failed. The commission stated that the initial step towards the practical realization of the separate development of European and Bantu lies in the full-scale development of the Bantu areas. Sir, that was said 15 years ago but time has telescoped for the Nationalist Party and for the hon. the Minister. The population increase is 15 years ahead of time and the implementation of the Minister’s plans is 15 years behind the time, and all that same, practical persons such as professor Sadie are asking for is the realization of economic facts.

You do not know what you are talking about.

Secondly, the Tomlinson report calls for the development of the Bantu areas, a development which will have to embrace a fully diversified economy, comprising development in the primary, the secondary and the tertiary spheres. Sir, if anything has failed in South Africa, it is the Government’s policy of separate development. They have failed to develop the Bantu areas to anything like viable areas, and the people who can best testify to this fact are the hundreds and thousands of starving Bantu seeking jobs, wanting work and unable to obtain it.

Where?

In the reserves.

Sir, South Africa is being crippled to-day by the shortage of labour. We have the plea of the industrialists we have the plea of the farmer and we have the plea of the housewife. In the homelands themselves, what is the situation? The Government has had some 70 Bantu towns developed—clear evidence of the poverty and inadequacy of the Government’s present plan for the development of the homelands. What of the border areas, Sir? The border area plan, I suggest, is the greatest fraud that has been perpetrated in connection with separate development. All that the Government is doing is to surround our major industrial areas with a political periphery of industrialized towns to which they are bringing the Bantu from the hinterland of the reserves to the border areas, so that they can have labour which is not paid at the same rate as European labour and which can do virtually the same jobs as European labour. Sir, perhaps the greatest deceit of all lies in the Government’s concept of developing the Bantu areas with their rich mining fortunes. Sir, let me quote from a Government brochure, Bantu of August 1970—

But, Sir, listen to this—

But here comes the dig—

Now, if we are going to allow the Bantu to develop their own homelands to the status of a national state and to realize their maximum economic power, they must have social development, economic development and home development. Here we are again seeing a case of exploitation of the Native where the riches will come to South Africa and a mere pittance will go to the homelands. What will happen when the day comes when the Bantu homelands are no longer part of our South Africa but are dissociated from us? Do they take their mining wealth with them? I hope the Minister will give an answer as to whether they will take the Mines and Works Act with them too and whether he will declare that he is prepared to see them have the same economic future that we in white South Africa have.

The challenge to-day is a real one. The economist is waiting for an answer. The country is stifled and we cannot to-day meet our balance of payments because of our lack of economic development. [Interjections.] I submit that our adverse balance of payments is probably the most fundamental question threatening the development of the homelands. It is easy to have an economic idealization, but where are the funds coming from in order to develop the homelands at the rate at which they should be developed? It is no good to say that we have sat in power for 22 years and to say, as the hon. the Minister has said himself, that the time will come; we are not in a hurry and the problem will solve itself. White South Africa to-day is short of time. The economy is short of time and we have to have an answer which is practical politics, the politics of the people outside, and the answer must come from the Minister and not in promises for the future which he cannot fulfil.

The hon. member for Gardens who has just resumed his seat made a statement here to the effect that the population increase in South Africa was 15 years before the time and that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration would not be able to keep pace with the tremendous population increase. Well, it is not very clear to me what the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration can do about the matter, but apparently he must furnish guidance according to that member’s norms, and I do not think the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration is able to do so.

In addition, the hon. member also spoke about “starving Bantu seeking jobs”. It is statements like this which not only here in South Africa but also overseas, antagonize people against South Africa. I live on the borders of the Transkei and I do not know of any dying (sterwende) Bantu there. Strangely enough, the farmers on the borders of the Bantu areas are struggling to get labour. Now, where are the dying Bantu?

Not dying, but “starving”.

It makes no difference which; it amounts to the same thing. But I want to return to the so-called “point of no return”. Hon. members on that side of the House stated to-day that we were going to reach a “point of no return”. I recall that the late Dr. Verwoerd said in this House one afternoon—I am speaking under correction now, but I think it was at the time the Transkeian Constitution was being discussed—that a right once given could never be taken back. It might have been before then, but I am talking under correction now. That is why, when this right has been given, to the Transkei for example, we can never take it back again. We can never take back the right to self-government of the Transkei. The Transkei is self-governing and it would be morally wrong of us to take it back. Legally we have the sovereignty to take it back, but morally we would never be able to do so. It is not in the nature of our population to take a thing like that back. I want to accuse the United Party to-night of advocating a policy of eternal white supremacy in South Africa. If they are not in favour of eternal white supremacy, they must quite simply be in favour of integration. I want to prove to hon. members that what I have said here is the truth. During the recent election a great deal of propagande was made, and one of the porpagandistic tricks they used, and quite successfully too, was that there was not much difference between our policy and the policy of the United Party. Then they say that the policies are more or less the same, except that the Government is not genuine in its policy of eventual right of self-determination for the reserves. The hon. member for Hillbrow said it here in the House.

The hon. member for Hillbrow said, and I quote: “Dr. Dennis Worral recently conducted a study in which he found that less than 30 per cent of the voters who were included in his spot check believed that the Government was going to grant independence to the black states it was creating. What a shocking accusation against the Government which has been in power for more than 20 years!”. They create the impression outside that we are not genuing. in other words, that we are being dishonest in our policy. That is why I am accusing the United Party of heading for permanent white supremacy with their plan to have eight representatives for the Bantu here in this House. How can they for all time, as has already been mentioned here this afternoon, support 16 million people with eight white representatives in this House? Here I have with me this “Goat fodder booklet” (bokvreetboekie) as the hon. member for Parow called it, and I want to quote from it. Here is their policy, and I quote—

A moment ago that hon. member spoke about labour. I am quoting further, particularly in that connection—

We admit this, but on a migrant labour basis and not on a permanent basis. That is the crux of the difference between them and us. We believe that the homelands must be developed to the full consequences but they believe in developing the homelands without the blacks that are to-day residing in the White area. In South Africa the homelands are in the exceptionally privileged position that they are situated in our midst and on our borders, so that they can make use of the dynamic economic growth of the white areas. They can derive benefit from this. If Lesotho for example had been situated in any other place in Africa, it would have found itself in an entirely different position. Since 1896 the excess population of Lesotho has systematically been flowing over into the white areas, with the result that to-day there are many Basutos living in the white Republic of South Africa. Now the United Party wants to do the same in regard to the present overflow from the reserves into the white areas. Every population must accept its own responsibility. One day, when we are over-populated, we must simply emigrate from here. If Holland is over-populated, the people must emigrate, but the Hollanders are most certainly not overflowing into France and Germany. They are properly controlled when they emigrate. Here in South Africa we cannot accept that we must absorb the surpluses from the reserves in the white areas. That is why we have reserves, and that is why the reserves must be developed. We admit that things will develop slowly, and we know that it will take a long time, but despite that the reserves will ultimately supply the needs of their own people. As the hon. member on the opposite side put it, the reserves are the most fertile parts with the best rainfall in South Africa, and that is why they will be able to supply the needs of their own people.

Mr. Chairman, why I am rising is actually to deal with a few points of policy in regard to urban Bantu. Before I do so, however, I want to refer briefly to the speech by the hon. member for Aliwal. He spoke about a “point of no return”, which brought us again to the speech by the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister gave us a recipe for failure tonight. The hon. the Minister did not in any way reply to accusations from hon. members on this side of the House that no foundation had been laid for continuing the movement towards so-called freedom. In the censure debate the hon. member for Zululand set out five points which were absolutely necessary as a basis for any such continuation. In the same debate, and also in the Budget debate, my hon. Leader pointed out what was necessary as a basis for any continuation of such a policy. Without furnishing any replies to these fundamental matters, hon. members on the opposite side merely say that “they are pressing on”. As we would say in English, “we press on regardless”. That is precisely the position in which we have now found ourselves. The Government does not in any way have the answers to our problems. It does have a policy, but the policy does not have any bearing whatsoever on the actual facts of our situation. However, because the Government sees no other way open to it, it is merely pressing on regardless. It has been said by their own people that the Bantu must be “siphoned back” (teruggesuig), to the reserves. What does “siphoned back” (teruggesuig) mean? It means that avenues of employment will have to be created in the homelands to keep the Bantu there in that way. Hon. members on the opposite side have also said that the Bantu must look forward to that, and must direct their gaze at the homelands and that all their interests can be incorporated there and a satisfactory solution found. Without that background, however, the Government merely wants to press on regardless. It might sound fine to say that a common market similar to that in Europe will be established and that we will conclude a treaty with any Bantu state which develops to full independence. It might sound fine to say that everything will take place in an orderly fashion and that we will always be able to cope with the situation. There is a saying which goes “there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip”. In the times in which we are living, this is very true. By opening a door on our east coast in this way, I want to submit that our enemies will find it very easy to get at us through it. It is, however, not my intention to elaborate on this matter now.

I want to return now to the matter of the urban Bantu.

What door is being opened on the east coast?

This will happen if the Government continues with its policy. During the Budget debate my hon.

Leader said that the Government must stop acting as if their policy were succeeding. I just want to mention a few cases where they are doing so to the detriment of relations in South Africa. They are proceeding on the basis that the policy is succeeding. In the first instance I want to mention the question of the housing shortage for Bantu in our major cities. The Government is acting as if we have already effected a physical separation and as if there are no more Bantu here. Take Johannesburg for example. There is a tremendous shortage of housing in Johannesburg. What is the result? We find that one, two and three families are living in a house which was built for only one family.

Who told you that?

But it is true. It is stated in newspapers and has been officially announced. This has also been said, inter alia, by the acting chairman of the non-white section of the Johannesburg City Council. It is a generally known fact. I am asking the hon. the Minister to furnish us with that figure to-night. How great is the shortage really?

Were you there?

We know this on the basis of the facts. I know that it will not be possible to deny this. But the Government is proceeding on the basis that this is not so. I want to remind hon. members on the opposite side of the fact that at one time they claimed credit for having established this housing. I now want to ask them to what extent they have actually slowed down the construction of houses in recent times. I want to ask them this, because they are proceeding on the assumption that the people are not here and are not going to remain here, and that consequently we need not build houses for them. I want to inform the hon. the Minister that many of the unpleasant conditions which occur in the so-called white sectors of our major cities are owing to the fact that there is no housing for the Bantu. That is why they creep in to live with their friends in backyards in the white parts of the city. That is not all. We are experiencing other difficulties as well.

I want to make haste and deal with the second matter. I now want to draw attention to a second aspect, i.e. the channels of representation of the urban Bantu in getting their case put. In terms of the Urban Bantu Councils Act provision is made for them to have these township councils and that they may also be granted powers now to regulate their own affairs. Inter alia, they may regulate this question of influx control. Now I want to ask the hon. the Minister: What has become of his policy of transferring powers now into the hands of these urban Bantu councils? It is government policy that these Urban Bantu Councils be established. They are definitely part of the whole policy in respect of urban Bantu.

For what functions?

For the functions as set out in the Act, inter alia, influx control, and many other others. It is stated there.

Show it; read it.

I do not have the Act here, but I have glanced at it a moment ago. It includes this kind of task and this has not been transferred to them at all.

You are a man with legal knowledge; read the Act.

I read the Act again to-night. If that is not the precise provision, it is more or less the same. I therefore want to ask him what his intention is with these Urban Bantu Councils. Is it his intention to allow them to fall into disuse? Is it his intention to breathe life into them? What is his real problem?

Now I want to come to a third question, namely that of the hostels. It seems to me that the present plan of the Government is to remove Bantu, who are at present working as servants, from the so-called servants quarters of dwellings and to place them in hostels. I definitely regard this as a retrogressive step, because in the first instance they have accommodation in these houses of their house-owners. The accommodation is already there. At whose expense are these new hostels going to be constructed? I think it is going to be done at the Government’s expense. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this is the case. If so, then this expense is so much wasted money, because there is already housing for these people and consequently money is being spent unnecessarily. In addition there are many other matters which are detrimentally affected by this. In the first place, the Bantu stay with the family which employs them as servants and they live as one part of the family. This is a very good thing for their level of civilization, their personal frame of mind and happiness. When they are taken away there and placed in a large hostel with thousands of other Bantu, they find themselves in a completely impersonal environment, and I definitely think that this will be prejudicial. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I shall come back to the hon. member for Pinelands. I do not think the hon. member understands or has any knowledge of the subject he discussed to-night.

In the first place, allow me to thank the hon. the Minister for the fine, well-considered and lucid speech he made here to-day. For many years to come we shall have the privilege to refer to this speech, which will be recorded in Hansard. This speech presents a clear picture of the policy of the National Party as against the policy—which nobody understands—of the United Party. I believe that the United Party itself does not understand its policy. Every hon. member on that side of the House who gets up to speak, has something different to say. They will become so confused in the desert of their Bantu policy that they will not be able to find an oasis but will die of political thirst.

To make a success of this policy of ours is a major problem and a task which requires the full attention of everyone in South Africa. The policy has to be successful, because the National Party is honest in its principles. I and every hon. member on this side of the House believe that a great measure of success has already been achieved and that an even greater measure of success will be achieved in future as far as the Bantu are concerned. The development of the homelands is a most difficult process. It is something which requires a great deal of time and presents major problems. We have already achieved a great deal during the past few decades in this respect. Hon. members need only look at the results which have been achieved and the developments which have taken place. I do not think any country in the world can do what we have done. The Bantu people have to be educated. The Bantu have to be taught to love again what has been and is their own. The Zulus, who, as the people of Natal know, are a proud nation, should be brought back to the land of their fathers. Their identity should be maintained. Just as the Afrikaner, both English and Afrikaans-speaking, are proud of their identity, so the Zulus also want to maintain their identity. So the Xhosas also want to maintain their identity. So every Bantu group in the Republic wants to maintain its own identity; the Tswanas want to remain Tswanas; the Sothos want to remain Sothos and the Zulus want to remain Zulus. But is it not that side of the House which did these Bantu peoples a gross injustice by opposing the Bantu Citizenship Act? Both English-speaking people and Afrikaans-speaking people claim for themselves their own citizenship. But when we wanted to grant citizenship to the Bantu peoples in terms of that Act the Opposition opposed it tooth and nail. I say this is scandalous. They refuse to give the Bantu something they claim for thefselves. They did not want t0 see justice being done to the Bantu people of the Republic of South Afrika.

The hon. member for Pinelands referred to the severe housing shortage for the Bantu. I agree with that. But at this stage there is a housing shortage for the Whites too. In cases of dire need, however, everything possible is done to provide housing of a high standard to both Whites and Bantu. The hon. member referred to cases where more than one Bantu family were living in one house. But surely the regulations applicable to any Bantu township or location prohibit three or four Bantu families from being cooped up in one house. Surely, what the hon. member said, was nonsense. There is no such thing. In addition, hostels for unmarried Bantu are being built in the cities. In these hostels they are able to live as a community. Those Bantu who are staying in these hostels live close to their work and can reach their work easily. This is a fact. Every year thousands of houses are built for the Bantu on the Witwatersrand an in other major cities in the country. Housing is being provided for them. If I were to say to-night that we had already solved the housing problem as far as the Bantu were concerned, I would be telling an untruth. This is not so. However, we are trying our best to meet the requirements of the Bantu where the need is most pressing.

I should like to come back to the speech made by the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens). This was a speech meant for the outside world. In that speech we on this side of the House was presented as the tyrants who were suppressing the Black man in this country. The hon. member referred to Famine. Surely, that hon. member does not only confine his movements to the gardens adjoining the Parliamentary building; the hon. member probably moves further afield. We sometimes have to cope with perilous conditions in this country as a result of droughts, and so forth, and these conditions also affect the Bantu. But this is nothing compared with conditions people sometimes have to put up with in India and other countries. The Bantu of this country are being cared for. I want to ask that hon. member whether he has ever done anything for the Bantu, whether he, out of his own pocket has done anything for the Bantu or is it merely talk on his part?

Have you ever done anything for the Bantu?

A great deal more than that hon. member will ever do. But I do not want to talk to that hon. member now. I admit that some of the Bantu are probably having a difficul time now, but the State is dome everything in its power to relief and to render assistance. Is it not this National Government which has helped Lesotho again after they have asked for assistance? Is it not this National Government which helps Botswana when they ask for assistance? Why should we refuse to assist our own Bantu when they need help? Sir. I want to tell that hon. member that he made a speech here to-night which can only harm this country—him as well as me. If the world were to crucify us one day for what we honestly believe, I shall meet my end without having any self-reproach, but that hon. member will meet his end too, but will do so with self-reproach. Sir, the National Party has every confidence in the hon. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and in the hon. the Deputy Minister and in their officials, officials who are waging a severe struggle but who are, at the same time, waging a pleasant struggle because they can already see the signs of victory. Sir, there is one thing the United Party is as scared of as the devil is of holy water, and that is that independent homelands will become a reality. I want to say to them again to-night as the hon. the Minister has said to them on so many occasions: The Bantu homelands will become a reality and if the hon. member for East London (North) only lives that long, he will have the privilege one day to see that independent homelands have become a reality. Sir, our view of the future is not a gloomy one. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I believe it is very fitting that a debate on Bantu Administration and Development should be taking place on a day such as to-day when we are celebrating Settlers’ Day. I myself am a direct descendant of the 1820 Settlers, and that it why I am particularly interested in this Bantu Vote. This Vote deals not only with the Bantu in many parts of the Republic but particularly also with Bantu in an area which was occupied by the 1820 Settlers and where a Bantu homeland is now been established. Sir, it is very significant, after 22 or 23 years of National Party rule, that we should be hearing so much about the development of the border areas; that we should be hearing so much about border industries. This is evidence, this is positive proof, that the Government’s policy of developing the reserves as independent viable states has broken down. The more the borders of the reserves are developed through the establishment of border industries, the more reason there is to believe that the Nationalist Party’s Bantustan policy will never work. I am sure that many members on that side of the House believe this too. Sir, it was only in February of this year that the hon. the Minister was asked a question in regard to the amount of money which was being spent on the development of the Bantu homelands. The question was: How much money was spent in the Bantu homelands in 1958, 1968 and 1969, and the Minister gave us the figures. I do not want to go into detail, but he said that in 1958-’59 R12 million odd was spent, in 1967-’68 R48 million odd and in 1968-’69 R61 million odd. Further to this question, the Minister was asked by the hon. member for Simonstown: What amount was spent in the same years on Bantu administration, education and social services and for other purposes for Bantu in the Republic, in areas other than the Bantu homelands? The Minister replied that the department’s records did not distinguish between expenditure in respect of Bantu homelands and those in other areas, so that the required information was not readily available. When we as an Opposition are asked questions at public meetings as to how much money is being spent in the Bantu homelands, we find it very difficult to answer the question because the Government refuses to give us the answer to our question. The Minister refused to give us the answer we wanted, and when hon. members opposite are asked how much is being spent in the Bantu Reserves they quote the figures which I have given here, as being outside the Bantu reserves. This makes a tremendous difference, and this is where the people are being confused and misled hopelessly as to the true picture in regard to what is taking place today in regard to the development of the homelands. There is virtually, as we all know, no development taking place, no development in so far as being able to house the people in the homelands to bring their policy to its logical conclusion.

You are another stranger in Jerusalem.

Why is it that we hear no more mention being made of the year 1978? What has happened to the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, who was always talking about the year 1978 and saying that we must not be in a hurry; everything was working according to plan; by 1978 we would see an appreciable influx of Bantu into the homelands? Now that Minister has disappeared from the scene we hear no more about that date. Why are the Prime Minister and the Minister of Bantu Administration not prepared to accept the challenge issued by our hon. Leader on this side of the House in regard to the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council? Surely, the Advisory Council is in the favourable position to decide as to whether this policy is practicable and whether it can be carried out or not. But the Government are afraid of the consequences; they are afraid of the verdict of the Advisory Council. The Minister mentioned this afternoon the morality of this whole concept. As far as we are concerned, we are not bound in any way. As hon. members on this side have already said, where the morality figures, is in the Minister and his Government carrying out their policy, and if they cannot or do not carry it out, what of their morality then? We are not bound in any way, and the Bantu people know exactly where they stand as far as our policy is concerned.

Coming back to the development of the reserves, it is interesting to see that only a month or two ago, on 12th June, 1970, when the hon. the Minister opened the Territorial Authority of Zululand, the newly-elected Prime Minister in his speech made a very important statement. This is what the chief said at this particular gathering. He said to the hon. the Minister—

Are you reading from a newspaper?

I am reading the Zulu Prime Minister’s statement to the Minister, and the Minister was there when he said it.

No, that is not so.

The Minister must please give me a chance to speak, because I have only 10 minutes. The Zulu Prime Minister asked Mr. Botha to act urgently on the following points, and then he followed up by saying that they wanted more territory for the Zulus and that without more land the scheme would not make sense. He said—

That is the crux of the matter because this is where the whole exercise fails. This afternoon, the hon. member for Harrismith had the audacity—I think it is due to ignorance—to say that we would not stand by the 1936 Land and Trust Act at our Bloemfontein Congress in 1959. What utter nonsense! The United Party has never deviated from this Act, but where in the whole Land and Trust Act passed by Gen. Hertzog in 1936 does it say that the 7½ million morgen of land which the Bantu was still to receive will be given away to form sovereign independent states? Where in that Act does it say so? And this is the issue which has worried many of us in the North-Eastern Cape, the fact that this land will be given away to become sovereign, independent, viable states. [Time expired.]

Hon. members, including the hon. member for Pinelands, made a great fuss this evening because of the enormous shortage of housing and maintained that apartheid had failed because there were no houses for the Bantu in the cities. But surely the hon. member is not a stranger in Jerusalem. He is a person who is usually fairly well informed. Has he forgotten about the clearance work that was done in Sophiatown and in Lady Solborne in Pretoria and in Cato Manor? Does he now know how many houses were built there for the Bantu? I am going to furnish the figures. From 1920 to 1948 a total number of 16,299 houses were built. From 1948 to 1968 no fewer than 488,000 were built. The average per year since 1948 has been 24,000 per year. The average per year from 1920 to 1948 was 582. Hon. members do not know what is going on. However, I should like to say a few words about numbers. But hon. members do not understand this. Do they not realize what is going on in South Africa or in any other country? It does not matter what policy one is implementing or what policy one is not implementing, and whether projections are right or wrong. One has the numbers with one. All that remains then, is what plan we can devise as regards numbers, and what plan the Opposition is devising as regards numbers. This is the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter is how one is dealing with numbers, and what the consequence of one’s dealing with numbers will be. Now I should like to quote an authority, and this authority tells us what the consequence of numbers is in a common country in which there is only one nation. This authority is no less a person than the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, Sir De Villiers Graaff. I quote from his speech of 18th May, 1959, as published in column 6038 of Hansard:

On what is their entire policy based? Surely hon. members are holding up nothing but restrictive laws to us. Surely hon. members on that side of the House are being dishonest and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is being dishonest.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Mr. Chairman. In any event, I do think hon. members on that side of the House are stupid, or, if not, they are pretending to be stupid. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said numbers would always be decisive in a common country, no matter what restrictive laws had been passed. Now hon. members come here with a bluff. They will give the Bantu eight representatives in Parliament, and if they want more a referendum will be held. However, not one of the hon. members said what their standpoint was going to be in that referendum. If hon. members want to have a referendum on a matter, they must take up a standpoint as a party or as a Government, if they have come into power.

When that time comes, there will still be sufficient time.

Yes, when that time comes, there will still be sufficient time. A hundred years from now hon. members will still have sufficient time. This is the reply of those members as regards the question of numbers. Now the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens can read his numbers another time. The numbers are there, and that is the crux of the problem which has to be solved. Now hon. members proceed to making a great fuss about the question of whether the number of Bantu in South Africa is decreasing or whether the number of Bantu in White South Africa is increasing. Those hon. members’ policy, as set out in their booklet, will give industry as much labour as it wants and where it wants it. They say they will settle them there on a family basis, but in the same breath they also say that they are going to develop the Bantu homelands. If hon. members are prepared to give the industrialists labour just where they want it and when they want it, I challenge any one of the hon. members to tell me how they are going to develop those homelands. How are those hon. members going to develop the homelands? Do hon. members think that any industrialist will go to the homelands if they are prepared to give industrialists labour just where they want it and when they want it? No, the National Party is the only party which has a plan with those numbers and which in addition is at least prepared to give those people an outlet where they can settle themselves and can develop to the fullest extent. We are not making a din as the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens did, because Bantu can develop their mining industry. Is this an honest way of acting? The accusation of the words of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition still attaches to these people, and to that I should like a reply from hon. members on the opposite side. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition very clearly said, and I am going to read his words to hon. members again, that “as the standard of civilization of a community is raised, leadership will depend to an increasing degree upon numbers. Restrictive laws alone can never be a final solution”. Hon. members have now conveniently forgotten about this. They are now speaking of restrictive laws and they think they can bluff this House and the people outside by those means. That bluff will not, however, succeed. There are two choices open to South Africa. There is either the policy of the hon. member for Houghton and the Progressive Party, i.e. of equality in all respects, or another more honest policy, i.e. that of the National Party.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to dwell for a minute on what the hon. member for Fauresmith said about the question of a referendum to which my hon. Leader and other hon. members on this side had already referred, i.e. that if this party were in power and a referendum were to be held to-morrow, in the circumstances prevailing at present, we would recommend to the people of South Africa that non-Whites should be represented in this House by Whites.

Who is the people?

When we talk of the people, we are talking of the existing electorate in South Africa, i.e. the White voters. All day long we hear from hon. members on that side of the House how they want to justify the Government’s Bantustan policy with a story of “give unto others what you want to give yourself”. I should like to dwell for a few moments on this idea. South Africa is the most developed country on the continent of Africa, and, I believe owes its development to two fundamental aspects. In the first place, the free capital and initiative of the Whites, on the one hand, and the labour forces of the non-Whites on the other. Then I believe that the cultural maturity of the Whites has played a primary role in taking the lead in this process of development. We now hear from the Government, however, that they want to get away from the so-called suppression of the Bantu by the Whites, and that they want to offer the Bantu so-called “equal rights” in their own territories. The question which occurs to me now is what these so-called “equal rights” mean and what this story of the Government about “give unto others what you want for yourself” comprises. If the Government is sincere in its intentions in this regard, it must indeed apply the formula to the Bantu territories, a formula which has been successful in South Africa for so many years, i.e. free capital and the initiative of the Whites on the one hand and the labour forces of the Bantu on the other. But what is the Government doing? They want to make political rights primary and they want to make economic rights secondary. They want to put the cart before the horse. I believe that this Government is creating rotten spots in the sound economic unit of South Africa. Instead of also applying to the Bantu territories the formula by which South Africa has achieved success, this Government is only making labour reservoirs of these territories from which sound South Africa has to draw its labour forces. My colleague, the hon. member for East London (North), has already referred to the demands which are now being made by Bantu such as Chief Butelezi when he said: “When man is reaching for the moon, the Zulus cannot be expected to move towards self-determination at oxwagon pace”. I now want to know whether this man is already at this stage referring to the political self-determination of his territory or whether he is referring to economic underdevelopment. Sir, this is the problem now. These labour reservoirs, economically dependent on White South Africa, are now getting political independence from South Africa to boot. Our labour forces are now being united and political independence is being given to them, one big Bantu workers’ union, which will not only be a workers’ union, but an independent state which will be able to make an international case of every labour question or argument in South Africa. Yet this Government talks about its opposition to the establishment of Bantu trade unions. But they are prepared to hand over our entire labour force to independent Black states over which South Africa has lost control. The future implementation of the Bantustan policy of the National Party then means, in the first instance, the so-called removal of the Bantu from the White areas to their homelands, the development of politically independent Black states, which will be economically poor and dependent on so-called White South Africa, the removal of our industries from stabilized white cities to the so-called border industries on the borders of the Bantu territories, and the control of our labour forces, by politically independent Black states over which South Africa will have no control. If we accept that this policy is capable of implementation and at all feasible, then I believe the voters are entitled to know when the Government thinks it is going to start removing the Bantu from the white areas, and what criterion and what principle will be applied in making the Bantustans independent. Is it only going to be on a political basis, or will these territories have to show a certain degree of economic development? The voters want to know what the Government is envisaging as far as the stabilized industries in stabilized White areas are concerned, where millions of Bantu work, live and are already settled. When are these Bantu going back to their homelands? What measures is the Government going to take with the independent Bantustans with regard to labour which we in the so-called White South Africa have to obtain from these Bantustans? I should like to know whether this Government is serious in this line it is taking? Sir, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education speaks of a recipe for an explosion under United Party policy. But here there already is a recipe for an explosion. The hon. the Minister of Water Affairs speak of “revolutionary circumstances” if the United Party were to be in power. But here opportunities are being created for revolutionary circumstances. I believe that this Government cannot run away from this problem by using a political dummy, i.e. political franchise to the Bantu. Why is there an influx of the Bantu from the reserves to the white areas? Surely it is obvious and normal. After all, nothing is going on in those Bantu territories. Indeed, as far as economic development is concerned, nothing is going on. There is no development. There is nothing to induce the Bantu to go back to the reserves. Does this Government think for one moment that it can bring about a flow in the opposite direction so that the Bantu will return to the Bantu territories, merely on account of the fact that they get political franchise in those territories where they will have to perish with a political franchise which means absolutely nothing to them? Sir, the United Party believes in the recipe which has been successful in South Africa. Develop those Bantu territories by means of private White capital and by means of the leadership and initiative of the Whites on the one hand, and then use the Bantu labour lying fallow. Let us then make these Bantu territories economically strong so that they may serve as magnets for drawing back the Bantu who are superfluous in the White areas. These territories must, however, be retained under the control of a Central Government as part of one great South Africa. Hon. members on that side are crying all day long that we would allow an uncontrolled influx of Bantu into the White areas. As long as this Government does not develop the Bantu areas dynamically in the economic field, they will not put a stop to the influx of Bantu into the White areas.

What does this Government envisage as regards the Bantu townships in the White areas? I am now referring to townships such as Soweto in Johannesburg. Are they going to move these Bantu together with stabilized industry in the White areas to the so-called border areas? Sir, we want to know how they are going to do this, and we also want to know when they are going to commence this. I think they should take cognizance of what Schalk Pienaar said in Die Beeld. It has already been quoted, but I want to quote it again. He said (translation)—

Sir, we should like to know from the hon. the Minister whether he agrees with Die Beeld, or whether he still thinks that these people are there temporarily.

Sir, we constantly hear the story of independence for the Bantustans. We want to know at what stage they are going to get independence. I think this Government is bringing the Bantu leaders under a misapprehension. Let us consider what Headman Pilane of the Tswana Territorial Authority said. He was referring to what the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education had said when he made the following statement—

[Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is very obvious that the hon. member for Turffontein is the political cosset of a gentleman called Jacobs. He spoke of rotten spots. When he was still swinging on the gate, he should have looked at Johannesburg’s Black spots. I had to study at that red university, and let me tell the hon. member to-night what Sophiatown and those places looked like. At that time he was still swinging on the gate, the very person who is representing an urban constituency to-day. The voters of Turffontein should take cognizance of the speech this member made here to-night. The hon. member for Turffontein is only interested in economic growth. He is not at all interested in the political set-up in the Republic of South Africa. What is the political set-up with regard to this Vote? One need not be clever politically, in fact, one can be as dull politically as the hon. member for North Rand is and still see that there is a crisis in the United Party with regard to Bantu Affairs. I shall prove this. Sir, what are we dealing with here? We are dealing with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and we are dealing with my good old friend, the hon. member for South Coast.

You are lying.

Order! The hon. member for North Rand must withdraw those words.

I withdraw those words and I say …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words unconditionally.

I withdraw them unconditionally:

Mr. Chairman, I hope I shall be given that injury time, because the hon. member prevented me from proceeding with my speech. The hon. member for South Coast has beeen very badly injured on a certain railway line. I am concerned about him. Sir, what is the set-up this evening? I want to put a hypothetical question to the Official Opposition. I want to put a question to the most senior member of the opposite side, i.e. the hon. member for South Coast, the leader of the United Party in Natal. If the United Party were to come into power at a time when the Transkei had already gained its independence and the other Bantu peoples in our country had not yet gained full independence, what would they do? In that case, would they be prepared to grant those states their independence, too? Or would they act like the hon. member for East London (North)? I did not expect that that hon. member would say here this evening that morally and ethically speaking they had no responsibility with regard to legislation which had been piloted through this House of Assembly. When a Bill has been passed by this House of Assembly it becomes a law of the Republic of South Africa. Ethically speaking, they, too, are bound to that legislation. But do you know, Sir, what the real position is? The summary given by and the foresight of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout cannot be compared to the other speeches by that side of this House. That hon. member realizes that we are achieving success with multi-national development in the Republic of South Africa. His main fear is, as in the case of South Africa becoming a Republic, which directly affected the Whites and which was opposed by hon. members opposite, that this may be a political injury with which they will have to live for many years to come. The hon. member is coming to realize that the development of the Bantu peoples in their own territories in the Republic of South Africa is successful. The other hon. members also realize this, but try to combat this by belittling it in the eyes of the electorate. I have always thought that the hon. member for Pinelands is a responsible member. What did he say about the Transkei this evening? He said we were opening a door for the communists. That is the last party in South Africa that should ever speak of the communistic danger. They have never lifted a finger in the struggle against communism. Basically we are concerned here with a problem of alarming proportions. Members such as the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Transkei come into close contact with Bantu leaders in the areas they are representing. Now I want to know from the hon. member for South Coast how he acts when he speaks to Bantu chiefs. Does the hon. member encourage them to get their own independent governments or not? Simply reply “yes” or “no”. No, the hon. member will not tell us that here this evening. After the performance of the hon. member for South Coast in this Chamber. I am convinced in my own mind, however, that he is sowing suspicion among the Zulu. It is one of the most shameful things when a White person in South Africa tries to disparage the progress in the direction of identity development made by another people that is on a lower evolutionary level than he himself is. The hon. member for South Coast should fully realize his responsibility. He must realize that we are aware of his actions. This applies to the hon. member for Transkei as well. The Official Opposition has a task to encourage the ethnic groups in South Africa to accept multi-nationalism and not multi-racialism. The basic difference between this side of the House and that side of the House become very evident last Saturday evening. That evening my hon. Leader addressed the Jeugbond in the Transvaal. I regret the fact that the press did not make full use of that speech. In all honesty and sincerity he clearly set our course by saying that when the Transkei wanted its independence, it would get its independence. We are not afraid to make these statements. We believe in our policy of development along individual lines. But what about the official Opposition? They have been doing a proper egg-dance. This afternoon the hon. the Minister very courteously put questions to various members by way of repetition. The hon. member for South Coast was sitting there, shut like a clam. The hon. member refused to reply. Why? There is strife in that party. The time has arrived when the Official Opposition, in the interests of the Republic of South Africa, should have the courage to adopt a standpoint. The United Party, with its approach to South African politics, is clouding relations affecting the Bantu peoples. What respect can the Bantu peoples have for the Official Opposition when it does not have the courage to say what its policies are. The hon. member for Turffontein, who has again disappeared from the Chamber, made the statement here that nothing was being done in the homelands. That simply illustrates their irresponsibility; that proves that they have not even made a study of the estimates which have been tabled here. The Estimates make provision for R90 million from Revenue Account. The Estimates set out what is being done for each ethnic group, such as the Tswana and the Ovambo. Expenditure for this year exceeds that of last year by R15 million. Yet the hon. member speaks of the failure of our policy in the homelands.

The hon. member for Gardens who, if I am to judge from the speech he made here tonight, has never gone beyond the mountains here, had the arrogance to say that the Bantu were being wronged in connection with the mining of minerals in their homelands. Let met tell the hon. member that 30 per cent of the taxable revenue from the mining of platinum at the Impala mine goes to that Bantu tribe. It is not Bantu Trust land; it is tribal land of the Bantu. The hon. member creates the impression here that the Bantu is being wronged. What about all the other Bantu in South Africa? They themselves do not have the acumen to undertake the mining of their minerals. Sir, at Present these people are receiving these royalties, and this applies to the Bantu in the tribal area in which the Impala mine is situated. They receive 30 per cent of the taxable revenue and the money is spent on the development of the homelands. It is completely unfair to say that no development is taking place in the homelands. Sir. take a place like Temba. It is a town in which water, electricity and all kinds of facilities have been provided. At present the Minister and his Department are developing areas in which there was no planning before, there was nothing but bush. If the hon. member for Gardens were to come there, he would run; he would see a lion in the way! Let the hon. member go and have a look at a place like Temba; let him go and have a look at a place in my own constituency if he wants to see what development on an enormous scale has taken place there in a Bantu township. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Rustenburg lives near a reserve.

Near a homeland.

I say a “reserve”.

Why do you call it a reserve?

Because it has always been known as a reserve and I choose to call it a reserve. Is it not a Bantu reserve?

Order! The hon. member must proceed. I cannot allow questions from both sides.

I hope, Sir, that you will stop hon. members opposite then from questioning me.

Order! Will the hon. member proceed.

Sir, the hon. member lives near a reserve.

A homeland.

Order!

The hon. member started off his speech by asking a hypothetical question, and indeed he said that it was a hypothetical question. He asked what the United Party would do if the Transkei already had its independence when we took over the government. He asked whether we would then stop the granting of independence to the other reserves which had not yet received their independence. Sir, he was here when we discussed this matter earlier on. We stated quite clearly that once a reserve such as the Transkei had been given its independence and had become sovereign, there was nothing that we could do about it.

I asked what you would do with the others.

That is why the United Party says that under the Government’s policy there is a point of no return, because once you have given them independence you cannot take it back. If South Africa finds, having given the reserves their independence, that it is detrimental to the interests of South Africa, there is nothing that the Government can do about it. The United Party, however, does not promise them independence and therefore will not reach that point of no return. With regard to the other reserves, the hon. member asked what we would do in the case of those reserves which had not yet been given their independence. Was he not here when the hen. member for Zululand stated quite clearly what our attitude was?

But he disagreed with you.

He did not disagree with me.

You corrected him.

I am sorry, he did not disagree with me in any way. He stated quite clearly that we would repeal or amend laws introduced by this Government and which would bring about a separation of these states from South Africa as a whole. Our policy is to keep them within one state, and if there are laws introduced by this Government which are an impediment to our keeping them within one state, then we shall repeal those laws. The hon. member made that quite clear.

You will not repeal anything because you will not get into power.

Sir, when I spoke earlier on I said that this Government was trying to get us away from the issue which interests South Africa most to-day, and that is the economic issue, the labour issue. They keep on trying to get away from it and I am not coming back to the issue again. They are not going to get away with this. I addressed the House on this issue and I have not had a reply from the hon. the Minister yet. I would have thought that the hon. member for Rustenburg would have answered some of the questions I asked about the mines which are being developed in the Rustenburg district, in the BOPA Reserve. Sir, I asked what the position was of the Bantu mine worker. I have not yet had a reply from any Government speaker. I thought the hon. member for Rustenburg would tell us whether the Bantu mine worker there would be allowed to do work reserved for white miners elsewhere in terms of the Mines and Works Act. Is he or is he not going to be allowed to do so?

He does not know.

He does not know. Has he ever tried to find out? This is a matter of topical interest and he should have seen quite recently in the newspapers that this issue has been raised again by the trade unions. What is that hon. member’s attitude in this regard?

Give me a chance to reply.

The hon. member has had his chance; he has had his ten minutes. I raised this question specifically and I have not had a reply from anybody yet. The Ministers have not replied to me yet and I expected the hon. member to tell us what his attitude is. What recommendations has he made to his Ministers on this issue? Has he any views on this issue?

That is my business.

Sir, he says it is his business; he will not tell us, because he does not know. Sir, it is the country’s business; the country wants to know what the Government’s policy is with regard to those Bantu miners. We want to know and we cannot find out.

Give us your policy.

We asked the Minister of Labour the other day and he could not answer us. He hummed and hawed. He said that the sky was the limit and that they could do what they liked and then, when we pressed him, he said that they were not independent yet.

What is your policy?

The question is not what my policy is. You see, Sir, when we drive hon. members opposite into a corner they ask what our policy is. This is a practical issue facing the Government; it is a topical issue and the Government must tell us what they are going to do.

We will tell you.

Sir, in 1968 the hon. member for Orange Grove raised this question and the reply was that this matter was receiving consideration. In April, 1969, the hon. member for Parktown asked the same question, a year later, and what was the reply? The Government was considering the question. That was a year later. Sir, this is a most important point. I want to know now whether they have made up their minds. Just two weeks ago, I think, the matter was raised again whether the Bantu are going to be allowed to do this work or not. The Deputy Minister nods his head. I hope that after two years he will now make up his mind and that the Government will be able to tell us what they are going to do. Sir, time and again this Government is facing problems where it cannot make up its minds as to what it is going to do.

Sir, when last I spoke I was dealing with the development of the reserves, and I pointed out that this Minister was the responsible Minister. This is a most important issue to-day, and he must tell us what he is doing about this development. I am sure that the hon. the Minister is one of the hardest-working Ministers in the Cabinet. I know that he gives his personal attention to matters which are brought to his notice. I can personally testify to that. This also applies to the hon. the Deputy Minister; he also tries.

He follows a good example.

Yes, he follows the example of working hard and trying his best but, Sir, the task which has been given to these Ministers is an impossible one; it is an “onbegonne taak” for them, because they cannot carry out this development if they stick to the framework of Government policy. The Government has tried to bring about development through its own agencies, the Investment Corporation, the Xhosa Development Corporation and the Bantu Trust. We pointed out at the time when the enabling Corporations Act was passed by this Parliament that these corporations could serve a purpose, but that they were not the solution. It was obvious from the report of the Tomlinson Commission that these Corporations could not carry out the task. Sir, we have already received last year’s annual report from the Xhosa Development Corporation and I must say that it is a very disappointing document, not because of the achievements of the organization but because of the paucity of information. It is impossible to tell from its accounts which businesses are paying and which are not paying. One has to ferret out what the Corporations are doing by putting questions on the Question Paper to the Minister. [Time expired.]

You have said nothing.

Sir, two matters have become very clear in this debate so far. The first is that the Opposition is confused in regard to their own policy, and the second is that the policy of this side of the House has not yet penetrated to them. The hon. member who has just sat down, again put questions in connection with the issue of labour and employment. This matter has been explained to them many times by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development himself, as well as by the hon. the Minister of Labour, and a moment ago the hon. the Minister also said that he would reply fully to the questions put by the hon. member for Transkei. Sir, what also astounded me this evening is this: The hon. member for Turffontein mentioned here that the eight representatives for Bantu in Parliament would be Whites, but apparently the hon. member does not know what his Leader himself said about this matter. I should like to quote what the hon. member for Yeoville said in reply to a question put by the hon. Minister in 1965, when he was still Deputy Minister. I am quoting from Hansard, column 606. The hon. member for Yeoville said this—

That is, to introduce Bantu as representatives. I think the hon. member for Turffontein must first brush up his political knowledge a little before speaking about these contentious matters. It is very clear that the policy in regard to relationships is one of the most important aspects of politics in this country. Apart from the relationship between White and White, we also have the relationship between non-White and non-White, but the most important is of course what we are discussing here now, namely the relationship between White and non-White. As far as the National Party is concerned, its policy is very clear. It is a policy of multi-national development; it affords each people full opportunities, and has been stated clearly and repeatedly here to-day. Over against that, we have the policy of the United Party, which speaks of a uni-national community with a federation of race groups. What this all involves, is still not clear. It seems to me, however, that under their policy we shall eventually sit with approximately 20 million people in the Republic who will be neither fish nor flesh. Over against that, the policy of the Progressive Party is very clear, and we all know what it is. It is immediate integration and immediate surrender to the Bantu; simply let them take over South Africa and let us see what will happen further. When we look at other countries in the world which also have to deal with this question of relationships, Whites as against non-Whites and Coloured races as against one another, we find that in America, as the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs quoted in the no-confidence debate, they are in a very serious dilemma. It is so serious that a newspaper such as the Daily Sketch even said that particularly as far as integration in education is concerned, “it is a tragic failure of colossal proportions”. In spite of the fact that the people were educated to understand the position, that they were pleaded with, that they were spoken to firmly, and that force of arms was used against them, nothing helped. There have also been cases and episodes such as the Little Rock episode and similar incidents. We find the Black Power movement in America, which is agitating for more rights for the non-Whites. In England, too, we find the same problems and racial clashes of the worst kind to-day. But as far as Africa itself is concerned, who of us have forgotten the Mau Mau episode in Kenya? Are these matters which we can simply ignore? But then the Opposition comes along and says that the Government’s policy has failed up to now. Can they name me one single Bantu in this country who has pleaded for the United Party’s policy of race federation? Name me one case where they have expressly or tacitly accepted or welcomed it. They cannot do so.

Just one.

Over against that, there are numerous examples of the National Party’s policy having been accepted by the Bantu leaders, because they know that when they have their own homeland, they can develop themselves there and find peace, prosperity and happiness in their own areas. I should like to mention a very recent example of where the policy of this side of the House was accepted, and by a very important chief in the Republic at that, the chief of the North Sotho. He is Chief Maserumule Matlala, who lives in my constituency. About nine days ago the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration opened a large extension of a hospital at Philadelphia, close to Groblersdal, and among other things this Chief Matlala said this in his speech. Then I want to mention this to you, Sir. I know the North Sotho, and if this chief, who is their ruling leader, says something which is not to their liking, it is very certain that he will promptly and unceremoniously be thrown out of that territory. He therefore said this with very great responsibility and I was present on the platform when the large mass of Bantu in front of him cheered him and uttered a cry of joy, because this leader said, among other things (translation)—

And I should like the Opposition to listen to this—

Before I go on with what I wish to say, I must just mention the interjection of the hon. member for Brakpan in relation to the point attempted to be made by the hon. the Deputy Minister in regard to my remarks earlier. I have not seen my Hansard yet, but I am quite certain that it will say that I said we would abolish or repeal anything which has been done by this Government which was inconsistent with the Bantu people remaining part of the Union of South Africa. I am sure that is what I said and I said it specifically and I am sure the hon. member will find it in my Hansard if he looks to-morrow if I say that I was replying to a question by the hon. the Minister as to what we would do with the territorial authorities. And the territorial authorities, I need hardly say, are not governments of independent states. It goes without saying that once an independent state is created, it is inviting the intervention of the United Nations for any Government, South African or any other, to march in or to attempt to interfere in any way with a state that has sovereign independence.

I was coming back to the point where I left off earlier, and that was the application of the hon. the Minister’s policy to the facts of the South African situation. It is quite unreal to have to sit here and listen to hon. member after hon. member standing up and asking us what we are likely to do when this or that state has achieved its independence, when, as I have said earlier, we have not even been told how the Government is to begin to lay the foundations of such an independent state. Far from our having reached the stage where we can talk about independent states, the very foundation has not yet been laid. I happened to get quite recently the annual report of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, a Government-sponsored body, and in the central pages we find perhaps the most graphic illustration of what I am trying to say. There are depicted on this map the Bantu areas of Natal in yellow, the Bantu areas of the Transvaal in blue, green and red and the Transkei in pink. There is nothing else on the map except the colouring in of the Bantu areas of South Africa, and if you look at Natal it looks for all the world like a patient suffering from measles, except that the spots are yellow, and if you look at the Transvaal you see precisely the same. It looks like some dreadful disease which covers the patient with a number of blotches, except that they are in colours not normally found on the human body. This is the state of affairs as it is to-day, and bearing in mind that we are dealing with a map of South Africa which looks like this, how unreal can you be to have the type of debate that we have had here this evening. Let us look at the Minister’s own paper, “Bantu”, the latest one issued by his department. I read a little of it earlier, but I should like to deal with it in greater detail. The author of this paper— and I emphasize that it comes from the Minister’s department—sets out the task before the Nationalist Government and he reduces the subject in this manner—

Where do you have any state of affairs in Natal even remotely approximating to that ideal? Then the paper goes on to say this, and I quote now from page 14 under the heading “Actual Problems and Potential Assets of the Zulu Territorial Authority”. It goes on—

Now I am not reading from a speech by the United Party. This is the Minister’s own publication, dated July, 1970, and it goes on—

My first question to the Minister is where is that seat to be. Then it goes on—

They go on to set out the further problems and then it concludes in this manner—

It refers to formidable obstacles to be overcome in the immediate future. Now, what are the hon. the Minister’s plans for overcoming these obstacles in the immediate future—not in 22 years’ time, but in the immediate future? Now, bearing in mind what I said earlier, that the hon. the Minister or his predecessors have had commissions sitting for over 10 years, or nearly 10 years, inquiring into this very problem of the realignment of boundaries in Natal, we find that already reserves are being done away with to bring about the development of Richard’s Bay. We have a territorial authority established, but admittedly the Prime Minister of that authority does not as yet even have an office or a telephone, I understand. Still, he is the executive officer of that authority. He himself in his very first speech, as I have indicated on another occasion, has stressed this as the very first point of view of the implementation of the Government’s policy. As I have said before, it can only be done by a substantial re-allocation of land between Black and White in Natal. This is the most likely cause of difficulty, to put it mildly, that one could wish to have in a multi-racial country. What are the hon. the Minister’s plans in this regard? Forget what might or might not happen in the remote future should we ever reach the stage where independence is granted. A thousand and one details of the most elementary kind have to be faced, discussed and dealt with before we reach anything like that stage. Here we have a debate which has been going on for two to three hours already and during which the hon. the Minister has spoken one hour and ten minutes without mentioning one syllable as to how the Government in the implementation of its own policy after 22 years is going to deal with these real matters. Neither has any of the other hon. members on that side of the House mentioned anything about that. These matters affect the livelihood of the majority of people, whether they be black, white or brown, who live in Natal. At the moment I am only speaking of the Zulus. I would like to say this to the hon. members opposite, and that is that if they look at the map of the Industrial Development Corporation which shows the Northern and the Western Transvaal and the Northern Cape, they will see that the position is equally as difficult. Let me come to another aspect of the matter. There is the question of labour. It is part of the policy of this Government to remove the Coloureds and the Asiatics from Zululand. I have no doubt that a large share of the responsibility for that decision rests with the hon. the Minister, but I am not going to discuss that. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, as the previous speaker addressed himself mainly to our hon. Minister, I shall leave him in the hands of our capable Minister.

One thing has become very clear to me from the debate on this Vote to-day, and that is the reason why the Opposition has been occupying the Opposition benches for as long as 22 years, as well as the reason why it will probably remain in opposition for at least another 22 years. That reason as the fact that although the Opposition is living with us in South Africa, it still cannot understand even to-day the way of life and the pattern of life of all people in South Africa. From the earliest years it has been a law of life here in South Africa that the various colour groups exist separately and want to exist separately. The Whites want to exist separately, and the Coloureds as well as the Bantu want to exist separately. When we now come to the relations situation between White and Bantu, we must realize that this situation can be handled successfully only if one’s handling of that situation rests chiefly on two important pillars. The first pillar in my opinion is the pillar of Christianity and morality. In short this means that I regard the Bantu as a full and equal human being who is entitled, as I am, to a place in the sun, money in his pocket and food in his home. In addition he must also have full rights of citizenship in his own homeland just as I have them here in my own country. To me the principle that I shall grant to him what I claim for myself is, in short, the principle of Christianity and morality. Now I know that the Opposition is going to tell me that this is irreconcilable as the Bantu who outnumber the Whites four to one have only one-fifth of the country. My reply is that it is not irreconcilable, as it is by no means a pattern throughout the world that the territories of nations are determined according to their numerical strength. What is, in fact, and must be a pattern throughout the world is that peoples must be and want to be independent and full and equal. Therefore this is the policy of the National Party for the Bantu. The Opposition asks time and again whether our policy is, in fact, Christian and moral as we shall have more territory than the Bantu under our policy. This situation is a heritage of our history, as we know it and as it has come to us. I want to ask the Opposition whether it is Christian and moral that under their policy 4 million Whites will be represented in Parliament by 160 members of Parliament and that 13 million Bantu will be represented in the same Parliament by 8 representatives? Is that policy moral or is it exploiting and misleading the Bantu and the electorate outside in a shameless manner?

The second pillar, as I see it, on which we are building the policy of separate development, is the practicability of this policy. In other words, is it humanly possible to implement our policy? Yes, it is. We have progressed a long way on the road of our policy The Opposition speaks of the point of no return. That is so. I want to tell the Opposition this evening that if in the near future something highly freakish were to happen in South Africa and they were to come into power, they would not be able to turn the people of South Africa away from the policy of separate development. The people of South Africa have placed their feet on the road of separate development and will continue on that road. Our policy is to keep the number of Bantu, and especially the number of Bantu families, in the White areas as small as practicable. I put it to the Opposition that if they had been in power, the number of Bantu who are in the White areas at the moment would have been three, four and five times the number of the few million who are present in these areas under the policy of the National Party. Under our policy we want the position to be, at present as well as in the future, that the Bantu male will come from his homeland to sell his labour to the Whites in the White area. The Opposition says that this is not moral. Let me put it to the Opposition in the following way. If a country such as Germany, England or Holland were to offer me or any White person in South Africa employment in their country, and one of their conditions was that I should come by myself without my family, and if I could earn 50 per cent more in that country than my present earnings in South Africa, it would be a consideration for me to go and work in that country for a year and to earn extra money while my family safely remained in their own homelands in which they belonged. That is how the National Government wants to organize the Bantu and Bantu labour in South Africa. The choice rests with the Bantu whether he will want to come or not. Nobody will force him to do so.

This, in short, is the difference between the policy of the National Party and the policy of the United Party. I conclude by saying that the Whites in South Africa, the descendants of the Dutch Protestants, the Huguenots and the 1820 Settlers, to whom an hon. member referred have placed their feet irrevocably on the road of separate development; but the implementation of this policy requires doers and not doubters. The people of South Africa are doers and for that reason they will fully implement the policy of separate development now and in the future.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Heidelberg made an interesting speech. I just want to refer to a few points raised by him. The first statement he made was that the people would not allow itself to be diverted from the road of separate development. I should like to tell the hon. member that if the people could have a referendum to-morrow on the question of having independent black states or not, and if the people could keep all other political implications from its mind, then I say the people would vote against independent black states. As a matter of fact, the hon. member knows that his own Nationalist Party supporters do not want independent black states. But they vote Nat and the hon. member knows why they vote Nat. They vote Nat because they believe the Nationalist Party is simply doing window-dressing for the outside world. This has been the case throughout the years. If I have come across one Nat I have come across dozens of Nats who have said to me, “Oh man, my Government will never give them their independence”. While I listen to the hon. the Minister when he is speaking about what we shall do if the Transkei gets its independence, I think of my old Nat friend in Kuruman who has told me, “Oh Mr. Hickman, my Government will not ever give the black territories independence”. The hon. the Minister is waiting and he is trying to make the people wait, too, but I have an idea that if the matter has to be brought to a head, then even the Nationalist Party Government will say, “No”.

But I want to mention another point. Reference was made here to-night to the requirements of the policy of the Nationalist Party. Now I may mention in passing that we are considering the Vote of the hon. the Minister and his Vote is his policy. His Vote, for which he is being paid concerns the implementation of the policy of the hon. the Minister and not the implementation of my policy. He is supposed to answer the questions for us. It seems to me, when I listen to the hon. members and see the practical implementation of their policy, as though they are under the impression that they have all the time in the world. Now I ask them this evening just to go back to the report of the Tomlinson Commission. If they do so they will find that that report conveyed a sense of urgency. That report concluded with the following injunction, i.e. that this was an urgent matter, one which had to be tackled and implemented immediately.

Do you accept that report?

That is the recipe of the hon. the Minister, but unfortunately he does not want to bake this apartheid cake according to his own recipe. This evening I want to put it to the hon. the Minister that the time factor is one of the most important requirements in his policy. The hon. the Minister cannot come and tell us now that only 15 or 22 years have elapsed. Time moves on. Hon. members on that side of the House are creating a particular attitude of mind among the Bantu. They approach the Bantu with definite promises. They are encouraging with might and main black nationalism and nation-building. Although it is my belief that their policy is not capable of implementation, they are creating the most serious dangers in South Africa in the process of attempting to implement this policy.

You have been out of political circulation for quite a long time.

No, I want to tell that hon. member that I had criticized his policy long before he came to this House.

But I want to come to a second point. I said here to-night that if Bantu labour was eliminated, we would be required to find alternative labour. In that case we would also have to create employment opportunities for the Bantu in his own territory. The answer we get is that Bantu labour will not be eliminated, but that it will be used in the form of migratory labour. There is, however, a serious question which bothers me in this regard. The question is whether this now means that we need not be concerned about numbers? The Deputy Minister of Finance said the other day that it did not matter whether they were many or few in number, as long as they were here with us in terms of the law of the land. The cardinal question is: Does this mean that we should simply continue to allow the influx of hundreds and thousands of Bantu, as long as those people remained migratory labourers, or would a level be reached when we would say, ‘‘So far and no further”? I put it to the Minister: Even if it were migratory labour, he must understand the spirit of migratory labour. He told us this evening that we were the people who regarded the Bantu as a source of labour. Sir, migratory labour is in fact the lowest source of labour because it has no regard to the human aspect. The Bantu is engaged and disengaged like an instrument, and the hon. the Minister knows this. The basis of the Nationalist Party’s policy is to give the migratory labourer the minimum rights here with us, and he knows that. The Bantu are deprived of their existence as human beings. In addition migratory labour is the most expensive form of labour as migratory labourers cannot be trained properly. As soon as a migratory labourer has been given a little training, he is removed.

There is another point which is also a cardinal question. I said this evening that the entire philosophy of Bantustans was built on the danger of numbers. I want to tell the hon. the Minister this evening that as long as the Bantu outnumber us, whether or not they are migratory labourers, the hon. the Minister would not in the least have offered a solution to the problem as seen by the Nationalist Party. It is of no avail to tell the 5 million Bantu, who are here as against 3 million Whites, “You are migratory labourers. You cannot be enfranchised”. If the arguments of the hon. the Minister are correct, and if numbers are a danger, those 5 million Bantu will simply say, “Migratory labour or not, we are in the majority, and because we are in the majority we shall claim definite rights.”

And under your policy?

That is the argument of the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist Party does not listen. The entire policy of the Nationalist Party is modelled on the danger of numbers. That is the entire spirit of their policy and now they are running away. I want to tell them that the danger of numbers will never be solved under their policy. They are now running away from the basis of their policy. If they accept the danger of numbers, as the motive for their policy, then I say they must eliminate it. They should not try to mislead us by saying that it is only migratory labour. Whether a Bantu is here as a migratory labourer or not, he remains a human being, and the hon. the Minister will have to take that into account. The Minister does not have the solution. He can tell us this evening that they have dropped the question of numbers. I still remember that the late Dr. Verwoerd said in this House that the emphasis should not fall on numbers, but on political development. The moment the Nationalist Party had said that, he dropped his policy as formulated by Dr. Verwoerd in 1959.

We are still saying that.

No, it is a brand new complication.

That is nonsense.

If the hon. member says that that is nonsense, he must this evening …

What you are saying is nonsense.

I am saying what the Nationalist Party says. This evening I want to put to the hon. the Minister the problem facing him. He can only say one thing this evening, and that is that I am wrong for one reason only, i.e. that numbers are not the danger.

You are wrong for ten reasons.

The hon. member should stop making a noise. He should make a speech for a change. The hon. the Minister must tell us this evening where I am wrong. It is as simple as that. Those hon. members should not try to get away from this by saying that the numbers are made up by migratory labourers. It is not that simple. The fact is that the hon. member for Zululand was correct the other day. If one strips the policy of the Nationalist Party of all factual arguments, a single basic fact remains for the Whites in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry that I have to deal at this late stage with the matter raised by the hon. member for Maitland. I want to say that the hon. member for Maitland’s argument in connection with numbers, where he tried to indicate that our policy deviated from the attitude adopted by Dr. Verwoerd, is just as muddled as the whole United Party policy of race federation. This evening I want to submit the following to the United Party for their consideration: When we speak of a race federation in this country, we must forget about quibbling over what is meant by a nation, a race or a people. The fact of the matter is that the United Party must admit that there is more than one people in South Africa. It does not matter whether they call it a people or a race. There is another fact that the United Party must acknowledge, and that is that the ultimate ideal which the United Party cherishes for this country, i.e. total integration, is locked up in the word “federation”. [Interjections.] I shall come to that, Sir. Hon. members must not get excited. If the United Party wants to cooperate on a federal basis with other peoples or other nations or other races, as they call them, it means that they must understand the concept of “federation” properly. It means that they will have to co-operate in an integrated way. If the United Party spoke of a confederation of races and peoples, it might perhaps have been something understandable. Those hon. members must go and ascertain what the difference is between a federation and a confederation.

Tell us what the difference is.

No, the hon. member must do his own homework. I am not prepared to do homework for a United Party member. We must realize one thing this evening, i.e. that the time has arrived for the United Party to accept that there are only two courses open as far as our human relations are concerned. The United Party and everyone outside must also know that human relations is the main issue in all the conflicts in this world. It is no coincidence that six out of the Ten Commandments are to regulate human relations. The fact that people have to do with each other, is regarded as one of the most important matters. We must not try to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds as the United Party does. In the rural areas the United Party wants to propagate its race federation plan, in terms of which they can tell the people there: “What is wrong with permanent supremacy?” I can furnish them with proof that it has happened in my constituency. On the other hand, the United Party would like to move in the direction of the Progressive Party. As a result they are not prepared to go all the way, and are not prepared to say what they really want to do.

They want to have their bread buttered on both sides.

Sir, I am sorry that my time is nearly up. I want to raise a matter this evening which the United Party will not understand in any case but the Minister of Bantu Administration will. I want to make a plea in regard to a matter which affects us in the Northwestern and the Far Western Transvaal. I want to ask whether it is not possible for his department to establish a Tswana Development Corporation as well, like the one we already have in the case of the Xhosa. The Tswana people have already set their feet firmly on the road towards looking after themselves.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.