Sir, what every student of politics will find amazing, if he studies world politics of the past 20 years, is the fact that nowhere in the world is there a party whose policy can be scrutinized with a magnifying glass as closely as the policy of the National Party in respect of the handling of population questions in South Africa. Every facet of our policy in the past 20 years has been the object of study of scientists and politicians throughout the world; but in South Africa our policy has also been viewed critically by theologians, economists, scientists in every sphere and journalists. There is no aspect of our policy that has not been scrutinized very thoroughly in the past 20 years. What also makes it so amazing is the fact that in spite of all these factors, in spite of the fact that so many incorrect and wrong comments have been made about our policy, the National Party, in the policy it adopts, has grown and is becoming much more acceptable by the day even to the up-and-coming generation. It is particularly interesting to note that one’s English-language newspapers in South Africa make use of four Afrikaans political writers, specifically because they want to come as close as possible to the National Party’s idiom. I am thinking of a man like Bernardi Wessels, who writes for the Daily Mail, Hennie Serfontein, who writes for the Sunday Times, Hans Strydom who writes for the Sunday Tribune and Mostert van Schoor, who writes for the Pretoria News. Sir, I now want to come back to the hon. member for Wynberg.

What does Dr. Eiselen say?

I read Dr. Eiselen’s statement very thoroughly and the hon. member must go and read it in perspective; then he will perhaps be able to learn something from it. I should like to come to the hon. member for Wynberg in connection with a report which J. H. P. Serfontein wrote. I do not want to attack the hon. member for Wynberg in respect of what Hennie Serfontein says, but in Monday’s Cape Times the newspaper’s political correspondent said the following about her discussion with Hennie Serfontein—

The report continues—

In the light of that I now want to come back to Serfontein’s report about her. In this report we read the following astounding passage—

It amazes me that that party, which has spoken throughout the years of so-called “freedom of speech”, does not want to allow its own leaders and its own members to speak about matters of common interest.

Come back to the Vote.

Sir, what will the outcome in South African politics be if a political party no longer wants to allow its own confidants to speak about policy matters? Let me tell the hon. member for Wynberg that she, like the majority of United Party members, is suffering from a split personality. On the one hand they want to maintain White leadership in South Africa, and on the other hand they want to join in a world idiom, i.e. that one should have freedom and equality for everyone in the world. Sir, is it not amazing, after we have had 24 years of criticism of the National Party’s policy and since the United Party has come along year after year to criticize the National Party in the debates about this Vote, that no less a person than the hon. member for Wynberg, who is the shadow Minister of National Education, must make the following admission from the bottom of her heart? Perhaps it is the feminine intuition of honesty which, out of frustration for her party, caused her to use these words—

Sir, listen to this admission that comes from that hon. member’s heart. She says that we have given not only the Bantu, but also the Indians and the Coloured population of South Africa “an important and identifiable political status”. Sir, can you recall what the United Party has said about the National Party in the past 24 years when we said, in respect of the Bantu, that there are respective population groups; that the respective Bantu population groups had a specific national, political structure, that there we could inject good Western elements and that there was growth power in that? Then those hon. members came along and said that we are engaged with “tribalism”; that we are misleading them and that we are neglecting the realities in South Africa. That hon. member now says that after 24 years of rule the National Party has given an “important and identifiable political status” not only to the Bantu, but also to the Coloureds and the Indians. Sir, if there are members of the Opposition who, after that reply which the hon. member for Wynberg gave, still have any shadow of a doubt about the National Party’s having succeeded and about the fact that it will succeed even more in the future with its policy in respect of the Bantu, they must read those words of the hon. member for Wynberg. I want to tell the hon. member for Wynberg that in the light of those words of hers I should like to hold further discussions with her, because she at least acknowledges reality—something the National Party has for 24 years had very little of from the Opposition. But I shall go further. There is a second aspect the hon. member mentioned; she said—

That was a further acknowledgment by the hon. member for Wynberg. [Interjections.] She says that after 24 years of government by the National Party we have given the three non-White groups an identity; in other words, they have retained their heritage. But not only that. We have given them a platform from which they can operate. Can you realize, Sir, what a tremendous admission this is as far as the National Party is concerned and as far as the whole course of affairs in South Africa is concerned, an admission that it was our policy which gave the Bantu of South Africa a political platform from which they can operate? You realize, Sir, that the political facet of the pattern of life of a people embraces all the other facets; in other words, if we have given them a platform from which to operate politically, we have also given them the opportunity to operate in the economic sphere, the educational sphere and in every sphere of their lives. And have you remembered, Sir, how hon. members of the Opposition said that we are appointing “puppets” and “stooges”, people who have to say “yes, boss” to the Government? But here the hon. member for Wynberg comes along, a leader in her community and a leader of the United Party, and says we have created a platform on which these people can independently consider and argue with us about matters, and not only agree with us where they think we are right, but also debate with us where they think we are acting incorrectly. [Time expired.]

Yesterday when this Vote was debated certain questions were put to me and certain insinuations were made indirectly by the hon. the Minister and more directly by the hon. the Deputy Minister to which I hope, Sir, you will permit me to react. This is a vitally important debate concerning the future survival of South Africa and our relationships with other population groups and more particularly with the Bantu, and one would have thought that under these circumstances the electorate would expect us sitting in this House to devote to this issue our clear and undivided attention. But what have we had so far? The Government has refused completely to recognize the immensity of this task, because there is another by election, they panic completely and they forget all about the other problems of the country and try to take a lemon and squeeze a few more drops from it. Now what happened yesterday? The hon. the Miniser initiated this debate. Apart from some snide remarks to this side of the House, he gave us, as he does from time to time, a further policy elaboration. He got so carried away by this that he really went into orbit. He lost all contact with reality. He got lost in his own philosophical meanderings and ultimately he ended up walking around in circles, circles which the hon. member for Waterberg, from his position of advantage, is drawing so skilfully around that party. It required the hon. member for Transkei to bring to this debate a note of reality and to bring us back again to the issues which face us. He was able to point out to us how every African leader is now beginning to reject the policy of that side of the House. He was able to show us, too, how the very architect of this Scheme, Dr. Eiselen, was now looking at it and saw that he had been party to the creation of a Frankenstein and that he did not like what he saw. But he posed some very important questions. One would have thought that the hon. the Deputy Minister, who followed after him, would have responded to these if he had the interests of South Africa at heart. However, what did we get? Another exhibition of cheap political manoeuvring. He also got the fever; he also had an obsession with the ballot box and he also was trying to squeeze out just a few more votes to try to entrench that party in power for a little longer. He also emerged as the great inquisitor. He referred to me in a manner that called my personal honour and veracity in question. I do not think it is necessary for this hon. Deputy Minister to adopt that holier-thanthou attitude. It is a garb that ill befits him. It is not necessary for him to suggest, as he tried to do, that I am basically an honest man and that I should react to this situation and to suggest that I might hide behind something. It has never been necessary for me to hide. It certainly has never been necessary for me to use the guise of a quasi-cultural organization to camouflage the nefarious activities I was engaged in on behalf of some secret organization. It has certainly never been necessary for me to have a secret telephone to hide the true tasks I was carrying out and to protect me from all but the chosen few. I resented the general unctuous approach of the hon. the Deputy Minister and his air of moral rectitude of trying to put me in a witness box.

He posed certain questions to which I will respond. He asked me in the first instance—

The first time I read this report was when I saw it in the paper. [Interjections.] It is true. I am trying to answer the questions … [Interjections.] The second question was—

The answer to that is, yes, Sir, A newspaper reporter did come to me on an issue that was quite irrelevant and had nothing to do with this discussion. Having done so, he told me he was going to write a speculative article in which he was going to look into the future. He put to me certain highly theoretical questions about this to which I did react. The hon. the Deputy Minister’s third question was—

I never saw a report. I was aware of the fact that this gentleman was contemplating writing an article, but I never saw it in any form whatsoever; I want to indicate that I was not responsible for instigating it, that I never saw it in the written form at any time, and that it was the sole responsibility of the newspaper reporter who wrote it in his own persona! capacity.

Having made that point, am I permitted to say, too, that I think that in any other country where one has a mature society, this form of discourse would have been welcomed? But what happens in South Africa? Here we have an embattled Government whose policies are crumbling right before them. To them this was a little bit of manna from Heaven because it was just one other way in which they could distract attention from their own shortcomings.

I want to come to the worst feature of this matter. Now that the Government was in trouble, its faithful lackey, Die Transvaler, through the medium of its local reporter, rushed into print. He did something that is extremely serious. That newspaper accused me of leaking secrets from what is in fact a committee of our caucus, which means that I leaked information from a secret caucus committee. I regard this as serious. I see it as libellous and defamatory. I think it is actionable and I propose to take action against this newspaper. [Interjections.] I can prove very easily that the whole thing is a malicious lie and that it is a vile accusation. I want to say to hon. members on that side, if they are adopting that attitude, I suggest they go outside and repeat what Die Transvaler has said and they would end up in the same position as one of their colleagues did recently. [Interjections.] I want to say to Die Transvaler if it is prepared to apologize to me unreservedly and if it prints in full what I say today, this will be taken into account as a form of mitigating evidence.

There is a much more important issue. What protection do we as members have against this form of political scandalmongery? [Interjection.]

Order!

Recently Chief Kaiser Matanzima took the unusual step by way of a motion to expel from his House in the Transkei people who were writing lies about him. I say what has been written here is a malicious lie. What I find even more reprehensible is that my hon. leader and Mrs. Steyn, the hon. member for Yeoville, should have been drawn into this. The writer of this article suggested that on the Thursday they were not in the House as they were discussing this leak. This is an ascertainable lie, the sort of thing the hon. Prime Minister was talking about. [Interjections.] I would welcome the Prime Minister’s intervention in this case. If this newspaper writer had any integrity and if he was prepared to check up on this, he would have found that the member for Yeoville was engaged in the work of a Committee of this House and that my hon. leader was concerned in winding up the estate of his brother who had been buried the previous day.

Disgraceful!

This kind of approach is not only a reflection on the reporter himself, but it brings discredit to all the others who serve in this profession. My answer to the hon. the Deputy Minister is that whilst we have important problems, whilst Rome is burning, they are sitting there fiddling away and asking stupid little questions of this kind. The tragedy of the whole situation is that we shall all become engulfed in this conflagration and that we shall all burn on the funeral pyre that they are so assiduously preparing.

Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to the hon. member for Hillbrow. If one had to sum him up, one would say what one of the newspapers said of him: “He has been flexing his muscles.” He has prepared himself to do battle, and he says it is extremely important—and in that respect we agree with him—that we should discuss these matters seriously. These are matters of policy and we are discussing them. In regard to his defence against Die Transvaler I just want to point out to the hon. member that the Sunday Times said the same thing. Is he going to sue them as well? If he is going to do this, he should simply throw them all together into the same pot; then it would not be necessary for him just to flex his muscles, then he could do battle on both fronts.

I want to make haste in order to elaborate on what the Minister said yesterday in regard to the general policy of the National Party. In addition to that I want to refer to what the hon. member for Wynberg said, as reported in the newspapers, and I should also like to refer to what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said. I want to mention a few more points, whereupon I should very much like to have a reply from the United Party as far as these matters are concerned. I want a reply, because it is very clear that we must pit real policy against real policy here and that we must find the answers in this regard. I want to say, first of all, that as far as the National Party policy is concerned, it has a few outstanding characteristics in so far as the Bantu are concerned. The first is that in terms of this policy of multi-nationalism, of separate development, previously known as apartheid, but in essence still the same thing—these are merely additional names in order to define the policy more closely as it develops—each of those Bantu peoples will be given its own land. Every people gets its own land, and I hope I shall have an opportunity of elaborating on that later. We have a programme according to which purchases in terms of the 1936 Act and the planning in that regard will be accelerated. For many years there has been double talk by the United Party on this matter, and we hope we shall have clarity on that in the debates which will follow. The second important point of our policy is that each people may work out its own political future constitutionally. They have been placed on the road. Each of them may decide what direction it wants to follow. If they agree with us it is said, of course, that they are stooges. If they do not agree, it is said, as the hon. member for Hillbrow has just said once more, that more and more of them are turning against us. It does not matter; we do not expect them to agree with everything. It is perfectly natural. But the really important matter is that, in the political sphere, these people may think and act independently. This is what the hon. member for Wynberg appreciates so much and this is where the policy of that side of this House falls short.

The next point is that each of these peoples may maintain and develop its own language and traditions. In other words, they are peoples in the true sense of the word. There are no restrictions on these people. Therefore, they may fully develop what is dear to them as far as national heritage is concerned.

The fourth point is that, in the economic sphere, each people may develop in that area. In that regard we assist them, because we know they have a major task on hand as far as developing the economy is concerned. We do not want to use the Bantu peoples for political gain and for economic gain as that side of this House wants to do. Exploitation is not something which has any place in the approach of the National Party. They get their own areas, in which we assist them in the economic, agricultural and industrial spheres. We help them in the field of mining and corporations have been established for this task. I can mention numerous details, but am just touching upon them briefly. They are afforded the opportunity of reaching the top of the ladder in their public service, in public life and in the professions there. They may become engineers, doctors, architects, pharmacists, etc. There is no restriction.

The fifth point is that we give the Whites authority over their own area and do not make them subordinate as is being proposed once again in the new plan the United Party has been discussing on the quiet. If they have reached a settlement on the quiet this morning, they should come forward and tell us whether or not there is truth in this story of the new approach.

What is the new approach?

We shall come to the new approach in a moment. As I have said, the White group is completely safeguarded and is not made subordinate to the interests of any other group.

The sixth positive point of the policy of the National Party is that we may hold our heads high in the world and say that we have given those people what we demand for ourselves. We are able to defend our policy in spite of all the stories sent into the world by that side of this House and particularly by the hostile English-language Press. Not only have they attacked the National Party, but they have harmed South Africa in this process as well. In spite of everything that has happened, we are able to defend this policy of the National Party on moral grounds against the rest of the world.

But let us now take a look at the policy of the United Party. They have come forward now with the question of land. They have not expressed themselves clearly on the question of the purchase of land in terms of the 1936 Act, but have said that the Bantu would be able to own land in the White areas on a selective basis. They should tell us now who is going to select that land. Would people like Chief Buthelezi or Chief Matanzima have the right to go and buy land there? What would the repercussions be?

But you know what our policy is.

Every time Chief Matanzima talks of land, that hon. member trembles in his boots. What would happen under their policy? That hon. member may rise and explain that to us. On what basis would permission be refused under their policy if a Bantu were to demand to live in Wynberg or in any other suburb of Cape Town?

But that is untrue.

But then the hon. member should tell us what the position is, because under their policy the Bantu would be able to own land in White areas on a selective basis. Those hon. members will have an opportunity of explaining it.

We go on to the next point, and that is political rights. They have already announced their policy of 16 representatives for the non-Whites in this Parliament. We hear that this plan will be re-examined on the quiet. There are changes. We hear that the Bantu do not agree with us, but were these people consulted by them? What right would the Owambo, who came to consult the hon. the Prime Minister on behalf of their own people last week, have under their policy of 16 representatives in a joint Parliament? After all, what they want to establish is a kind of super Parliament. We want clarity on these matters. I have stated the six points of our policy very clearly. When we look at the United Party’s policy, we do not have any clarity on any of those points. What is the reply of the hon. member for Hillbrow? I am sorry he is not present at the moment; his nerves are probably worrying him as a result of all the stories on these clear statements which were put forward yesterday and which I am putting forward now. Hon. members opposite say the Bantu do not agree with us. But I want to ask them whether the Bantu would be satisfied with the small representation by Whites which the Bantu would have in this Parliament? To what extent are they going to satisfy the Bantu in these various spheres? No replies have been given to this, and that is why the hon. member for Wynberg has started doubting. I do not expect it of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and of her to speak today, because they have already spoken and we know what their line of thought is in regard to these matters. We want to hear from the other members.

Economic development is another matter which has been raised, and I should like to dwell upon this. Under our policy, these various peoples are going to have the fullest opportunity of developing economically in their own countries. We assist them, but what would their economic position be under the United Party’s policy? There is no clarity on that. There would be an intertwining of economic interests. Under their policy, those people would not become employers either. They would have to compete with the large capital interests of the Whites. The United Party speaks of one South Africa, but under their policy the Bantu would remain employees. The National Party, however, affords them the opportunity of becoming employers, the owners of the businesses and the mines. On moral grounds, therefore, we have great justification, and we may advocate our policy with pride. I want to come to a next point, and that is the protection of the political rights of the Whites. We have dwelt upon the Bantu now, but I want to ask how the United Party would protect the Whites politically. That hon. member is startled when the Bantu leaders request more land, but under their policy they will create the opportunity for the Bantu to wage a struggle through their own representatives in this Parliament, not only on the question of land, but also on the question of political rights. These things would be broached in this Parliament, while we are already granting them these things, each in his own area. Surely it is very clear that 15 million people cannot be represented in that way. A last point I want to mention is how the United Party is going to defend such a policy before the rest of the world. How are they going to defend those limited rights which the Bantu would get in a central Parliament? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I ask for the privilege of the second halfhour.

I would like to reply very briefly to the six points made by the hon. the Deputy Minister. The first is that each nation is going to get its own land. I would like to ask him if he thinks that the division of land in South Africa has been equitable. If he thinks it has been equitable, certainly not one of the African Territorial Authorities or African tribal authorities agrees with him on that. And what about the land we allocated to Indian and Coloured people in South Africa or to those urban Africans who are living permanently outside the Bantu areas? Secondly he says that each nation can work out its own political future. I would like to know if Chief Buthelezi demanded independence tomorrow, whether this Government will be prepared to give it to him. Does he not realize that even since the setting up of the territorial authorities the lives of Africans are governed almost entirely even in the homelands in every respect by laws passed by this Government in the Republic of South Africa? Thirdly he said that Africans have now been guaranteed the preservation of their language and their culture. I say that one does not need laws to preserve language or culture. If these people want to preserve their language and culture, they will do that without the help of this Government. Fourthly, the Deputy Minister says that great advances have been made in regard to economic development. Some advances have certainly been made, but I want to point out to him that the vast majority of gainfully employed Africans still earn their livelihood in the so-called White areas of the Republic of South Africa. This is after nearly a quarter of a century of the Government’s trying to implement its anartheid policy. Then he tells us that the Whites are protected. Protected from what I cannot imagine, because no matter what steps the Government has taken the demographic pattern remains exactly the same. The four million Whites are vastly outnumbered by the 17 to 18 million nonWhites and unless that vast majority is a contented population, nobody can say that the Whites are adequately protected.

Finally, the hon. the Deputy Minister said that the outside world now accepts the moral implications of the policy, and that we can justify our policy morally to the outside world. Well, he may feel we can. I have yet to meet anybody in the outside world who feels that the policy of apartheid, of race discrimination, separate development, or whatever one wants to call it, is in fact morally justified.

You mix with the wrong people; that is the trouble.

So much for the hon. Deputy Minister and his euphoric dream.

I now want to come back to reality, if that is possible. I have a number of queries to put both to the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education and also to the hon. the Minister himself. I notice, through reading various reports, that an enormous amount of money has been spent by the South African Bantu Trust on housing in the Bantu homelands over the past five years. In the Republic alone—that is excluding South-West Africa—I work out that something like R35 million has been spent on housing alone. In the year 1970-71 something like R7 million was spent. A good deal of this, it seems to me, was spent on housing under the resettlement scheme. Some of this has also gone to the housing of workers living in the homelands but working in the border areas, employing something like 90 000 people. But the urban areas have been woefully starved of money to be expended on housing schemes. In the entire South Africa last year, something like R6 million was allocated for this purpose.

But all the money that was voted has not been taken up.

Well, now the hon. the Minister must tell me why that is so. I cannot understand why the local authorities are not using the money. I would like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether the Government does not retain the power it used to have under the Bantu Urban Areas Act, to step in and build houses where the local authorities have not been doing their proper amount of building, and then reclaim from them. To the best of my mind, this provision is still on the Statute Book. There is nothing against the Government stepping in when it feels that local authorities are not doing their duty. In Soweto alone I know that there is a shortage of something like 13 thousand family houses. The hon. the Deputy Minister has told us that he has not turned down a single application from the Johannesburg city council over the last two or three years for housing loans. I say that it might well be necessary for him to do what the Government did in 1950 and onwards, namely to step in and do some of the building in that area itself. But they also have to see to it that land is provided. As the hon. the Deputy Minister must be aware, there is also a severe shortage of land near Johannesburg for the building of houses for Africans. So, just to sit there and say that he has not turned down an application, and that all the money asked for has been granted, does not seem to me an adequate response from a Government which is never averse to stepping in and using its powers wherever necessary. I think this is the one case where the Government should in fact use its powers.

Now, can the hon. the Deputy Minister tell me if the claim that he makes about local authorities in the case of Johannesburg, also applies in the case, for instance. of Cape Town or Durban? Have those two areas been granted all the money that they applied for, or has the hon. the Minister, in fact, turned down applications for loans for the building of houses in those areas? I want to tell the hon. the Minister that we are fast approaching a housing crisis in the urban African areas in South Africa in all the large metropolitan centres. Soweto is one. Durban is another. Port Elizabeth is yet another. In view of all the warnings that one has had, the discontent, the overcrowding, the slum conditions which are rapidly developing, I think the Government should certainly step in and see that something is done about them. More particularly, this year an amendment was passed to the Services Levy Act, which would enable the hon. the Minister now to use that money in the metropolitan areas for housing as well as using that money in the homeland areas. I think this is absolutely essential and I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister is going to do something about it. I will quote as a case in point the absolutely disgraceful conditions that have been allowed to develop in Pinetown-Clermont area in Natal. There were a lot of newspaper stories about this a few weeks ago. The Minister said he was not prepared to make a statement in reply to a question I asked him, but in fact he gave me a reply which covered well over a foolscap page; it was a very full reply indeed. It now appears that all sorts of steps are being taken by the Government and by local authorities to try to clear up the situation in Clermont. I may say, Sir, that one has to lay the blame for this situation fairly and squarely at the feet of his department, because they had no business to allow people to come into those areas when there was such a shocking lack of accommodation. The conditions are, I would say, more appropriate to England in the time of Charles Dickens than to South Africa in 1972.

Are you then in favour of influx control?

No, I am not in favour of influx control; I am in favour of the hon. the Minister providing accommodation …

But you say we must not allow them in?

Sir, what the Minister should have done was to provide the accommodation for these people. He should anticipate that when the Government gives permits to industrialists to set up factories in those areas, or adjacent to those areas, immediate steps should be taken to provide housing. I do not believe that industrialists should have the duty of providing accommodation: that is tied housing and it is very disadvantageous to employees. I believe it is the duty of the Government and the local authorities to see that adequate housing is provided. When industrial areas are laid out, provision should be made at the same time, or certainly before the factories can be erected, for housing. We had the same situation in Cape Town. Here we had the most terrible slums developing, not only as far as Africans were concerned, but also as far as Coloured workers were concerned. I say that pari passu or even in anticipation, it is the obvious duty of the Government to provide housing. It is something which should be attended to, and I hope very much indeed that the disgraceful conditions obtaining in Clermont and Pinetown are not going to be repeated in other areas. We badly need a five-year plan for the housing of Africans in the urban areas.

Sir, I want to say something not only about the quantity of housing that has been provided—which is woefully inadequate— but also about the quality of housing which has been provided, which is also inadequate. There are many complaints from Africans. There is no differentiation between the houses professional people have to occupy and the houses occupied by casual labourers. Since the days of the 30-year leases, when people could build their own houses and have them for 30 years, there has been no building of differentiated housing in the townships. This is a big complaint among the middle class and more well-to-do African persons. Sir, the usual structures are four-roomed houses with two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Absolutely no provision is made for growing children of different sexes. There is no indoor bathroom in any of the houses in Soweto. There are no indoor toilet facilities, and very many of the houses are still lacking electricity. Again, I sincerely hope that the hon. the Minister is going to see to it that the money which is tied up in the Bantu Services Levy Account and which could not be used, except for these link services, will now be released and that essential amenities such as electricity are provided in all the townships. I understand that a great deal of that money is sitting in building societies, and that it is being used to finance White housing. I think it is an absurd situation that money paid by industrialists, really for services for their African employees, should have been put in building societies and should not have been used. I sincerely hope, now that the law has been amended, that something is going to be done in that regard.

Now I want to come to the question of hostels, which was raised last night by the hon. member for Jeppes. I raised this matter, as the hon. the Minister knows, during the course of a private member’s motion earlier this year, in February. I pointed out that the migratory labour system was bad. I also pointed out that the provision of hostels where not only single men and women, but also married men and women, were to be placed is an abysmal system and one that ought to be abandoned. I want the hon. the Minister seriously to consider diverting funds which are earmarked for the building—I think—of ten more hostels in Alexandra Township so that the money can be used for the provision of housing on a family basis, housing which is so urgently required. I want to talk also about the existing hostels. There are two of them, one for 2 800 women and one for 2 600 men. These will shortly be ready for occupation, and I want to put a couple of propositions to the hon. the Minister in this regard, not so much from the point of view of the housewife, as was done last night by the hon. member for Jeppes, but from the point of view of the African people who are going to be moved. I want to put this very reasonably to the hon. the Minister. There are at the moment at least 19 000 applications for hostel accommodation in Soweto alone, from people legally employed in Johannesburg. I am against the principle of hostel accommodation but there are these hostels. Before the hon. the Minister insists, via the City Council of Johannesburg, that people already housed in servants’ quarters and elsewhere with householders in Johannesburg should be moved into these hostels, he should first fill those hostels from these 19 000 people, who are all legally employed in Johannesburg. This he should do before these Africans living with householders in Johannesburg are made to move, with all the ensuing difficulties of transport, etc. One has to bear in mind the increased costs to employees, of transport and the fact that these people will have to pay R5-40 per month for a bed in a sixor eight-bedded room in a hostel. It really does not matter whether these hostels are going to be made available for people north of the Houghton Ridge or south, east or west of the Houghton Ridge; they are all employed in Johannesburg. I ask the Minister to consider allocating these beds on a voluntary basis, to those who have applied for hostel accommodation. What can be more reasonable than that, instead of moving people who are already provided with accommodation with a certain amount of privacy, who have heaters and the convenience of living on their employers’ premises?

But on the one hand you are attacking us because of hostel accommodation and on the other hand you are pleading for 19 000 more to be accommodated there.

I do not understand the hon. the Deputy Minister. Does he not listen to a word I say? I said to him that I am against this in principle. I said that the money for future hostels should be diverted in order to provide housing on a family basis. However, I have to face the fact that these two monstrosities exist. The Government has spent R1 million on each of them and I have seen them, unlike the hon. member for Jeppes. I have been through them; the architect took me on a personally conducted tour. I described the whole thing to this House during my private member’s motion. There they are; there is no gainsaying the fact that they exist. I would be out of my mind if I were to imagine that the Government would just ignore their existence. Sir, let us then use them on a voluntary basis for people who have applied for hostel accommodation, who presumably are either single people or people whose families are not with them. Let us fill those hostels with these people instead of uprooting the 5 000-odd people who are already accommodated and moving them to the two hostels. I hope I have now made my point singularly clear to the hon. the Minister.

I also want to say that the existing hostels should be much improved before people are moved in at the dead of winter, into these heatless barracks. I wonder what the hon. the Minister would feel like if he had to go and live in one of these places, with no heat, in the dead of a Highveld winter. It is freezing in those areas. They have concrete floors, no heat whatsoever. I think the expenditure of RX—I do not care what it is—on heating would make such a difference to the comfort of the people who are going there. At least the corridors and the so-called lounge where people can entertain their friends, and perhaps the dining room, could be heated before these people move in. I put these as practical propositions to the hon. the Minister. A meeting was held in Johannesburg, and I want him to know that the people who attended this meeting were ordinary citizens, mostly apolitical, unknown and unseen at political meetings beforehand. These people felt terribly strongly about this and not, let me add, because the sacred early morning cup of tea was not going to be forthcoming at the hands of the domestic servant. They were upset because people who had worked for them for many years were going to be put to this acute discomfort of being moved from reasonably comfortable quarters where, as I have said, they have privacy and probably some heat, to these barracks. Sir, I am putting a reasonable proposition to the hon. the Minister and I hope he will consider it in that light. I have to accept the fact that these two hostels exist. As I have said, I sincerely hope that the Government will reconsider its policy and not build any more of those hostels.

I want to come now to the question of aid centres, the hon. the Deputy Minister’s favourite subject. The last information that I got from him was in reply to a question that I put earlier this year and gave statistics up to the end of December last year. Four of the existing aid centres had only just started operating, so there was no information about Johannesburg, Kimberley, Sebokeng or Boksburg. Cape Town had the longest-functioning aid centre, which started in, I think, August, 1969; Nigel, which was the next longest-functioning, started in May, 1970. The Minister told me that in Cape Town over 36 000 cases had been aided at the aid centres. Sir, I wonder if he could possibly give some more details about these aid centres. He told us that 1 940 people had been placed in employment in the area, for which one is duly grateful, and outside the area. I do not know how many were placed in employment in Cape Town itself. He told us that 1 076 had been repatriated. I wonder, Sir, what happened to the remaining people. Were they unable to be aided? Were they simply told that they had to go back under their own steam, or what happened to them? I would be interested to know how the aid centres are functioning. Then, Sir, I wonder if he could give us a little more information at this stage about Johannesburg and some of the other centres. I notice in the Police Report that the number of short-term prisoners has gone down a bit, but probably not entirely as a result of the aid centres, because the Police Report is only up to June, 1970, so I doubt whether the 10 000 decrease is due to that. Perhaps it is due to the fact that maybe some of the police are at last heeding the instruction given some years ago that Africans are to be given an opportunity of producing their passes.

Now, Sir, a word or two about employment opportunities in the homelands. I have been studying the interesting reports that we have been getting from the Xhosa Investment Corporation and the B.I.C. report. This is a very handsome report, by the way. I like this collage on the outside cover. I presume it is supposed to represent a busy little homeland, is it not?

It is Houghton, from where they come.

I wonder; it is not even Houghton. It is just about the centre of Johannesburg, if the truth be known. I can practically pick out the Standard Bank building in Johannesburg and a few other skyscrapers. I doubt if there is a homeland that looks anything like this. But perhaps this is what is anticipated for the future.

Have you been to Babalegi?

No, I am going to go to Babalegi. At the moment Babalegi inside looks rather different from the collage outside. Babalegi has a few long lowslung buildings.

You should go there and buy yourself some wigs.

I do not need them; I still have enough hair. The hon. the Minister needs a wig more than I do. Sir, may I get on to the subject of the homelands? I see that as far as the Xhosa Investment Corporation is concerned, the number of jobs created amounts to just over 3 000. In the three previous years, 3 830 jobs were created, making a grand total of 6 896 over four years. The next three-year planning envisages 10 000 new jobs at— mark this, Sir—a capital cost of R37 million. According to my arithmetic, that is roughly R3 700 per job. That is a lot of money for the creation of a job in the homelands. But I would be pretty grateful if this happened in fact. The Bantu Investment Corporation has created approximately 7 000 jobs for Bantu of whom 4 000 were employed directly by the Bantu Investment Corporation in its own enterprises. Sir, could the hon. the Minister tell me what has happened to this scheme enunciated by Deputy Minister Raubenheimer to enact legislation to facilitate and coordinate foreign aid to the homelands? He made an announcement earlier this year that he was going to do something about this, but nothing has happened in this House. I understand that Zululand and the Transkei and Tswanaland have all been offered foreign aid, and it would be nice to know what the Government’s attitude is if foreign countries are prepared to aid either the Government’s homelands or entrepreneurs in the homelands to set up factories.

Now I come to the resettlement areas. In August last year a lot of publicity was given to Deputy Minister Koornhof’s visit to the resettlement villages of Sada and Dimbaza and Ilinge, inhabited by something like 26 000 people, and he was, according to Press reports, much moved by what he saw. He found misery there, and he was determined that such misery should not be allowed to continue and that no more centres like Sada would be set up, consisting as they do only of aged people and widows and children. I hope very much that the hon. the Minister is going to continue with that determination. I think it is seven years too late already. I have been asking him about this for years, but I am always grateful for any small mercies.

You are not grateful for big mercies.

Yes, I am also grateful for big mercies, but there have not been many of them. I must say I am glad that the hon. the Minister at last is going to see that these things do not happen any more. He also, however, announced a crash programme to provide work for thousands of poverty-stricken people in that area and I would like to know what has happened since then. I do know that there is a sisal weaving centre at Sada, but how many workers are employed and what wages they get, I do not know. Are there any other employment centres, and has any headway been made towards establishing the clothing factory that was talked about at Soda or elsewhere? And does the hon. the Minister or the Deputy Minister consider that the issue of rations to utterly destitute people of R2-55 cents a month is viable? Does he really think that anybody can live on that? It is absolutely impossible. When the Rev. Russell came here last year and after a lot of negotiations and letters passing between him and the Deputy Minister Raubenheimer, he was promised maintenance grants for those people. Finally the maintenance grants have been coming through, but they are worth R2-50 a month, and the rations which the people were getting worth R2-55 were immediately cut off. What sort of nonsense is that?

They cannot have both.

They cannot have both, but how can anybody live on R2-50 a month? I would like the Minister to try to live on it for one day, let alone for one month. He will find that it is absolutely impossible. If we move people and we do not give them employment opportunities, the least we can do is to see that these people are able to live at something like a human standard of living. But he says they cannot have both, so he cuts off the rations worth R2-55 and gives them instead a maintenance of R2-50, so they have lost 5 cents on the big deal. I ask you, Sir! I think it is appalling.

Now, there is one group of people whom I am very concerned about in these areas, and what sort of hostility is being engendered there, God only knows. These are expoliticals who have been banned from staying in the urban areas where they all had jobs, in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and elsewhere. They have all been sent back to places like Sada and Ilinge. There is a whole group of them in this area and the maximum they can earn is R19 or R20 a month doing casual work and they have families to support. Do we or do we not believe in the rehabilitation of prisoners? If we do believe in the rehabilitation of prisoners, when people have served a term of imprisonment and have come off Robben Island, are they forever to be condemned to living in these areas? I ask this as a question of humanity, but I also ask it as a question of policy because I know that our prison system is designed to rehabilitate ex-prisoners, and I do not see how any rehabilitation of these people can take place in circumstances like these. I hope too that something is being done to improve the conditions of the houses in the resettlement areas. I have had letter after letter complaining of dampness and cold and the floors. I think they are beginning to cement some of those floors, which were pretty bad.

Then there is a final subject which I think I just have time to raise with the hon. the Minister and that is the question I have raised very often in this House, the question of the banishees, the people who are banished under the 1972 Bantu Administration Act.

You get your replies regularly.

Yes, I get the replies regularly, but the fact is that we still have banishees and that some of them have been in banishment for 16 to 20 years. That is a terrible indictment. Does not the Minister think that the time has now come to have an amnesty for all of these people? One of these people died last year, after having been in banishment for 22 years. That is a long stretch of banishment by anybody’s standards. He was a very old and sick man by the time he died. Could not a little compassion have been shown, could not this man have been released before that? I have other stories of people who have been ill and have not received treatment. One man died after three months of complaining of agonizing pains. He died a week after he was finally taken to hospital where it was discovered that he had been suffering from cancer of the stomach. That does not tie up with the reply I once got in this House that adequate medical attention was given to these people who are put in these remote spots.

Can you remedy cancer?

No, but you can you can do is to see that they do not die in agony. But for three months that man was left unattended, despite the entreaties of his fellow prisoners to the local Police station. Now I want to know what attention is paid to the people banished by the chiefs under Proclamation 400 of the Transkie. At the last count there were 22 of these people, seven of whom had been banished during the last two years, four who had been in banishment for 11 years, from just after Proclamation 400 was passed, and seven have been in banishment for 10 years. May I ask the hon. the Minister whether he ever reviews these cases or whether these cases are left entirely to the mercy of the chiefs who banished them in the first place? Does he not, after all, think that these laws are really very out of place since, without any access to the courts of law, without any appeal or remedy whatsoever, people can be banished without trial in this day and age in South Africa? I would ask the hon. the Minister whether he in fact has any authority over the cases that are banished by the chiefs under Proclamation 400.

I have other matters to raise but I see my time is just about up, so there is no point really in starting on a new section. There will be other opportunities, I hope, at a later stage, but I sincerely hope I will get some replies to what I believe to be very pertinent questions.

Thank the Opposition for the half-hour.

I do thank the Opposition for the half-hour.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to reply to everything the hon. member for Houghton has said. I think the hon. the Minister will reply to the details which she raised here. I just want to say that I think the hostels which have been built in Alexandra are really luxurious in comparison with what was built in their time when they were still in control of the City Council of Johannesburg. I am thinking of the hostels that there were at City Deep, Waterval, Wemmerspan and so forth. These hostels are luxurious. I just want to remind the hon member who the architect of the hostels at Alexandra actually was. It was no less a person than Mr. William Carr, who was her Progressive Party candidate during the last City Council election in Johannesburg. In those days Mr. Carr was a very “bright boy” and he is still a “bright boy” as far as the Progressive Party is concerned. He is the man who actually had a share in the designing and building of those hostels. But I am not prepared to waste my time any further on the hon. member. I think the hon. the Minister will reply to her.

I want to come back to the policy of the United Party. I want to say that I am sorry the hon. member for Hillbrow is not here. If I were the leader of the United Party, I would really take this man to task in regard to what he said here this afternoon. What did he say? When we questioned him about the article which appeared in the Cape Times of 4th May, entitled “U.P. Colour Policy may Change” and written by a Mr. John Scott, when the hon. the Deputy Minister asked him specifically yesterday—and he had to reply to it— whether he had had a hand in this article or knew anything about it, he told this House quite frankly that he did have knowledge of it. This newspaperman had telephoned him in connection with another matter and on this occasion the newspaperman had told him that he was going to write an article speculating along these lines. Does the hon. member for Hillbrow expect us to be so nave as to believe that he, who makes himself out to be a very loyal member of the United Party, would not express his displeasure when a newspaperman told him: “Man, I am going to speculate along these lines in an article which I am writing”? Would he not express his displeasure at an article of this nature and tell the newspaperman: “I think you are doing a very unwise thing”, and discourage him from doing it? But he said here that he had taken note of it. Inter alia, Mr. Scott wrote this sentence—

The idea here that this was admitted by very influential members of the United Party—I want to say here today that the hon. member for Hillbrow is also a party to that statement. He is responsible for it. He is co-responsible and he knew that there would be speculation along these lines. It met with his approval. I want him to be honest just as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is honest in connection with this matter.

I am honest about everything, not only about this matter.

Both in the press and at their congress the hon. member for Bezuidenhout openly advocated a change in the policy of the United Party to adjust to the policy propounded by the National Party. I want to put a question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition today and, although he is pretending not to listen, I hope that he will listen with one ear. Last night in The Argus he again said that there was no idea of changing the policy of the United Party.

Neither is there.

I want to ask him point-blank whether he is aware of the fact that there is a very strong movement afoot within his own Party. There is practically a revolt taking place and there are members of his own Party who want that policy to be changed …

Nonsense!

… and who want that policy to come closer to the policy of the National Party. Is he aware of that?

You are fishing on dry land.

I am not fishing on dry land. I want to read now what the hon. member for Wynberg said when a newspaperman interviewed her. He asked her:

You are not man enough to tackle a woman.

What are those statements? She must get up and tell us what they are.

I shall get up and speak.

I quote further:

Does the Leader of the Opposition want to tell me that if there are people in his Party who make statements of this nature, he does not regard it as a revolt against the policy of the United Party, and that he does not regard them as people who are in revolt against the policy of the United Party as laid down? What does she have to say further? I quote:

She goes on to say:

What does the hon. member mean by a “positive and constructive image”? Are we to infer from this, as we have always told them, that their policy is not positive and not constructive? Their policy is a purely negative policy which is aimed at the complete destruction of the Whites at the southern point of Africa. She goes on to say:

Continuing, she says:

I now ask the hon. the Leader of the United Party whether he is aware of these things. Will he stand up here and tell us in this House that there is amity and peace within his party and that there is no rebellion? Will he tell us that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is still in full agreement with their policy, namely to introduce 16 non-White representatives into this Parliament?

Now you are being ridiculous.

I am not being ridiculous. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is the man who is held up to the world as the Gentleman who will do everything necessary for South Africa. We will reveal to hon. members that that smile is nothing but an inscrutable smile with nothing behind it, except a satanic desire and a determination to surrender this South Africa of ours to the majority, to the nonWhites.

Mr. Chairman, when the hon. member for Langlaagte referred a moment ago to the confusion of tongues prevailing in the United Party, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition told him by way of interjection: “Now you are being ridiculous.” I wonder whether the hon. the Leader of the Opposition realizes how ridiculous his Party has become in the eyes of the electorate of South Africa as a result of this confusion of tongues in regard to relationships policy in South Africa.

Brakpan propaganda.

No, it has nothing to do with Brakpan. I was in Brakpan recently and I am now going to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition what I said in Brakpan in regard to the policy of the United Party. Then he can tell me whether or not I was honest in saying it. We have always known that the germ of the death of the White man lies hidden in the Bantu policy of the United Party. The downfall of the White man here in South Africa lies hidden within the policy of the United Party. I personally do not lose a single opportunity to say this to the electorate of South Africa. I should be neglecting my duty shamefully were I to allow the electorate of South Africa to walk into this danger with their eyes open by putting the United Party into power with the policy which they advocate and with the results which will flow from their policy for the White man in South Africa. We have always known this but what we have not fully realized until very recently is that not only does the germ of the death of the White man in South Africa lie hidden in that policy, but that the germ of the downfall of the United Party also lies hidden in their Bantu policy. Neither can sober-minded people in that Party continue to accept this policy as it is presented here to the electorate.

Over the past 20 and more years in this House we have seen how the National Party and this Government have gone ahead to make this Parliament White step by step, to make it a White Parliament where the White man can decide the destiny of the White man in South Africa. We have seen how, under the leadership of the late Dr. Malan, Bantu representation in this House was abolished against the wishes of the Opposition. In 1948 and in 1953 and at subsequent elections, the electorate rejected the United Party because of their policy of two representatives in the House of Assembly. Now they are asking the voters of Brakpan, the voters of Oudtshoorn and the electorate of South Africa to put them into power so that they can bring 16 non-White representatives into this House and nine into the Senate.

You are afraid.

No, I am not afraid, but I have also seen what has happened. We made this Parliament White step by step; not only did we remove the representatives of the Bantu here, but we also placed the Coloured people on a separate voters’ roll; we removed the Coloured Representatives from this Parliament and gave those people more and better rights in their own areas. But here we are reserving the White man’s rights in the White man’s Parliament. On 3rd February this year, during the no-confidence debate, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development put the policy of the National Party unequivocally in all its facets. Hon. members opposite should read that speech. That policy was stated here very clearly on 3rd February. In that speech the hon. the Minister also pointed out—and hon. members will agree—that in a multi-national country like South Africa the all-important problem with which a Parliament has to deal must surely be the relationships policy in order to bring about good relationships amongst the various nations living within the borders of that country. The hon. the Minister challenged the Opposition yesterday and then said that he preferred to use a softer word. He then said: “I beg the United Party speakers to give us a positive policy, to state their positive policy, in view of the confusion which we have had on that side of the house during the past few days.” But what did we find? On four occasions this year we have had the opportunity to hear what the positive policy of the United Party is. We asked the question and we are awaiting a reply. There we have the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who said that anyone who thought that the Black man was going to be satisfied to be represented by a White man, and that the Brown man was going to be satisfied to be represented by a White man, was living in a fool’s paradise. There are people sitting on that side of the House who do not have the courage to say that here, but then they still hawk it around outside.

What is it?

If the hon. member will only be quiet and listen, I shall fell him what it is. They hawk the 1936 Act and blame this side of the House because we are implementing the provisions of that Act. They blame us because we are purchasing that land for the various Bantu homelands and because we are consolidating those homelands by means of a dynamic programme. [Interjections.] There are none so blind as those who will not see! Some hon. members on that side of the House went on tour with us to see what was happening in the homelands. Hon. members know what is happening in the Ciskei. I want to ask the hon. member for King William’s Town whether he is in favour of all the land, the million morgen as laid down in the 1936 Act, being purchased, or does he also hawk the allegation around outside that the National Party wants to purchase all that land, but that the Act provides that it must be a maximum of 7 million morgen? We said it last time and I want to repeat it now: This side of the House is bound by the honour and the word of the White man and we will implement the provisions of the 1936 Act. The hon. the Minister asked and begged hon. members opposite yesterday to make positive policy statements. We received criticism and I want to say immediately that this side of the House has no objection to our policy being criticized. We have no objection to hon. members opposite criticizing the application of our policy. I want to be fair and say that we did get something positive from two members opposite. Two speakers on that side told us that if they came into power they would bring the worker here to the White area on a family basis. We heard that from two speakers. I now want to point out very briefly what the result of that policy will be if it is applied. We have 28 309 Bantu contract workers in the Peninsula at the moment. Under United! Party policy, i.e. on a family basis, this will mean 141 545 Bantu. We have 127 000 contract workers in the Western Cape. Under United Party policy—and the Western Cape must take note of this—this will mean 635 185 Bantu. I also want to mention the amount of land that will be required to accommodate these additional families. One will need 300 morgen in the Peninsula and 13 000 morgen in the Western Cape. I told the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that I was going to be fair. I have his declared policy here, in which we are told that they will bring 16 representatives of non-Whites into this House and 9 into the Senate. Am I entitled to tell this to the voters outside? Am I being honest when I tell it to them? After all, hon. members have told us that there is no change in the policy and that they foresee no change. I also tell the electorate that the Leader of the Opposition has said that these representatives will only be Whites in the interim and that they will be replactd by non-Whites afterwards.

That is untrue.

The Leader of the Opposition said this at De Aar and the hon. member for Yeoville has also said it. We shall have the opportunity to prove it during this debate.

If you say that, it is untrue.

I say it and you know it is true. I now put it to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that he is not going to be satisfied. This is what he told the congress. He said that those Black and Brown people were not going to be satisfied with the few political crumbs which fall from the White man’s table, but that they must have direct representation by their own people.

Where did I say that?

I shall prove it to the hon. member. He said this and it was published in the newspapers. We dealt with it during the discussion of a motion here. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister made great play yesterday afternoon about what he chose to describe, and what hon. members this afternoon have chosen to describe, as a very serious divergence of opinion within the United Party, particularly over Bantu Affairs. The hon. the Minister referred specifically to accounts that appeared in certain newspapers late last week and over the week-end, in which I was involved. The first report, as he knows, appeared in the Argus on 4th May and gave rise to subsequent speculation. This report was an extract from speech notes of mine. The hon. member for Rissik was quite correct. I made three speeches in Natal last week-end. This report, which appeared in the Argus represents one very small section of a general speech on the entire political scene which I made at great length in Natal. In the course of those speeches, I made certain comments, some of which I am going to repeat here in this House this afternoon. I said, amongst other things, with regard to the Oudtshoorn by-election, that I did not believe that the Nationalist Party’s increased majority in that by-election would solve anything at all in South Africa. I said, too, that some of the older generation might have heeded the call to the blood— you know, this miserable cry that the fate of the “ware Afrikaner” will be sealed if the United Party gets back into power. But I have made it quite clear that the young people of this country are bored to death with that type of argument. Thousands and thousands of English-and Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa—if hon. members have not found it out, it is time they did—were both saddened and deeply ashamed at the manner in which that whole business was handled here by hon. Ministers in this House. But that is of course not the real issue. The crunch, when it comes, Bantustans notwithstanding, is this: How serious are White South Africans about sharing power with our people of colour on any basis, by means of separate development, representatives in Parliament, or any other? Then a statement appeared in the newspaper, the statement which has been quoted ad nauseam in this House. I said—

But what is so amusing here, is that the hon. the Minister and his Government now claim full credit for this programme when, in fact, I myself and all my colleagues, have been fighting elections on this type of programme ever since the early 1960s. It appears in our policy statements. We advocated it way back in the 1960s. It appears in a pamphlet of 1963, that all our Coloured groups should be given an important and an identifiable political status. I admitted that the Nationalist Government had at last got around to it. All right, that is fine. We also advocated in 1963 that they all be given a constitutional platform.

Why then did they silence you?

We also advocated in 1963 that all these groups, and hon. members know it perfectly well, should be increasingly involved in the whole system of local government right up to the provincial level, which we have said over and over again all over the country. So, when we say that certain constitutional machinery set up by this Government cannot now be undone, we are perfectly satisfied to adapt it for the purposes which we have set out ever since the 1960s. It forms part of our own plan. But if the hon. members do not believe my statement on the subject this afternoon, let me quote from a speech made by my hon. colleague, the member for Zululand, here in this House last week. During the Indian Affairs Vote, the hon. member for Zululand said (Hansard Manuscript, 5/5/72, page C.l)—

Is there anything to be ashamed of about that? This is a speech made by the hon. member for Zululand. He continued—

So, I have said no more and no less than my hon. colleague from Zululand said in this House last week. Let me tell the hon. the Minister just what I went on to say after that at my Natal meeting, in case it would interest him. This is something which did not appear in the Argus report. I said that with all the political machinery which this Government has set up for our people of colour, on the basis of separate development, how much real power, when you really get down to bedrock, do any of them really wield in any field whatsoever? Great propaganda was made at Oudtshoorn and is being made in this House today to the effect that our proposal for 16 members of Parliament representing the Blacks, the Coloureds and the Indian people in Parliament would give them the casting vote in this House on any issue over which the White parties might divide. Hon. members over there have been going around the country saying that this would mean the end of the White man because the Coloured races would demand greater representation in relation to their numbers, that the whole thing would escalate and that our doom would be sealed. This is what we have been told, Sir, Here, of course, hon. members opposite are tacitly admitting that no representative of a Coloured race sitting in this House would be likely to vote for them—that is what they say by implication. [Interjections.] To this propaganda I should like to reply quite unequivocally, and I say this advisedly: We are prepared to accept the consequences of the representation we propose for these people. Either the 16 M.P.s representing the Coloured, the Black and the Indian groups exercise the same degree of political power in Parliament as any other M.P., or the whole plan is meaningless and a fraud, and we are not prepared to deal with people on a fraudulent basis. We say that quite unequivocally, so if the hon. the Minister wants his reply, he has it. Let me say this too: Outright political power of one kind or another must be given to others as well as to ourselves, and be given soon, or stark confrontation politics is all that will be left to us in South Africa. What does this Government do to these people, for instance to the Bantu people? They will give them no more land other than that provided for in the 1936 Act, and they have no real political power, even on the basis of separate development. Look at all the nominated members in the Transkei, the nominated members on the Coloured Representative Council and the nominated members on the Indian Council. The hon. the Minister of Labour told us yesterday he is not going to train the Bantu people to be skilled workers. This Government holds out no real, firm hope or expectations for these people in the field of labour and employment either. The crux of the white political dilemma in South Africa today is simply whether all of us on both sides of this House, are ready and prepared to make the evolutionary leap towards a sharing of power and of our economic gains with the rest of the people of this country. The United Party has said quite unequivocally that it is ready to do this, not by drowning or by suicide but by a process of evolution. In the eyes of the rest of the world South Africa’s bona fides are at stake. We cannot afford to fool around like this any longer. Either we face the realities and take these people with us along the democratic road as friends, allies and participants, or we face each other with fear and hostility and a sense of mounting crisis.

I want to conclude by making one prediction here, and I do not make it irresponsibly. That is that if this Nationalist Party is again returned to power at the next election, there will be a rapid and a frightening deterioration in the field of race relations in South Africa.

On what grounds…?

That is absolutely clear. When the Sunday Times correspondent came to my office the other day and asked for further comment on the constitutional position, I quite correctly referred him, since we have a constitutional committee sitting, to the members who are concerned with that committee, as hon. members know. [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, I am perfectly free to make public speeches on these issues, and I shall continue to do so … [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

I have listened attentively to the hon. member for Wynberg.

I hope you have learned something.

My path, and that of the hon. member for Wynberg have been crossing for quite a few years now, first in the Provincial Council and now in the House of Assembly. I would not like to react to her speculation speech in Natal, but I would like to ask the hon. member in all humility what has happened to her letter to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in which she levelled accusations at the hon. member for Pinetown. She did not refer to it.

Where do you get that bit of gossip-mongering.

Sir, yesterday the hon. the Minister said here that the moment of truth has arrived in this debate. The Opposition told us that they do have a policy, and the hon. member for Wynberg also referred to this. But what is the Opposition’s policy? I, for example, come from the “deep platteland”, and yesterday I had the privilege of discussing the policy of the Opposition with the hon. member for Houghton, and the hon. member for Houghton told me: “But I do not understand the Opposition’s policy”. The hon. member for Houghton comes from enlightened urban areas; I come from the “deep platteland”; how on earth must we understand the Opposition’s policy? The hon. member for Houghton, who periodically visits Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda and then comes and takes her place here …

And also Malawi.

… regularly agrees with the United Party when there is a division in this House, but now she states that she does no understand the United Party’s policy, because it is too changeable. Sir, how on earth must we, who come from the “deep platteland”, we who come from the hinterland, or from the Transkei as the hon. member said here a while ago, understand and explain the United Party’s policy? Sir, since yesterday it has been very conspicuous that the hon. member for South Coast was shining in his absence from this House. The hon. member for South Coast is probably on his way again to look at cross-ties that have rotted in Natal.

What has that to do with the Vote?

In any case, the hon. member for South Coast is not present; for what reason I do not know.

Sir, I should like to come back to the hon. member for Durban Central. I see that he is now in the House; he was not here earlier this afternoon. Yesterday in his speech the hon. member said the following, inter alia—

I wonder whether the hon. member realizes what he said here.

Of course; he was being sarcastic.

Sir, I should like to place on record here today that I take off my hat to the Department of Bantu Administration and its officials who gathered those people together. They took them out of gravel pits, out of bushes, from the sides of the roads, out of hovels, and established them there in Dimbaza and Sada. I now want to ask the hon. member whether any of the children he saw there were going hungry. Sir, the outside world is being given the impression that we have so-called German camps here in South Africa; that is how badly are we allegedly treating those people. These matters are being stated in such terms in this House not only for South African consumption but also for international consumption; that is the language of the demonstrators. That language is used with only one object, and that is to place us in a poor light. But, Sir, I want to drop that subject and come back to the hon. member for Transkei. Yesterday afternoon in his speech the hon. member for Transkei again referred to my reference to the 1936 legislation and the schedule to that legislation, and then linked it up with the boundaries of the homelands.

But you did say it nevertheless.

Yes, I still say so. The 1936 Act, with its schedule, determines from farm to farm and beacon to beacon where the borders would have been. But the position is that the hon. member for Transkei’s government, which was in power before this Government took over, cut out a certain portion, i.e. the Endowana farms, from the Umzimkulu district. There they already changed the schedule of the 1936 Act, and the consequence was that compensatory land had to be found for those Endowana farms. The Umtata farms were singled out for that purpose, but there was too little of that land.

Where are the borders of the Transkei?

The hon. member will still see the borders of the Transkei.

Where and when?

The hon. member does not have to worry about the borders of the Transkei. The position, as far as the hon. member for Transkei is concerned, is simply that when Chief Minister Matanzima says or does anything in that respect, he stands to attention.

He is afraid he will lose his seat.

Yes, that is what he is afraid of, but he is going to lose his seat in any case.

Your voters are afraid, because they are writing to me.

Sir, in passing I just want to mention that the various home-lands at present consist of the following number of separate pieces of land: The Xhosa-Transkei consists of two, the Xhosa-Ciskei at present consists of 17. At present the quota position is as follows: The original quota of the Cape was 1 384 156 ha; the quota of land already purchased is 1 022 358 ha; the balance owing is 361 798 ha.

How much is the Transkei going to get?

Wait until you see.

Then we come to the number of black spots, the badly situated Bantu areas, which have been cleared up in every Province since 1960. In the Cape there are 72. There are 72 black spots and 14 poorly situated Bantu areas, making a total of 86. That is in the Cape alone. Time expired.]

In the course of my speech I shall come back to the hon. member for Aliwal, especially since he referred to the 1936 Act, but at the moment I prefer to return to the main point in this debate, and that is that we had the strange phenomenon yesterday of the hon. the Minister opening the discussion of his Vote.

I do so every year.

The hon. the Minister went on to say that he wanted to subject the United Party’s policy in particular to close scrutiny in this debate. Well, we are quite prepared to have our policy scrutinized, although our real duty is to investigate the Government’s activities in a debate such as this. However, since he has gone out of his way to say that he and all his men were ready to subject our policy to scrutiny, it would appear to us that there must be a very sound reason for such an attitude. It has already been said that this attitude is due to the fact that they want to shy away from the shortcomings of their administration. I want to add another reason which I think must certainly be the main cause of that attitude, unless it is Brakpan, and that is the fact that they know how divided their own ranks are internally. [Interjections.] I see hon. members are laughing, and I find that interesting, but I shall proceed to quote chapter and verse to prove that this is the plain truth. The hon. the Minister said that this was the day of reckoning. I prefer to call it an important day; in actual fact, it was a very important week-end, the one prior to this special day. I want to suggest it was a very important week-end we had, because in the course of the week-end we witnessed a new humility from the side of a certain section of the Nationalist Party movement who became converted in their standpoints, as I shall also prove. This important section revealed very clearly that they knew their policy was quite inadequate for solving our problems, and I regard this as great progress; and I salute the people who had the courage to admit it all. Now I want to make the point at once that the people who had this change of heart are not unimportant people. The people who are admitting now that there must be tremendous division within the Nationalist Party, are not unimportant people. They are two of the fathers of their policy. Mention has already been made of the words used by the so-called great father of “major apartheid” in his interview with Rapport, when he said their policy was quite inadequate for dealing with the problem of the urban Bantu. I want to quote his words for the benefit of those who did not hear them. This is what Dr. Eiselen said (translation)—

Now we must remember what we had in respect of the urban Bantu from the important Nationalist Party organ, Rapport, at the beginning of this year’s session. “Who in South Africa still wants to suggest that the Bantu are not permanently in our cities?” the paper asked. “Who wants to suggest …?” the paper asked, and everyone knew it was simply a rhetorical question. In other words, from important sides there is a clear admission that the present policy is completely inadequate. The hon. the Minister repeated in this debate what he had said on another occasion, although in different words perhaps. On that other occasion he said the Bantu were deprived of civil rights in the White area. That is completely in conflict with what has now been said by one of the important fathers of apartheid. This father of apartheid, Dr. Eiselen, also said, as was quoted by the hon. member for Transkei—and I also want to quote it briefly—that the policy of full sovereign independence for the Transkei and other territories was probably not the solution. What he said, was (translation)—

He probably knows of the dangers involved. One only has to think of the great danger to the people of South Africa— Whites, Bantu and everyone—and of the threat which the independent states would pose to us once the Communists, the Reds, had gained a foothold there.

Now I want to quote what the second father of apartheid said when he pointed out the shortcomings of the policy of apartheid. I want to quote what was said by a person who clearly revealed in his column “Dawie” that he was one of the fathers of this policy. During the past week-end he said in his column “Dawie” (translation)—

I want to emphasize that he was modest enough to say that “part” of the solution “probably” lay in the policy of Bantu homelands in the process of attaining their freedom. He knows the whole solution definitely does not lie there. While the National Party now wants to suggest that their policy is perfect in all respects, I want to suggest that we have it from the mouths of these two fathers of major apartheid that this is not their opinion.

There is something else to which I should like to draw attention. What time did those two hon. gentlemen—I say this redounds to their credit—choose to express their opinions? They chose the eve of the debate on Bantu affairs. That was the time they chose. By doing that they wanted to show that there were people who had other ideas on the major policy of the Nationalist Party than those which would be expounded here by the hon. the Minister, as he did in fact do yesterday. For the consideration of the other side, I submit that while they may be toying with some matter concerning this side of the House which appeared in the Press, a parting of the ways is lying at the roots of their side.

While I am speaking about that, I just want to refer in the last minute which is due to me, to the fact that the Bantu leaders in actual fact did not refer to a parting of the ways, but to this policy being a complete cul de sac as far as they were concerned. Chief Minister Matanzima and Chief Minister Buthelezi revealed quite clearly that they were not interested in this big present which the Nationalist Party had conjured up for them, unless they were to get the area of land which the Government clearly indicated they would not get. Therefore the Government is in a complete cul de sac. Those people do not want what they have been offered, and outside the reserves, inside the White area, absolutely nothing has been prepared for the continued existence, the progress, the harmony and the harmonious co-operation of the people.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, the hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pinelands invited us to place their policy under a search-light. The only problem we have in doing that, is that we will need so many lights to search out the spot where their policy is likely to appear next that this is likely to be very difficult.

The hon. member also quoted two persons and tried to prove in that way that they give opposite interpretations to our policy. I shall return to that in a moment and point out that the hon. member did not understand those interpretations correctly,and that he was reading it quite out of context.

So far in this debate we have seen very clearly that there is only one party in this country with a positive policy and that is the National Party. The policy of the Progressive Party, on the other hand, is completely untenable and not acceptable at all to the citizens of this country. The United Party is, as we saw it happening here, very much like a whole lot of characters in search of an author because they would very much like to play-act and cannot do so, and what is more, who cannot find an author. Let us consider the policy of the United Party for a moment. I want to begin with a statement the hon. member for Bezuidenhout issued last year. In that statement he said almost the same thing the hon. member for Wynberg said, i.e. that one must face facts and that the homelands policy of the National Party will have to be accepted as it is being implemented. We all remember still the line and cry raised that day, and the week which followed. The hon. member for South Coast, the leader in Natal, immediately repudiated the statement, and the hon. member for Newton Park, the leader in the Cape Province, said nothing. He did not know what to say. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition had to fly post-haste to Johannesburg to receive guidance from Mr. Joel Mervis about what their policy should be. We go further with this matter. The Sunday before last the hon. member for Bezuidenhout again repeated in an English-language Sunday newspaper what he had said last year, i.e. that the homelands policy would have to be faced up to and accepted. Immediately the deputyleader of the Cape Province, the hon. member for Simonstown, was on hand to say that independence for the homelands was anathema and that it could never be allowed to happen. We have another very interesting statement and this came from one of the younger members on that side of the House. One would expect the Chief Whip of the Opposition to gag all the younger members of the Opposition as he has done to the hon. member for Wynberg. In Die Vaderland of 29th November, 1971 the following was stated (translation)—

Then this follows:

The correspondent continues and tells of an interview he had with Mr. Andr Fourie, M.P. for Turffontein. According to him Mr. Fourie said amongst other things—

When they asked him where the U.P. youth stood in regard to the homelands, he said—

But he went further and said that the homeland leaders were going along with the Government because they had virtually been placed under pressure by the Government. He qualified this, however, and said that he did not want to say that they were under continous pressure, but … Then he went further, and said in this same report—

Mr. Chairman, in this same report we find two absolutely conflicting statements by that hon. member.

The hon. member for Wynberg had a great deal to say here just now about what she had said and what she had not said, but what she did not say, is why the Chief Whip of the Opposition had silenced her, why she had been gagged. She says she is free to say what she wishes and where she wishes. But in the interview with the Press she stated very clearly: “I have been given my orders. I am not permitted to make statements”. Then she referred them to the other. But just now she said: “I am free to speak”. She says that she can make whatever statements she wishes. The hon. Opposition must realize that our policy in respect of the homelands is inextricably linked to our policy in respect of the Bantu in the White areas. It is one totality, and one must view the two together. If this is not done you will loose the thread of the National Party’s policy. We must also remember that although territorial consolidation of the homelands of the different peoples is one of the long-term policy objectives of the National Party, this inevitably goes hand in glove with the economic and social development of the Bantu. It is very clear what this must take place, otherwise one will not be able to understand this policy very clearly. It is clear that that side of the House does not or refuses to understand the policy of the National Party. We realize that we are going to experience many difficulties along this course. Our hon the Prime Minister has already admitted this. Our previous Prime Minister, the late Dr. Verwoerd, said in this House of Assembly on 5th February, 1965, that we were still going to experience difficulties along this course. We do not shy away from it, for we have a policy which we are going to show the world to be a policy which can be implemented, a policy which will safeguard the Whites here at the southernmost point of Africa.

But my time is running out. Let us deal briefly with a few of the successes of the National Party policy. I want to mention at once the success recently announced by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, i.e. that the finishing touches have now been made to the consolidation of the Ciskei. It does not necessarily mean that all that land will be purchased immediately, but the finishing touches have been made to that consolidation, and we know where the bounderies are going to be. We also think of the industrial development in these Bantu homelands. There is industrial development on a homeland basis, and also on an agency basis. We think of the wonderful achievements, particularly at Babalegi in my constituency. I drive past there every day. I still remember how the United Party told us last year—or was it the year before last—that we would establish no industries on an agency basis. The guarantee has been given—I think it was by the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education—that before the end of the year there would be more than 50. I challenge the United Party now to go and count those industries. There are even now more than 50 industries on an agency basis. But we have also made a great deal of progress with these industries in the border areas. We think in particular of Butterworth, and all the other industries which have already been established there. A few weeks ago a few of us were paying a visit to Owambo and it was amazing to see what progress the National Party has made in that homeland. I never imagined that so much progress had already been made. It is a showpiece of our policy. This does not only apply to Owambo. One can go to any of the other homelands and the constructive progress there will be seen. So I think, for example, of the numerous Bantu townships which have already been established, and the housing which has been provided. Even the municipalities in the Western Transvaal and on the East Rand are offering assistance to help establish Bantu townships in the Bantu homelands. They are helping to finance these projects to bring, in that way, development and housing to those areas. To crown it all, we already have that network of transportation system by means of which more than 1 300 000 Bantu are being conveyed daily from the Bantu townships to cities such as Pretoria, East London and Durban, and then back to their homelands. These are only a few of the achievements. I still have a long list here of things which I can enumerate, but I see that you, Sir, are already motioning me to resume my seat. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise to put a few questions to the hon. the Minister which I consider to be important. Before coming to them, I just want to say that in the discussion of this Vote and in other debates in this House we have set out the attitude of this side of the House to the homelands so many times one is almost ashamed to repeat it once again now. Hon. members opposite know, and it has been placed on record repeatedly that ever since the Tomlinson Commission published its recommendations this side of the House accepted the main principles laid down by that commission. We have also stated very clearly that we stand for the large-scale development of the Bantu homelands, politically, socially and economically, as far as it is possible. This has been the policy of this side of the House all along. The difference between the policies of the two sides is actually that we stand for a much stronger development of the Bantu areas than that side does, because we have agreed with the Tomlinson Commission from the start that the development should take place with the aid of private, free White capital. I want to repeat here today that the fact that the level of development there is still so low, is attributable to the rejection of that important recommendation of the Tomlinson Commission by that side of the House. We have the ridiculous situation that leaders like Dr. Anton Rupert and others can help to develop Lesotho with private capital and large-scale developments are taking place there—but that this cannot be done in our own Bantu areas. In this regard we differ radically from the Government. There will never be really great development in the homelands until such time as the Government accepts that important recommendation of the Tomlinson Commission. The other difference between the two sides of the House is in connection with the more distant future. I have only a few minutes at my disposal and cannot discuss this at length now. The policy of that side of the House is that a fragmentation, a Balkanization, or whatever you want to call it, should take place in South Africa. On our side the Leader of the Opposition has already made it clear that if there are areas that have reached the stage where they want to become independent, he is satisfied with it. The policy of this side is, however, a federal one. We envisage a confederation, or a federation, in which there will be co-operation between the various areas without the one dominating the other. A fruitful debate can be held on this. There is, however, no difference on the development of the Bantu homelands. As a matter of fact, and I want to emphasize this once again, we stand for a stronger development of the Bantu homelands than that side of the House does.

One of the questions I want to put to the hon. the Minister is in connection with the strikes by Ovambos in South-West. During the past recess we had strikes by Ovambos in South-West, and the situation there was described by the Government press as “explosive”. These things belong to the past now and I do not want to go into the details of what happened there, but I do want to inquire from the hon. the Minister how it was possible that the Government, which claims to be in such close touch with events there, was not informed. After all, we do have a Commissioner-General and the homeland leaders there. Were these leaders of the Ovambos not informed on what was happening amongst their own people? If they were, did they not inform the Government and the Minister about it? Or must we accept that there was negligence on the part of the Government and that, although they knew that there were unrest and dissatisfaction, they took no notice of it? We do know that the hon. the Prime Minister was directly informed at the time by the leaders of the Lutheran Church that there was large-scale dissatisfaction. The question I want to put to the hon. the Minister is how it happened that the Government was not ready to prevent the occurrence of these events, which have caused us so much damage in the outside world. Not only have they caused damages externally, but they have also given rise to a new disposition among the Ovambos. These events have made them aware of their power. Yesterday I sat listening here to the discussion on labour and trade unions, but in this case you had the position that, trade union or no trade union, when they came out on strike the Government could do nothing but quickly help them all to return to the homelands. Trade unions had nothing to do with it.

Now you want to give them trade unions as well?

I just mention this: When people decide to strike there is not really anything you can do about it, whether they have a trade union or not. We are interested to know why the Government did not intervene beforehand. I want to ask him a second question. A new labour system has now been created. I should be grateful if the hon. the Minister could give us some information on the new system.

The report has been tabled.

But we want to know whether there is satisfaction now. One of the main requests of the Ovambos at that time was that they wanted freedom of movement. One of them put it this way: “We want to be free to move about in the country of our birth like the Bushmen.” I want to ask him whether the new contract system is such that an Ovambo may enter into a contract with an employer freely, and if he wants to change it, may accept employment with another employer and may in fact stay in the southern part should he choose to do so. Now I come to my last question in connection with the Ovambos. The Ovambos are not the only people who are labourers in South-West. The leader of the Hereros, Chief Kapuuo, made an urgent appeal to the Government.

He is not their representative.

That does not matter; he is a leader. He is a very important leader, and you cannot ignore him. He very strongly insisted—I read it as it appeared in the Cape Times—that—

He also said—

But he also warned that, unless the Government holds timeous discussions with these groups as well, we must not be surprised if later on, as a result of negligence, trouble again occurs among the other population groups in connection with labour conditions. I should like to ask that the hon. the Minister inform us in that regard.

The hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development said here that it was the policy of the Government that each nation should have its own land and should receive self-government over that land. I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister today whether it is definitely the policy of the Government that the homelands should all be consolidated. I do not have time to read it out, but we know that the Bantu leaders, such as Chief Buthelezi and others, take up the standpoint that there can be simply no question of the formation of a state if you do not have a unitary area. We should like to have clarity on that. Is that the policy? How fast does the Government think it can meet the situation? Its entire policy approach is being questioned, unless it becomes clear to those leaders that the Government intends to promote the formation of states by consolidating the areas.

Then the hon. the Deputy Minister said —we know too that this is the policy of the Government—that the people will be given the opportunity to govern themselves and then “to take their own decisions”. These are the words he used. I want to put him to a specific test. I hope the hon. the Minister will reply to me. Will the Kwazulu for example have the right to abolish minor apartheid in their own territory. We know the Zulu are getting a new capital. I know that Buthelezi does not want apartheid in his capital. I want to know from the hon. the Minister: It is their capital, and if they do not want apartheid there, will they have the right to do abolish it or, rather, not to introduce it? If the policy cannot stand that test, there is just no question of “own decisions”. Even if one has to take a minor example like an hotel of the Xhosas in their own territory, if they want to admit anybody to it, are they free to do so, yes or no? That, to me, is the test of whether they will have control over their own affairs and their own territory.

I should also like to refer the hon. the Minister to the report of the Bantu Development Corporation. One of the aims of the Corporation is to promote the training of Bantu persons as employees, officials, managers or directors in the spheres of industry, commerce and finance. But here you have a corporation that must help a Bantu homeland, without their having any representation on the board of directors. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, if there has ever been an occasion on which both the hon. Minister M. C. Botha and the Department of Bantu Administration and Development have deserved credit for the handling of a situation, it was at the time of the strike in Owambo. The hon. member asked what the trouble was that the Department did not know about it beforehand. On short, the entire matter boils down to the effectiveness of tyrannical intimidation. I repeat that the situation was brilliantly handled. If there is any reason for subsequent boasting on the part of the Government, it is about the splendid way in which this situation in Owambo was handled. I want to express my personal praise and thanks to Minister Botha, because I know how that situation was handled.

The hon. member spoke of a confederation in the distant future, which is their policy. Our objection is precisely that they will never be able to maintain leadership over the whole of South Africa, because as long as they stand by the block representation of 16, they will give rise to the situation that the non-Whites will eventually predominate in this House of Assembly. That is the point. I just want to indicate the absurdity of their policy by mentioning one single fact. At present there is one M.P. for every 18 000 Whites in South Africa. That is more or less, in round figures. Their policy boils down to one Coloured M.P. for every 333 000 Coloureds. [Interjections.] I am talking about population. As far as the Bantu are concerned, whom they want to grant eight representatives, it would mean one Bantu M.P. for every 2 million Bantu. Sir, how absurd! Do they think they would be able to maintain leadership over the whole of South Africa? Completely impossible!

While I am on this topic, I should very much like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition something. Last Saturday he said in Rondebosch: “The U.P. policy is unchanged.” I want to ask him now: Can I deduce from that, therefore, that these 16 representatives for the non-Whites in terms of their declared policy, will remain? It is their policy. Is that correct? Because he says the policy is “unchanged”.

I am not going to explain our policy again now.

You see, Sir, there the hon. the Leader is off again. He says his “policy is unchanged”. Here in the Cape Times—in five morning newspapers altogether—it is reported that the “U.P. Colour policy may change.” They say—

And the hon. member for Hillbrow admitted that he was one of the “influential members” who spoke here.

He did not.

But of course he did. Sir, I do not want to waste any more of my time on the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. It is very clear that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his whole party are running away from a situation. Just imagine, Sir, here five important newspapers in this country carry a report which reads: “The U.P. may change its policy.” A man of the calibre of the hon. member for Hillbrow gets up here and makes that admission. Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition runs away from the whole situation. I leave it at that. The people may judge the matter for themselves.

Sir, an important question raised here in regard to the future is most certainly the establishment of institutions for contact, joint consultation and a joint say for Bantu outside of their homeland context. I want to say with the greatest emphasis here this afternoon that within the framework of the development of National Party policy, with its emphasis on multi-national development, this need not cause any concern, and we are in fact already engaged on it. In this regard the road ahead is full of promise within the framework of the National Party’s principles of policy. Thus, for example, the national deputies and councils of deputies are extremely important for such contact, for such joint consultation and for such a joint say in respect of the Bantu in the White area. All this takes place within the national context of the Bantu, and it takes place in the White area in respect of the so-called urban Bantu. Brilliant results have been achieved in a very short period, to the satisfaction of both Whites and Bantu and, please note, the so-called urban Bantu in White South Africa. In this respect the announcement I made in a previous debate in regard to Bantu women was a direct result of this contact, joint say and joint consultation. Hon. members may do whatever they like, but this important development, in terms of the words used by the hon. member for Pinetown this afternoon, they cannot deny. But this is not all. There are other institutions as well which have possibilities in terms of our principles of policy. For example, there is the establishment and development of a commonwealth of nations in order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives. In actual fact one is already eager tor this to come, because under the National Party Government this will come about when the time is ripe. Therefore I say there is no reason for concern in this regard. In respect of the so-called urban Bantu there are other possibilities as well, which I shall leave aside for the moment, except that I want to repeat that, as far as this matter is concerned, the future seems full of promise, provided we are prepared to tackle the problems in respect of the urban Bantu courageously and realistically—as we on this side are prepared to do. In my humble opinion this is only possible within the framework of National Party policy, and this is what we are doing.

As far as Bantu housing is concerned, I want to say this afternoon that we are aware of the fact that there are certain troublesome aspects in regard to Bantu housing in the White area …

That is a masterpiece of understatement.

We are aware of certain problems in that regard, and because we are aware of them, we are facing them realistically as well. Because I realize the need in that there are a number of Bantu occupying homes in the urban Bantu residential areas in White South Africa who would like to add, for example, a stoep, a garage, an additional bedroom or whatever, and because the Bantu know that as long as they are living in a White area in an acceptable way, they are assured of the house they occupy, and because they have stated that they are prepared to make improvements to their houses at their own expense, I am prepared to allow essential additions to be made according to the merits of each case, and in fact on the following basis: That the cost of any additions must be borne by the people themselves; that the additions must comply with an approved plan and with any building bye-laws; that the work must be done either by the local authority itself after the costs have been paid in advance, or by a competent person to the satisfaction of the local authority; that the local authority must undertake the maintenance of the enlarged house as well; that the tenant gives an undertaking that he will not claim compensation for improvements if he should vacate the house—but I am prepared to make exceptions here in favour of a person who moves to his homeland with his family, and in estate cases; that no increased rental may be charged in cases where a room or whatever has been added in the White area; and that the enlarged house remains an asset of the local authority concerned. I know that what I have just said will be welcomed by many Bantu throughout the Republic. It is an affirmation of our recognized fundamental principle that proprietary rights in respect of White land are inalienable. We stand by that principle, but we also say it is fair that if Bantu renting such houses in the White area want to effect these improvements because there has been an increase in their remuneration and because they are also progressing, it is within the framework of our policy and of our principles to make this important announcement in this House this afternoon. I say that this is another corner-stone being laid in the further dynamic development of our policy of multi-national development. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, I am always surprised when one has speeches such as the one we have just heard from the hon. the Deputy Minister. It was an attempt to frighten the electorate in regard to the policy of the United Party, in terms of which limited representation in Parliament will be given for the various non-European peoples. Anyone would think that this was a new and radical concept which had never been used in South Africa before. When you think that it was a concept used and introduced by the late Dr. Verwoerd in respect of Coloured representation in this House, and that there was never any talk at that stage of this limited representation for the Coloured people forming a bloc which would ring the death-knell of White civilization in South Africa, one realizes to what nonsensical depths Government speakers are descending when they try to use that argument against us in respect of the 16 non-White representatives for whom provision is made in our policy.

Sir, I want to carry on the debate now from the point where the hon. member for Bezuidenhout left off, and deal with the question of land. It is appropriate perhaps that I follow the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education on this subject, because that is a matter which he dealt with last year at the meeting in September in Natal of the Jeugbond at whose congress he spoke. I quote from the Daily News of that date—

This is what the hon. gentleman is reported to have said. He is reported to have referred to the mighty programme for the consolidation of the homelands, especially in Natal and Zululand.

May I just interrupt the hon. member and say that I never said “into a single unit”?

Why did you not deny it?

It is strange, Sir, that that report has never been denied. Then he went on to say, according to the report, that it was only possible to establish a meaningful administration for any people if their territory was as far as possible cohesive.

“As far as possible”; that is correct.

In the last six months, Sir, there have been numerous utterances on this crucial question of land consolidation by the two Deputy Ministers, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development in particular, over the radio and in the Press—everywhere except in this House, and I think it is time that this House had an authoritative statement on this question, more particularly as the more recent utterances both by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education and the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development are at variance with statements earlier made by the leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal, Mr. Willie Maree, when he was Minister of Forestry and of Bantu Education. I would like to know whether what Mr. Maree said just before the election of 1966, which I shall quote, is still authoritative, or whether what the two Deputy Ministers have been saying in numerous Press statements and on the radio ever since the Nationalist Party Congress in Natal last year, is correct. I have all the cuttings here, but I have not got time to read them all. Sir, what did Mr. Maree say? This was a written speech handed to the Press shortly before the election of 1966. I quote from the Natal Mercury; he said that there were various criticisms against the policy, inter alia that they were Balkanizing South Africa, and then he went on to say that this was an unfair criticism. He then said—

I emphasize this; these are his exact words—

That is the point. Almost all the additional land required under the 1936 quota can be provided out of vacant State land, and he went on to say what a wicked crowd the United Party were for suggesting that the land would be taken from the White farmers and not from vacant State land. Now, recent utterances by the two Deputy Ministers I have mentioned, state the opposite to what Mr. Maree said. They speak of the co-operation required from the farmers, of the vast quantities of land required to be bought, of the immense movement of population all this would entail, etc., all of which means that the planning now is not to use State land for the purpose but to use purchased White land for that purpose. We require clarity on this issue. Then Mr. Maree went on in 1966 to say this:

What a wicked thing, Sir, was being suggested at that time, he said, because it was suggested that this plan of consolidation, which at that stage had not been made known to the public, would require the uprooting of a great many people. Now we are told, quite clearly by the two hon. Deputy Ministers that this is the very thing which the people must face. Mr. Maree went on to say in 1966—

Now, is there a preconceived plan? Is there a plan which the Minister’s department is working towards, or is it being done ad hoc, as Mr. Maree said it would be in 1966? He went on to say furthermore—

And he concluded by saying this, in this part of his speech—

He then went on to quote Pakistan, which is perhaps an unhappy example, and said—

What is the situation today? What is the plan, more particularly when in one of the last interviews with the Press, which I have —and this is the Tribune of 30th January, Mr. Raubenheimer is reported to have said 1972—Mr. Raubenheimer is reported to have said that there was very little opposition; or four large territories as a Zulu state in Natal, and he was reported to have said that there was very little opposition to the consolidation of Zululand, except from people who wanted to dump the Bantu into somebody else’s lap. Now, seeing that the people of Natal, apart from some minor changes in the south, have been told absolutely nothing about the Government’s plans in this regard, it is very difficult to understand how he can say that there is very little opposition to it. What is required to allay the great deal of apprehension which exists in Natal among landowners at present, is a clear statement of Government policy in this regard, a clear statement as to whether the resolution of the Natal Agricultural Union, which is that State-owned land should be used to fulfil the quotas before White land is purchased, which is in conformity with the statement made in 1966 by the then leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal, is still to be adhered to by the Minister at the present time or whether that has been thrown overboard, while a different attitude is now being adopted in regard to the consolidation of the land. This is important when one sees the recent utterances a gentleman such as the chairman of the Territorial Authority of the Zulus, who has said quite openly that unless there is large-scale consolidation, the whole scheme of Government policy is a fraud on the Zulu people. He said it quite openly, and it is reported in the Cape Times of 22nd April, 1972. There was no Government reaction to this. There never is when the criticism comes from a Black leader. The only criticism, the only reaction one gets, is when there is a query which stems from the representatives of the United Party. [Time expired.]

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, will forgive me if I do not follow him. He touched upon matters Which concern Natal and of which I have no knowledge, and I think the hon. the Minister will probably furnish him with a decisive reply in due course. When, in the foreseeable future, we shall write the epitaph of the United Party, mention will be made of the pre-Oudtshoorn era and the post-Oudtshoorn era. In the pre-Oudtshoorn era the United Party, in a state of euphoria, proclaimed for all to hear, both in this House and outside, that they were soon going to take over the reins of Government in this country. Yes, they even said they would do so before the 1975 election. They were riding on the crest of a wave, and filled with self-confidence they behaved as though they had already taken over the Government of this country. But then Oudtshoorn came along, and once again the United Party, in its naivete, believed that it could win the election by blowing up grievances and revealing supposed scandals in Government circles, but about its policy, and in particular about its relations policy, the relations between White and Black in this country, we heard very little in Oudtshoorn.

That is not so.

It is so. But it was left to the National Party and to its newspaper, Die Burger, to advocate this so-called policy in Oudtshoorn—and now I use the term “policy” as a very relative concept, for one may hardly refer to this absuridity as a policy, because nobody would touch it with a barge-pole. I heard the hon. member over there saying that this was not true. I was present at the meeting where the hon. member for Simonstown was the chairman, where his leader in the Cape Province and the local candidate addressed a large crowd. During the course of that entire meeting not as much as 10 minutes was devoted to this question of the so-called race federation policy of the United Party. It was left to the National Party to lay that policy bare to the bone. What happened then? The electorate shuddered at hearing this and unambiguously expressed itself against that policy. This was followed by a spectacle which had probably not been enacted in politics for a very long time. In the first place, after the Oudtshoorn election we found two U.P. supporters contradicting each other, in the same newspaper no less, not a minor aspect of policy, but on what is cardinal in the politics of South Africa. [Interjections.] That hon. member should keep quiet; he does not even know what I am talking about. In the same newspaper, the Sunday Times of 30th April, Mr. John Wiley said—

Apart from the fact that this statement is not true, this is what was said by the hon. member for Simonstown, but in the same newspaper the hon. member for Bezuidenhout wrote a column in which he said—

Sir, if English still has the meaning it had when I was at school, then this is a blatant contradiction in policy on, what is more, a matter of cardinal importance. Subsequent to that the hon. member for Simonstown, being as nave as could be, said that there was no inconsistency between the two statements. If this is unanimity, may we be preserved from the chaos that would ensue if those people should ever differ with one another one day.

But then there was a second spectacle on the part of a front-bencher of the United Party, namely the hon. member for Wynberg. She had made certain statements which she believed to be correct. Because she had said, amongst other things, that the United Party was not taking the reality of the situation into account, she was silenced. Yesterday the hon. member for Transkei also contradicted the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. In the same article from which I quoted a moment ago, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said—

And what did the hon. member for Transkei say yesterday? In his speech he said—

Now, which of these two gentlemen is correct?

What does Dr. Eiselen say?

That is why the hon. member for Transkei said yesterday afternoon that he was not prepared to discuss United Party policy and that he would rather discuss National Party policy. The basic problem of the United Party is that it has never taken into account the realities of the race relation situation in South Africa. In fact, the U.P. is still enmeshed in an old colonialist-imperialist type of thinking in respect of the Black man. Its slogan of White leadership is nothing but a manifestation of blatant White supremacy. Divide the Bantu and then rule over him—the old recipe by way of which they governed in the colonial days. The basic truths which are inherent in the situation in South Africa, are simply ignored or wished away by the United Party. The first reality which the United Party is not taking into account, is that the White man, who is in the minority here, must, on a basis of principles, come to an agreement with the Black majority so that both may lead a meaningful and peaceful existence here on the southernmost point of Africa, without the one being dominated by the other. A second reality is that in respect of the Black man we are not dealing with a homogeneous or uniform community, but in fact with a heterogeneous community of peoples consisting of at least eight Black peoples, each with its own identity, language, culture, morals and traditions; and each of them a people with a distinctive feeling of national pride. This basic reality which has to be taken into account, is in fact being taken into account by the National Party in the implementation and the elaboration of its relations policy. In fact, this is one of the keystones of the policy of separate development. It is apparent from its policy that by giving every people a homeland of its own with its own public bodies, a citizenship of its own together with all the other things stimulating national pride, the National Party does indeed take this reality into account.

The third reality which the United Party does not take into account, is the fact that the days of the superiority of the Whites over the non-Whites are past once and for all. It is a fact that since the end of the Second World War the Black man has awakened and come to realize that he is a distinctive cultural being, that he is a being with national ties, with a language and a culture of his own, and that he is also entitled to a political say and control over his nation, his group and his people. This awakening must inevitably give rise to an aspiration to a geographic area of his own, an area within which it is possible for him to realize himself politically, culturally, economically and socially. In other words, nationalism, which is a basic and inherent characteristic of every person, is also present in the Bantu and has already manifested itself in several ways. Domination of the Black man, as is undeniably implied by the United Party’s policy of White leadership, is past once and for all. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not really want to follow the hon. member for Cradock in this regard. He did not say anything new. He was merely saying what we have already heard from that side of the House on so many occasions. What is more, we have heard those accuzations time and again. What I find strange, is the fact that, in one breath, that side of the House accuses this side of the House of being negrophilists, of our wanting to introduce into this Parliament a bloc of 16 representatives, and of our wanting to plough under the Afrikanerdom by those means. Since yesterday we have also been hearing that we want to plough under the Whites. However, in the same breath they say that we stand for White supremacy, as was said here by the hon. member for Cradock, because this party wants to exploit the Bantu and his services. I would be pleased if that side of the House would finally make up their minds and tell us what they think this side of the House stands for. Do we stand for White supremacy or are we negrophilists?

Nobody knows; they themselves do not know.

I should like to refer to the hon. the Minister, who yesterday entered the debate at once and told us that we had come to the day of reckoning. It seems to me as though we are having a competition between the Messrs. Botha on the Government side, because the hon. the Minister of Defence fires a random shot by accusing us of being Afrikaner-haters. Then the Minister thought that he had to go one better than his namesake and that he could not allow himself to be outdone. Sir, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development was correct. This is the day of reckoning. Whenever his Vote comes up for discussion, it is a day of reckoning. For 24 long years the Minister and his predecessors have been dealing with this question of apartheid, on which that party won the election in 1948.

Where did you vote in 1948?

I want to know what progress has been made in regard to apartheid. Apartheid lies shattered at their feet, and because it lies shattered, they are always throwing up this smokescreen here. They do not say anything about the continuation of apartheid and where it is actually going to end. It is only the word “apartheid” that has survived. How much more separate are we now than we were is 1948? Are there fewer Bantu in the White areas now than there were then, or are there more? Relatively speaking, are there fewer or are there more? Do we still have 7 million within the Bantu areas and 7 million within the White areas, or have we not? The hon. the Minister himself said yesterday that just fewer than half of them were in the White areas at the moment.

Relatively, the position is much better.

Just fewer than half of them are living is the White area at the moment. Far more than half of them are working in the White areas. There are 14 million Bantu at the moment, and if we project ahead into the year 2000, when it is assumed that there will be between 30 million and 35 million Bantu, we shall still have the situation that perhaps 15 million of them will be living in the Bantu areas and 15 million in the White areas. I want to know who on that side of the House thinks that in the year 2000 more than 15 million Bantu in the homelands will be able to make a living on 13 per cent of the land area of South Africa? Is there anybody who is so crazy as to suggest that? By that time another 15 million will be living inside the White areas. They will be the people who will have been disenfranchized and of whom it will be said that they have rights in another area which is ostensibly theirs on the basis of their language ties, whilst they will not have any rights in this country. I ask in all humility whether hon. members on the Government side foresee any possibility of their policy ever being a success under those circumstances which I have mentioned now.

Yes.

The hon. member for Rissik, who has emerged as the new constitutional expert of that side of the House and who is the person dealing with relations amongst peoples, said yesterday that he would meet any member on this side on any platform outside this House, so that they might compare policy with policy on a point for point basis. This is the platform. There is no need to do so on a platform outside. Would that hon. member and the hon. the Minister tell me how much progress they have made with apartheid? They have made so much progress that economically there is more integration of the Bantu in the White areas than there has ever been before. Politically speaking they are only at the threshold of emancipation. But we see how pregnant with dangers the whole situation is. They are on the threshhold of emancipation, but if we look at the demands made by Chief Matanzima, at the demands made by Chief Buthelezi, may we ever think that once those people have been emancipated, they will sit still if, even before emancipation, they are making such demands to the Government?

But nobody has ever said that.

You can speak again; do not interrupt me all the time. These are the demands made by them prior to emancipation, and this is the real danger of this situation. Do the hon. members on that side of the House and the Government have any guarantee that upon emancipation there will be a federation amongst the states here in Southern Africa and that we shall all be kindly disposed and sympathetic towards one another? How many potential dangers are implied in that policy? Will the hon. member for Rissik tell me—let us deal with the matter point for point—whether his party’s policy of emancipation of the Bantu states does not imply greater potential dangers than our policy does? We say that a unit will be formed, that there will be a federation within a unit, and not a federation of states in respect of which we have no guarantee.

I want to quote from a report on a lecture recently given in Pietermaritzburg. Inter alia, it reads as follows—

That is what we are referring to: “They will continue to live amongst the Whites.” Therefore, when we deal with this matter point for point, should we not throw the whole matter wide open so that we may see whether the policy of that side of the House holds the best benefits or whether the policy of this side of the House holds the best benefits?

But I want to come back to another point, and I want to speak to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education in particular. I want to refer him to a promise recently made by him after his visit to transit camps in the Eastern Cape. But I do not only want to talk about those transit camps; I also want to talk about other Bantu towns. He made the promise that there would not be a repetition of Dimbaza and Sada and other similar camps. Week before last I paid another visit to Dimbaza. I know what the situation is there. I visit it regularly. It is my job and it falls within my area.

Where is it?

Dimbaza is situated 14 miles north of King William’s Town. It is situated on a plain, far away from everything. It is a transit camp. There are thousands of people in that transit camp. If the hon. Deputy Minister would come with me, I would take him to places where I know families. I have spoken about this matter before. I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that those people were moved from their homes in Middelburg, where they had jobs. All of them had good jobs. I mentioned this case here on a previous occasion. Houses were built for them there, and then they were removed from there and placed in Dimbaza. It goes without saying that they were provided there with free housing; this is another thing I have mentioned before. They are told that there are houses and rations for them there, and then they are asked, “Why do you not come to the Bantu areas?” I want to mention to the Minister that some of those very people who were moved from Middelburg have since become blind and others have become sickly, and they are still living in those houses. However, the important fact I want to mention, is that there are hundreds of males who are walking about in Dimbaza and are unemployed. The same goes for Mdantsane. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do

not want to reply to all the points raised by the previous speaker. I want to go into a few matters only. The hon. member spoke of Dimbaza, and I want to state very clearly that Dimbaza is a place for the settlement of displaced persons and for persons who were not self-supporting. Only a few people from Middelburg were moved there. [Interjections.] This is the position, and there is no point in hon. members arguing against it. Hon. members opposite are trying to draw a picture of healthy workers being taken to Dimbaza by us and of those workers not having work there. That is not so.

You transported 2 000 of those people from Middelburg.

Only a few people were transferred from Middelburg to Dimbaza. The others are people who did not have proper housing, people we took from gravel-pits, from under trees and from everywhere and whom we placed there. They were people who were not settled at any place and hon. members must accept that. If hon. members do not want to believe it, they should consult the figures and obtain the details from the department. This is what we have on record.

The hon. member for Houghton spoke of the representations which had been made in regard to aid for those widows at Dimbaza. She said we had paid them the money they had requested, but had taken away the rations. That is so, but I may just tell her that in most of these cases— there are only two cases where people receive less money than the value of their rations which have been taken away— where people receive money instead of rations, they receive much more money than what the value of the rations was. I have a whole list of cases here, but I am not going to go into it now. In terms of our present formulas and the amounts at our disposal, this is the position. These people cannot obtain the money and the rations, and can only qualify for one or the other. Therefore her information was not quite correct. In any case, I have the information here and the hon. member may have a look at it.

Then I also want to tell the hon. member that those houses were made available free of charge. Therefore she should not say that this was all the people received. The value of the houses which the State made available to them, is considerable, and the hon. member should see the matter in perspective. The hon. member also spoke about other matters such as the division of land, and we may argue about that. I can only say that the question of the division of land in this country is one which goes back a good many years. Towards the middle of the century there was an equal division of land in this country between White and Black. If the English Government had not taken away Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, that division would still have been like that today. After it had been done, the inhabitants of those countries poured into the Republic. Out of the goodness of their hearts the people of the Republic then said they would make extra land available to those people. This land must be purchased at great expense, and I shall come back to this later. Therefore the hon. member should not paint half a picture. I can merely tell her that the question of capital from outside, of which Chief Buthelezi and others spoke, is clear. That money may be brought in. As yet they have not made any formal representations in respect of any money which they may obtain. I have issued no statement in this regard, but simply told a reporter in the lobby here that they could bring the money in. He then asked me whether the Acts allowed of that being done and I replied that if they did not, we would introduce legislation in this regard. In any case, they can bring the money in and there are no problems.

Can they bring it in without any strings attached?

Yes. All we want is that it should take place in a planned fashion. I may just mention that requests were received from one group to establish a university. They had obtained money from somewhere which would enable them to do so. We asked them whether they realized how much it cost to maintain a university. They replied that they had not given that any thought. It is of no avail if people go and build a university and nobody maintains it for them. These things should be planned, and we shall advise them on these matters so that they do not act precipitately and do things which are not justified.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout spoke of the inflow of private capital which, according to the United Party, would cause the homelands to flourish. There is a difference of opinion in this regard and we allow it only on an agency basis. The hon. member used the example of Dr. Rupert, who finances development in Lesotho, but this is not relevant, of course. One cannot draw a comparison with that, because Dr. Rupert is in fact engaged in promoting development there and in mobilizing the people for development. It is the same kind of work the Bantu Development Corporation is doing here.

But why may he not do so here as well?

We are doing it here and he is free to do so here as well. There have been offers to provide money for the development of a nature conservation scheme from certain bodies with which Dr. Rupert is associated. They may do so. If they want to start industries on an agency basis, they may do that as well. The only thing is that we have a fixed formula in this regard, while nothing of the kind exists in Lesotho. There they have to initiate the entire system. That is the only difference. No fault can be found with the basic approach that these people may do so. The hon. member for Bezui-denhout also spoke of consolidation. I want to say to the hon. member that the Government agrees that consolidation should take place and that each of these homelands should get its own borders. I said so here last year during the discussion of a private motion moved by the hon. member for Transkei, and at present we are engaged in that. The first fruits of this work has already appeared on the Order Paper of this House, i.e. legislation dealing with the first part of the consolidation in respect of the Ciskei. Much progress has also been made with the planning in regard to Natal. In the course of this year, and I hope during this session still, we shall announce what progress we have made. To this I want to add that I met the Natal Agricultural Union on two occasions last year, and that they agreed with me then. The hon. member for Zululand also mentioned this matter, and I want to say to him that a fine spirit exists in this regard. The people want to co-operate.

What do they agree with?

That they will co-operate as far as consolidation is concerned. That is the position at present. I may just inform hon. members that exSenator Rall, who is an M.P.C. in Natal now, proposed at the agricultural congress of Natal that they should not co-operate and that that proposal was rejected with a large majority in spite of the politics these hon. gentlemen want to play with it. However, let us leave it at that. I think it is in the interests of Natal and of the entire country that we should co-operate in this regard.

May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question?

No, you have lots of time, but mine has nearly expired. The hon. member may put further questions later, and if necessary, I shall reply to them. Let me put the position very clearly to the hon. member now. The Natal Agricultural Union came forward with certain proposals and we asked them for further proposals, but none was forthcoming. We are going to ask them a final time, whereupon we shall inform them of our plans. Then we may see whether they want to effect improvements to those plans. The hon. member spoke about State-owned land as well. One can only use the maximum amount of useful State-owned land. One cannot use State-owned land which is situated in remote areas and which does not fit into the matter of consolidation. However, as far as I can see, most of the quota land required in Natal will be Stateowned land. However, in the process of eliminating Black spots and badly situated Bantu areas, certain land will be returned to the Whites, who will have to give other land. There is no State-owned land available for this. It is in this regard that we are awaiting proposals from the Natal Agricultural Union.

Can I accept, therefore, that the plans which are going to be submitted to the Natal Agricultural Union now, are the final plans?

No. I have just said they are draft plans only. They will discuss those plans and go to their farmers’ associations. Thereupon they will come back to us and tell us what they think of those plans. We are going to give them months to ponder upon the matter. I have already given them a year to ponder upon the matter, and as yet we have not received anything constructive from them in this regard, except for a few small suggestions in respect of the Upper Tugela location, etc. In respect of this location we found that the land was not dequate. In any event, we are co-operating very closely with these people and will soon make our plans available to the public. When hon. members have been informed of this, we hope they, too, would think and act constructively and would not simply say this was a National Party Government and consequently they should simply find fault. I want to appeal to these hon. members. I have received wonderful co-operation from most agricultural unions, but I have just had the experience of the Eastern Cape Agricultural Union asking what the Bantu want to do with the land because, after all, they cannot use it. They say, “Give them the money or the interest on the money”, and “Don’t you think you should bargain?” Surely we cannot do that. I may just mention that this is going on behind the scenes and that we cannot accept this kind of negative approach. So much progress has been made with the plans that as far as Natal is concerned, we shall make the plans available to the public this year still. Later this year we shall make them available for the Transvaal as well. If we make sufficient progress I hope to have the borders of all the homelands fixed by next year—I am not promising this—so that this Parliament will be able to express its views on those borders and agree to them so that those areas may become released areas. Those will be the borders as we envisage them. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it has been very difficult indeed to get the Minister and his deputies to give us some real explanation of Government policy. One of the important aspects of Government policy in which we are interested and which they have almost completely ignored, is the burning question of the urban Bantu in the White areas of South Africa.

And you don’t reply to what I have said?

I have heard exactly what the hon. the Minister has said. He has been repeating for a considerable time that every Bantu belongs entirely to his homeland. That is where he has to find his cultural expression, that is what he has to find his political expression that is where he virtually has to live out his life and enjoy the things that matter in the life of every person. But the tragedy with the Government is that they regard the Bantustans and their independence as the sole solution to the whole of the Bantu problem. The Minister comes along, and he is followed by other speakers—particularly in recent days because of a by-election—with the story that the number of Bantu in the White areas is constantly decreasing. I read a story in Die Burger the other day—I think it was within the last couple of days —where they are making statements to the effect that decreases are taking place continually. But actually, according to a survey at the end of 1971, it would appear that of the 15 million-odd Bantu in the Republic that we know of, over eight million are found in the White areas. In the cities, towns and villages in what is called the White part of South Africa, one-third of the whole of the Bantu population of the Republic of South Africa is presently living. Therefore it is a problem of which the Government must take cognizance. They must give us some intelligent policy as to what they intend to do in this regard. It believes unfortunately that if it perpetuates the myth that there is no permanence for the Bantu in the towns, then it has resolved its urban problems. I say that that is a complete myth and can only be of great danger to the future of the Republic of South Africa.

I am going to take one area as an example, because it is the one area which is not closely attached to a homeland. I am talking about Soweto, which officially housed, at the end of 1971, 720 000 persons officially registered, a number which, probably, with those in the various backyards and other sub-tenancies, will amount to almost a million persons. East London and Durban are close to Bantu homeland areas, but Johannesburg’s Bantu area, with a population of nearly one million, is virtually centred as a spot—it has been called a “black spot”, but I do not like the term —within a completely White community. That is something I think the hon. the Minister must look to in dealing with the problems of the urban Bantu. Does he realize that Soweto is the third largest financial entity of all the Bantu homelands and Bantu entities in the country? It has a budget of R10 million and it is certainly the third, if not possibly the second, after the Transkei and Kwazulu. The Soweto population itself generates capital amounting to nearly R300 or R400 million a year, because of its working population and its spending capacity in the country. I defy the hon. the Minister to disprove it. I want to tell him what the importance of the concern for the urban Bantu is. Dr. Lewis, who looked after Bantu Affairs in Johannesburg for some 12 or 13 years, made the following statement at the end of a report in June, 1970—

Sir, listen to what Peter Lengeni, the chairman of the Urban Bantu Council, had to say in November of last year—

Sir, let me go further. Between the year 1954—I should like you to take note of that particular year—and the year 1969, do you know how many houses were built in Soweto—permanent homes on pieces of land measuring 40 feet by 70 feet, as laid down by Dr. Verwoerd under his site-and-service scheme?

What is your point?

I will come to it in a moment. 49 000 Single dwellings were built, 88 schools, three hostels, seven administrative blocks, nine communal halls, a public library, nine TB centres, eight clinics, beerhalls, beer-gardens and other works. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister realize that the capital expenditure up to the end of June, 1969, was over R66 million? Sir, anybody who tells me that this tremendous infrastructure has been placed in Soweto for temporary sojourners is labouring under a foolish delusion. It is obvious that this infrastructure is intended to be permanent, and anybody who thinks differently is crazy. I say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that in Soweto today you have an Urban Bantu Council, which is completely emasculated. These urban Bantu councils were established to replace the former advisory bodies. In 1961, when this Act was passed, it was thought that a body should be created in which the urban Bantu could give expression to his political thinking and make some contribution to the communal activities within the area in which he lived. But it took seven years before the Act was put into operation and when it was put into operation, these boards were established purely as advisory bodies, something against which we warned the then Prime Minister when these bodies were created. What is required is that these bodies should now be given the status of a proper local authority, the status of a permanent communal council in which they can produce their own leaders. Today the situation is that the residents of Soweto are constantly afraid of being evicted. They have no sense of security, because they do not own the land on which they live. They find themselves betwixt and between as far as Government policy is concerned. In those circumstances these townships may in due time become explosive centres.

Do you want home ownership in Langa?

I am talking now about a practical issue, namely Soweto, and I say that we must allow natural evolutionary development. Here we have a complex where a responsible administration has developed over the years, with a tremendous capital infrastructure. Soweto today has a big budget; its residents make an important contribution to the economy. Sir, I do not like to use exaggerated terms, and I do not want to indulge in foolish rhetoric. I merely want to remind the Government of what responsible administrators in that area have said as to the difficulties which you may face when you have a large, settled population without any real roots, without any sense of security and stability. Sir, I use the term “settled population” in the sense that these people have permanent dwellings, permanent institutions and permanent facilities. In spite of the difficulties that they face these people do have some form of family life, but it is necessary to give them a sense of stability. They must feel that they have an anchor. Anybody who denies that, Sir, must be living in a fool’s paradise.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, the hon. the Deputy Minister will be able to reply to me in a moment. That is what we want him to do. We want the hon. the Deputy Minister to tell us how he is going to deal with these urban Bantu and how he is going to resolve this situation where we may reach a point of no return. How are you going to evict and uproot this particular entity?

Do you want to make Soweto a homeland?

I do not want to do anything. [Time expired.]

I want to refer, merely in passing, to an observation made here by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. The hon. the Deputy Minister has already replied to it. When the hon. member for Bezuidenhout refers to Lesotho and to Mr. Anton Rupert, he should bear in mind that Lesotho is an independent state and that our Bantu homelands have not yet become independent states which can decide for themselves. We do not want to throw them to the wolves by allowing them to be exploited by private White capital being poured into those areas; that is why we have the agency basis, in terms of which White capital may be invested there in industries over which the Bantu themselves will eventually have control.

Who are the wolves?

Sir, I shall come to the hon. member for Jeppes in a moment. At the outset I just want to make the statement here that the Opposition must accept that it is an indisputable fact that this Government has created confidence amongst the Bantu such as never existed before, and that is to trust this Government and the White population and to believe that this Government is being sincere and honest to them and wants to develop them as independent peoples in this country.

Do they have a choice?

They do have a choice. They have the choice of accepting independence or remaining as they are today. It is also admitted by the United Party that that objective of ours is a well-founded one and that it cannot be undone again. This was admitted by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and a few days ago the hon. member for Wynberg did so too. Sir, now I want to come to the policy of the United Party. I am tempted to say that it is a meercat policy. It stands on a kind of a hillock with many holes. From time to time that policy of theirs is interpreted by them just as it suits them. Now I come to the hon. member for Jeppes. In referring to “the urban Bantu living in the White areas”, the hon. member made a statement here with which I agree. I want to make it very clear that, as it were, we do not have any urban Bantu in the White areas. As I understand the term, an “urban Bantu” is a Bantu in his own native village. We only have urban Bantu living in White cities. [Laughter.] Sir, that hon. member will not understand it. Now I want to come to the policy of the United Party as far as these urban Bantu are concerned. One moment they will tell one that they also believe in job reservation, but the next moment they ask why job reservation cannot be abolished completely, and why the rate for the job cannot be implemented so that the Bantu may be employed on several labour levels. The United Party says it also believes in influx control, but it wants to keep the doors wide open; it does not impose any restrictions, and it pleads for greater use to be made of Bantu labour by us. If that were done, what would happen to influx control? Sir, it is also the policy of the United Party that the Bantu who comes to the cities as migrant labourers, should be brought into the Bantu towns on a family basis. Furthermore, it is their policy, as the hon. member for Jeppes said a moment ago, that the Bantu should have rights of ownership in the White cities. Then they come forward with their federal policy and their 16 representatives, but they have never said where those 16 representatives for the Bantu are to come from. Once those Bantu in our cities have all those rights, and are living there on a family basis and have rights of ownership there, surely then they would have all the rights of the Whites, and in the end those Bantu would also demand their political rights. I want to make the statement today that if the United Party should ever come into power and remain in power long enough, it would, through those political powers it would have to grant those Bantu, sell out the Whites of South Africa and leave all the rights in the hands of the Bantu. It was mentioned here by one of the backbenchers that we were afraid of those 16 Bantu representatives. But do you know who will be afraid, Sir? The United Party. Suppose they were to come into power with a majority of ten; then they would have to dance to the tune of those 16 representatives of the non-Whites, otherwise their Government would fall. The hon. member for Jeppes made a plea for the urban Bantu. But if those Bantu are there on a permanent basis, they are there on a permanent basis to do work. Every Bantu living in that urban area, is a member of a Bantu people. The Bantu in Soweto, whom the hon. member mentioned, are representatives of all the Bantu peoples in South Africa. In the same way we have the Bantu from Malawi and Lesotho who came here to work; they remain Basutos and Malawians. They are not South Africans in our White areas who may claim rights for themselves here. Those capital investments which the hon. member mentioned, are in fact an achievement for this Government. We bought the labour of those Bantu who are living here in the cities and who came here to work, and they are grateful for being able to sell their labour; that is why they came here, and it is an achievement on the part of this Government to spend all those millions of rands on providing them with the necessary facilities, such as schools and housing and everything they need. This forms part of the payment for the labour they perform, this is what they receive as remuneration. Furthermore, the Government has made it possible for them, under the system of Bantu homelands, to fall under a specific people, so that those people, the population of Soweto, for instance, now know for the first time in the history of South Africa where their home is and to what people they belong and that they have a right to be part of that people in their homeland. They know they belong somewhere; they have a refuge somewhere, and they have a national pride, which they have never had. In the United Party’s time they were simply kaffirs who had come here to work; they did not have any rights; they did not have the right to vote and they did not have any nationhood of which they could be proud. Those people in our Bantu towns who do not yet have any pride today, will in future be proud of this Government and proud of that people to which they belong and proud of having the right to return to a homeland whenever it suits them.

I also want to speak about the urban Bantu. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, tried to get across the point of view that the urban Bantu are not a permanent part of the population of White South Africa. The hon. member for Jeppes referred to Soweto, but I want to refer to the Bantu township of Port Elizabeth. We have approximately 200 000 Bantu in that township. I want to tell the hon. member who has just spoken, that those people are a permanent part of the White homeland of South Africa, and nothing he can do or say will change the situation, and long after this Nationalist Government has disappeared off the scene, those Bantu will be living there. The only difference will be that their numbers will have increased; and any sensible Government must make provision in its policies for these people. They are not interested in the political rights the Minister has given them in the Bantu homelands. They have forgotten about the homelands.

You think so?

I not only think so; I know this to be the case. They are interested in the area where they now live. They are interested in some sort of political recognition in that part of the country where they live and work, and any policy which does not take account of this, is not worth the paper it is written on.

I want to raise a particular matter affecting the Bantu township at Port Elizabeth. It refers to the question of the shopping facilities in the area, which accommodates, as I have said before, something like 200 000 Bantu people. This is a matter which may affect also other Bantu townships, but because I have personal knowledge of Port Elizabeth, I refer specifically to that area. In that Bantu township with its 200 000 inhabitants at the present time, there are shopping facilities available which can barely provide 15 per cent of the ordinary daily requirements of those people. The shops are completely inadequate. I want to tell the Minister that only 15 per cent of the ordinary daily requirements of those people are provided by the shops. I want to know what the Government’s plan is to create a situation where these people, these 200 000 people, can have shopping facilities that can meet their daily needs. I would say that as far as meat supplies are concerned, there I understand that 60 per cent of the supplies are available from butcher shops which have been established there. They have been provided by the municipality and the local butchers leases these premises from the municipality, and supply 60 per cent of the meat requirements. In so far as their liquor supplies are concerned, there the position is reasonably good, but I would say that the authorities concerned have their priorities completely wrong. Requirements of daily food and clothing are not available, but the liquor is available in liberal supplies. I understand that in one particular village I know about in Natal, to show how the priorities have gone wrong, there are 35 000 people living in that village, including men, women and children, and the daily consumption of liquor is as much as 27 000 litres kaffir beer per day, and that is supplied by one beer hall only. Another is being built, to even increase the supply of beer, while a third one is contemplated. It seems that we have got our priorities mixed up in regard to certain matters. I want to ask the hon. the Minister what steps he proposes taking, because we have a report here, the annual report of the Bantu Investment Corporation, which sets out in great detail what steps are being taken to help to establish businesses in the Bantu townships and in the Bantu homelands. What money is available to a Bantu who wants to establish a business within a Bantu township in the White homeland, for instance at Port Elizabeth?

Not by the BIC.

The Minister must accept responsibility for this matter. The facilities are completely inadequate. What is worse, these Bantu have to buy their daily food. They have no transport to get to the shops which supply this food. The transport which is available is already completely congested. What hope is there of these people living an ordinary civilized existence, and as we want them to live, if the Government is not prepared to take certain steps. I charge this Government with neglecting this matter. Our policy is quite clear. We are prepared to give these people who are permanently resident in the area title deed to the property so that they will be in a position to build up and develop the shops. Then they could be of some service to the community. Under the Government’s policy there can be no title deed.

What has a title deed to do with it?

If you own a place, you will be prepared to develop it.

The hon. the Minister made an important announcement here a little while ago …

But the Government built the shops?

… and he said that they could get certain facilities to improve their buildings. They can be allowed to improve and build up the houses, but they will get no repayment for any of the contributions made to the buildings and to improve that property. What incentive does that offer? He does not own the place and what incentive is there for him to improve it? I am not so concerned about the housing; I am concerned about the facilities available to provide these people with the daily necessities of life. I say that they are hopelessly inadequate. It is high time that this Government took the necessary steps to provide facilities such as provided in any new township that is being developed for White occupation In White townships the first thing that is done is to make provision for shopping facilities. As the township is occupied these shopping facilities are there and the people who live there have access to those places where they can acquire their daily needs. They have the transport available and no problems exist in that respect. These people have neither the transport nor the shops, and I ask the hon. the Minister to take the necessary steps in order to rectify this situation.

Mr.

Chairman, in the six years I have been sitting in this House many debates have been conducted here and hard blows have been directed at both sides. In these six years the United Party have often been knocked down for counts of nine and more, but they have always managed to struggle to their feet again and to come back for still more punishment. However, this debate has totally destroyed them. They are lying there shattered, beaten to a pulp, despondent, dejected and hopelessly paralysed, so much so that I am afraid they will not be able to get up again. At the beginning of his speech the hon. member for Walmer made a very contentious statement when he said: “The people in New Brighton, the Port Elizabeth Bantu township, are a permanent part of the White population of Port Elizabeth”. I shall come back to this statement The hon. member pleaded for shopping facilities for the Bantu residential area of Port Elizabeth.

I take it you agree.

Yes, I agree with the principle that provision should be made for better trading facilities for the people of those townships. Of course, I cannot agree with the hon. member when he says that the people should get proprietary rights and that they should even be allowed to develop that property. Then the people will be able to develop property there in the White area of South Africa, and they will not be prepared to return to the homelands, where we want the entrepreneurs to develop property. We cannot get away from the fact that provision has to be made for shopping facilities in the Bantu townships and in the Bantu residential areas. I do not want to say how this must be done, but it is definitely necessary that the Bantu residential areas should be brightened up to some extent. It is necessary that they be made more attractive for the people and that large departmental stores be erected in the residential areas. The shops should have large windows which will attract the people to do business there so that they may also receive training in the business world there.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in this House last year that the United Party would concentrate on the urban Bantu this year. He said that it would be the Waterloo of the National Party. If there has ever been a Waterloo, it has been in this House since yesterday. The hon. the Opposition that wanted to do battle lies defeated and destroyed. They have not yet come to the urban Bantu, but have only referred to them here and there on minor details. They are afraid and they are running away. Earlier in the session, when they were still a little bolder, the hon. member for Johannesburg North made a speech here in which he joined the hon. member for Houghton in pleading the cause of the urban Bantu. That hon. member wanted to create the impression that they were the great protectors of the urban Bantu and that this party was completely unsympathetic towards the urban Bantu and that the urban Bantu were living in absolute chaos and disorder in the socio-economic sphere. I want to express a few thoughts on the socio-economic conditions of the urban Bantu. But at the outset I want to state a few facts in order to get this whole matter clearly into perspective. Firstly, we on this side of the House are not insensitive to the needs of the urban Bantu and their living conditions. On the contrary, if there has ever been a party which has proved by deeds that it has the interests of the urban Bantu at heart, then it is this party. What was the position of the urban Bantu when that party was in power? What was the situation like? What were their living conditions? The hon. member for Johannesburg North was a member of the City Council of Johannesburg, and he was mayor as well. But what were the conditions like? No, this party—this is the first fact—is not insensitive to the needs of the urban Bantu; our deeds prove that.

I now come to the second fact. They complain about the economic position of the Bantu workers. But surely it is a fact that as many as 95 per cent of the Bantu working in the cities are employed by people who support their party. I am talking about the United Party supporters and the Progressives. As many as 95 per cent of the Bantu are in their employ. What law prohibits them from paying the Bantu a decent wage? Let them get up and tell us that. That is why I say they dress themselves up in the pontifical robe of piousness and talk until they stream with tears here about the Bantu. The hon. member for Houghton also talks until she streams with tears, but when it comes to deeds, there are none. It is mere words and more words, in order to create the impression abroad that the National Party is the enemy of these people, which is not the case.

The third fact I want to mention in order to put this matter in a clear perspective, is that nowhere on the continent of Africa the conditions of Bantu people are better than in our cities. Nowhere on the continent of Africa do the Bantu people live under better and more favourable circumstances than in the White cities of South Africa. To prove this I want to say that if, as that side of the House wants to do, we should do away with influx control for six months, we would be inundated with Bantu from all the countries of Africa, if it were possible for them to come here because here they would find the most favourable living conditions.

Fourthly, we must also state very positively, that, despite the speeches made by the hon. member for Houghton and others, the Bantu in our cities are not living in worse conditions than the temporary workers in the northern industrial cities of Europe. During the past 10 to 12 years there was an influx of as many as 8 million workers from countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey into the northern industrial cities of Europe in France, Germany and other countries. These people are living in far worse conditions than our urban Bantu. In an article in News Week of 20th March this situation is clearly described. I quote briefly from it, as follows—

We also had these conditions, the shanty towns, and so forth, when those people were in power. Today these conditions no longer exist

Fifthly, the member for Johannesburg North is quite wrong when he and the hon. member for Walmer say here that the urban Bantu are detribalized people. I want to ask the hon. member for Walmer whether he has ever gone to the trouble of speaking to the Bantu in the Port Elizabeth residential areas. Has he ever been to the labour bureau in Port Elizabeth? It is a fine and grand institution. Has he seen with what kindness these people are treated there? Has he seen how each one is treated in terms of his own language context there?

May I ask you a question?

No, my time is short. I am asking that hon. member a question and he may reply. I have noticed that every Bantu is an individual there who belongs to a nation. Just as the Italians who work in Paris and the Turks who work in Hamburg, the people living in our cities, whether they have been there for years or not, are linked to a nation by ties of blood, tradition and language. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, earlier on today the hon. member for Houghton referred to Clermont and Pinetown. About two weeks ago I led a deputation to the hon. the Deputy Minister together with the Pinetown Deputy Mayor, the Town Clerk and the head of their Department of Bantu Administration to ask him to deal with the Pinetown problem. The hon. the Deputy Minister gave us a favourable reception. But I think it is time that there be placed on record the difficulties in Pinetown and Clermont. Twenty four years ago when I came to this House I met the then Minister of Bantu Affairs and asked him whether he would visit Pinetown. The late Dr. Jansen visited Pinetown and saw a piece of land which the Pinetown municipality thought suitable for a Bantu township. He turned it down. A year or two later, the late Dr. Verwoerd visited the town and was shown another bit of land which he approved of. Then pressure was brought to bear on him and he changed his mind. He subsequently approved of a piece of land at Klaarwater. Eventually the township was built at Klaarwater and is housing approximately 30 000 people. That township was opened by the present Minister. It is a very fine township. Since then the Government changed its mind again. The Department of Planning took a hand in it and the township of Klaarwater is no longer going to be a Bantu township. It is now going to be an Indian area. The Bantu in Pinetown do therefore not know where they are. Meanwhile on the outskirts of Pinetown and in the Klaarwater industrial area, there is a tremendous number of hutments, shanties and that type of housing. Part of the Marianhill area was purchased for a Coloured area. The whole of that area of Pinetown adjoining Marianhill which is near the Umlaas River and quite different from many parts of South Africa, is next to a Bantu reserve and has slums developing in the valleys like a festering sore. On the other side of Pinetown we have New Germany. Between New Germany and the Umgeni River there is a large area of Indian land for which the Government has been negotiating. They hope to develop that area. In the meantime the New Germany factories are developing. We have a state of affairs outside Clermont, which is a disgrace to any nation which calls itself civilized. Prostitution, slum conditions, illegitimacy and so forth, abound in that area. One can ask any policeman in Pinetown about the Clermont area and he will tell you that it is the seat of most of their crime. It is all broken country, what we call “monkey country” in Natal. It is country which is not easily serviced by ordinary surface and stormwater drainage. It invites a criminal element and a situation is developing there which I am sure the Minister will agree, is explosive. When I spoke to the Minister the other day he indicated that money was the problem. What I would like to know from the Minister is how far away we are from a solution. For 24 years I have been approaching various Ministers. They have all shown sympathy; officials have come to the area and have promised to do something about it. They made no firm promises, but said that they will see to it that something is done. In the meantime we have waited and 24 years have gone by. It is all very well for the hon. member for Houghton to refer to the matter, but she picked it up from a newspaper article. It is all very well for the newspapers to send their photographers there to take dramatic photographs, but meanwhile, while everybody is talking, the trouble is developing and the festering sore is getting worse. What we want to know from the Minister and from the Deputy Minister is: How much longer must we wait? This is a festering sore for which there is no solution unless housing is provided. Some reference has been made to permanent housing, but in the Clermont Native township, Bantu have the right to own their own property. Many of the properties are owned by Bantu and in many cases the Bantu are the worst rack-renteers. They are leasing land or giving other Bantu the right to put up shacks on their land. A state of affairs has developed where I doubt whether it is safe for anybody to go through that township after dark. I suggest that instead of talk and the discussion we have had on different policies this afternoon we should get a firm promise that something definite is going to be done to clear up this mess which has been growing for years and years and of which the Minister is well aware. This is one bit of action which we would much prefer to all the words that we have had from the hon. the Minister. I hope that the Minister will give us some indication as to when something is going to be done about this. We all know about it; we have done the best we can, and have seen the hon. the Minister. We have had his officials down there and they have done what they can, but in the meantime nothing, or very little, has been done. It is true that a year or so ago they started building some single quarters, but I do not know if the Minister has seen these single quarters. They are little better than cells, damp in the summer and cold during wintertime. I hope that if the Minister is going to give housing he will give housing that is better than the present housing. I suggest that the time is long past when the Minister should give us something tangible in the way of a definite promise that he is going to do something with that area. 24 years is a long time. During this time we have seen disease and crime grow in that area. We have also seen frustration grow in that area, and let us hope that there is not an explosion before the Minister and his department do something about it.

How many people are there?

I would say that there are between 50 000 and 60 000 people in that area. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, allow me first of all to say a few words with regard to the matter raised here just now by the hon. member for Pinetown. May I preface what I am going to say by assuring this Committee that the hon. member for Pinetown, as far as I know, has a genuine interest in the conditions in the area he spoke about. I know about the interview he had with the Deputy Minister, who really deals with the question of housing. I can commend the attention and the efforts of the hon. member for Pinetown in this regard. We appreciate an approach such as that of the hon. member for Pinetown, who would like to see an improvement of the prevailing conditions. Seeing that he raised the matter here, I might mention that I also investigated it. The Deputy Minister informed me about it, especially as a result of the news reports we recently had about it. We all know for what purposes these reports were there.

To report on the conditions there?

Now why do I hear a sound from that hon. member’s direction? We have definite plans in this regard. As a matter of fact, we have already implemented some of them. For instance, as the hon. member knows, we have already started on the very big hostel scheme there for single Bantu, which I think will provide housing for 10 000 to 12 000 individuals in that area. We also announced very recently in this House, through the hon. the Deputy Minister, what emergency steps are being undertaken. There is for instance an emergency camp for persons who need such housing in the interim period. In using the word “interim” I really accept that hon. members on the opposite side will not take exception to interim measures which we take with regard to a problem such as that. Houses will also be built in that area. It is also part of the plan.

Now I want to revert to the speakers who have spoken since yesterday. I would like to start with the hon. member for Transkei.

*Sir, yesterday the hon. member for Transkei raised a point, which was also mooted here today by way of an intejection. Of course, sitting here, one cannot reply properly to an interjection. The hon. member made a point which had also been raised previously by his mentor.

Who is my mentor?

He sits in the same bench as the hon. member. The hon. member for Yeoville has made this point previously in this House. We had pointed out the undesirability of the political pattern the United Party wants to introduce by bringing 16 representatives of the nonWhites into this House, whom they admit could eventually, all 16 of them, be members of those non-White peoples in question, i.e. Coloured, Indian and Bantu persons.

No.

Yes.

There is a guarantee.

Oh no! There is a clear assurance, and I have it here from the Hansard of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. [Interjections.] I am not going to be drawn off my course to reply to the hon. member’s point. It has even been pointed out from this side how, if the membership of the two White parties in this House were to be reasonably equal, that group of 16—whether they are White, Black or Coloured; it makes no difference —could be a decisive factor which would always adopt an opposing attitude to the National Party standpoint, and would probably always be far more extremistic than even the United Party, and will impel the United Party in an extremistic direction, to the detriment of the Whites. Then the hon. member asked yesterday: But why is it then that the National Party does not trust even one of the representatives of the non-Whites to at least vote on the side of the National Party? Why is it then that we as Nationalists are so pessimistic that we do not assume that that middle bloc of 16 will at least take the side of the National Party as well? Then I said here today by way of interjection—I want to substantiate this now, and clarify what I meant—that we do not want their support. I repeat this with the greatest emphasis one can attach to it, because we as the National Party have always said that we do not want to call in these non-White peoples as allies of our Party against a White Opposition party in this Parliament. Sir, we passed legislation here several years ago to prohibit interference in non-White politics, and similarly we as White political parties dare not take that unworthy and extremely dangerous step of calling the non-Whites in as allies of our White political party against our White political opponents. This dare not be done in South Africa. We know that it was done for many years. [Interjections.] I know that this was the case for a very long time in our country; that is the history behind the Native franchise in South Africa; that is the history behind the Coloured franchise in South Africa; it was the aim of the Smuts regime of 1946-’47 to give the Indians franchise in this Parliament. Fortunately we did away with this in 1948. We say with pride that in this Parliament the political struggle between the White political parties must be fought out without the intercession of the nonWhites. We say that those non-Whites have their own institutions and establishments in which they can conduct their own political activities to the highest level of development.

And the Coloureds?

The Coloureds have this as well. The Coloureds have their own embryonic House of Assembly, which is in the process of developing, and it will develop to the extent to which they are capable and to the extent to which we are able to help them. But I am not going to discuss the Coloureds now, although I would very much like to. Sir, let us return now to this point.

May I ask a question?

Let me finish what I have to say about this point first; the hon. member can then put up his hand and teacher will give him a chance. The hon. member for Pietermaritzbrug District, who has just put up his hand, may leave the room. In this regard I want to put a very fair question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to the hon. member for Transkei, for the Opposition party is asking us whether we, as the National Party, do not then want the support of the nonWhites in Parliament.

For your policy.

No, then they are in this Parliament. The issue then is support in this House. We stated with pride that we do not want their support, for that is an absolutely integrationistic idea which we reject completely in terms of our policy of political separation. We did away with this where it existed, and we will not re-introduce it. But I now want to put this question to the hon. members on that side, and specifically to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He must kindly listen to me now. He pretends to be scratching his beard, but he must listen to me now.

Do not be so personal.

Sir, is it being personal now when I say that he pretends to be scratching his beard? I am doing it now to mine. The Leader of the Opposition is really very sensitive. I want to know from him …

Who are you?

Very well, then I write him off. If he does not want to reply, if he wants to use such a personal little joke as an excuse for not replying to my question, then I write him off. Any member on that side can reply to this. If 16 nonWhites were to have representation in this Parliament …

Not non-Whites.

Call them the representatives of the non-Whites then.

That is better.

Those representatives of the non-Whites may be Coloureds themselves, and eventually they may be Indians and Bantu. If those people gain access here, is the United Party, if these two parties are rather evenly matched, going to call in the assistance of those people against the National Party? I say that even if they were here, we would not call in their assistance. I am asking them now: Will they call in the assistance of those non-Whites against the National Party? Sir, I maintain that they will do so, for they have already done so. They did so with the Ballingers; they did so with the representatives of the Coloureds, and they will do so again, and that stupid question which was put to me from the opposite side this afternoon, is conclusive proof of why those 16 nonWhites should be kept out of this Parliament, and to succeed in that, the United Party will have to be confined to being a small Opposition party in this Parliament ad infinitum, and that is what we are going to do. The Opposition now has my reply to that question, and I hope they ask it again, for I enjoy replying to it. The hon. member for Pinelands may now put his question to me.

Are these not two separate questions: in the first place, Whether you want their support and, in the second place, whether they will in fact support your policy? Then I also want to ask whether you are now intimating that they will not support your policy?

Sir, the hon. member is confusing two different matters. The support of the non-White peoples for our policy outside, among those people and in South Africa in general—that we have, and that we want to an increasing extent. But that was not what the question was all about. The question concerned participation in the functions of this House. That was what it was all about, and I say, and we all say, that we do not want the support of the representatives of the nonWhites in this House, for we did away with the non-White representation here, but I say that the United Party wants this to use against us.

The next point raised by the hon. member for Transkei with which I want to deal, is his question as to whether individuals from independent homelands will have the same rights and privileges here in White South Africa in respect of labour as those of other states.

I did not refer to labour.

Merely in general?

Yes.

Sir, we have laid down our policy very clearly in respect of such matters as land ownership, political franchise and so on. It is clear that the citizens of Bantu homelands which have attained independence will experience the same denial of rights as citizens of Malawi, for example, in regard to land ownership and political rights. But as far as labour and relations between us are concerned, we will go out of our way, as we have done up to now, to give preference to our own South African natives, even if they should become independent, in regard to the privileges which exist here in South Africa for Bantu. That is very clear.

The next point which the hon. member for Transkei raised was the question of boundaries between Bantu areas. He asked whether we could make certain that the land which has still to be given to the Bantu homelands will be transferred to them before they become independent, and what he also wants in addition to that is that the Transkei should be informed of what it will still receive. He also referred to the motion which was passed in the Transkei. Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister, who is present here now, replied from his bench to that motion introduced by Matanzima in the Transkei even before he elaborated on it there in his Parliament. He gave a very clear reply to that.

He did not say where he was going to find the land.

Wait a minute. The hon. the Prime Minister furnished very clear replies to both these points; the hon. member must not confuse these two points now. The Prime Minister told Matanzima very clearly—and not only Matanzima, but all the Bantu peoples in South Africa—that if they think they can get more land than was allocated to the Bantu in the 1936 Act, by coupling it to independence, then they need not come and discuss it; they would be wasting their time and ours; that is what the Prime Minister said. [Interjection.] Just allow me to finish; then the hon. member may ask a supplementary question. We know that if those five districts—and the Prime Minister knows it very well; that is why he dealt with the second point as well —we know that if those five districts which were mentioned by Chief Minister Matanzima would be given to the Transkei, the quota land in the Cape Province would be far in excess of the figure allocated to the Cape Province. We know it, and Matanzima knows it, and the hon. member knows it as well. The Prime Minister knew it, and that is why he repeated what I had also said previously, in a statement, viz. that when a final calculation has to be made of the land which is still owing to the Bantu in terms of the 1936 Act—the land which has to be handed over by the Cape Province from White areas—then the Transkei, as well as the Ciskei, as well as the Northern Tswana areas in the vicinity of Kuruman/Vryburg, will all be taken into consideration. In other words, the Transkei will then be able to receive additional land.

Where?

Sir, surely I said when, and the Prime Minister also said when. After all, we are not at this moment making the final calculation of what the due addition in the Cape Province is. We are going to do so before long, and then all the areas will come into consideration for this. It will then be stated what can still go to the northern areas of the Tswanas, what can go to the Ciskei and what can go to the Transkei. Then the Cape Province will be dealt with as a unit as far as the handing over of White land is concerned. Then the hon. member for Transkei will hear it all

Have you no idea of the size of what the Transkei will get?

Surely I have just told the hon. member that we are not making the final calculation today.

But why not?

But surely we are not making the final calculation now. We first have to get the Ciskeian land question through Parliament, and once we have done this, we must then make the calculations for the whole of the Cape Province. Let me make it very clear that the Ciskei, proportionally speaking, lagged far behind in regard to what it ought to have had. That is why we must first bring it up to a level more comparable with the Transkei and with the Tswana areas in the north, and then we will see what more is needed in the rest of the Cape Province to be handed over to the Bantu, and them we will make the final calculation. It cannot be done today, but I hope it will be soon.

When?

I hope that both the hon. member for Transkei and I will still be in this House. It might even be next year; I do not know. All the hon. member must do is realize that we are working in earnest and with determination on this rounding off of the Bantu homelands. If the Ciskei this year is not proof of that to him, the hon. member will have to be given even more conclusive proof than that, and so he shall.

Do you have final plans for the Ciskei?

My goodness, Sir, even an uninformed person listening to what I said here ought to realize that this plan is not the final plan for the Ciskei, for I stated clearly that after these plans have gone through we shall divide the rest of the quota among the three regions of the Cape Province: the Ciskei, the Transkei and the Northern Cape. Surely that is clear. A man who aspires to take over my portfolio, asking questions like that! I want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that they talk of shadow ministers, but it seems to me this is just a shadow without a minister.

Then there is one more point made by the hon. member for Transkei to which I want to reply. He said commerce and industry wanted to know how additional labour would be allowed to come to the White areas, and he then took it amiss of the Minister of Finance for not going into details concerning this.

I did not take it amiss of him.

The hon. member ought to know the reply. I cannot for one moment think that he is as stupid as he appeared to be from his previous question. He knows the reply. He just thought we would give him the wrong reply. The position in regard to additional Bantu, in the context of the White Paper which was laid upon the table here last year and the announcements which were made this year, is very clear. Firstly, and above all, I am now referring only to the metropolitan White areas such as Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, etc. In the White metropolitan areas, if Bantu are required for labour, very thorough consideration must be given in the first place to what Bantu are already available locally. The local Bantu are there in the first place to be employed. In this connection I must make it very clear to White employers that they should make far greater efforts to give the local Bantu, who are there, proper in-service training for their work. In addition to that we, as State, can render assistance and give advice, as we are already doing in the border industry areas and in the agency industries for example. We can assist in that way, but the industrialists must realize that workers who have been coached and trained, workers who have received in-service training, are good workers. The hon. member must realize that the employers must play a part in this, for today we do not even have a scheme by means of which the State alone accepts responsibility for giving White workers in-service training at State expense. There is no such thing. The hon. member must realize therefore that the employers have a duty in that regard. As the third point of my reply, I say that if, after these two requirements have been met, there is a legitimate need for Bantu in the industries in the urban areas, my department, in consultation with the other committee—we call it the “Committee of Seven”, appointed in terms of the Physical Planning Act—will consider bringing single Bantu to the White areas. This is very clear, and this is the reply. I do not think that any more can be said about this.

I come now to the hon. member for Jeppes. He discussed the hostels, but he carried on like a clattering, chattering machine gun, and missed the whole essence of the point. He referred to the hostels which are being established at Alexandra, and in addition to the Bantu who then, as he expressed it here, cause a “dislocation of domestic work”. I can inform the hon. member that I know everything about those arrangements which are being made to the north of Johannesburg. A start was made with those hostels when I was still Deputy Minister. Then the hon. member was still a co-operating city councillor of Johannesburg.

Mayor.

Yes. Those hostels have not been built to take Bantu workers out of the service of employers. I have said a hundred times already that those employers may retain the services of all the workers they had. What is involved here is the accommodation of the workers.

That is correct. That is what I said.

No, the hon. member did not say that. He said “the dislocation of domestic labour”.

Yes.

The hon. member must realize that the time is past when he could allow a group of natives to reside on his premises and work in his house from 6 in the morning to 11 at night. The hon. member must realize that.

I do not say that either.

The time is also past when they could live in back yards without community services being established for them, without their being able to have contact with their own people, without there being any churches for them, and without their being able to associate with one another in other ways. This is being made possible for them in the hostels. The hon. member missed the whole point of the matter.

I wanted to refer to the hon. member for Durban Central, but the hon. member for Aliwal replied to him very effectively. The hon. member for Hillbrow, who is not here at the moment, fired a wild salvo of buckshot this afternoon, and off he went! He has in the meantime probably gone to prepare another statement to explain why he went too far in his statement. The hon. member, with a tremendous spate of words and sounds here this afternoon, said extremely little. He did do one thing, and that was to admire himself like a true Narcissus of old. What did the hon. member really do here this afternoon? He made one thing as plain as a pikestaff in this House, and that is that he had in fact spoken to reporters from those newspapers prior to the appearance of those newspaper reports on Thursday. He admitted it here this afternoon. He said that he had not written the newspaper report, and that he had not seen the report in its entirety before it was published. All this is quite acceptable and it is, in fact, not what we on this side of the House asked him. He admitted here that a reporter had in fact discussed that matter with him. That is a sound, frank admission, and a matter which I can do nothing further about. I want to tell him that my good friend, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and his Chief Whip are vexed about this. I repeat what I said yesterday. I do not think it is fair of them to tread on the hon. member for Wynberg’s toes to such an extent by gagging her. It is not right that they should gag her to the extent of telling her that she may not make statements, although she was making such positive statements. But this hon. member admitted here that he had spoken to that reporter; he admitted that he had had something to do with that report. Whether it was a. full-scale leak, or whether it was a mere trickle, he still admitted that he had had something to do with it. And they did nothing to him. Look at what is stated here in the newspaper: “Taylor admits muzzling by party brass”. She admits that she was silenced. I think those hon. members should consider whether they should not, in the words of that newspaper, muzzle someone else a little, put someone else under restraint.

The hon. member for, Houghton asked me a few questions. The hon. member said that, according to her calculations, it cost R3 700 per worker in a homeland industrial area and said that it was too expensive. But I am pretty sure that if we take into account all the expenses in regard to land, schools, social amenities, hospitals, transport etc. …

And the beer halls.

… and the beer halls, everything which must be provided in an urban residential township like Soweto or Langa, we will come very near to the figure of R3 700, if we do not exceed it. I think the figure of R3 700 is nothing dangerous and nothing to make such a fuss about as the hon. member did here today.

The hon. member also asked me about the two groups of what she called “banished persons”. We have, first of all, those banished in terms of the law in the Bantu areas and, secondly, those banished or restricted—it is better to use the word “restricted”—in terms of Proclamation 400 in the Transkei. The hon. member asked me whether it was possible to give those persons amnesty. The position is that persons are not set free on grounds which I only think are adequate. We have to consult with the chiefs and the tribal councils in the Bantu homelands in connection with persons restricted there under the 1927 law. This is the tradition and it is necessary. Generally the Bantu tribal councils and the Bantu chiefs are reluctant and adamant that we shall not release those persons if they are not satisfied that those persons, after they have been released, will behave themselves in an orderly manner. If they are against it, then, of course, we do not release them.

In connection with the second point in regard to Proclamation 400, I should like to say that I have no power; that it rests with the people in the Transkei themselves. They restrict those persons and they can set them free if necessary.

Do you not have the power?

No, not under Proclamation 400.

Then withdraw the proclamation.

The Transkeian Government does not want us to withdraw that proclamation and I agree with them. It is necessary to have this proclamation.

*Again the hon. member for Wynberg is not present here. I feel very much like talking about her again. Of course she evaded the whole point again this afternoon.

Will the hon. the Minister give consideration to putting some of the 19 000 who have applied for hostel accommodation into the Alexandra hostels, instead of forceful removals by edict and by the serving of notices.

Mr. Chairman, the Department, and particularly the Deputy Minister who works with this—developed a pattern in consultation with the local authorities concerned—for this does not only apply to Johannesburg. We have, inter alia, had reasonably good co-operation from the Johannesburg City Council in developing a pattern in regard to how those hostels should be filled. We cannot merely deviate from the pattern on the basis of the hon. member’s ideas. We must cooperate well with the local authorities rather than with the hon. member for Houghton.

The only time you ever laugh is when somebody says something rude to me.

But surely I have said nothing unfavourable about the hon. member now. I did say that we should co-operate with the local authorities, and this is a fact. We cannot co-operate with the hon. member in regard to those hostels. The local authorities have many qualifications in regard to that matter. The hon. member has none.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout questioned me on the position in Owambo. We have laid the agreement we concluded with the Government of Owambo upon the Table. This is available from the Clerk of the Papers.

I have it.

Very well. In it you will find the answer. In regard to this agreement, the hon. member asked me whether there was satisfaction over the contract and whether the workers could change their employers. I do not think I can furnish a better reply to this than the one given by pastor Njoba, the councillor for education, in Cape Town some time ago. When a reporter put the same question to him during a Press conference, he said: “Yes, there is satisfaction because”—and I am virtually quoting his own words now—“although it is alleged that 12 000 went on strike, there are now 15 000 who are working in terms of the new agreement”. I think that that is an adequate reply. I can add that while fewer people from Kawango previously went to work in the White area of SouthWest Africa, more are now coming from Kawango to work in the White area after the agreement. There was no pattern for the Kawango, and this agreement has now established a pattern for them.

This brings me to the second question put by the hon. member. He asked whether it was possible for such agreements to be concluded for other areas in South-West Africa as well.

Other national groups.

Yes, other national groups, other areas. In principle the answer is “yes”, but in practice it is a little more difficult. I shall tell hon. members why. It is a little more difficult in practice because the other areas do not yet have such comparable governments as Owambo and Kawango. It is an agreement between two governments, which places this Government under an obligation to make legislation, to promulgate proclamations for what is necessary in regard to the Whites in the White areas. The hon. member ought to know that we have already done this. We have issued regulations. At the same time it also places that Government under an obligation to adopt measures in its area as well. The Ovambo did this as well. The Ovambo and Kavango were therefore able to implement the agreement satisfactorily, as in our case. But in the other areas we do not yet have such governments. In the Damara area we have a measure of government in that we have a council of chiefs there. In the Kaokoveld and Hereroland we do not have that yet. Now the hon. member must realize that some of the other areas, such as Hereroland and Damaraland in particular, do not fall within the same old historical region as Ovambo and Kavango. In respect of those areas we can to a large extent, without such agreements, nevertheless obtain conditions of work such as those we have introduced with these agreements. Consequently we are attempting to do this in terms of the existing labour bureau machinery. But this would be simplified if there were such governments with whom agreements could be concluded.

The hon. member also asked whether these people could Change their employment. The agreement stipulates that there is a possibility of their changing their employment in a legal way. An agreement has to be reached on what notification this may be done. Changing from one employer to another in the White areas, such as Windhoek and Walvis Bay, must take place by means of local registration through the local bureau system. For that purpose we have in fact issued improved regulations recently, in order to promote this. The other questions in regard to why we were not better informed have, I think, been very adequately replied to by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education. I just want to point out to the hon. member that at the interview in August between the church leaders and the hon. the Prime Minister, at which I was also present, there was no question of strike threats or anything like that. The general situation was discussed, and therefore it cannot be alleged that that interview should have given an indication of imminent strikes. That interview was not conducted in such a spirit. That interview was conducted in a positive spirit, as the hon. the Minister also said, although outspoken ideas were mooted on both sides.

The hon. member also put some or other absurd little question to me, i.e. whether Buthelezi would not abolish petty apartheid in his capital. In all fairness I think the hon. member should put that question to Buthelezi.

That is not what I asked you.

That is as I wrote it down. The hon. member spoke of Buthelezi’s capital, but I want to tell him that this capital at Ulundi does not exist yet. It is still going to be built. I think the first question the hon. member should put is whether Buthelezi is going to introduce petty apartheid in his new capital Ulundi. However, he asked the second question, i.e. whether Buthelezi is going to abolish petty apartheid there, whatever petty apartheid may mean. This capital does not exist yet.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? My question was whether Bantu authorities will have the right not to introduce it, or to abolish it where it exists?

Sir, Ulundi is going to be an out and out Bantu city. I can announce at this early stage that the Government has confirmed that the White officials who work in Ulundi will not link in the homeland but in the White area.

If Buthelezi allows them to. What then?

If it is an independent country he can decide as he pleases in regard to those matters. We are deciding now that our officials whom we are seconding to him are not going to live in the homeland. He will be content with that, because it is in his interests as well. It is in the interests of us all. I therefore cannot see where the question of petty apartheid is going to arise there; I say again—whatever “petty apartheid” may be.

Sir, I must make haste. I want to finish before 7 o’clock. The hon. member for East London City said here that the Bantu only have 13 per cent of the land area of South Africa. The Deputy Minister of Bantu Development replied to that very effectively by pointing out how the 13 per cent arose. But I want to ask the hon. member and his entire party: If the implication locked up in that question is that 13 per cent of the land for the Bantu, who comprise 70 per cent of the population, is insufficient, do they undertake to give the Bantu who comprise 70 per cent of the population, 70 per cent of South Africa’s land area? We want a reply to that question.

It is not necessary.

Oh, he says it is not necessary. They can, on the one hand, ask the question, but on the other, he says it is not necessary, I say that it is very necessary that this question should be asked.

The hon. member for Walmer had quite a good deal to say about the Bantu in the White area of Port Elizabeth, the New Brighton area. I want to remind the hon. member of what I said here, that we do not regard the Bantu working in South Africa —even if they have always been working here, for whatever length of time, even if it is from the day they are born until the day they die—as being present here in an entrenched, fixed capacity; we regard them as being here in a casual capacity.

Even if they have been here all their lives?

Yes. I have just said from the day they are born until the day they die, just as the Whites in the homeland of the Bantu are also there in a casual capacity. They do not have established roots there in respect of politics, commerce, land tenure and so on. As far as commerce in the White area in terms of our policy is concerned the hon. member must realize that commerce in the White area is not the free right and privilege of the Bantu. The local authorities—in Port Elizabeth as well—are the people who grant the licences, and we do not interfere with that. The local authorities may allocate more shops than the 15 per cent there at present, if they deem it desirable. But the Bastu Investment Corporation, to which the hon. member referred, does not have the power to accommodate Bantu dealers in New Brighton, Langa and Soweto financially; for the Bantu Investment Corporation was established for the sake of the development of the Bantu homelands.

May I ask a question?

No, wait; I am replying to questions. I am replying to them one by one. I am reeling them off. The next question was whether the State could not assist the non-Whites there. Sir, the State is not even helping the White dealers; the State does not even have a scheme for the White dealers in the White area; why should the State develop a scheme to help the Bantu dealers in New Brighton, Langa and Soweto?

Who is going to help them?

Who has helped them up to now? And who is helping the Whites?

Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question?

Sir, I should like to finish what I have to say.

Sir, it is only one small question. Will the hon. the Minister accept the position if White people wanted to establish businesses in these Bantu townships in order to help the Bantu people to learn the trade?

That is the next question I am going to deal with. I had a note of it here. It must be very clearly understood that, in terms of our policy, Whites in the Bantu residential areas, such as New Brighton, Soweto and Langa, cannot acquire interests in the form of shops. That is also in conflict with the Urban Areas Act.

Why do you let doctors practise there?

Sir, I did not know that the hon. member equated a doctor with a dealer. I thought that it was a professional service. The shopkeeper makes money out of his business. I should just like to put this point, and then I will have finished what I wanted to say. We must understand well, as I said, that White entrepreneurs, in terms of the law and in terms of policy, cannot have shops in the Bantu urban residential areas. But we also know that the law is already, in certain respects, allowing local authorities to have commercial enterprises within a Bantu residential area, of which bottle stores are only one example, and markets another. I therefore foresee the possibility of the day arriving when particularly after we have established our new system of local Bantu administrations in our major centres, when we have the Bantu administration boards. the local authority will on the basis of this principle, be able to provide essential services in the commercial sphere and that such local Bantu administration boards will in fact be able to establish trading facilities for Bantu, the profit of which will be credited to the account of that local authority. Whether this will be directly or by way of utility companies, etc., are matters which we shall go into at a later stage, as soon as those administration boards are functioning properly. More than that I do not want to say at this stage. With that I have replied satisfactorily to all the points, and I am grateful for having been able to do so.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister again told us this afternoon that the urban Bantu in the White area are only here in a temporary, casual capacity, from birth to death. The urban Bantu in South Africa may also say to us, “Heaven is my home, I am but a stranger in the White areas.” What do hon. members on that side want to suggest? Do they want to tell us that the Bantu in the urban areas can be argued away with all kinds of words such as “temporary”, “permanent”, “in a casual capacity”, “on an occasional labourer basis”, etc.? The hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education tells us we should not refer to them as the urban Bantu; we should refer to them as the Bantu in the White area. The hon. members on the opposite side think they can solve the whole problem in South Africa merely by coining new names. They have again devised a new terminology, and now these people are no longer here. You simply use the term “multi-national”, and then there is no longer a problem in South Africa.