Mr. Speaker, there was a great deal in the speech of the hon. the Minister of Finance on Monday with which we can agree. There is undoubtedly an urgent need for the major countries of the world to once and for all reach some monetary settlement that will give some stability to world currencies. We hope that we shall see some progress in this regard in 1973. I have been appalled for many years now to see the governments of the world sit back and allow the speculators of the world to make millions and millions of dollars or pounds, or whatever the case may be, in profit each year. I think we all hope that this situation will be remedied in the very near future.

We are as pleased as the hon. the Minister at the dramatic improvement that has taken place in our balance of payments and on current account. But let us not be misled into believing that this improvement is the solution to all our problems—far from it. There are many pressing problems that still require to be resolved.

The hon. the Minister also mentioned that at the moment we have to deal with cost inflation instead of demand inflation. What concerns us is that we may soon have to deal with both cost inflation and demand inflation. The hon. the Minister has announced increases in public service salaries. We agree with this step but it is inflationary, and I think the hon. the Minister would be the first to admit it. The hon. the Minister has also found it necessary to give some stimulus to the economy by paying back the 1967 loan levy of R66 million on the 1st March, this year. Again I believe the hon. the Minister is wise in so doing, but again, this is clearly an inflationary step and we may very soon find that we are going to have cost inflation plus demand inflation.

What we were most pleased to hear from the Minister was the following statement: “Bo en behalwe dié verbeterings, word die gaping tussen die lone van Blanke-en Nie-blanke-personeel terselfdertyd vernou.” To what extent, of course, we do not know yet, but the establishment of the principle is very important. It seems from the speech of the hon. the Minister of Labour in this House yesterday that he too at long last is beginning to see the light. It is, however, a pity that we did not have this kind of thinking from the three hon. Ministers and the Deputy Minister who took part in the economic phase of the No-confidence debate. I am sorry that two of those gentlemen are not in the House. What concerned us was the sameness of approach by these hon. gentlemen. They showed no understanding whatsoever of the real issues we have to face, and the issues we have to meet. Like four parrots out of the same cage, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, the hon. the Minister of Planning, the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs and of Tourism and the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, all sang the same chorus: wages and salaries have risen faster than the cost of living. This is a song that my hon. friends opposite have been singing for years, but it was out of tune when they sang it originally, and it is still off-key. I do not believe that you can merely, as did the hon. the Minister of Planning, say that White wages in 1963 were R1949, while in 1971 they were R3 612 and that therefore, over that period of eight years, there had been an increase of 85,3%, and that after allowing for a 33% inflation rate over the same period, the real increase in wages was 39,3%, or 4,9% per annum. I believe that there are other factors to be taken into account. Firstly, as wages rise, so do taxes. Sometimes this is forgotten. If we take for instance the figures of the hon. the Minister for Planning, we find that a man who earned R2 532 in 1963 paid R40-83 in tax. On his increased earnings in 1971 of R4 528 he paid R222-53 in taxes and levies, which is quite a difference. The average White earnings for 1963 were R1 949 and the only tax payable was a personal tax of R18. In 1971, when the earnings had risen to R3 612, the tax payable had risen to R98-83. This reduces the real increases to perhaps some 4,4% per annum over these eight years.

The second factor is that no man will work for the same salary year after year. This is something hon. members opposite find it very convenient to forget. Every man who works in any job expects an annual increment so that his salary is going to improve each year. I would say—and I think it is easily provable—that he expects a minimum increment of 5% per annum, and he expects it on the basis that there is no increase in the cost of living.

Also, we are working with average figures which can be vastly misleading. You know, Sir, at the end of the last war the American Government did a survey as to what houses would be required by G.I.s coming out of the army. The result of the survey showed that the average house that would be required for returning soldiers would have to be a house to accommodate a man and his wife and two children. So they proceeded to build tens of thousands of houses to accommodate four people. What happened, of course, when the G.I.s started coming back to the United States, was that they found that it was true that there were many families of four—father and mother and two children—but that there were also many families of five and of six and of seven and of eight, and yet you had all these average houses built to take care of families of four. Sir, it is the same kind of reasoning that you get in averaging salaries and the figures given to us by the hon. the Minister. You see, Sir, when you start averaging the increases of people whose incomes have jumped from R4 000 to, say, R10 000 and you try to equate that and put them all together with people who earned, say, R2 000 and whose salaries were increased to R4 000, you get an enormous amount of distortion. In the same way, Sir, you get distortions if you use percentages. 39,3%, which is the figure the hon. the Minister used as the real increase in salaries over eight years, on R10 000 means R3 930; the same increase on R4 000 is only R1 572. There is a very big difference indeed. If we take the figures given by the hon. the Minister of Planning, the real increase in wages from 1963 to 1971, after adjusting them for increased taxes, was some 4,4% per annum, so the effect of inflation was that, far from a man being better off in 1971, he had not even averaged what he expected as a normal increment—not a betterment of his own position but just the normal increase in salary which he expected each year. Sir, if you add to this the fact that the real increases in the cost of living are not always reflected in the cost-of-living index, then it becomes even more interesting. I have some statistics here which I find very interesting indeed. These are cost-of-living indices. On sugar and applied products, for example, in 1970 the figure was 102; it is now claimed, nearly three years later, that the figure is 100,7, so in these three years we have had a decrease of less than 1%. I do not know, Sir; I used to be an avid chocolate-eater, and I have found that the price has increased terribly. Then we come to rent and home owners’ costs. This was 110,3 at the end of 1971 and 117,6 at the end of 1972; that is an increase of some 6%. But I know, Sir, that my rates and taxes alone have doubled, and as to the cost of maintenance, if you get a plumber or an electrician or anybody to do a job of work, when you are as useless with your hands as I am, then you find that the increase appears to be an awful lot more than these statistics show. Then we come to electrical equipment. That has jumped from 104,6 to 107,6; that is under 3%. Sir, if I go into a cut-price store and want to buy a plug or a piece of flex, I find that prices have gone up by 20% or 30%. I do not know on what these figures are based, but this is certainly not what the man in the street is finding. Then we come to one or two others: Laundry and dry-cleaning services. These are the official figures of the Department of Statistics. Laundry and dry-cleaning has gone up from 110,5 to 114,4. I would like to know, Sir, where these shops are; I cannot find them. I know that whereas I used to pay 60 cents to have a suit cleaned. I now pay 95 cents, 100 cents or 110 cents.

The cheapest place charges 110 cents.

Sir, this is very interesting. Let us go a little further. We now come to my hon. friend, the hon. member for Rosettenville. According to this schedule medical services and requirements have gone up from the end of last year from 102,8 to 107,6, which is under 5%. Mr. Speaker, I hope you have not had any medical bills or chemists’ bills lately, but I would be very happy to pay mine on the basis of an increase of 5% since last year, because the one big complaint of everybody you meet is the excessive cost of medicine …

The Government has even appointed a commission of inquiry into this.

Sir, I do not doubt that these figures are correct; I do not doubt that they are based on a formula which is being used to establish the cost-of-living index, but—and it is a very big but—what I do say is that these are not the figures that the man in the street finds when he has to buy something.

There is another factor. The figures given to us by the hon. the Minister of Planning dealt with eight years, from 1963 to 1971, when the cost-of-living index rose by an average of 4%; but what has happened in the last two years? The cost-of-living index over the past two years has risen at the rate of at least 7% a year. This is a very big difference. I do not know by what percentage salaries have been increased; I have not got those figures, but these are the things that are chafing and they are things that are well known to the man in the street. You see, Sir, the working man like all of us, does not merely want to maintain his standard of living; he looks to continuously bettering his standard of living. I think it is the wish of every member of the House that that should be the case but, Sir, ask any wage-earner or salary-earner and he will tell you that as his family grows up he finds it more and more difficult to make ends meet, and that despite any increases in his salary he is having a very hard time. I think this is borne out by the figures I have quoted.

But, Sir, what was really disturbing about the speeches of the hon. Ministers who dealt with economic affairs in the no-confidence debate is that we did not get one single constructive contribution towards a solution of the problem of Black wages. These hon. gentlemen treated this problem as though it did not exist at all, yet it is a problem that is affecting the entire economic life of South Africa, because when we deal with Black wages, we cannot only deal with the question of increasing Black wages, as most people appear to be doing. It might be relatively simple if we could. What we have to deal with is the whole question of the Black worker in our economy; this is our problem. What we have to deal with is the broad question of the economy itself. The fact that far too much of our Black labour earns too little cannot be dealt with in isolation. What we can and, indeed, what we must pay Black workers is indivisibly bound up with the expansion of our economy, with the emphasis on quantity of production and export, with the creation of more job opportunities, with the improvement of productivity, with the curbing of inflation, with the increased population and with the number of Black workers, men and women who will be looking for employment for the first time each year. These are the problems that arise out of what happened in Durban. One would have expected, Sir, that the hon. Ministers who took part in the debate over the past two weeks would have dealt with these matters in some detail. After all, they are directly concerned.

The hon. the Minister of Labour, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, the hon. the Minister of Planning and the Deputy Minister are very involved in these matters. But what did we have? The hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs did deal with inflation, I must admit that. The total sum of his contribution was to say that inflation was imported, and what more, he said, could this Government or any other government do to prevent those factors that were causing inflation. I say that the hon. the Minister squarely ran away from the issue. The hon. the Deputy Minister said very little of any consequence. He did say that he questioned my statement that the Government had had no success in curbing inflation, but he did not go on to prove this; he just left it in the air. But it was the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs and Tourism who really excelled himself, and I am sorry he is not here. He saw no unemployment in this country worth talking about. The 250 000 unemployed Blacks apparently did not concern the hon. the Minister. I do not know, Sir, whether that is the correct figure, because I cannot get the correct figure. I hear figures ranging from 100 000 to two million. Perhaps some hon. Minister will put me right and give me a figure in respect of the number of Blacks unemployed.

Then, Sir, the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs turned to the wage gap and made some quite remarkable statements. He said that in determining wages you have to take supply and demand into account, even, of course, where you have supply controlled. But I believe that the hon. the Minister should have added that this used to be a general economic principle, but that today it no longer has any application except where the workers, as is the case in South Africa, are not organized. The hon. the Minister will know that in the United States about two years ago the workers of General Motors got a bigger salary increase than ever before, while unemployment in the United States was nearly 6%, one of the highest figures ever reached in the United States. I think the hon. the Minister, if he were here, would agree that the power of the trade unions has to a large degree taken over from the principle of supply and demand. Then the hon. the Minister said that in considering wages you had not only to look at a man’s skills; you also had to look at his will to work; that you could have two medical doctors, identical in age, qualifications, etc., with the one earning five or ten times as much as the other. This is true; nobody denies it. It is factual, but it is what conclusions you draw from these facts that is important. It would seem that the purpose of these statements by the hon. the Minister was to establish the principle that in a competitive society wages are determined by market conditions, otherwise you are a nationalized society.

That is what the hon. the Minister said. Have you ever heard such utter nonsense, Mr. Speaker? It is the biggest lot of nonsense I have ever heard. Does the hon. the Minister seriously suggest that, because we have industrial agreements, because we have wage awards and because we have collective bargaining for White workers, we are a nationalized country? I wonder what my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, would say to a statement like that, that we are a nationalized country. Is the hon. the Minister seriously suggesting that it is not possible to pay the same wages for the same job, as the laws of our land provide? Is he suggesting that the more skilled and harder working workers cannot, in the context of the same wages for the same job, progress and better their own position?

Mr. Speaker, I want to say this to the hon. the Minister and I hope he will read it in Hansard. When the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs talks in this House about the implications of our plea for closing the wage gap as being a communist concept to enforce equality irrespective of merit, then he must not expect us to give any credence to anything he says. I hope the hon. the Minister will learn from the hon. the Prime Minister and what he said in the no-confidence debate, that in the recent strikes in Durban there was a lesson for all of us to learn: for the Government, for the Opposition, for commerce and industry and in fact for the whole of South Africa. We agree entirely with this. That is quite right, and I hope the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs will learn this lesson in due course. You see, Sir, what concerns us is whether the real lessons of the strikes have been learnt by the Government. The statement by the hon. the Minister of Finance on Monday, that the wage gap would be narrowed, was very encouraging, as was the statement made yesterday in the House by the hon. the Minister of Labour. But what we still want to know is what steps the Government are going to take to remedy those defects in basic structures that were underlined by the events in Durban. That is the question.

You see, what we had in Durban, on the surface, was the situation where a large number of Black workers earning wages far below the poverty datum line, and being crushed under the impact of soaring inflation, struck for better working conditions and for higher wages. That was what appeared on the surface, but this was only the tip of the iceberg. What we saw were only the symptoms of the disease and not the disease itself, and yet the disease is so easily diagnosed. It is a chronic ailment resulting from years of ill-advised Government policies that hindered at every turn the essential and vital economic contribution of the Black people to the economy of South Africa. This is the ailment we are dealing with and this is the real lesson to be learnt from the Durban strikes. The question is whether that lesson has been learnt. When I listen to some of the hon. Ministers, I doubt it, and therefore I want to move the following amendment—

Now, if the lesson has indeed been learnt, what of necessity must flow therefrom is very easily seen. It is those factors I now want to deal with.

I think it is common cause that South Africa cannot continue to accept as adequate growth, the rates of growth we have had since 1969. We had 6,8% in 1969; it dropped to 4,8% in 1970 and to 3,6% in 1971 and then we had a very slight upturn to some 4% in 1972. That the Government was of the opinion that this was too low was clearly evidenced in the last Budget, because the last Budget was an expansionary Budget; it followed the devaluation of December, 1971. After the Budget of last year, there was some measure of optimism among the business community. There was the expectation in many quarters that the end of the third quarter of 1972 was going to show an upturn in the economy. It seems somewhat ironical now that at the same time the fear was expressed that any sharp upturn at the end of 1972 could lead to serious imbalances in the economy towards the end of 1973, because the fact of the matter is that there was no significant upturn in the economy in 1972. This was confirmed by the hon. the Minister of Transport in his statement issued on the 1st December, 1971, in connection with the increase of salaries to railway workers, when the hon. the Minister said—

So, this was the position. We have further evidence of the position by the expansionary measures introduced by the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. We have had an easier money situation, a relaxation of hire-purchase restrictions, the early repayment of the 1966 loan levy, some reduction in the sales duty of a few items and we now have the early repayment of the 1967 loan levy.

It is of importance to examine whether these expansionary measures have had and are having the desired effect, and more specifically what the desired effect should be. The last official pronouncement we have had was from the Reserve Bank in its quarterly bulletin of December, 1972. They said that the real output of the non-agricultural sectors of the economy did not show any further acceleration during the third quarter of 1972. In the statement issued by the hon. the Prime Minister following the meeting of his Economic Advisory Council on the 20th and 21st November this was said, and it is very interesting what was said—

This refers to the first part of the statement—

If we paraphrase that, we can say that we do not have economic prosperity now but let us hope that we are going to get it sometime in the future. B.E.R., on the other hand, in their prospects for 1973 which they published on the 10th November said—

In their building survey of 11th January—not very long ago—the view was expressed that in the commercial and industrial sectors there are as yet few signs of economic revival. Other economic surveys which were published up to the end of last month and early this month are of the opinion that from the statistics available up to the end of January, there was no evidence of an upturn in the economy towards the end of last year. This was confirmed by what the hon. the Minister said last Monday. But there are some plus factors—we must be fair. Our foreign reserves are strong. Despite the unhappy drought, it would seem that our export potential for 1973 if not disturbed by any overseas events is going to remain high. The personal disposable income has increased as the result of wage increases already given and those still to come. Agricultural and mineral prices are likely to rise fairly considerably in 1973. Overall, I think one can say that at this point of time, despite the fact that there is no hard evidence of an overall real upturn in the economy, there is a fairly strong possibility that the economic growth in 1973 will be better than the 4% of 1972, provided that there is further stimulus of the economy by the Government. In the no-confidence debate I said that there was a general anticipation that the Government was going to act to provide the stimulus, despite the opinion of the Economic Advisory Council which said in November that no further measures should be taken now with a view to directly encouraging private consumption spending, that is, increasing consumer demand. In addition to the early repayment of the 1967 loan levy, tax reductions are generally expected—I think one should tell the hon. the Minister this—and an increase in Government spending is anticipated. I think it is true to say that it is this assessment of future policy, far more than any economic fact, that is the reason for any present optimism. It is in the minds of the people and it has to be translated now into hard facts. The views of the hon. the Minister of Finance are known to us. He stated them at the opening of the Financial Mail symposium in Johannesburg, when he said:

The hon. the Minister completed these sentiments on Monday, but added:

I do not know why the hon. the Minister used that word—mighty—a powerful, or a major …

“Matige”.

I have great sympathy with the views of the hon. the Minister, because with the real possibility of inflation for 1973 being something of the order of 7% -8%, he would be acting irresponsibly if he spoke otherwise. The hon. the Minister is on the horns of a dilemma. This is his problem: On the one hand he has to stimulate the economy, because if he does not he is not going to get sufficient growth in 1973; but on the other hand, if he does stimulate the economy his inflationary problem can become very acute indeed. There is one way, of course, in which he can to some extent have his cake and eat it, and that is by reducing sales tax substantially. If the hon. the Minister will reduce sales tax substantially, he is going to reduce prices which is anti-inflationary and at the same time he is going to leave money in the hands of the public, which is increasing demand. Therefore he can achieve two things, but I doubt whether this is going to be sufficient for what South Africa needs at this moment, because as I have said earlier—and I want to come back to those remarks—the lesson of the Durban strikes is that we can no longer continue with our policies of the past years that have led to stagflation. We cannot have low expansion and high inflation; we have to have greater growth if we are going to be able to employ—again I do not know the figure—let us say, 50 000 to 100 000 Black workers who come on to the market every year. We have to be able to …

When you make a statement, can you not substantiate it by quoting figures?

Not necessarily. Let the hon. the Deputy Minister give us the correct figures regarding the number of Black people. If he can he will be a genius, but I do not think he is. We have to employ these people at living wages. The E.D.P. for 1972-’77 acknowledges this, but only in part. It has projected an average growth rate of 5¾%. This has been recommended by the hon. the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and has been accepted by the Government. As I have said, this indicates an acceptance of the facts in part, because a growth rate of 5¾% will not provide for all the Bantu who will acquire jobs over the programming period. That is in the programme; so you do not have to take my word for it. Nor do I believe that the E.D.P. has taken into account that higher wages are going to have to be paid to the Bantu in future. Conversely, I do not believe they have taken into account the increased productivity that we are going to get from the Bantu through having to allow them to earn more and use greater skills, because this is something we are going to have to do. It is the only answer to the lesson of Durban. This is despite the statement of the hon. the Minister of Planning who said that—

I do not believe that this is going to happen. The Government must stop equivocating and temporizing. Like justice that is not only to be done, but must be seen to be done, the Government must leave the yellow light of hesitancy and move forward to the green light of positive action. This is what we require; the Government cannot hide behind the employers or the trade unions, although these must certainly play their part. We all acknowledge that. But it is the Government that must actively propagate the most effective use of our Black labour. That is its job and its responsibility. It must do so in the homelands, in the border areas and in the urban areas, and particularly in the metropolitan areas.

Where do you differ?

If we want to expand our economy, if we want greater productivity, if we want more job opportunities, if we want to curb inflation and if we want to have stable labour conditions, let us stop talking in whispers and say loud and clear that all available labour will be properly trained, re-trained and utilized, that it will be entitled to develop its maximum skills and that it will be adequately paid. Let the Government say this loud and clear and the whole economic position of South Africa will change overnight.

The hon. the Minister of Planning said in the no-confidence debate that the only solution we ever offered to the problems of inflation was more use of Black labour. Hon. members on the other side have constantly accused us of wanting to open what they call the flood gates of Black labour.

That is so.

We do not want that and you know it! I shall tell you what we do want: We want a settled labour force and not a migratory one; we want a trained labour force; we want an adequate labour force; we want a reasonably paid labour force; and we want a labour force that can ensure the growth that we need to provide stability in South Africa. That is what we want and not “the opening of the flood gates”. You are not going to achieve this by simply raising salaries. Indeed, you may well find that increasing salaries in isolation may well have the horrifying effect of increasing Black unemployment, for employers of Black labour may well pay more, but also they may well pay fewer workers. This is very often the result of increasing wages. We stand four-square behind the hon. the Prime Minister that this situation, unemployment among the Black population group, is one the result of which we cannot even envisage in this country. We go along 100% with him. Hon. members tell us that all we can suggest as a solution to deal with the economic problem is labour. It is not true, of course, but let us accept that for the moment because we are in very good company: 90% of all financial surveys which have been published in the last three months end up with an appeal for the essential changes that have to be made in our long-term labour structure. If the hon. the Minister or the Deputy Minister has not read them, I will be pleased to hand them to him. We can no longer accept a wage gap resulting from a huge mass of unskilled Black labour and a small élite of skilled White labour—those days are gone. We can no longer pursue, and this is the only country in the world that does so, a deliberate policy of not fully employing the labour resources we have at our disposal. We can no longer afford a high rate of inflation, which is aggravated by a labour force whose productivity is diminished by rule and regulation. We have to learn to regard our vast reservoirs of labour as the basic component of rapid and sustained economic growth. It may be said that any attempt to extend or to expand the economy to achieve a greater growth rate than 5¾%, will bring acute problems in its wake. I accept that this may be so, but we believe we have no choice in the matter, there is no other choice. The alternatives have been tried and they have failed. Our options are now closed. I believe that we have got to be prepared to accept a possible shortage of capital formation, a possible shortage of skilled labour although I am not quite sure that this would happen, a possible high rate of inflation, which we have anyway and for which we might as well get something. We have to accept this as a temporary phase for a year or two while we put our house in order. That is what we require, while we create the essential base from which to launch a programme to ensure higher wages coupled with the opportunity to acquire further skills, the essential growth in output, the expansion of the local market, and the reduction of inflation to acceptable rates. What South Africa needs to break the log-jam that haunts us, is an act of faith, as act of faith that will sweep away all these outmoded concepts with which we have been living and which have no place in the 1970s. We need an act of faith which will rally all South Africa to the task of building a great South Africa for the benefit of all its various peoples. The lesson of Durban is quite clear. It is a very simple lesson: The increase of Black wages is an immediate necessity, but in isolation it has few long-term benefits. To be able to economically continue to raise wages, you have to increase the productivity of the worker. If you don’t, you may well increase his wages, but you may lessen Black employment. To increase productivity, you must provide adequate educational facilities and training and create the job opportunities not at present available to the Black worker. To create job opportunities you must have expansion of the economy. If you have expansion of the economy, you must have a climate of confidence and certainty of objectives. This is what we have been lacking over the years. This is the task for the Government to correct, to show by its actions that the future is safe and that the future is certain, that it is dedicated to following a road that will lead to a vital and virile economy, commensurate with the abilities and the potentials of a country of 22 million people.

Mr. Speaker, what pure delight it is to reply to a speech by my hon. friend, the member for Parktown! I wish I had his power of diction and his control of the English language. It is sheer delight to listen to his English. If, however, it comes to the subject matter of his speech, I can only pity him. In the state in which his party is at present, it must be very, very hard to deliver a positive speech. He ended his speech by making an appeal to the Government to create job opportunities for Black workers. I immediately thought of his colleague next to him who called hell and high water on this Government because they used Black labour on the Natal railways. Evidently, Sir, his whole speech this afternoon was an essay to draw the attention of the Government and the public from the state of discord in his party. Evidently, he has lost all touch with the mythical “man in the street”, which he is so fond of quoting. Only last year he accused the Government that it had completely lost touch with the electorate. I refer to Hansard of last year (Vol. 37, col. 1142), where the hon. member said:

That was said on February 16th. My hon. friend seemed to sense coming victory. Then came Brakpan the first, with a fair degree of success for his party. Expectations ran sky-high. He visualized himself as the country’s next Minister of Finance, taking office in 1975. Alas! On April 19th came Oudtshoorn. Enough said; expectations were dashed and dreams were shattered. O, cruel Oudtshoorn, how could you do such a a thing to the United Party! Brakpan the second came along. Malmesbury, Caledon, Johannesburg West, Vereeniging and Wakkerstroom—all these shattered that ideal. After these shattering blows I had reason to expect that the hon. member would tone down his accusations of our losing touch with the people. Yet this year, on February 6th, he told this House in the No-confidence debate (Hansard, col. 104)—

And how!

I will tell the hon. member how. The first objective of the Government was to bring about a more favourable balance of payments, and how was it done? The hon. the Leader of the Opposition last year spoke of an unfavourable balance of payments of R1 350 million. It was brought down at the end of 1972 to a mere R100 million. Is that not the attainment of the objective? When the Reserve Bank’s gold and foreign exchange reserves stood at R400 million at the beginning of 1972, the Minister predicted that they would reach R1 000 million by the end of the year. Do hon. members recall with what cynical laughter that forecast was met by members opposite? But how perfectly correct the hon. the Minister’s forecast proved to be because we have attained that figure of R1 000 million. No, Sir, far from losing confidence in the ability of the Government, the results of the recent by-elections show a growing confidence in this Government after 25 years of wise and benevolent government. It is indeed in the Opposition that the public is fast losing confidence. I quote from an English language newspaper—

Another paragraph reads as follows—

Mr. Speaker, it is not the Government that has lost touch with the people; it is the Opposition. Mr. Speaker, I cannot refrain from using this perfect jewel by John Scott of The Cape Times which appeared on 1st December, 1972. He pictures the position which might exist in the year 2010 and writes as follows—

Remember, Sir, this is in the year 2010—

Hear, hear!

We have heard this so many times, Sir—

How familiar this sounds—

And now, coming to the Progressive Party—

This, of course, reminds one of Prof. Kleynhans—

That is original thinking!

Sir, this is clear evidence that the public’s loss of confidence is indeed in the United Party and most definitely not in this Government.

*Sir, we are fast approaching the point where the Opposition, as it is conducting itself at present, is regarded by the public as being of little importance. It is openly ridiculed. As a meaningful contributor to the working of our parliamentary government, it has apparently lost all value. It has lost all contact with positive thinking outside. It has lost all insight into the realities of an uncertain world financial situation.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to come back to the world financial situation. That the Western world is in fact facing very serious problems is beyond doubt and self-evident, for at no stage since Bretton Woods has there been as much uncertainty in the monetary field as there is today. Has there ever been a period of 14 months in which there have been as many currency adjustments as in the 14 months since December, 1971? And the harder the United States and other nations of the West try to diminish the role of gold in the world monetary system, the deeper they sink into the bog of monetary uncertainty and instability, with all the adverse effects that has on orderly world trade and price stability. Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to elaborate any further on the role of gold in our international monetary system. A very brilliant young colleague of mine will shortly have a great deal to say about it, and therefore I shall let what I have said, suffice. All that I want to do here, is to praise the hon. the Minister of Finance once more for the praiseworthy role he is playing to ensure the future of gold, on the one hand because I believe that to be in the best interests of world trade and monetary stability and on the other hand because gold production forms such a large part of our total national product.

Sir, besides monetary instability, the biggest problem we have to deal with is, of course, inflation. But here I have problems with my hon. friend, the member for Park-town, who just cannot decide on which stool he wants to sit and who continually blows hot and cold. At the beginning of his speech he waxed lyrical and said that the wage and salary increases which have just been announced and the earlier refund of the loan levy were all very well, but would unfortunately be inflationary. May I put this question to him? If he were in the position to manage the finances of the country, what would he have done; would he have granted these wage and salary increases, or not?

I said so.

That is our problem with the Opposition, they cannot decide on which stool they wish to sit. If the West does not want to reinstate gold in its stabilizing role, its economists and statesmen will have to rack their brains about ways and means to curb inflation. Someone recently made the remark that the British pound would be worth one penny only before the end of this century, and that is by no means so far-fetched, Sir. This may well happen if this inflation, which is afflicting not only South Africa, but the whole of the Western world, is not curbed.

Mr. Speaker, there is definitely no point in simply levelling accusations and reproaches at this Government with regard to inflation, as the hon. member for Park-town and hon. members opposite are so fond of doing. As I have said, this is definitely a problem of the whole Western world and not of South Africa only. It is not only useless to come along with arguments such as these that the Government is responsible for inflation; it is also positively dangerous. That is our very problem with this Opposition, Sir, and I shall tell you why I maintain that the conduct of the Opposition is positively dangerous. One of the major elements in fanning the flames of inflation is irresponsible wage demands and every person whose salary rises faster than his productivity is part of the cause of inflation. I repeat that every person whose salary rises faster than his productivity is part of the cause of inflation.

Now what do we get from the Opposition? The hon. member for Parktown, just like his Leader, is very fond of continually stressing how very adversely rising prices are affecting the housewife, the worker, the farmer and others, how hard they are hit by them, and how they must insist on higher wages and higher salaries and higher prices for agricultural products, no matter how convincingly we on this side of the House prove that wages and salaries are rising at a faster rate than inflation. Only this afternoon the hon. member for Parktown tried once again to make out that that was not true. Sir, time unfortunately does not allow me to deal with that argument in full. The conduct of the Opposition is like fuel on the flames of inflation. Now I have heard of people who have thrown fuel on the fire and have burnt themselves, and if the Opposition burnt only itself, no-one in the country would shed a tear. But the tragedy is that in the process not only the Opposition, but also the people as a whole are burnt and that is why I say that their conduct is positively dangerous to this country.

Who is governing the country?

Of course it is the National Party Government that has been governing the country for 25 years, but an irresponsible Opposition can do an endless amount towards nullifying good government through its irresponsible conduct.

In the short time that remains at my disposal, I should like to use my time to express a few thoughts on the effects of inflation on a people’s inclination to save. No people can have economic growth without capital. Therefore it must save, but continuous inflation must necessarily discourage saving. What incentive is there for a person to save if his savings lose 18% of their value within three years? That is precisely what has happened over the past three years. We shall all have to give this matter our very earnest attention, otherwise our inclination to save will receive a knock-out blow. We are doing a great deal to alleviate the effects of inflation on the old-age pensioner and on the civil pensioner and others. Over the past three years this Government has raised old-age pensions by 24% from R33 per month to R41 per month. The same has occurred as regards civil pensioners. The State already subsidizes civil pension funds by nearly 85% in order to prevent those funds from going bankrupt and to enable them to make pension payments to civil pensioners which will keep abreast of the rising cost of living. Only the poor retired person who has to live off his own savings has to bear the burden of inflation on his own. This matter is extremely serious. Our people’s sense of self-reliance, its will to save, is at stake. If you ask me how we are to remedy the situation, I say that the State does in fact make a small fiscal concession, because pensioners over the age of 60 years with an income of less than R1 600 per year do not pay income tax. Above R1 600 the concession decreases by R1 per R10 up to R5 000 where the concession falls away altogether. This is a help and an attempt to compensate the retired person for the loss in the buying power of his savings which he set aside with great sacrifice while he was working. However, I advocate a more direct form of assistance. I have certain very definite ideas as to this form of assistance to retired people, who have to contend with a rapid decline in the buying power of savings today. I do have ideas as to how we may accommodate them by means of fiscal concessions, but I submit that is not enough by a long shot and that we shall have to rack our brains in developing another system in which the State acknowledges not only that inflation necessitates our subsidizing old age and civil pension funds, but also that we shall have to make a considerable concession to the man who has to live off his own savings after his retirement. After all, it is not the fault of the saver that inflation is a world-wide problem in the Western world today. That is why we must accommodate him. What I am advocating is for a commission to conduct drastic and thorough investigations into this matter. The permanent tax committee is not the body to solve this problem, because, as I have already indicated, it cannot be solved by means of tax concessions only. On this commission of investigation which I am advocating should serve at least a few sociologists, because they are to expose the effect of inflation on the way of life of the elderly.

Naturally it is not an easy or a popular task for a member of the Government to advocate tax concessions or improved benefits, but to me the overriding consideration is that the person who has saved for his retirement himself should not be treated more poorly by us than the person who has not saved, because then we shall be dealing thrift too heavy a blow, with disastrous results to our capital formation. Which people can grow and flourish economically if it does not have capital?

The problems of the self-supporting retired person have become so urgent now that I fear they cannot even await the outcome of this investigation I am advocating. The situation has deteriorated particularly because, on the one hand, the buying power of the money of the self-supporting retired person is declining as a result of inflation and, on the other hand, interest rates, the source of his income, are falling. He is being squeezed from two sides. On the one hand his income is declining because interest rates are falling and on the other hand inflation is eroding the buying power of his savings and he is having a harder and harder time of it. Therefore I advocate that interim action be taken, interim action which this section of our population, who has worked hard and sacrificed in order to save, needs badly. It appears to me that the revenue of the State is showing a good increase as a result of factors which I cannot go into in detail here and now, but just want to mention a few in passing. In the past year we had a good agricultural crop, the gold price rose and the prices of other metals and minerals rose well. The price of wool also rose fantastically. As a result of all these favourable factors the country’s revenue is showing a good increase. I would be the last person who would want to start handing out indiscriminately, because last year I advocated that when we saw better days once again the State should give careful consideration to setting aside a larger part of each year’s surplus so as to provide for the leaner years which would follow. Just as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so surely do periods of prosperity and periods of recession follow each other in the economy of any Western country. That is why the State will most definitely have to make provision, if it has a surplus this year, for leaner years which lie ahead. But I want to plead with the hon. the Minister of Finance to consider, when he discusses the question of concessions to the public with his colleagues, these members of the public, i.e. the pensioners who live off their own savings. And I am not saying this because I am going grey myself; it is a problem which affects many of our people and this problem is growing as medical science has succeeded in lengthening the life span of our people more and more. Today it is no longer unusual for a person to go on living for 30 years or more after he has retired. Now hon. members may work out for themselves to what extent the value of the savings of such a person will decline over a period of 30 years.

Hear, hear!

Hon. members may work out for themselves how much worse off that man is today than 30 or 20 years ago when he retired. The problem has become very, very urgent and we shall have to give it very series attention. In saying this, I have every confidence in this Government that it will in fact do its best in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, two of the main speakers on economic affairs and financial affairs on the other side of this House, namely the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs and the hon. member for Paarl, have something in common. When they are making full half-an-hour speeches they both seem to like to use the first half of the half hour for buffooning. During the No-confidence Debate we had the spectacle of the hon. Minister of Economic Affairs buffooning while Rome was burning in Durban. Today we have had the spectacle of the hon. member for Paarl buffooning for a good quarter of an hour while serious matters in regard to the economy of the country awaited discussion. When he did get down to discussing those matters, I can hardly say that anything particularly erudite came out of it.

Well, now let us hear you story.

You will hear my speech now.

I would first like to say to the hon. the Minister of Finance that we on this side of the House welcome the decision of the Government taken a few days ago to maintain the parity of the rand in terms of gold. This, in our view, was the correct decision. It was correct not to further devalue the rand and it was also correct to retain the link between the rand and a currency that is not floating because that does, at least, give the rand a fixed parity in respect of those currencies in the world that are not floating.

There, I am afraid, my approbation of actions by the Government must stop.

We expect no more from you.

This decision in regard to the rand was, in my view, the first completely correct decision which has been taken in regard to the parity of the rand since the currency disturbances started in August, 1971, when America suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. However, this was not a particularly difficult decision to take. I believe that any other decision, and particularly a decision to further devalue the rand, would have been disastrous because it would only have added fuel to the fire of inflation, a fire that is already being fanned by a stiff wind. Retaining the parity of the rand has introduced into our economic situation an element that will help to a certain extent to fight inflation in that it will result in imports from those countries which have devalued becoming cheaper to us in South Africa. But let us not get the impression that, because this Government has done one thing right, everything in the garden is lovely. One swallow does not make a summer. We are still faced with some very serious unsolved economic problems.

One Nat makes a winter.

The hon. the Minister of Finance, in his Budget speech last year, identified the three main problems that are facing our economy. He identified them as a balance of payments problem, as a lack of sufficiently fast real growth and as a serious inflation problem. I am very glad that the first problem, the balance of payments problem, appears, certainly for the time being, to have been solved. That means that we now have money in the bank and that we are living reasonably within our means. Those are conditions which, for a country as well as for an individual, are necessary for an orderly economic existence. However, let us not be hoodwinked into thinking that the improvement in the balance of payments position has been the result of what the hon. the Minister of Tourism called “the most successful devaluation in modern times”.

Far from it!

Devaluation has, of course, played some part in the improvement of our foreign exchange reserves and in our balance of payments position. It had to do so. It is the mechanical act of making imports more expensive and our exports cheaper that must have some favourable effect on the balance of payments position, but I am sure that the hon. the Minister of Finance, with his economic background, will admit that that has not been the decisive factor in the improvement in our balance of payments position. The decisive factors in the improvement have been, first of all, that since devaluation there has been a dramatic increase in the price of gold on the free market; secondly, that there has been a very considerable improvement in world demand for some of our main exports, particularly diamonds, wool, sugar, base minerals and precious metals such as platinum. We enjoyed exceptionally good agricultural crops last year which left us with surpluses which could be and were exported, in most cases at very good prices. The leads and lags position was reversed not because of devaluation, but because of the removal of uncertainty about exchange rates. Finally, imports were lower to some extent as a result of devaluation, but more so, I think, as a result of a lower demand for imports as a result of the stagnant state of our economy. I believe that these five factors would have led to the necessary improvement in our balance of payments position even if we had not devalued. The improvement of this position is therefore more the result of good fortune than it is the result of good management.

Now we come to the second objective of the hon. the Minister, namely the stimulation of real growth in the economy, not, I might say, growth at current prices, or at rand prices to which the hon. the Minister of Tourism attaches so much importance. We can easily increase the rate of growth at rand prices if we just put prices up. [Interjections.] Coming from an ex-professor of economics, that to me was a very stupid statement. It is real growth that we need. Real growth is probably the most important factor in our economy, because it is the margin by which real growth exceeds the increase in our population, it is that margin by which we get an improved standard of living. Let me say that 11 months after the target of increased economic growth was set by the hon. the Minister, we still have not got to the position where we have a satisfactory rate of growth; we still have a stagnant economy. The Minister said so in his Second Reading speech. Certainly I do not think he would have dished out the bonsella of R66 million by way of a repayment of the loan levy had he not thought that the economy needed an additional stimulant. Certainly the Reserve Bank in its latest bulletin confirms that view when it states that the rate of increase in real economic activity has not yet gained much momentum. What momentum there has been, has been in the agricultural sector where last year there were exceptionally good crops, but where this year the position unfortunately, owing to climatic conditions, will probably not be maintained and may possibly even be reversed. Therefore the need for stimulating real growth in the non-agricultural sectors becomes all that more vital. I agree with the hon. the Minister that there is a fair degree of expectation in business circles that better times are round the corner. This appears to be reflected in improved prices for industrial shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. I agree that the steps which the Government have taken should lead to an improved position as far as economic activity is concerned. I agree that some of the conditions which are necessary for growth in the short term are present in the economy. There is a plentiful supply of credit, which is somewhat cheaper than it was a few months ago, but is still very expensive in terms of historical standards in South Africa. There is a surplus of industrial capacity. In some industries I believe it is estimated as high as 20%. Personal incomes have increased; they are increasing, and they are likely to continue to increase, certainly as a result of the increases given to civil servants and other persons in Government employ. Despite inflation and the increase in costs which local industries are having to bear, local factories on the whole do still enjoy some advantage as a result of devaluation over their foreign competitors.

Yet, despite all these advantages, despite all these favourable conditions, we still have a state of stagnation in the country, a position about which we on this side of the House have been warning for at least the last two years. Stagflation is a most dangerous social and economic condition. It means that rising prices are depressing living standards and making it more difficult for the people in lower income groups to reach a subsistence level. They are raising the poverty datum line without there being any compensating factor by way of an increase in real growth.

Why then, Mr. Speaker, is there this reluctance on the part of the private sector to really get moving? The hon. the Minister of Finance, with his economic back ground, knows as well as I do that cyclical upturns in the economy are usually triggered off by an increase in investment expenditure and not by an increase in consumption expenditure. But this is not happening in the private sector. It may be happening in the public sector where the railways and public corporations are increasing their investment expenditure, but it is not happening in the private sector. Why not? I can give four important reasons why it is not happening.

The first is that some important industries, such as the motor industry, the furniture industry, the electrical appliance industry and others manufacturing semi-durable and durable goods, are still licking the wounds which they have suffered as a result of the hamhanded measures by way of hire-purchase regulations and sales taxes which have been applied during the past two years to reduce the demand for their products. Many firms in these industries have suffered losses. Most firms in turn have suffered a reduction in profits. Is it not to be expected that these industries are going to be wary of further expansion when they fear that when the next boom arrives, the same restrictions will be applied to them with the same results?

The second reason why industry is not investing, is that the confidence in the private sector has been badly shaken by stop-go policies applied by this Government. Take the example of a firm in the import and export business, which is affected by import control and which is affected by the exchange rate of the rand. This is what such a firm has had to suffer in the last year and a half: In October, 1971, we had a statement from the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs that import control for 1972 would be on the same basis as for 1971. The very next month, in November, 1971, we had a complete reversal of that policy and the application of most harsh and retrospective import control measures, which caused importers considerable confusion, and certainly caused a loss of confidence amongst them. The following month, in December, 1971, we had a devaluation of 12,28%, more than most other countries in the world, which could only be interpreted as a weakness in the rand and a weakness in the South African economy. In June, 1972, we had a further de facto devaluation, when the rand was allowed to float downwards with the pound. In October, 1972, we had a de facto revaluation when the rand was unpegged from the pound and pegged to the dollar. And now, at last, in February, 1973, we have some stability and the value of the rand has been maintained. Mr. Speaker, this is no diet for confidence. We are a trading nation. A very big portion of our national income comes from trade. If we are to expand, we must know where we stand, and if we have stop-go policies of this nature, we do not.

The third reason why there is no confidence in investment is that businessmen are afraid that when growth in the economy gets under way, the economy will very soon be bumping its head up against the same bottlenecks as it experienced during the last boom, for the reason that long-term steps have not been taken to remove those bottlenecks. That this is so, is abundantly clear from the latest report of the E.D.P. just to take a projected growth rate of 5,75%, which is the rate the Government has decided to adopt, the position will be that if that growth rate is achieved, there will be a shortage of labour under present conditions reaching 22 000 in 1977. If you have a higher rate of growth, for instance 6%, which we on this side of the House do not regard as an excessive rate—we would like to see a higher rate of growth than that—the total demand for labour will increase considerably faster than the supply and the shortage of White workers will reach 45 000 in 1977.

Finally, the fourth reason why businessmen are not increasing their rate of investment is that they fear that inflation is out of control. They fear that rising prices are leaving no residual spending power in the hands of the public after they have spent what they have to spend on essential goods. Businessmen also fear that inflation is going to affect their costs and that that in turn is going to affect their profits. These, Sir, are the main reasons why the economy remains stagflated. The last two, namely that the necessary steps have not been taken to remove bottlenecks in the economy and that we still have rampant inflation with us, seem to me to be the fundamental and most serious of these factors. These two reasons are, of course, as the hon. the Minister knows, interwoven and inter-dependent. Unless you solve one you do not solve the other.

Sir, in the time left to me I want to say a few words on the subject of inflation. In the past two years we have had very serious inflation. In 1971 we had inflation at the rate of between 5% and 6% and in 1972 at the rate of between 7% and 8%. In the last 14 months inflation has been fanned by two devaluations, and I believe, as I have already indicated, that the success of the December, 1971, devaluation and, more so, the success of the de facto devaluation in the second half of 1972, is open to serious question. I believe that this success is in fact a myth that should be exploded. The major factor in the improvement in the balance of payments, as I have already said, was not devaluation. Devaluation has not had the desired effect of stimulating the economy; it has not had the desired effect of increasing the rate of real growth, but it has had the effect of a very serious impact on price levels. This impact has not only been a direct impact through increasing the prices and costs of imports; it has also been an indirect impact, because imports and trade play such a big part in our economy, by pushing up the whole cost structure and giving that extra sharp twist to the already fairly fast-moving vicious circle of inflation. I consider, too, Sir, that at the time of devaluation the Government was not frank with the country in regard to the effect on prices that devaluation would have. It certainly did not indicate to the country that the effect would be anything like what has actually happened in practice.

I believe that the Government was not frank in warning the country that unless devaluation was compensated for by growth and by an increase in productivity, it would lead to a reduction in living standards. That is exactly what devaluation means; that is exactly what a cheapening of one’s currency means. It means that we have to export more to import less, and if that does not mean a depressing of living standards, then I do not know what it does mean. We now have a position where last year, from December, 1971, to December, 1972, we had an inflation rate according to the consumer price index of 7,4%, but as far as the wholesale price index is concerned that increase was not 7,4% but 10,7%, and the wholesale index represents the prices of goods that still have to come through to the final level of consumption, and so we can only expect a higher rate of inflation in the near future and not a lower one. We are now in the vice-like grip of a vicious circle of inflation where higher prices are leading to claims for higher wages, which in the very nature of the present position have to be granted, where higher wages are leading to higher costs and higher costs are leading to higher prices which again are going to lead to demands for higher wages. This is a terribly serious position and a position from which the Government cannot escape the blame. You, Sir, will no doubt ask what should be done about it. It is no use saying to us that this position prevails in other countries of the world. That does not help the position in South Africa. It is what can be done in South Africa which is pertinent. I believe there are two things which must be done in future in regard to inflation.

The first thing we have to do is that we must avoid short cuts to prosperity by currency manoeuvring. Currency manoeuvring seldom succeeds. You cannot avoid the discipline of tackling the fundamentals that need to be tackled. We need in South Africa exchange stability if we are going to have confidence and if we are going to create a climate which is conducive to investment. That is the first thing we need. We need exchange stability, not exchange manoeuvring. The second thing we need is that we must get down to the fundamentals of combating inflation by the creation of real wealth.

What are these fundamentals?

If you would only listen to me, I have just said that the fundamentals of combating inflation are the creation of real wealth and an acceleration in the rate of real growth. It is only by expansion that we can do that.

That is too general.

Order!

To do that requires a sound and a strong economy, an economy in which proper use is made of our resources. I therefore welcome the appointment of the committee of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council which is going into the question of inflation. I hope that they will—and I expect they will—go into the fundamentals of the situation and that they will examine the factors which are restricting the proper use of our resources, and that they will examine the inadequacies that exist in our infrastructure as far as transport and communication and housing are concerned. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, my predecessor rendered outstanding service to the nation of which he was a true son. He represented the voters of the Wakkerstroom constituency with great distinction in this House. Since I am still a young man and, in addition, make my appearance in this House in an unmarried state, it will indeed be no light task for me to continue the good work of my predecessor. I understand that there is great concern over my unmarried state and I therefore want to give this House the unequivocal assurance that in this connection at any rate I have no lack of inspiration—the struggle continues unabated. As I promised my voters I now give this House a formal, unambiguous and unconditional promise to marry during April. I also promise that it will be during the first half of April. But, Mr. Speaker, let us be reasonable with one another. You really cannot expect it of me to commit myself to any specific year.

Since we are commemorating our Green Heritage this year, we want to take into consideration that we will best be able to do this if we can do it within a framework of world-wide economic prosperity and monetary stability. Our national economy can function meaningfully and a vital agricultural sector can be accommodated within such a framework. If, in addition to all these things, we are dedicated and conservative patriots, we will not only be able to conserve our physical heritage, but will also be able to conserve our soil. We will then be able to conserve what has sprung from our soil, we will then be able to conserve our Green Heritage for our children.

Since I want to deliver a plea today for the conservation of our Green Heritage, I want to devote particular attention to economic conditions on the international level, and I want to devote attention to the condition of the economy in South Africa and more specifically of the agricultural sector in South Africa. If we want to maintain monetary stability, there will have to be a world-wide return to fixed rates of exchange. In terms of gold this implies that we will have to return to one fixed gold price, which ought to be fixed at a reasonable and realistic level. However, if we content ourselves with the two-tier gold price system, international exchange speculation and monetary disequilibrium and uncertainty will be the order of the day. The gap between the official gold price and that on the free market is in any case such that only the gold price on the free market applies. If the official gold price could be fixed at a high level, perhaps even at a level between 120 to 150 dollars per fine ounce—I am mentioning these figures not because I worked them out, but because, on the face of it, they appear to me to be realistic—and if we can abandon the two-tier gold price system, we would be ensuring that every monetary unit in the world will be convertible to gold, and the monetary units of the world would once again serve as generally acceptable mediums of exchange, standards of value and units of account. It would imply further that we would be establishing discipline in the monetary system of the world which would have a salutary effect on the inflation problem. On the other hand it would prolong the life of gold mines throughout the world and would make possible the exploitation of lowgrade ore. In this way we would ensure that the expansion of the world money supply as a result of a rapid supplementation of newly produced gold would keep pace with expansion in world trade. However, owing to the fact that we would be establishing discipline in the monetary system, we would be ensuring that this expansion of the world money supply would take place in a non-inflationary way, and supplementation of the world money supply by means of special drawing rights would be unnecessary.

In these times when the traditional monetary and fiscal measures against inflation which were effectively utilized in the past are no longer serving their purpose today, such a supplementary measure against inflation must after all meet with general approval, the more so because labour organizations and the world trade union movement can play the same disruptive role as when monopolies undermine the capitalistic system and when our struggle against inflation has become an impossible one. The capitalistic system which functions on an entrepreneurial basis and which in fact derives its vitality from competition, loses some of its vitality as a result of a lack of competition in the labour force when there is full employment. In addition the irresponsible actions of some trade unions throughout the world contribute to this. A world-wide review of the place which labour organizations and trade unionism ought to occupy in the economic systems of the world, has perhaps become necessary in our struggle against inflation. When I say this there will be some people who will want to deduce that I am opposed to trade unionism in principle. Nothing is further from the truth. Far be it from me to wish to assert that trade unionism can serve no useful purpose if the actions of such trade unions take place in a responsible way, but then the actions of the trade unions must be responsible, taking into careful consideration the national interest. If constant wage increases do not result in a corresponding increase in production, it cannot after all be in anyone’s long-term interest. It must be borne in mind that it is the goods and services which are in circulation in a country which determine the standard of living of a population. Money merely serves as a means of exchange to cause the produced goods and services in circulation in a country to move from one person to another. Money only serves as a means of exchange to distribute those goods and services among the members of the population, according to the needs and according to the ability of each individual. In this process of exchange there must inevitably be a quid pro quo before any meaningful exchanges can be possible. To illustrate this and to provide additional background material, I should like to mention an example. If the remuneration of every person in a specific country were to be doubled without a corresponding increase in the stream of goods and services it would still not be possible to buy more goods and services with that doubled salary than are being produced in that country. What we then bring about is disequilibrium between money and goods, which can only prejudice the bargaining power in international trade. If we consider conditions in South Africa we find that the greatest single problem in the national economy of South Africa is low productivity as a result of an inadequate zest for work and a lack of meaningful method. I therefore suggest that we should all work a little harder and more competently, and that the State should create a favourable climate for increased productivity. If we are able to establish a vital economy we can also within this framework establish a stable agricultural sector. However, it would be possible to produce far better results in agriculture if we were to train our farmers specifically for the task they are going to fulfil in their farming practice. The farmer, in his farming enterprise on his farm, is after all not a technical specialist; he is in the first place an entrepreneur and the manager of his farm. When we train that farmer we should not train him as a technical specialist, but specifically as manager of and entrepreneur on his farm. The technical specialist is too inclined to strive for maximum physical production without giving adequate consideration to the related cost structure. What should be striven for in each and every case is the economic optimum; stated differently, it ought to have the desirable ratio between input and output. If we have stabilized a sound and prosperous farming community in a flourishing economy we will not only be able to conserve our physical heritage, we will also be able to conserve our Green Heritage. Then we will be able to ensure that that lush green profusion which is an adornment on our lands is conserved for posterity. To conserve that Green Heritage is in fact not the task of the farmer only but the task of every man and woman in South Africa. Let us, who are all conservative patriots, set hand to the plough in order to conserve that heritage for posterity. Let us be completely honest with one another: No nation has ever amounted to anything without hard work and self-sacrificing patriotism. As dedicated patriots we will want to conserve for our children what has sprung from our soil, whether it is a heritage of lush green profusion, whether it is a heritage of rich and wonderful cultural wealth. After all, we are all proud of what has sprung from our soil, and no one has the moral right to refuse to accept a corresponding duty in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the new hon. member for Wakkerstroom on a well prepared and absorbing speech. I also wish to congratulate him even at this early stage on the contributions he will, no doubt, make to this House in the future. I also wish to offer him my congratulations on the wedding he promised us, irrespective of when it may take place. In conclusion, I express the hope that, where he succeeds his predecessor, he will not follow him to such an extent that he will one day find himself where his predecessor is at present and where his predecessor, should he proceed another mile, would be on his way home. We took the greatest pleasure in listening to the hon. member; we welcome him to this House and we thank him for the contribution he made.

†Mr. Speaker, it is always amusing and instructive to read the speeches of the hon. the Minister in retrospect. I am one of the Minister’s admirers because I see in him a statesman and a politician of great experience, and I think there is much to be learnt from him, but I must confess that the thing which I admire most in his repertoire of skills, is his ability to choose his facts to suit his case. We have seen in recent years a variety of policies, each one fully justified by the hon. the Minister by the careful selection of a series of facts which seem to fit perfectly the case which he seeks to make. We remember the time, not very distant, when the hon. the Minister rejected growth with vehemence because of its inflationary effects. He chose instead to apply monetary controls to check inflation. There came a time when inflation was raging hotter than ever before, when growth was not being achieved. Now we see the hon. the Minister spreading money around in an effort to check inflation by stimulating growth. No doubt there will be a further switch of policy in a very short time and this again will be justified by a careful selection of facts. We have relaxed monetary controls, money has been spread around, inflation rages like a fever through the land. We wait with bated breath for the further predictions which will follow. Francis Bacon once said that “dreams and predictions ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside”. We have had dreams and predictions in this House, very few of which have been realized. We have heard from the hon. the Minister financial policies and financial philosophies. We have expressed contrary views and this afternoon I want to examine a few of these arguments in the light of the facts as we see them today.

Let us take, first of all, this question of devaluation. When the Minister introduced devaluation he justified it on six main grounds. He said that it would improve our balance of payments. He said it would stimulate growth. He said it would benefit our gold industry. He said it would stimulate export prices in the case of those commodities which are paid for in foreign currencies. He said that industry would be able compete more effectively locally and to export more goods. He also said that industrial investment would be encouraged. I would not be going back on this past history had it not been for a remarkable intervention not very long ago by the hon. the Minister of Tourism. The hon. the Minister of Tourism was making his maiden speech in this House. We thought that we might hear something of his views on tourism or even, since there was a strike on in Durban at that time, something of his views on Indian affairs. But no, Sir, he deliberately chose finance at his topic. This House was very surprised and none more so than the Deputy Minister of Finance. The hon. the Minister of Finance has, I hope, many years to go in this House. We wish him well, we think that he will endure for a long time. For those who are impatient to follow him, I think they must be patient. They must content themselves with the fact that the Prime Minister has recently learned a very sharp lesson: It is most important not to allow your Cabinet Ministers to retire, because when they do they say the most surprising things. When you let your Cabinet Ministers off the leash, when you allow them to retire, they suddenly reveal that they have not believed in the policies of that Government at all. I fear the worst for the hon. the Minister of Finance because he has been around a long time. He has seen many things and has held the purse strings. I think if he were to let himself go on retirement he would have the country by the ears. The hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs, or shall I call him the deputy Deputy Minister of Finance, made a particular point of criticizing us on this side of the House for certain remarks we had made about the effects of devaluation. It is worth going back on these things because they are very relevant today. He referred specifically to what I said at the time. I said—and I hope those who did not agree with me then will listen carefully now—that devaluation was a dangerous measure, firstly because inflation would increase rapidly. Was that right or was it wrong? The second reason I gave was that imports would cost more money. I pointed out that imports are in large measure essential, that many of our imports consist of capital equipment which we cannot lightly reduce, that some of them are essential commodities we must have and that these will cost a great deal more and add to our cost of living. Was I right or wrong? I said that production costs would rise. Look around you and tell me if that is right or wrong. I said that our infrastructure is not geared to the rapid expansion which is needed to take quick advantage of devaluation. It is tragic but it is true that we have not been able to take full advantage of the short-term effects of devaluation. I said that the gold benefit which the hon. the Minister claimed, was a doubtful one. I pointed out that the profits being gained on the free market were considerably in excess of the small advantage gained in respect of the official price of gold by virtue of devaluation. I also referred to the cost of repaying and servicing foreign loans. In fact I then made an estimate of R100 million. It proved to be very low indeed because in certain questions and answers across the floor of the House later the hon. the Minister stated in fact that these costs had been of a far higher order, almost twice as much as I had estimated. Now, Sir, these six things have all come to pass and nobody will deny it. The fact is that devaluation in the modern age, at the present time, in this part of the 20th century, is no longer the effective instrument it used to be. In the old mercantile days it used to have a fairly automatic effect. Simply by changing the value of your currency in relation to other currencies, you made your goods cheaper for export and you made imported goods more expensive to buy. This made it easy for you to sell more goods abroad and to import less from abroad. This simple and automatic effect no longer works. There are many reasons for it, but one reason, for example, is that economies have become much more sophisticated. Through the nature of our development and our industrialization we have become tied to and dependent on certain commodities.

Let us assume, for example, that a state decides to develop its electrical generation by means of oil and that it builds power stations in large numbers to provide the electricity needed by this expanding, industrial country of which we are thinking. Now there comes a change in the currency patterns of the world and it would obviously suit that country very much better to use coal or nuclear energy for the generation of electricity, but has it in fact got any freedom to do so? Of course not! It is tied to oil and it will go on buying and consuming oil, irrespective of the price. Sir, this is merely one example of the inelasticity of a great many commodities which are the subject of world trade. One can expand the list indefinitely, but it goes to show that the simple reactions which could be expected from devaluation of currency no longer operate the way they used to do. In fact, if one devalues now, it is questionable whether the real effects which you hope for can still be obtained, even under the best of conditions.

The most obvious benefit one would expect from devaluation is an improvement in the balance of payments position. Let us concede right away that our balance of payments at the time when we devalued was in a very difficult and alarming condition. In fact, our balance of payments has improved not so much by virtue of devaluation, but really by virtue of the inherent soundness of our economy. When I say “the soundness of our economy”, I do not mean the soundness of our public management of the economy—I mean the resources and the skills of our people. We have an inherent resourcefulness in the economy, both in materials and in people. Certain things have happened to redress the balance. We also have a great deal of good luck in South Africa for which we must be truly thankful. I will show exactly what has happened to our balance of payments.

Sir, a balance of payments consists really of just a few essential items. There are the exports, the imports, the gold transfers and the services. These are the four major items one takes into account. As regards our exports, there has been a substantial increase. What does the increase consist of? The increase consists very largely of additional sales of commodities which are impervious to price change. We have sold increased tonnages of base minerals. Their prices have increased because of changes in international markets. We ourselves have been able to produce more because of the rapid investment in and development of the base metals industry. We have been trying to improve our infrastructure in order to carry more of these goods abroad. They will continue to make a very substantial contribution with or without devaluation. We can look at other things; my colleague has mentioned them. There are items like diamonds, which have gone up. There are various other commodities which have gone up, for example wool, in the case of which the increase occurred because of a change in the international wool market and not because of South Africa’s devaluation. Then there is agriculture. We have sold increased agricultural commodities very largely because we had surpluses. If we had not had the surpluses, devaluation could not have assisted us to sell more agricultural commodities. These are facts of nature; these things do happen. There are undoubtedly certain benefits which flowed from devaluation. I believe, for example, that the increased sales of textiles may well be due to the change of price effected by devaluation. By and large, if one examines these figures, one finds, that our exports have improved considerably but mainly for reasons other then devaluation.

As regards our imports, we have imported less. This certainly has assisted our balance of payments. We have imported less of certain things which we need very badly. We have imported less, for example, in capital equipment. Now, capital equipment is a kind of investment for the future. Where we do without capital equipment now, we will be paying for that in the long term. It is merely a deferment of the date.

I have already referred to the question of gold. Most of the advantages which accrued to us in respect of gold have come from the remarkable and very welcome rise in the price of gold on the free market. This is something for which we should be grateful, but it is not something which we should ascribe to devaluation. If we did so, I think we would be misleading ourselves. I do not mind at all that the hon. the Minister should get what kudos are due to him for what he has gained through devaluation. It would, however, be very wrong for this House, or for anyone else, to assume that the effects which we have enjoyed and from which we have benefited have flowed from causes other than the real ones. If so, we should be learning a very incorrect lesson from the past and we should have a very insecure guide to the future.

The last element I mention is services. If we look at these over the past year—I have no information on the plus and minus of services this year; these statistics are not yet available to me—it seems that there is no really significant change over the past year.

All in all, one is bound to ask the question: Was devaluation really necessary? It was certainly necessary to redress our balance of payments situation. I for one do not want to be too harsh about the decision taken by the hon. the Minister at the time when he thought urgent action to be necessary. It is always easy to judge in retrospect and in retrospect, clearly, devaluation would not have been necessary. However, I believe still that the long delayed action to redress the strength of our currency and the uncertainties which followed the initial devaluation, were totally unjustified. Once the trend started running strongly in our favour, I think we would have been entirely right to strengthen the rand without more ado, and certainly to avoid the period of what I call financial colonialism when we were tied to sterling which was floating. Decisions in regard to sterling were in fact being taken in terms of criteria which were entirely irrelevant to South Africa. These decisions were taken in terms of criteria affecting the British economy and we were following blindly and colonially in their wake. This happened at a time when our balance of payments was already being redressed. I think this was a cardinal error. If I am not harsh about the first decision to devalue, it is hard not to be harsh about the second period of indecision which followed the first.

Now, Sir, I want to come to inflation. One of the problems about inflation, besides the many obvious ones, is that inflation at the moment is running at such a high rate that people are beginning to lose their faith in thrift; they are beginning to lose their faith in savings. When inflation runs so high that people cannot see any advantage in saving, where in fact the inflationary rate may even be higher, as it threatens to be, higher than the interest rate which you can gain from investment, people begin to feel that there is really no point in thrift at all. Thrift is said to be a virtue in itself. From the point of view of the Minister of Finance it is certainly a very high virtue. It is so because it stores up that capital, those resources, which are needed for investment in the development of this country. If thrift cannot produce capital internally, domestically, it has to be borrowed from abroad, which is also a long-term commitment. We welcome investments from abroad, but within reason. We cannot put the whole of our economy, the whole of our future, in pawn to foreign investment. We must generate and we must produce capital resources of our own and do our own investment as well. This is threatened by inflation in the sense in which I have just mentioned. It puts thrift at a discount in the public mind, which is a most dangerous thing. When inflation cancels interest on savings then it is time to worry as seriously and with as much concern as the hon. the Minister had cause to worry about our precarious balance of payments situation about a year and a half ago.

I now come briefly to growth. There is no question that our growth rate is too low for the progress that this country demands. I can do no better than to refer to a report of the Economic Advisory Council. Its EDP shows very clearly that South Africa needs a much higher growth rate than we are attaining at this time. We all know that the population growth in this country is a high one. All groups considered, we have a very high population growth. It is predicted by the Department of Statistics that our population may reach 50 million by the end of the century, i.e. in little more than a quarter of a century. These people have to be fed and clothed, but how? Unless we grow at a rate sufficient to provide for their needs in the future; to house, feed and clothe them and to meet their rising expectations, we will sink, as I said the other day, into the grey ranks of a third world. Growth is essential, and the EDP said last year and the year before that we needed a growth rate of 5½% per annum. We have not achieved it. We have over the last two years been growing at 4,2% per annum, which is a long way short in terms of our growth target. The EAC have had another look at this, and because of deficiencies they have had to push up the growth rate. According to their earlier arguments, which were fully motivated, 5½% was the absolute maximum South Africa could afford. We have heard this repeated over and over in this House. Not having achieved that percentage and having done 4,2% instead, there is a shortfall. What does the EDP say? It says 5,75%. Now, I want to make a prediction. Though I have warned against predictions during my speech, this is more than a prediction; it is a certainty. I predict now that we will not achieve 5,75%. Clearly we will not. Therefore there is going to be another shortfall. And what is the EDP going to do? It is going to say 6%. And if we do not achieve 6%, they will have to put it up to 7%, and the nearer we get to the end of the century where we have to meet this urgent and essential target, the bigger the shortfall and the faster we will have to grow. Now, it will soon reach the point where we and that side of the House will agree that we have reached the maximum possible growth rate. When the EDP recommends 7½%, we might have to agree with them that it is in fact the maximum.

This is a cause for very grave concern. In 1969 the manufacturing growth rate was 10,3%. I am speaking of manufacturing as part of the overall growth rate. Manufacturing has higher demands imposed upon it because of the expectation that the value of gold exports will decrease. Manufacturing therefore has demands placed upon it which are higher than the average GDP rate. Manufacturing has demanded of it 6,4 at the moment; it produced in 1969, 10,3; in 1970, 5,9; in 1971, 2,8; in 1972, 2,5. This, Sir, is a most alarming drop. It is due to causes which flow directly from the policies of the Government. There can be no question about it.

Then I come to the question of productivity. Sir, we are very concerned about labour in this country and the wages which should be paid to labour. The point has rightly been made on both sides of this House that labour cannot be considered in isolation, nor wages in isolation. The question of productivity has to be taken into account; labour has to be productive. Sir, because of the essential need to employ greater quantities of labour and because of our inability of our reluctance to allow that labour to achieve conditions of stability and security and housing and permanence and training, which it needs, the productivity of our labour is not rising; it is falling. Sir, I have taken out some figures which show that, if the cost of labour per unit of output in 1966, was 100, then in the year 1971, only five years later, the cost of labour per unit of output was in fact 126. The cost went up by 26%, which means that our efficiency as producers, our competitive ability as producers against the outside world, our ability to combat inflation in this country—all these things in terms of labour—increased by a quarter. Sir, this is again a matter of very grave concern. The remedy, I believe, lies with the Government, because the Government’s labour policies are really at the root of this difficulty. Sir, let us sum up all these things. We have not achieved the productivity and the growth that we should have achieved. We have had inflation at a far higher rate than we should have had; our balance of payments has been adjusted by fortuitous or external circumstances more than by devaluation. Then what was devaluation all about?

Sir, in the closing minute, I want to look at one more phenomenon. I am very concerned about what I see as creeping socialism in this country. Creeping socialism may sound like anathema to members on that side of the House, but if we look at the figures, we see, according to a report of the Reserve Bank, that the Government’s share of total annual investment in this country in plant and equipment grew from 42,6% in 1963 to 53,8% in 1970. We see all around us the growth of State corporations; we see them expanding; we see the Industrial Development Corporation, for example, expanding into fields undreamed of at the time of its creation. It is expanding into fields previously occupied by private enterprise. We have seen recently—and I will speak about this more fully on another occasion—a takeover of our iron-ore export prospects by Iscor at the expense of private enterprise. Sir, I am most surprised at the hon. the Minister of Finance. I can understand the interest of some other Ministers in this matter. They might see other reasons why Saldanha should be given preference, but I cannot understand how the hon. the Minister of Finance, knowing what our problems are and what our balance of payments problems have been and what the difficulties are which are still inherent in our economy, could agree to let something happen which is going to create losses in exports, losses in interest, losses in the very service charges that we were talking about, at least until 1980. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Constantia and the hon. member for Von Brandis have mentioned a few things here that I should like to come back to. One of the points, about which they had quite a bit to say, concerned devaluation. Now the hon. member for Von Brandis comes along here this afternoon, after the Government had decided to devalue at the time, and asks whether it was actually necessary. But in the same breath the hon. member says it was a good thing. How am I to take this? He says devaluation is no longer as effective as it was in earlier years. It is the instrument used to correct one’s balance of payments. He acknowledges that the balance of payments was corrected. The hon. the Minister of Finance told us in the Part Appropriation that in December, 1971, the balance of payments was as low as R375 million, and it rose, to the 9th of this month, to nearly R1 000 million. Then devaluation was surely the right medicine and a good thing. How can the hon. member now want to make such allegations this afternoon?

I just want to refer, too, to the point he and the hon. member for Constantia made about growth. This is a point which this Government and this hon. Minister of Finance have emphasized throughout, i.e. that South Africa should have good growth rate. We have an economic growth programme. The committee that worked it out, drew it up scientifically and determined—and this was no guess—that it should be 5¾% per year. Now hon. members say this is too low; it must by 6%. But on what scientific grounds do these two hon. members now base their statements? And then the people are afraid of inflation. I want to say that if this growth rate were to be forced above the 5¾% mark—and that the hon. the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council also investigated and established very clearly—this country’s resources, i.e. our raw materials, our capital investments and the wages, are going to be exhausted, and then one is going to get wage inflation and demand inflation in this country. If hon. members are now wanting to force up the growth rate to a level higher than that determined by the technical knowledge one has at one’s disposal, how are they going to fight wage inflation? One is immediately going to get wage inflation.

But one has it now too.

Yes, we have it now, but then it would be ten times worse. No, Sir, I am afraid the Government is doing whatever can be done to establish growth. It is true what the hon. member for Constantia said, i.e. that there is a certain percentage of growth in the population, and that the percentage that is greater than that growth rate is specifically what we want. This Government has already achieved this, and were it not for the good and sound policy of this Government, we would never have had so good a growth rate in this country.

Just before I cross to the hon. member for Parktown, I should just like to correct something in this House. It came to my notice today that there was a whole article on the front page of the morning newspaper that stated: “More money: What about us, M.P.s ask.” My name is mentioned there as though I asked and was agitating for more money. I just want to say that this is devoid of all truth. I did not ask for more money, neither did I agitate for it. They also state that the latest salary increases of public servants have upset a lot of Pretoria members of the House of Assembly. On the contrary, we are not upset; we are very grateful. It is said they want more than the basic R6 500 per year they are now getting. We did not ask for that. [Interjections.] I just want to correct this. I just want to say thank you to the Government, on behalf of my voters, for this fine increase. It is a splendid gesture, and I hope our officials will appreciate it and also plough back something in turn to justify it.

It is the Nationalists who want more money.

On 16th February of last year the hon. member for Park-town concluded his speech in the Part Appropriation debate by saying: “The electorate are going to wallop this Government; they are going to wallop them good and solid.” That was said during the Part Appropriation debate last year. Now I want to ask the hon. member, with a view to all these by-elections, to what extent the Government has really been walloped? And while we have come today with a Part Appropriation, these hon. members have failed completely to tell us a little more of their policy and their finances. We discussed finance in the No-Confidence Debate. We shall do so again in the Budget debate. As far as inflation, devaluation and so on are concerned, the hon. the Minister of Planning and the hon. the Minister of Tourism quoted brilliant figures during the No-Confidence Debate to show how productive the Government is and how well things are going as far as we are concerned. I expected hon. members to tell us this afternoon how we should budget in order to steer South Africa forward productively within their federation plan, how we could make a greater profit, how we could achieve greater economic growth and how we could decrease taxes. In the light of a few facts I want to show this afternoon how impossible it would be for South Africa if the United Party’s federation policy were ever to be made applicable in South Africa. We would not be able to survive.

With quite considerable difficulty I have tried to get their federation policy in writing. I eventually succeeded in obtaining this document, which I have in my hand, i.e. “The United Party’s Federation of South African Communities”. It comes from the Information and Research Division, P.O. Box 3835, Johannesburg, and it is dated 5th September, 1972. Here they give us a brief introduction, the appointment of the constitutional committee, interim reports and so on. In addition they give us briefly what the policy is. On reading through this, I thought a Std. 6 child had written it. If they had just appointed a bookkeeper, it would have been much better. In the light of a few extracts, which I want to quote this afternoon, and a few other facts, I shall ask hon. members opposite to what extent we would be able to go on with a budget under the United Party’s policy.

According to the document before me, they have an explanation of how the thing will be composed, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition also put it the other day when he was trying to make us believe it. However, there is not a single word about finance and about how this policy of theirs can and should be financed. There is no word about its effect on our economy, finances and taxes. Even this document, which they issue for their people’s information, is incomplete. There is nothing about finance in it. The newspapers, the Sunday Times and The Sunday Tribune, which are also in front of me, gave much more information to the people, at the time than this Opposition with their official documents which we must now supposedly study in order to know what is good and fine for South Africa.

They say there will be four White legislative assemblies which will actually replace the four provincial councils. We should now like to know from them: What of South-West Africa? If the White Parliament will continue to exist, what about South-West Africa? Does it also have one? Then they come along with two legislative assemblies for the Coloureds, one for the Indians and eight for the Bantu. As we also heard in the debate, there will be 120 additional elected members, who will be elected on the basis of the contribution to the gross domestic product. If these hon. members want to give the franchise in South Africa …

Read it from that document.

I am coming to that.

No, read it.

The hon. member has a chance to speak. He must then tell me where I am wrong.

But it is wrong.

These people say that these 120 members will be elected in accordance with their contributions, and they take the gross domestic products as their basis. In the first place the gross domestic product is not established by the individual alone. He is not the only contributor. A contribution is also made by companies and by bodies in respect of which one cannot determine what percentage this or that race group contributes. These hon. members surely know this, and they cannot go into those details. They are bluffing South Africa and the electorate, and they are trying to get away with something.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, my time is short. At a later stage, during the Budget Debate, I shall reply to one of the hon. member’s speeches. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Durban Point, who was one of the members of that Committee, to tell us this afternoon what year or what period they are going to use as a basis for determining this gross domestic product. How will each person’s contribution be evaluated? We know that under United Party rule—and they have told us this—there will immediately be an increase in wages. After all, they will have “rate for the job” payments when they come into power. Job reservation is going to be lifted and non-White wages will soar sky-high. When are they going to determine that a certain race group contributed so much to the gross domestic product so that they may obtain their votes on the strength of that? I should also very much like to know further from the hon. member how they are going to determine the wage of, for example, an unskilled labourer in the agricultural industry, according to the evaluation of a person’s services and his work. Would his wage be the same as that of an unskilled labourer in the factories and elsewhere, for example? How are they going to do this?

But then they speak of a “minimum wage”.

This hon. Opposition comes along here every year and speaks of a “minimum wage”, as the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark says. They always want to try and do this; they want to bring about growth with higher Bantu wages and with more Bantu whom they want to employ.

Let us take a further look at those people’s legislative assemblies. They can be constituted according to individual choice. There is no provision in this constitution of theirs, this document I have before me, as to how they are going to constitute the legislative assemblies and what their membership is going to be. It is said that those legislative assemblies, four for Whites, two for Coloureds, one for Indians and eight for Bantu, may do so as they choose. Supposing one of those assemblies suggests that there should be 600 members. Who is going to pay for that? There is also another point. They speak of the joint standing committees. These standing committees will consist of members of Parliament as well as members of these legislative assemblies. The standing committees must then sit throughout the year, and those people will have to be compensated for that. What is the compensation the people must get, and what will the membership of those standing committees be? Will the committees sit throughout the year? Why is it not stated how those joint committees will be budgeted for What body—the federal assembly, the White Parliament or these legislative assemblies—will be responsible for the pay of those standing committees? In addition, they have not said either what the powers of each will be. We should like to know a little more about that.

In point No. 3 on page 4 of this official document, which I have before me, an example is merely given in respect of what powers the legislative assemblies will have. Further than that, they will not say a word about what the powers are. Here I have it before me (translation): “All the powers of the present provincial administrations will transfer to these assemblies, and matters such as social welfare and pensions, housing, etc.” will be transferred to that. Nothing more is said about what will be transferred. We see on page 19 of The Sunday Tribune of 27th August, 1972, that Mr. Martin Schneider states that the legislative assemblies will have powers with respect to the following subjects. The subjects he mentions are those he sucked out of the Opposition. I just want to come back to the financing of these aspects. I mention them as he did: Education, social welfare and pensions, prisons, liquor legislation, law courts of common jurisdiction and administration boards, housing, road transport, hospitals, library services, markets, the performing arts, shopping hours, local authorities, traffic and roads, building services, parks, horse races and wagers.

All the powers that Bantustans have today.

These are all the things that have to be done by these legislative assemblies. I now ask the hon. members the question: Who is going to finance them and where must the money come from?

Where does it come from today?

Once the White Parliament has delegated its powers to these legislative assemblies, it is irrevocable, as the hon. the Prime Minister drew it out of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition—who is going to finance all these projects? What about social welfare and pensions? If each legislative assembly is to handle its own national group’s social welfare and pensions—we must remember that there are four White provinces, and what it amounts to is that each province can distribute its own social welfare and pension contributions—are the Bantu going to distribute it as they want to when they get the money? There is no co-ordination, there is no agreement and there is no way at all in which such a system can be regulated and controlled from above, except by this standing committee that will only be able to consult. That is what the hon. members want. Mr. Speaker, we want to know much more about that, because this Parliament must appropriate money; it must know what for and where to. But it also wants the power to be able to control these things. Now we come to the federal assembly and the powers that will be allocated to it. In this official document the Opposition tells us nothing of what powers it will have. Recently the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did mention a few of the powers, such as tourism, inter alia, but the federal assembly, which will virtually be divorced from Parliament, is going to obtain the following: Tourism, health, mines, co-ordination of education, manpower, planning, water sources, national roads, pollution, economic affairs—please note; I am going to come back to that—and forestry. Those are all the departments and powers that will be transferred to the federal assembly. That is the mixed assembly where both Blacks and Whites will sit to make contact and be able to hold consultations. As far as I am concerned, the most important is economic affairs. No country in the world can progress, no country can flourish, if its economy is not sound. Today there were three speakers on that side of the House who spoke exclusively about the economy. Their greatest concern lay there. I now want to ask them: Why do they not concern themselves a little about this federal policy of theirs as far as economic affairs are concerned? If the White Parliament has to relinquish it, if it no longer has any control over it, what is the United Party going to do to straighten out the country’s economy?

The Sunday Tribune mentions, however, that the legislative assembly will obtain the maximum possible taxation powers. What is now the maximum, and to what extent are these bodies going to overlap? There are the powers the legislative assembly is going to have in respect of taxes, and those which the White Parliament is going to have, etc. Then they state further that the federal assembly will allocate subsidies to the legislative assemblies from the moneys voted by the White Parliament. They must, therefore, still get money from the White Parliament. How are our people now to understand this, and how is everyone going to be taxed?

A while ago the hon. Opposition advocated that we should consolidate the income tax legislation in South Africa. The provinces are exempt from the powers to levy certain taxes. It now all rests with the Central Government, because the provinces are subsidized by the Central Government. Now the Opposition wants to give the maximum taxation powers to that legislative assembly. How are we to understand these people now? Now they are opposed to what they previously advocated, and which they said they were father to. Now they again want something else there. If this federal assembly is established, where will it sit? How will the costs, incurred by the assembly, be covered? No, Mr. Speaker, I think we have reached the point where the hon. Opposition must tell us what they want, where they are going and what they want to do.

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has given us only one good point in this whole document. I should like to quote it. After speaking about the federal assembly, he said (translation)—

That is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says. I want to state very clearly that I agree with him, because his plan will never be able to achieve security. Only the National Party’s policy, and our appropriations, like this one, can obtain it.

Mr. Speaker, the House of Assembly adjourned last year on 13th June and met again this year on 2nd February. This means that a period of almost eight months went by during which Parliament did not sit. I know of no other country of our kind where for almost two-thirds of the year a government is detached from all control and supervision of parliament. I do not wish to make this debate an opportunity for discussing this state of affairs. We shall seek another opportunity for that. I just want to say here that whatever the case may have been in the past, no matter under what Government, we are living in times today in which such a system may not be allowed to continue. I want to go further and say this, namely that if the obstacle in the way is the fact that we have two capital cities, I believe it is time we got away from 1910 and asked the people for a decision to establish one capital city in South Africa.

In the course of the more than months during which Parliament was not in session, things happened which further emphasized our rejection in the world. I do not have the time to mention everything and shall therefore mention a few only. In the course of this session we shall have the opportunity to deal with all these points in greater detail. There is the breach which occurred in our relations with Madagascar, which occupies a key position, virtually as a neighbouring state of South Africa. There is the growing estrangement that has arisen between us and Botswana. There is a widening gulf between us and Lesotho. There has been a dramatic somersault in the attitude of some of our oldest allies, such as Australia and now, to a certain extent, New Zealand as well. In terms of the expectations we had two years ago the dialogue movement in Africa has come to absolutely nothing so far; and we shall get nowhere with dialogue in Africa or anywhere else until the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs rises in this House, takes the Government by its shoulders and forces it to abolish petty apartheid.

I want to admit that progress has been made in regard to the South-West question, but we shall have to realize that the Security Council is laying down the timetable. As far as the U.N. as a body is concerned, the attitude they are adopting in regard to the South-West question nowadays is much more reasonable and balanced than it was in the past. Let us realize that a reasonable U.N. is much more dangerous than an unreasonable U.N. There is the growing onslaught on our borders. Inside our borders we have the emergence of a strong, purposeful group of Black leaders, which has added a totally new dimension to our politics. I shall come back to this point later on. I want to say, in the first place, that our rejection, the attitude of disapproval displayed towards us, has nothing to do with our multi-national situation in the country. It has nothing to do with the fact that we are trying to make political arrangements to prevent one national group in our country dominating the other national groups. The world is familiar with multi-nationalism. It is familiar with what is called in Europe problems of nationality within one and the same set of national boundaries. They understand them. If this is presented to them correctly, they will also understand our problems of nationality in South Africa.

† In 1965 the United Nations organized a seminar in Yugoslavia, on, “The Multinational Society and its Problems.” At this seminar the president of the executive council of Yugoslavia described his country as a multi-national, multi-ethnic community. The whole constitutional system of Yugoslavia—and there are many examples like this in the world—is based on a division of political power between different ethnic groups, a division which ensures the cultural identity and security of its different nationalities. Similar arrangements exist in Czechoslovakia, between the Czechs and the Slovaks. You also find it in Switzerland, and in Belgium linguistic differences form the basis of political division. Even the Soviet Union has an elaborate patchwork of autonomous republics and districts based on its ethno-cultural diversity and its wide variety of nations and peoples. Demographically and constitutionally, the Soviet Union is the most multi-national country of all in the world and the last that could criticize South Africa on this particular score. I have not the time to quote at length, but I have an interesting book here dealing with Russia. This is what it says:

The point is simply that the world at large, and certainly Europe—the further you go east, the better it is understood—understands, and sympathizes in fact, with the political problems of plural, diverse and multi-ethnic societies, and the struggle which such societies have to ensure that one nationality does not dominate other nationalities in the same country. They understand genuine policies of multinationalism or “separate freedoms”, especially if it has a federal umbrella. You will find that in most pluralist countries in the world, multi-nationalism and federalism go together. There would not have been the one if the other had not been there. The policy of multi-nationalism is the easiest policy to sell in the world: in Europe, in Asia and even at the United Nations, provided it is fairly and sincerely carried out. That is all the more reason why we here should ask ourselves the question why it is that in the light of these facts, we are the only country that is in the soup and has the world unanimously and bitterly turned against us. Why is it that we alone find ourselves in the position that the millions we spend abroad on Government propaganda simply go down the drain and have no worth-while effect? Why is it that we here, a relatively small country, with no territorial ambitions, with no hostile intent against any other country or people, could not, of all the people in the world, have been the country at peace with the world and the world with us? Everybody’s hand is turned against us. We are the only country termed “the very strange society”, “the guilty land”, or “the land of afternoon”.

I have no doubt about what the answer is. The answer, if we are prepared to look facts in the face, is that our trouble is not our multi-nationalism, not that policy. Our problem is that we are the only country in the world where a man is officially humiliated and degraded because of the colour of his skin; where a man is officially denied contact with others to improve the quality of his life.

What about the Portuguese territories?

This is the only country in the world where a man is prohibited from fulfilling his life’s ambition merely because he is Coloured, and where a stamp of inferiority is officially placed on a man because he is Black or off-White. The Prime Minister pretends that he knows nothing about this. He can see no evil. Sir, the Government prescribes different uniforms wherever uniforms apply. In law, even in a hospital, a Coloured nurse has to wear a different uniform to a White nurse. Why?

But that is not true.

Sir, we all know what the real reason is. The reason is that they must not only be seen to be separate, they must be seen to be inferior. That is the truth behind it. I have a daughter who wants to go back to university, and while she is waiting for classes to start she took up a temporary position as teacher at a Coloured school on the Cape Flats because she was interested. She is paid R105 per month more than a Coloured teacher on the same staff with the same qualifications, doing the same job in the same school—R105 more! On the whole, Coloured teachers have to work much harder than White teachers. Their classes are generally much bigger and they are shockingly overcrowded, and in most schools you will find an appalling lack of the kind of facilities which would be regarded as absolutely essential in every White school. Sir, I wonder if the hon. the Prime Minister is aware of the intense hatred which is developing amongst the Coloured professional classes over such unfair and unequal treatment. This feeling, especially amongst the teachers, must of necessity flow over upon the thousands of children who form the new generation, and a whole new generation is growing up with hatred against the White man. The Prime Minister tells us that he cannot understand why anybody should feel hurt over apartheid. At this very moment while we are sitting here in safety in one of the most beautiful cities of South Africa, a body of policemen—White policemen, Black policemen, Brown policemen and Indian policemen—are in mortal peril on our behalf, fighting terrorists across the border of our country. I take my hat off to all of them and I honour them. But I ask the Government: Are these people who risk their lives for our safety paid the same salary?

Shocking, to use such a comparison.

Or is it a case of unequal pay for equal danger? The Prime Minister says he is not aware of any injustice.

*Sir, two sessions ago the hon. the Prime Minster and I were at loggerheads here about the question of petty apartheid. The Prime Minister did not want to know what petty apartheid was. I want to say here at once that I am not going to argue any further with the hon. the Prime Minister about the question of petty and major apartheid. Nor am I going to argue about definitions, and the reason for that is a very simple one. It is no longer relevant what we as Whites think and how we define petty or major apartheid, for what is relevant now is the way the recognized leaders of the non-White peoples are thinking about this matter. That is relevant. The hon. the Prime Minister has been making it his job of late to make regular contact with the leaders of the various non-White peoples, and even if this contact is as yet mainly on a formal office basis only, I would readily concede that in this respect he has gone further than has any Prime Minister before him. I am pleased that I can give him that deserved credit. But then I want to add this: He should therefore know what these people are thinking of apartheid. By this time he ought to know that the non-White leaders themselves are drawing a distinction between what they call parallel development and coercive apartheid on the basis of colour. Mr. Tom Swartz stated in public that he was bitterly opposed to apartheid, but supported the whole concept of coexistence as peoples, and Mr. Lucas Mangope says the same. They draw a distinction between what we call petty apartheid and major apartheid. The hon. the Prime Minister knows that this is the case, and the time is therefore past that we as Whites need argue here about petty or major apartheid. The hon. the Prime Minister and other Ministers on that side are themselves in a position by this time, and have been in a position in recent months, to hear from the leaders of the non-White peoples themselves where they draw the line and what they consider to be apartheid practices degrading to the human being, practices which they want the Government to get rid of. Now I repeat, the hon. the Prime Minister need not ask this of us. The debate on petty apartheid between us is past. He must debate this matter with the leaders of the non-Whites themselves, and I think he has already done so. He will to an increasing extent hear from the non-White leaders of South Africa themselves what they consider to be humiliating and offensive in the Government’s policy. All that is left to us, is to ask the hon. the Prime Minister when he is going to act and when he is going to do something about it. He has the power. No one else has the power in this country. I have told the hon. the Prime Minister before that there may be situations in which we—and I am referring to all of us—will perhaps not have all the right answers at once and in regard to which further deliberations may take place. But we shall never find the right answers until we deliberately and openly adopt a course leading away from colour as the norm for all arrangements in our country. [Interjections.] Apartheid with colour, the colour of a person’s skin, as the norm cannot continue to exist side by side with the multi-national concept with peoples as the norm. And the Prime Minister can start immediately with the obvious things. He can start at once by putting a stop to separate lifts, separate entrances, separate counters, separate seats—obvious insults which ought to be removed; the notice boards which humiliate non-Whites at every turn and announce to them officially that they are not good enough to enter by the same door, to sit on the same seats, to ride in the same lift, or to be served at the same counter as are the Whites. [Interjections.] And then I hope hon. members opposite will not again come forward with the old hackneyed story that these forms of apartheid are there to eliminate “friction”. Sir, that is not true. Apartheid breeds much more friction than it eliminates. For every post office in any city there are 5 000 shops, if not more. Why is there no friction in shops? Go to any shop on a Saturday when the people are crammed in like sardines, people of all races and colours. Is there any friction? Why, then, would there only be “friction” in one post office as against 5 000 shops in every city? That argument we reject, that story of “friction which has to be prevented”.

In any case, if there is still a section of White jingos in the country who are so backward that they still take offence at riding in the same lift or standing in the same queue with non-Whites, I think it is time we simply forced them through action to change their views for the better. Sir, in our country we cannot allow a minority of White jingos to jeopardize the whole future of good human relationships in the country. Last week the hon. the Prime Minister made an appeal in this House, an appeal to the country, that people should be courteous to one another. It is a fine thing that the hon. the Prime Minister made that appeal, but that is not good enough, for a government must set an example. It must set an official example, but the fact of the matter is that each of the petty apartheid measures I mentioned, if one analyses them correctly, is nothing but official White rudeness. That is what petty apartheid is—official White rudeness. [Interjections.]

May I ask a question?

No, I do not have the time. I want to ask hon. members on that side of the House whether they have ever given any thought to what is going on in the mind of a young White child who cannot think for himself yet, when he sees petty apartheid practices and notice-boards saying that Whites should enter this side and non-Whites the other side. [Interjections.] I shall tell you: What he sees is that the Coloureds are always set apart; they must always go round the back. They sit behind a rope in the city hall. They are always partitioned off or excluded. Just take a look at the galleries of this House of Assembly. Mr. Tom Swartz, the leader of two million Coloureds in this country, sits partitioned off in a corner. He cannot come to this Parliament like an ordinary South African and sit where he pleases. I may not even take the leader of the Coloureds for a cup of tea in the parliamentary lounge. I, who am a member of this Parliament, elected by the people, cannot take the leader of two million Coloureds to the refreshment room of this House for a cup of coffee. [Interjections.] Every White child who sees this situation must simply, from an early age, arrive at one conclusion, namely that in our eyes the non-White person is considered to be inferior, that there is something the matter with that person and that it is unseemly to be seen in the company of that person.[Interjections.]

Order!

In this manner the Government’s apartheid policy is, from an early age, fostering in every adolescent White child a spirit of looking down on the non-Whites; and together with that it is fostering a spirit of discourtesy, which often takes the grossest form of rudeness. This is so. Go to some of the official offices where there are Whites serving non-Whites. [Interjections.]

Order!

They are not all like that, but I have very often seen that the moment a non-White person is served, the person behind the counter immediately becomes stiff and blunt, and on numerous occasions I have seen how change or whatever they buy is, instead of being handed over to him, simply thrown at the man if he is a person of another colour. [Interjections.] No, we must face these things and we shall have to get rid of them. It is inherent in the policy of the Government that it fosters in the White child, from an early age, a spirit of rudeness towards the non-Whites. For that reason it is right for the Prime Minister to make an appeal to people to be courteous, but his Government must set the example and must eradicate those things which foster rudeness in the Whites.

We want to make friends with Black states. We take pains to make friends with Black states. What use is this to a Kaiser Matanzima, who is the leader of the Xhosa people, a Buthelezi, who is the leader of the Zulu people, and who can travel to any part of the world; they can go to every capital city in the world and have a cup of tea there in the central part of the city.

They can even meet Mr. Nixon.

Yes, they can go to Washington and have a meal with the president. They can go to an opera house in any capital city of the world. In so-called White South Africa, which is the one country which needs them as allies, these people, the Buthelezis, the Mantanzimas and the others we South Africa need desperately as friends, cannot have a cup of tea in the central part of Cape Town or set foot in the opera house. The Prime Minister maintains that he does not understand these things. How long are we as Whites going to persist in these absurdities which create hostility? If we should be in danger one day, and if it should really happen that we have an enemy on South African soil, would we have the right to appeal to the friendship of these people if this is the treatment they receive?

The Prime Minister is in a very strong position. He is in a position where he has a majority of 70 in this House. That is a very strong position. That old story which we hear every now and then, namely that a government cannot move faster than its voters allow it to move, is at the very least a half-truth. I do not believe it anyway, for the simple reason that most people are prepared to be guided if they are properly informed. The Prime Minister has strong means of communication. Let me say this to him: In every step which his Government takes in the right direction, he is getting the support not only of the entire Afrikaans Press, but also of the entire English-language Press. That is why we are making here an appeal to him to put an end, in the interests of the security of the White man, to practices which are humiliating and doing an injustice to the non-White populations of our country and which are making them enemies of the White South African. I say this to him: He is my opponent and I am his, but I should very much like to see an Afrikaner do this. If one surveys the South African scene, it must be very clear to every person that there were many matters in the political fights we had here previously which are played out and which are past now, because a totally new dimension has been added in our politics. Today we have Black leaders, Brown leaders, Indian leaders, whose names we know, who are at present occupying a strong position in South Africa. The simple fact of the matter is that, no matter how we may view our fights about policy here, the Black people do not see this Parliament as primarily a Nat/U.P. affair—where all those on the one side are white angels and those on the other side are white devils—but they see this Parliament as the centre of authority of the White man as a whole, and any hostility that develops does so against all of us, no matter on which side of the political line we may be. That is why a sphere of White responsibility ought to develop on a level higher than that of party divisions. We say clearly that the White mean has every right to say that he does not want to be dominated by a Black man, but then we should hurry up to prove that we do not want to dominate the Black man either. A division of authority and decentralization of powers must take place in the political sphere as rapidly as possible and as far as possible. For years we have been saying to this Government: Carry on with what is positive in what you are doing in the direction of dividing authority; carry on with that, but do it better and do it faster. To that the Opposition has no objection. What we shall do is to bring the ends together in a federal context, in such a manner that the co-operation which is essential in the interests of the whole, will come into being along with the fullest measure of political security for every population group. What we are waiting for is that, in view of the fact that we as the Opposition are doing our share in respect of the joint White responsibility which is needed above the existing party-political divisions, the duty should now rest on the Government to do its share and to remove as soon as possible in South Africa the remnants of White superiority, of supremacy and of imperialism.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin at once by asking the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he agrees with this speech which has now been made. I am asking this question in all due respect. It is a fair question, a simple question.

He says “no”.

It is a simple and a fair question, and I want to repeat it. The question whether the hon. the Leader of the Opposition agrees with everything that has just been said in this House by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. [Interjections.]

Yes, of course.

He says “yes”.

Then it is likely that this House has never in its history witnessed such a dereliction of duty on the part of an Opposition as we are witnessing today. At elections the people of this country have the opportunity of ousting this side of the House if they wish, if they think that we are not doing our duty. What choice do the people have with them? if there is only one Opposition like this one, how does one get rid of such an Opposition? They are committing the worst dereliction of duty I have ever heard of. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who was boosted by certain newspapers in the country as the new Leader, had the opportunity here this afternoon of presenting a statesman’s image of South Africa and his future. He had a golden opportunity here this afternoon to make a statesman-like speech and show that he is conversant with the circumstances which are oppressing to South Africa abroad. Instead of doing that he displayed the greatest possible ignorance and talked the greatest rubbish ever heard in this House. He came here and referred to all kinds of idyllic federations which exist elsewhere. Let him mention to me one federation in the world which was established under their circumstances and was maintained and remained intact. Let him mention a similar one to me which did not give rise to inexpressible distress, misery and blood-baths. I can point out to him from contemporary history that nowhere on this earth has anything like that succeeded. How do they think they can bring the people together other than by force? What non-White people in South Africa will accept their federation plan? What non-White leader, if he wants to be honest with his people, what Bantu leader in Africa where Nationalism is the order of the day, can support that policy? Then he stands here and advocates it as if it is generally acceptable in the world! No, Mr. Speaker, what was very significant this afternoon, was the emphasis suddenly fell on the word “multi-nationalism”. Incessantly they have been telling us: “There is not such a thing multi-nationalism; only multi-racialism”. That is why our hon. Prime Minister said that they have stolen half of our policy. As far the other half is concerned, they are so furious because we have driven them into a corner that we are now getting statements such as those the hon. member made here this afternoon. To think that he is so bankrupt that he had to cite Russia as an example! Does he not know that the 15 republics in Russia are being held together by force, coercion and violence? What does he think would happen with those republics if the Russians were able to vote freely? But the hon. member comes here and on the strength of great learned books wants to make us believe that that is a federation which works! How does one reply to such ignorance, such ridiculous statements? These he now wants to present to the peoples of South Africa as a system which works. Has he no knowledge of what is happening in the world today?

Oh! [Interjections.]

Very well then, let me ask the hon. members opposite who are making such derogatory remarks, this question? What is the friction in Northern Ireland about? What are they fighting about there, why are they killing one another in the streets of Belfast? Why did the West-African Federation between Black and Black not last? Why did the federation of Syria and Egypt not last? Why did the federation immediately to the north of us disappear? What happened even in Cyprus where precisely constitutional powers were allocated precisely according to the numerical ratios? Nowhere in contemporary history do the hon. members receive any support, but they persist in this in an obstinate and dogmatic way. One thing is certain however: The hon. member carefully evaded discussing the merits of their policy. Instead of that he came forward with an unsavoury tirade on petty apartheid.

What does The Sunday Tribune have to say about the actions of the hon. member for Durban Central in the Klip River by-election?

Order! The hon. member must be careful from which newspaper he quotes. The hon. member may proceed. Let me hear.

Mr. Speaker, at the recent Klip River by-election the hon. member for Durban Central objected vehemently to the ablution buildings for Whites and Bantu being too close together. He kicked up a tremendous row about that. The essence of his objection was that it would cause friction. When it suits them and they are fighting in certain by-elections, they use the danger of friction as a prop. Today the hon. member for Bezuidenhout comes here and he knows nothing about this. He does not know that in the ranks of his own party some of the most unsavoury treatment of non-Whites imaginable in South Africa frequently occurs. When did our hon. the Prime Minister ever tell the public of South Africa to be rude to a non-White? Since when has that been our policy? Repeatedly the hon. the Prime Minister has in a dignified manner called on the public of this country and asked for better relations. Repeatedly he has stated that rudeness is not part of our policy of separate development. Repeatedly this example has been set by hon. Ministers on this side in this sphere. What leader of the Bantu peoples in this country has specifically complained about the treatment he received on the part of our hon. the Prime Minister when talks were held with them? Now the hon. member for Bezuidenhout comes here, in these important times, and makes a speech at which one can only be deeply disappointed. He comes here to this House today and wants to represent the White man as being a churlish, uncivilized person who does not know how to behave himself! Constantly we on this side of the House set an example, and wherein does the test of that example ultimately lie? Wherein does the actual test of how one feels about another person lie? It lies ultimately in the political rights you want to give him. That is wherein it lies. The hon. member must not tell me that he is prepared to drink cups of tea with three or four neatly clad Bantu wherever he chooses, while he is not prepared to recognize the human dignity of those people by saying to them that they can have full freedom to the highest level, that they can exercise their freedom in an independent state, and that they can even become prime ministers of their own people. Why are they not prepared to say that? Why are they not able to cut that Gordian knot? Why are they in this House today creating this image of South Africa being inhabited by a group of Whites who do nothing but detest non-Whites and treat them in an unmannerly and repulsive way? Why does he not join us in making an appeal to our public, as our hon. Prime Minister has done, if such rudeness does exist, and say: “Let us improve these relations,” as is repeatedly being done by this side of the House? I want to ask him whom he had in mind today when he made this speech. I think we have a right to know whom he had in mind. He complained of deteriorating relations and mentioned Madagascar, Botswana, Lesotho, Australia and New Zealand. He went so far as to say that the dialogue which we are conducting with Africa has come to nothing. He said that we would get nowhere before the Minister of the Exterior rose to his feet and compelled the Government to abolish petty apartheid. This is the statesmanship on that side.

What are the reasons for a certain measure of estrangement, and only a limited measure at that, having developed? When changes occur in African governments, it is not only South Africa who suffers setbacks in the sphere of relations. I can mention to him dozen of cases where the Russians and the Americans have also had to back away. What does he say about that? Was that because of petty apartheid? Was petty apartheid the reason in those cases? So one can continue. He knows as well as I do that the new governments in Australia and New Zealand will detest their policy even more than ours. However, he actually dragged that argument into this debate. After his return from America the hon. member for Yeoville stated categorically in a serious speech in this House and on that score I agree with him and one can respect him for this—that we should not deceive ourselves by thinking that either the National Party policy or the United Party policy or the Progressive Party policy would satisfy any hostile elements in the outside world. He stated categorically in this House in 1969 that what the United Nations and the wild elements in Africa wanted was one thing, and one thing only, namely one man, one vote and away with the Whites; to the devil with the rest. Those were his words. This is knowledge which he acquired on an overseas trip, and now a colleague of his comes here and tells us today that the actual reason is petty apartheid. How ridiculous can one be? How can hon. members on the opposite side contradict one another and think they can go on like this? Are they not ashamed of themselves? Do they really think they can in any way continue as an Opposition? I think the absolute low-water mark was reached in the Opposition ranks today. A historical low-water mark was reached here for which they will still pay the price. I do not want to be arrogant, but they are going to pay a very heavy price for this low-water mark which was reached here today.

The hon. member said here that when the United Nations is at its most reasonable, it is at its most dangerous. Oh, these superficial witticisms! What is true, and this is all that is true, is that our hon. Prime Minister, under very delicate and difficult circumstances, displayed great statesmanship, for which he is respected in other Western countries, in these negotiations which he held. Now they are jealous. They are not warming themselves at that fire; they will have nothing to do with it, and now they are half jealous and sorry that it went off so relatively well. They are extremely sorry about that. As far as they are concerned, there should by now have been a conflagration. As far as they are concerned, we should by now have failed and the dogs baying on our borders should have been attacking us; then that side of the House is at its happiest.

The hon. member quoted here from a 1965 seminar of the United Nations held in Yugoslavia. Why did he not quote long extracts from it? Why did he not quote long extracts from it where that seminar reached conclusions which, when regarded objectively, are in complete agreement with this Government’s policy? Why did he not quote from it where it states that people with separate cultures and languages can develop separately, and that even peoples living in non-contiguous and fragmented geographic units, also have a right to develop as separate peoples and states? That was the central point of that seminar’s conclusions. That supports 100% what this Government is doing in and for South Africa.

I did not hear him say very much about their federal policy. I want to repeat: Let them give us the replies to the questions which have been asked. I do not think there has yet been a reply to the hon. the Prime Minister’s question of why they changed policies. There has not been any reply to our question of how those legislative councils are going to be constituted and elected. There has been no reply in regard to what they are going to do if the Bantu peoples do not agree. There has been no reply to the question of what norms are going to be used to determine when a man is making a contribution in general to the State and its welfare. None of those replies have been furnished. If the hon. member for Bezuidenhout wants to be serious, let him tell us about those things. Let him give us the replies to these questions; then the voters of South Africa can see what we are heading for.

But he must not come and tell us about drinking cups of tea, of rude people, and then pretend that this is to be our policy. It has nothing to do with National Party policy that certain Whites behave badly towards non-Whites. That is not part of our policy. The National Party states with pride, out loud, and repeatedly that it stands for the rights of peoples. It stands for the individual in his group context being able to develop to the highest level. It stands for preferably reducing the size of its White fatherland slightly and continuing to exist there preserving what is its own, which it does not begrudge to those who are different. It insists that a nation must be able to realize to the full its desire for freedom, as well as its language rights and religious and cultural values. This is a fundamental principle. Why do they not bring their foolish federal plan and contrast it to these fundamental principles?

Why does the hon. member, like a lightening conductor, want to drag all kinds of petty apartheid matters into this debate, matters for which this Government is not responsible, matters which this Government has repudiated as rudeness? After all, they are aware of this. Why are they doing this, in the eyes of the world and the world Press which is going to disseminate this stuff abroad merely to insult and vilify South Africa further? Sir, I repeat: It is a low-water mark. To come here this afternoon and talk about colour as our norm!

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, can you imagine anything more disgraceful than an hon. member on the opposite side officially wanting to sell a policy to the people of South Africa which is based on wealth and poverty, on how much a man earns or contributes to a state? Can you imagine a more medieval and primitive kind of policy? Then they have the temerity to say that we base our policy on colour! Can you imagine anything more shocking? Why do they not give us a reply to the question of what the basis of their policy is? Throughout their federal plan, and throughout the speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the words “racialist”, “race groups” and “racialism” were used. If the hon. member for Bezuidenhout were conversant with modern terminology he would have known that these things are mentioned more in a good sense. We speak of peoples and ethnic relations; they come in 1973 with “federal assemblies based on race groups” and “the intimate affairs of the race groups”. But they tell us there is no such thing as a race. They tell us that the ethnic ties of the Bantu in the cities may as well be watered down and become blurred. It is finished. There are no “identifiable groups”, but their federal plan is based on “identifiable groups”! And now the hon. member comes here this afternoon and has the temerity to say that our policy is based on “racism”, on colour.

Sir, how far can one go with this swindle without being finally rejected by the public of South Africa? How low can they go on with these things? The hon. member made an appeal; I can also make one, and I am doing this in all earnest. Sir, we are in the year 1973. To the north of us are 350 million people of Africa, divided into 42 states. Whether the Opposition likes it or not, I repeat: This will feed the Nationalism of our Bantu people. If we cannot in Southern Africa achieve a pattern of ethnic relations which takes the continental stream into account as well and can accommodate it, we are doomed. Then the hon. member opposite will not even drink tea; he will drink nothing; he will die. It will be the end of him.

Mr. Speaker, we are sitting here with a small population in a world of 3,7 billion people; we are sitting here with two vast oceans on either side of us in which the number of Russian submarines is increasing all the time. We are sitting with terrorist pressure in the north; we are sitting with onslaughts on our fatherland, not only on the Whites, but also on the non-Whites, on the Bantu as well, for the ultimate goal of these onslaughts is to bring anarchism among all. We are sitting with a railway line which is being built by the Red Chinese and which thrusts like a spear into the side of Africa, with its point directed southwards. We are sitting with real economic problems such as the British entry to the European Common Market, which causes complicated problems. We are sitting in a phase where the clock of separate development can no longer be turned back, not by the Opposition, not by anybody. This policy will be carried out.

For 25 years we have been returned to this Parliament by the voters to govern. We are sitting with world problems, as I have said; we are sitting with a United Nations Organization which comprises the head of an octopus and which is reaching out its tentacles in all directions, which is reaching out to strangle us as well. This country has grave problems, Mr. Speaker. They have nothing to do with the matters which the hon. member discussed. But for the solution of this country’s problems one now needs, more than anything, unanimity on matters of great importance. In order to make progress one must refer with a little more respect to the leaders and Prime Minister of this country. In order to make progress one must not try to sow unrest among our Bantu peoples, but one must try to tell them that it is also in their interest to grasp the hand of friendship which the National Party Government is holding out to them, and that they, on their part, also have obligations of decency and reciprocal friendship. This is the kind language which should be spoken in debates of this nature, and not the language which was spoken here this afternoon.

Sir, I would now like, in all earnest, to make an appeal here. For 25 years we have been returned to this Parliament by the people of South Africa. Sir, we are sitting with extensive coastlines which will have to be defended in times of emergency and crisis. We are sitting with internal problems which we do not underestimate. For that reason we are in all honesty and sincerity seeking a fair solution. I know it is difficult. I know it is difficult in our situation to be fair at all times and in all respects, but who can deny that this is our national ideal? Who can deny that a people who were trodden underfoot so harshly in their history, can have anything but this wonderful ideal of freedom for others? We want to give to them, even if it is difficult. Even if the principle is difficult to implement, that does not make it less sound. These are the stars we should like to follow. But what of the history of the party on that side? The establishment of industries was opposed by them. No, all we could do was import from overseas.

Every time, when their love for the fatherland of South Africa was put to the test, whether the national anthem, or the Republic, or any other aspect of our national life was at issue, where did they stand? How can they with their policy expect any friendship or respect from the Black man while they want to keep him, for all time, in a subservient, dominated position? These are the questions they must answer. Sir, after 25 years the Opposition cannot reverse the course of events; nothing can turn back the clock, and for that reason we say to them: “Accept the

National Party’s policy completely; accept the basis of what we are doing now, once and for all, for the sake of all peoples of Southern Africa. Time is running out for you. Time has already run out for you as far as the important milestones in the history of South Africa are concerned. You only have a short while left to indicate that you are not merely going to be obstacles in the future history of its country, not merely milestones around the neck who want to impede all progress.” Sir, they still have a little time left to come and say, in the difficult times which lie ahead for us, that they will accept our policy for the sake of South Africa and will co-operate and ensure that a satisfactory solution is found to the entire ethnic relations problem, so that the Whites may fulfil their calling in Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to what the hon. member for Wonderboom has said and when I listened to his tirade in the first half of his speech, I found it necessary to consult Hansard to refresh my memory as to what the hon. member had said before in this House. On 20th August, 1970, he warned us in this House that the point of attack in the United Nations was on the very subjects which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said should be put right. The hon. member for Wonderboom said this, and I quote from Hansard (Vol. 29, col. 2166)—

That was the problem. That is what he gave us in his maiden speech, and then in that same speech he went further and said this in regard to the objectives of the U.N. (Col. 2165)—

That is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—

He went on to read those out and I shall read just some of them—

And then it goes on—

Sir, how can a man change his views to the extent that that hon. member has done this afternoon? He repudiated himself. If the hon. member for Wonderboom would do me the courtesy of listening for one moment, I want to ask him how he can this afternoon stand up and repudiate the very sentiments that he expressed in this House in 1970. I want to say that in my view one understands the hesitancy of the hon. the Prime Minister to take the steps necessary to create in South Africa a situation of race relations which can lead to a harmonious future. One can understand his hesitancy when he has members such as the hon. member for Wonderboom breathing down his neck. Sir, one only has to look at the papers of the Nationalist Party itself and the way in which they criticize the Nationalist Party on these petty acts of theirs which have, to the extent that they have, affected the good name of South Africa in the world. What have the papers said about this nonsense of the refusal of a visa and then the granting of it? South Africa did not explode. A visa to Breyten Breytenbach was refused and then it was granted. South Africa did not break into turmoil. The trouble is that this Government is out of touch with the thinking of the man in the street in regard to human relations in South Africa. I believe that they are out of touch and that there is a lack of facilities where there can be human contact between persons of different races, social contact. Those things are lacking in this country. I want to say to the hon. members opposite that I believe strongly that more and more of those people who at this moment are supporting that party are now reaching a state of exhaustion, waiting for action to be taken by the Government to relieve these tensions in the country. [Interjections.] I believe South Africa is ready to accept a new approach in internal race relations. The time has come when we must see an end to the pettiness which has been happening in regard to the access of one race group to another, or of mixed race groups to various functions. May I just mention one in passing. The Cape Chamber of Commerce organized an exhibition in the Drill Hall here, of modern office equipment, for people to come and see what modern equipment is being used throughout the world. Sir, there are certain Coloured businessmen who, according to this Government, are being encouraged to establish themselves and to build up their own businesses and their own economic status. But what happens? A permit is refused. Coloured businessmen cannot go to this exhibition organized for the members of the Chamber of Commerce. Sir, that is the nonsense which is going on and which we cannot and should not allow to continue in this country of ours.

Give us clarity about your policy. Come to fundamentals.

I will come to fundamentals. Just keep quiet a little. What is the position we have at the moment in this country? [Interjections.] We are in the position where we must get our directions for race relations settled and settled quickly. I say this because after 25 years of Nationalist Government not one of the objectives of race development has been achieved by the Nationalist Party, not one. They have not achieved apartheid. They have not achieved self-sufficiency in any homeland. They have not achieved a policy for a future for the Coloured person in South Africa. They have not found a place for the Indians in South Africa. Following on the hon. the Prime Minister’s reply to the hon. member for Durban Central, we have the position that even the Bantu nations, as they are called by this Government, will float and not have a set place in the life of the Republic of South Africa if they do not take independence. If they do not take independence, they will be floating in this body politic of the Republic of South Africa as much as the Indians and the Coloureds are at the present moment.

Ultimately they will take independence. [Interjections.]

We on this side of the House believe that a modus of living together, of co-operation and of allowing the non-White races to participate in the government must be found. They should be able to participate in government. I do not think there is one hon. member on that side of the House who believes that the Coloureds and the Indians can for all times be denied the right to participate in the government of this country.

Isn’t that your policy too?

It is no good us sitting here today and asking how we would vote for the members of the legislative assembly for the Xhosa people. The point is whether we are setting out to work to a stage of a complete separation of these Bantu states, which will mean compulsory independence being thrown upon them. Or we must work towards a form of federation of the Bantu homelands and of the other persons in South Africa.

And the Indians?

Yes, and the Indians.

And the Coloureds?

Yes.

Why is the hon. member so surprised?

[Inaudible.]

I am not trying some wise Alec stunt of catching out. I am saying what I believe and what we on this side of the House believe, and that is that the move is towards a federation, a federal form of government in South Africa. My hon. friends might argue and ask whether I mean a federation or a confederation of independent states, but I say that our policy is one towards federation which basically is a means of co-operation between the different peoples of South Africa or the nations, or communities, in such a way that they can share in the government of this country.

But with a supreme White Parliament to decide?

The hon. the Minister of Transport and I will not be here the day when that supreme White Parliament decides what it is going to do in some time during the future. However, as far as the federation is concerned and the function of that federation, it is based on a supreme White Parliament to decide on such matters as defence and other similar matters. I do not think the hon. the Minister of Transport should try to get us down to the isolated small details.

But it seems such a contradiction to have a sharing of power under a supreme White Parliament.

I think the hon. the Minister of Transport shares the power of running the Railways. He shares the power of running the Railways, he does not do everything himself. Has he never heard of shared authority in a country or in an undertaking?

But they remain subservient.

Has he not heard of partners in a business, of senior and junior partners in a business; has he never heard of the sharing of authority in the running of a business?

That argument does not hold water.

You can share in government if not fully and completely in every aspect of government. There can be a sharing of authority in the sharing of government.

My point is that it is such a contradiction. You have a supreme White Parliament that has all the powers but …

Make your own speech.

Ben, get up and talk; we are dying to hear you!

You see, the problem is that I cannot get clarity from you people.

When I talked about the sharing of authority, I did not say that it was the sharing of authority in every sphere of government, in every aspect of government. I said it was a sharing of authority in government, and the hon. the Minister with his long experience, about which I read such a charming article during the week-end, should know …

In what paper did it appear? Was it in Rapport?

It was not Rapport, but the Sunday Times. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister is indulging …

Now he understands the Sunday Times.

… in a little flippancy. I think he is quite well aware of the facts; I think he understands what I mean when I say “sharing of government” and the “participation in government” between the various race groups.

But there are other aspects in regard to population which I want to discuss with the hon. the Minister of Finance for a few minutes. One of them is the welcome announcement of his, namely the increase in salaries for civil servants. I wonder how long that joy in the hearts of the civil servants is going to last, because not only will there be the claims from the household manager, the wife, for further allowances, but in a very short time the salaries are going to fall behind as against the increased cost of living. We on this side of the House have appealed before and I want to appeal again to the hon. the Minister of Finance to consider the introduction for the public servants of an automatic cost-of-living allowance which can be attached to the index figure which is available to the State. I do not mean that it must be an allowance for pensionable purposes; that can be consolidated periodically, but we are going to have the same position—I believe it has happened over and over in the public service—that by the time they receive an increase and by the time it has been negotiated, they have fallen behind in regard to the cost of living index. I want to urge the hon. the Minister to see whether that cannot be done; it has been done before.

The other aspect I want to comment on and which I think contains a shocking indictment as far as the Government is concerned, is the announcement which has been made with such gratification by the Government, namely that the salaries of non-White nurses and non-White paramedical staff will be increased in order to close the wage gap as a result of a report of a commission. I happened to be at a meeting ten years ago when that committee, the co-ordinated health service committee, was appointed. It was appointed ten years ago, and it has taken this Government ten years to take some steps to close the gap between the salaries of non-White nurses and the para-medical staff and the salaries of their counterparts.

They acted with alacrity!

I think it is a most shocking indictment of that side of the House because at the same time, in 1963, there were agreed ratios in regard to the salaries of non-Whites in the medical services. For the doctors the ratio was 10:9:8 and the 10:9 ratio was applied in the Cape. Under this Government it has broken down and it went down as low as a 10:6 ratio in the last ten years. No wonder there is discontent and no wonder that people feel they are unjustly treated. I believe that these are matters which need the constant attention of the Government.

I want to raise another matter with the hon. the Minister of Finance. The housing position in South Africa, despite all the flowery reports we have had, is still a serious problem, a problem which, I am afraid, is going to be with us for years to come. It is a problem which is ever-existent in either a more serious or less serious state. According to the figures given to us last year, there was a shortage of 78 830 dwellings in South Africa. In this period from February last year to February of this year there has not been any inducement whatsoever for private enterprise to build flats and accommodation for the middle and lower income groups, i.e. a person who can pay between R80 and R125 per month in rent, which requires a salary of between R350 and R500 per month. There are various suggestions which have been made. I want to suggest—and I believe that the hon. the Minister has had this representation made to him before—that he consider the granting of a depreciation allowance in respect of blocks of flats. The hon. the Minister will be aware that hotels are allowed a depreciation allowance. They do not escape taxes, but merely defer them. The taxes are eventually collected. As a result of the depreciation allowance, there is a cash flow into the hotel whilst it gets going and after it has had its initial capital expenditure. I believe that this depreciation allowance is applied, too, in border industries and that it is also applied in respect of the promotion of certain exports. Therefore I see no reason why it should not be applied to the construction of dwellings. The hon. the Minister might ask: How do we control the funds and what happens to them? That will be a simple issue. If there is to be a depreciation allowance, the cash flow can be used to meet the financing of buildings. The condition could be imposed that the amount of the allowance must either be utilized to pay off the bond on the block of flats or that, for instance, it must be invested in building society shares or even in the hon. the Minister’s own premium bonds, but in any case that it should be invested in some form. Then you will not only be giving an inducement to a man to invest, but you will be making certain that when the time for reconstruction of that block of flats arrives, the owner will have the capital available to undertake that reconstruction. I believe that this is a matter which, if the hon. the Minister were to consider, would lead to a stimulation of the provision of housing for the middle and lower income groups. There are other aspects to this which do not concern the hon. the Minister of Finance, which we will raise with the hon. the Minister of Community Development at a later stage. I raise these points because I think they are important.

I want to say a word in connection with transfer duty and stamp duties. It would be irresponsible of me to tell the hon. the Minister that he must abolish transfer duty. I believe that the revenue figure is approximately R42 500 000 which is collected per year from transfer duties. Last year it was R42½ million, the year before it was R47 million. The stamp duties on transfers amount to approximately R10 million per year. It would be irresponsible to suggest to the hon. the Minister that that should be written off immediately, but I do believe that the scale is based on out-of-date figures. In other words, the sliding scale, as the hon. the Minister is aware, works from a R7 000 to a R15 000 purchase. I believe it would bring considerable relief if the hon. the Minister were to put those figures into more reasonable perspective. I would suggest that the figures such as the R7 000 should be raised by at least 50%. This would then give some relief in respect of the incidence of this duty. After all, the scale was fixed in 1964, years ago. There has been a terrific appreciation in the value of property since then and thus in the Tax.

I want to mention one other aspect, as a result of a recent judgment in the Supreme Court. The procedure adopted by many housing companies to enable young people to get houses with the minimum of deposits, has been for them to buy the ground and the house was built afterwards so that the transfer costs, etc. were on the ground only. What is the result of imposing the transfer duty on the cost of the house? Certainly, the builder does not pay. The property developer does not pay. The only party who suffers is the young man who bought the house and wanted to move into it. Although for a long time this has not been the practice, that is the way in which the law has now been interpreted. Therefore I should like the hon. the Minister first of all to give the assurance that past cases are not to be reopened and transfer duties claimed in the hundreds or thousands of cases where those duties have been under-paid and, secondly, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister to give consideration to exempting the new houses built on this basis from transfer duty and applying the transfer duty to the initial cost of the ground only. The number of dwelling units available is of course being increased by the construction of these houses. I ask for this because one finds the difficulty and the problem of young people in acquiring their homes continuing unabated. This will assist considerably in the finding of homes, as will the other aspect of capital depreciation help in stimulating investment in the private sector, in the building of dwellings. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I believe that if this had applied we would not have the eyesore of District Six staying as it is now, nine years after it was first proclaimed. If there had been a stimulus of this sort I am sure that private enterprise would have tackled the urban renewal schemes in District Six as they no doubt will do in other cities where urban renewal schemes are necessary. But there is no incentive for them to do it. In the meantime we are sitting with the shocking position we have here and also in other parts of the country where the Department of Community Development has property which they do not seem able to utilize quickly and develop with any reasonable speed.

Finally, the hon. the Minister of Community Development made a brave statement last year, and we are looking for some action in this regard. There was the question about tenants who are being hounded out of buildings because of the uncertainties in the Rents Act. They are threatened with various actions. They are told that their flats have been sold over their heads and that they have to move, and a lot of them do not know their legal rights. There are other landlords, particularly in the Johannesburg area—and a number of cases have been brought to the attention of the hon. the Minister—where landlords cease to provide the services, the clearing of the rubbish, the lamps in the passage-ways, etc., to make the life of tenants unbearable so that they move out. The owner then gets occupation of an empty block of flats for reconstruction or whatever he wants to do with it, without the obligation of finding alternative accommodation for the existing tenants. The hon. the Minister of Community Development made a statement which was a great relief to many hundreds of people in this category when he said strong action is going to be taken by the Government. Nothing has happened. It is still going on and the confusion is increased by the extraordinary situation which has arisen as a result of the Minister of Justice having announced that the Sectional Titles Act will be effective on the 30th March. But no regulations have been published.

That is right, that is the point.

No regulations have been published. I raise these matters because I think they are indicative of what the hon. member for Parktown has included in his motion. These omissions have gone on year after year. These problems have existed year after year. We have prodded and pleaded with this Government to come to terms with a lot of these problems, but they seem to be quite incapable of doing so. The hon. the Minister of Finance over the years has been asked to make adjustments. Does he not realize what he is doing to these people who are affected by these matters? It is not going to break the exchequer if these steps are taken to assist the young people in the middle and lower income groups to acquire homes. It is going to lead to stability and to a contended population. It would lead, I should imagine also, to higher productivity by a settled man in the business wherever he may be employed. I hope that the hon. the Minister of Finance in replying to this debate will deal with these points.

I am glad that the hon. the Minister of Transport is here. I asked the hon. the Minister of Transport a question the other day and it appears from his reply that communications have broken down between the Department of Community Development and the Department of Transport in regard to Mitchell’s Plain. I cannot impress sufficiently upon this Minister the urgency that that railway line should be available when the residents start moving in at Mitchell’s Plain on the Cape Flats. The hon. the Minister knows that this scheme will provide accommodation for some 250 000 Coloured people. According to the information I have from the Department of Community Development, building should start towards the end of this year or early next year. Those people will be put out on to the Cape Flats. It is a good site and I think it can eventually develop into a self-sustaining town on its own. At first those people must be transported, as they will always be. I urge the hon. the Minister of Transport to look into this matter. I was rather distressed to hear the reply which he gave. There seems to me a lack of communication, and the urgency of providing that railway line is perhaps not appreciated by the Railways Administration. It is urgently needed, and I hope it will have some priority. The Minister may possibly make an announcement at some time during the session—I hope soon—as to whether that line will be available when development takes place.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps it would be a good thing to approach the adjournment of the debate with the calm, restfulness and peace of a maiden speech, after the sudden events of the afternoon. I want to say at once that it is a great moment for any new member to rise to his feet in this House, in this highest legislative body and debating chamber of the Republic. To enter into the distinctive tradition and the atmosphere of this House, where so many representatives have made their speeches and put their cases, and where, too, great speeches have been made by leaders of the people, where the political policy and course of South Africa have been indicated, and that, in the total silence which is customary for a maiden speech, is more than enough to give one a hollow feeling in one’s stomach.

I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my honoured predecessor, the hon. ex-Minister Frank Waring. In the same breath I would like to mention Mrs. Waring. In spite of their numerous duties as Minister and Minister’s wife, they nevertheless found the time to meet their voters in order to listen to their problems, and then to solve them from time to time. Both were colourful personalities on the sports fields and in the social sphere, but particularly in their service to South Africa. They were people with firm principles, for they did not always follow the popular path and they sometimes made enemies, but, in the words of ex-Minister Waring himself, he made many thousands of other friends as well. Sir, the constituency of Caledon thanks them heartily for the service which they rendered in the time they served as representatives and wishes them everything that is good and prosperous for the future.

The good medical services throughout the world at present, and in particular in South Africa as well, the fact that the combating of plague and pestilence has been so successful, has resulted in a very high birthrate in the world; but it has also brought about a declining death-rate in the world. At the time of the original settlement here, in 1650, the world population was 500 million. In 1970 the figure was 3 700 million. There are no more places to establish colonies. Those days are gone. We even see that some of the major countries in the world are looking at the moon with an eye to future living space. Then I would like to sound a note of warning by mentioning one more statistic. At this moment the population of Red China is between 700 million and 800 million, and with a population increase of about 1,7% this means that the annual population increase is equal to the present population of South Africa. The figures for South Africa are supplied in the demographic year book of the United Nations. In 1960 we had a population of 16 million, in 1963, 17 million, and in 1970 approximately 20 million. Our rate of increase was 2,4% and that of the world came to an overall 2%. The rate of increase in such countries as China and Russia was well below 2% during these years. Sir, the growth in the world population is indicative of the so-called population explosion. I said a moment ago that better medical services and the combating of pestilences has caused the population to increase. In addition there are no longer wars in the physical sense of the word; famine, too, has ceased to exist. Man cannot now simply accept his self-reliance, but must devise means of planning it properly. Mr. Speaker, it is also important that it should be realized that any citizen can expect certain things from his Government. He can expect physical protection for himself and his family. He can expect work opportunities which will bring him money and allow him to maintain a reasonable standard of living. He can also expect a government to make food available to him which he can afford to buy with the money he earns. In short, therefore, he can expect security and a reasonable standard of living. The state, on the other hand, must supply the needs of its citizens. It must see to the security of the country and work opportunities, but the state must also ensure, by developing the economy, that education facilities, health services, housing, irrigation and food are available to all its citizens. It is therefore quite clear that the state and the citizens have certain very heavy responsibilities towards one another. The citizens of a state, again, in their way are united into families, and the families have a task, a responsibility, towards the national community. If there are families which fail in the fulfilment of these responsibilities, then the community is harmed, and then our own father-land, South Africa, is also harmed. I must say at once that there are many factors which singly and collectively exercise an influence on the size of families in particular and the population increase of a country in general. There is therefore no instant theory based on one single facet, which I can offer the House as a solution for this population increase. In Sweden, as far back as 1935, a commission on population growth was appointed with the object of establishing a policy in regard to this matter. The point of departure was a healthy, family-oriented population policy. The reason given for doing this, was that the economic and educational demands associated with the bringing up of children weighed heavily on a government and that there should be proper planning. In America in 1969 President Nixon appointed a commission, the “Commission on Population Growth and the American Future”, and in his announcement of the appointment of the commission President Nixon said that by the year 2000 there would be 300 million Americans. What that means in fact is that there will be 100 million more than there are at present. If I were to interpret that for the House in practical terms, Sir, it would mean that from now until the year 2000 the Americans will have to build a city every month for 250 000 inhabitants if they wish to succeed in housing their increased population. On the occasion of the establishment of this commission, President Nixon said—

Sir, if we take all this into account, if we let our thoughts pass quickly over the wide terrain of our various peoples in South Africa, over our agricultural sector, our industrial growth, the population shift from the country to the cities and the development of our natural resources. I wish to request the Government today to consider appointing a similar commission or advisory council which the object of compiling a population planning programme. Mr. Speaker, all I ask in this debate is that the hon. the Minister of Finance should make provision in the Main Budget for the expenditure which would be involved. As a result of the diversity of South Africa’s population, there should be subcommittees which would include members of the specific ethnic groups. Universities could be requested to investigate social and economic aspects. In this way very rapid progress could be made with this survey. The development of our industries and the stimulus which this Part Appropriation provides through the repayment of the loan levies, particularly to companies, will make increased industrial production possible. If we consider the expansion of industry, industrial development and production, it is important that all available labour be analysed and planned to keep pace with the population increase. Sound planning of population will indicate at an early stage how many workers one has, where one has them and when one has them and whether one can have them at one’s disposal or depend on them at any specific time. In America this commission sat for two years. It is important that we should make a start as soon as possible with an advisory council or commission for population planning, of the kind which America has established. Each South African Department of State with relevant information will have to participate. They will have to be co-ordinated by means of this commission. Parts of the report which would then be compiled and which were regarded and accepted by the Government as important, could then be adapted by the Department of Information with a view to family planning and subsequently, proper family control. I make this point in particular because there is at present much random discussion in the Press and among people who have knowledge of these matters, of family planning, family control and family control boards. I want to say that there is no necessity for family control boards. The Department of Health is handling this matter very well, and it is necessary that we have population planning, and then family planning and family control will be a natural result. The Department of Information can make use of newspapers and films and closed-circuit television, and later on television as well, to relay to the worker in South Africa what he can buy with the money he earns. Then it is important, and I want to stress this, that if the worker earns a certain amount and it is put to him clearly that with that amount he can buy enough to keep two children going and feed them adequately, then it is, in the first place, irresponsible of the worker to have more children, or secondly, after he has had three or four, to insist that he be paid higher wages. I want to say that a dynamic policy of this nature must be followed. It is no use our chasing after a steadily increasing growth rate. If you accept that the growth rate stands at a certain percentage and you deduct from that the percentage of the population increase, then you get the actual standard of living of the individuals in the State. If one then injudiciously allows the population to increase and one must continually force up the growth rate, that is neither sound planning nor sound economy. If one ensures, in the interest of one’s citizens, that the growth rate attains a certain level and the rate of increase another level, then I would say that one has really reached a stage where the workers will also act in a responsible way and will not force themselves and their families below the so-called and much-discussed poverty datum line.

I should just like to mention that over the years the matter has not been advanced enough to be discussed, possibly even in this House. In a country with a multi-national make-up there has been a feeling that in the discussion of this matter one should be very careful, and this is still the case. But if we take another look at what is happening in the world, I can tell you that even the United Nations has made great progress in this field over the past few years. The United Nations has even declared 1974 a “world population year”. The United Nations has a budget of 50 million dollars which it now allocates to underdeveloped countries to help them with a population policy. Then I must mention that in Africa there are at present 35 developed countries which have already initiated and are proceeding with family planning programmes. Some already have a firm population policy. A few years ago we all mentioned this subject only in a whisper, but it is important that this information should be compiled and co-ordinated by the Government so as to be available to the general public of all our peoples. It will then be the task of responsible individuals to choose whether they wish to ensure that they are able to feed and clothe their family adequately and provide them with all the necessary facilities. It is also important for a government to know in good time how many people it must provide for in respect of education and other facilities which must be established. In order to stress that the whole world is thinking about this matter, I refer to the fact that in International Planned Parenthood News, which covers a large number of countries, one sees such captions as “Nepal’s leaders pledge community action for family planning”, “Mass media persuasive in Korea and Iran”, “Joint congress in Ecuador”, “Government Minister heads African associations: The Tanzanian Minister for Labour and Social Welfare, Mr. Alfred Tano, has been elected as chairman of the National Family Planning Association of Tanzania”.

Sir, in countries all around us the citizens of those countries are engaged in family planning, but we must still take the first and more direct step of tackling population planning before rushing headlong into family planning. With South Africa’s limited water resources, our periodic droughts, our rapid industrial development and our developing ethnic units it is important for us to appoint this commission or advisory council in good time in order to co-ordinate the necessary information. Thereafter it must be made available by the Government. I want to say at once that I am not advocating any obligations on the citizen. It must be a democratic programme. The information must be available so that the citizen can use it. It would be a very stupid citizen of South Africa, whatever ethnic unit he might belong to, who would not wish to make use of the information and the means which will lead to family planning and control. It must necessarily lead to a higher standard of living for all people in our ethnic groups. It must result in happy, well-cared-for families. The number of workers required for certain tasks would be determined in advance by means of data projection, and this will result in development keeping pace with the population increase.

Mr. Speaker, at this stage it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the hon. member for Caledon on the fine speech he made here today. It is really of historic interest that I should be the next speaker after the hon. member for Caledon in this debate, because he will recall, Sir, that his father represented Brakpan in Parliament in a most illustrious manner in earlier years. We have listened with great interest to the very well-reasoned speech of the hon. member, and we want to congratulate him on his speech. We are aware of the fact that he has had a very successful career up to now and that he made a name for himself in the Provincial Council of the Cape. We wish him a very successful career in this House.

I want to come back to the irresponsible speech made here by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout this afternoon. My hon. friend, the member for Wonderboom, asked the hon. Leader of the Opposition whether he agreed with the contents of that speech.

He said “No” at first. [Interjections.]

I am not sure what his answer was, but I should like to ask the hon. member for South Coast whether he agrees with the contents of the speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. Now, the position is such that when I came to this Parliament last year, I listened with particular attention to an explanation of the policy of the Opposition as against the policy of the National Party and more particular during the discussion of the hon. Prime Minister’s Vote. We heard the hon. Leader of the Opposition stating this policy with great eloquence and conviction.

Was that the old policy?

Yes, that was the old policy. Sweet was the music of this policy in the ears of his followers behind him who accepted it with great acclamation and broadcast it even further. We heard about three phases and now I am not speaking now about the bleeding-to-death phase such as the phasing out of this Parliament, but of periods in the development of their policy. We heard about round-table conferences; we heard about the hammering out of agreements; we heard about 25 representatives of non-White groups in this Parliament and we heard that Coloureds would be represented by Coloureds in this Parliament. When listening to the different policies of the United Party it reminds me of Andy Capp’s wife who said that the condition of the United Party is serious, but not hopeless. Now, in 1973, the condition of the United Party is hopeless, but not serious. Let us for a moment refresh the memory of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, because it seems to me as though we should not take his tirades too seriously. I should like to refer to column 8348 of the Hansard of 1972. I should like to know from the hon. member as it is a pity the hon. member is not here at present; however, I should like to know from him on a subsequent occasion whether he still agrees with these words he said in that debate. I quote—

And then he exclaimed with great indignation—

Now I know that the hon. member said at that stage that it is unfair to apply circumstances which prevailed during a certain period to circumstances applicable to another period. But this had nothing to do with situations; it had to do with policy. I should like to refer to col. 4943 of the Hansard of 1972 where the hon. member said the following—

He asked further—

That is what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout asked. What has happened to that policy now? I want to know from the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether he still adheres to that point of view. If so, how is it possible for him still to feel at home in that party? If not, surely he is associating himself with our idea of uplifting the Coloureds. Surely, he is then a party to the plagiarism mentioned by the hon. Prime Minister during the No-confidence Debate. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout went even further, and I quote from Hansard, col. 4943—

I quote rather comprehensively from the words of this hon. member, because he has now made himself available as the new leader of the United Party. He is ready to take over. We must therefore very definitely take notice of what he says. In Hansard, col. 4945 of the 1972 Debates, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout says—

Then the hon. member goes further in col. 4945—

What is this sovereign White Parliament that gives and takes away powers and will remain White but supremacy? White leadership is White supremacy and nothing else, unless one is a leader in name only and the master is the watchdogs around the kennel. Now I come to the best part of it all. In col. 4945 the hon. member for Bezuidenhout says—

Now they themselves come along and hold out the prospect of two such councils. The collapse will thus be twice as bad; the explosion will be twice as loud. In column 4945 the hon. member for Bezuidenhout goes further—

When reading these words of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, one understands why we did not have the privilege of hearing the hon. member for Bezuidenhout speak in the No-confidence Debate this year. Surely, he cannot reconcile these statements with the new policy of his party. As far as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is concerned, I should like, in conclusion, to fling back at him in his own words the prophetic vision he cast over the whole country—

I should like to know from the United Party what their policy means other than “a few crumbs from the White man’s table”?

That is your policy.

No, that is the policy of the United Party because they said there would be Coloureds who would be represented in this Parliament by their own people. That is the policy of the United Party and that has been said here time and again, not only by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, but also by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and others.

That is the crumb policy.

And the hon. member for Orange Grove tried to put us off with the old story about the explanation why they have abandoned this important aspect of their policy. He must not think we will allow ourselves to be misled by that.

Give me an answer.

The answer is recorded in the Hansard of the No-confidence Debate. I have read it and I am none the wiser. It has not clarified the matter at all. But let us go back for a moment to the words of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in the 1972 Debates. We must remember that this new policy of theirs saw the light of day three months after the debates took place in this House. But this is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in col. 5290 of Hansard—

Three months later he did the very same thing. What of the dangers involved by never giving those people representation in this House or in any central Parliament? Now I ask: What must we say when the United Party comes along, in 1974, and once again submits a new policy to us with so much conviction and persuasiveness? What confidence could the man in the street have that any mandate the electorate of South Africa give them, would be carried into effect? Invariably it brings one back to the method by which that party gave Indians the vote and representation in this House in 1946.

But when I listen to what they say, it seems to me that they have not considered the basics of the whole of this issue. They still do not understand what the federal concept involves. Surely, the constituent elements of the federation are at least sovereign. They are autonomous bodies and one cannot give and take at one’s own discretion. The legislation of the sovereign body with regard to matters over which it has unassailable autonomy, cannot be tested against the laws of the central Parliament, as the hon. member for Orange Grove said. It is not subject to the right of being tested. Surely, Harry is right; I am not speaking about Harry Schwarz now, but I am referring to their previous mentor, Harry Lawrence. Surely, there can be no overlapping of or a right of being tested. It would be chaotic. How is it possible to have, in one geographic unit, one legislative body that is predominantly sovereign, but in its own discretion, being so inconsistent and capricious as Cicero’s description of women, gives to subordinate bodies within the area the right to exercise certain functions? I think those people on that side of the House should once again go into the question as to why federation has failed in other states in Africa.

The hon. member for Green Point referred to the division of power; he referred to a senior partner and a junior partner. He should read his history. It is as a result of this very idea of junior and senior partnership that in particular the federation of Rhodesia and Nyassaland failed. Does he imagine for one moment—and is he being honest and sincere—when he thinks that the Bantu and those of a different colour would be satisfied to be a junior partner, subservient to a House of Assembly which is sovereign and which will remain sovereign as far as we can see, as was said here by the hon. member for Durban North? In the same way as there was no substance to that 1972 policy of theirs so this octopus federation concept they are presenting here today, has even less substance or meaning and it will have no appeal to any voter who uses his brains.

Mr. Speaker, the ignorance of the hon. member for Brakpan, concerning the policy of the United Party, is inexplicable, but his ignorance about his own party’s policy is unforgivable. In the few minutes that I have before we adjourn, I should like to give a piece of homework to hon. members opposite, and in particular to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. I hope he will listen. As you know, Sir, we have never been afraid to tell hon. members opposite what our policy is. We have not been afraid to give the elementary thinkers on that side, by means of a sketch, a diagram, an idea about how our federal plan will look. We have not been afraid of that. Now comes my challenge to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. I challenge him, or any member on his side: Give us a sketch of what your policy looks like. I impose only two conditions: The first is that that sketch should be signed by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. The second condition is that I shall have the right to give it to the Press. To encourage hon. members, I am prepared to give R5 to any recognized charitable organization if tomorrow, when I resume my speech, I have a copy—I shall make it R10!—of what their policy looks like on paper. That is my challenge. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, how their eight lonely, floating, independent old fly-spot Bantustans would look on paper; how those Bantustans would have to be in touch with a central Parliament from which they are completely divorced?

You would make one Bantustan of the entire South Africa.

I hope the hon. the Chief Whip is also going to take part in this competition. Please, I should like to see his nice drawings. He can draw well. Let him sketch us this plan of his independent Bantustans. Let them tell us, too, since they are asking us, what powers they are prepared to give their own Bantustans today. One small question to the hon. the Minister: Is he prepared, for example, to give the Department of Immigration to the Transkei Government today? Is he prepared to give the Department of the Interior, with the full powers they have with us, to those eight states? They ask us the questions, but after 25 years of rule he cannot even answer that question.

May I ask a question? May I ask the hon. member whether their policy is an old one or a new one?

Sir, the basic principles of our policy are as old as the truth, but the machinery we have is as new as the Concorde! But I am still waiting to hear from the hon. the Minister: Is he going to give us a sketch? Is he going to transfer the Departments of Immigration and the Interior? After 25 years they do not know the answers. They do not know what their policy looks like. But now they have a chance to show it to the country and to the people. The Press is anxiously waiting for the sketch we are going to get tomorrow, for the sketch similar to this one of the U.P.’s federation plan, which I have in my hand. [Interjections.]

The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? Can he tell us where he is going to get buyers for the Concorde?

Sir, our machinery, our policy, is as modern as the Concorde; there will be many more buyers for our policy than for the Concorde, and there will be many buyers less for the old midge-plane policy they have today.

Sir, I was particularly surprised to hear the speech of the hon. member for Wonderboom. We know that the hon. member for Wonderboom was once a mediator for South Africa at the United Nations. We supported him and the team there, and also at the World Court.