With your leave, Mr. Speaker, I should like to table two reports, and at the same time, also with your leave, I should like to say a few words about them.

Sir, you will remember that at my suggestion Parliament appointed a parliamentary commission last year, consisting of Messrs. Kruger, Cadman, Engelbrecht, Janson, Le Grange, Murray, Nel, Schlebusch and Steyn, to inquire into the activities of certain organizations. Mr. Kruger and Mr. Janson subsequently withdrew, as did Mr. Cadman, and in their place Mr. Morrison, Mr. Van der Walt and Mr. Sutton were appointed, and later still Mr. Etienne Malan was added to the commission. The activities of this parliamentary commission have not been concluded yet, but it has found it necessary to publish two interim reports in this regard, and those reports are the ones I am tabling and with regard to which I should like to say a few words by your leave.

In the first interim report the commission unanimously recommended that this commission be made a permanent institution, i.e. that a permanent parliamentary commission be established by statute to deal with these matters. The Government considered and accepted this report, which was unanimous, and in the course of this session legislation in terms of the request made by the commission will come before this House.

In the second instance the commission likewise published an unanimous report in respect of Nusas.

†With your leave, Mr. Speaker, and before handing in this particular report, I wish very briefly to refer to certain paragraphs in this report, a report in which the commission reported unanimously as far as all these issues are concerned. I refer first of all to paragraph 23 on page 32 of the report—

Then, further with your leave, Sir, I refer to paragraph 8 on page 4 of the report where the commission says the following—

• (a) The political policy trends of Nusas are determined and guided by a small group of activists within Nusas and is also influenced by persons outside Nusas from within and outside South Africa.
• (b) There is conclusive evidence before your commission that less than 5% of the students at English-language universities are actively associated with Nusas activities; that the leadership consequently from time to time takes extraordinary steps to create provocative situations aimed at emotionally activating the greater student body on an ad hoc basis.
• (c) There is evidence that the above-named group of activists managed from year to year to retain control of Nusas executive in the hands of their associates.

I then briefly refer to paragraph 8, page—

I then turn to the end of page 12, paragraph 14—

The effective part of the resolution reads as follows:

Therefore resolve—

And we further resolve—

This resolution was proposed by a chairman of a students’ representative council and by Philippe le Roux, Aquarius Secretary-General. At first glance it appears as if this resolution could have been moved and adopted hastily and those who were responsible for it, could possibly have acted in a rebellious spirit of the moment. In the Nusas Newsletter of 16th January, 1973, Pretorius’s opening speech at the Congress is, however, reported. According to this report it was obviously an inflammatory speech, but what particularly struck your commission was the following words in the Newsletter report—

Then paragraph 16, page 17 of the report—

*The Minister of Justice has considered the cases of the persons mentioned above, and has found that they come within the purview of the provisions of the Suppression of Communism Act, and consequently these persons will be restricted in the course of today. These steps are taken in the interests of the country, of the universities, of the students and of the parents whose children attend universities. The spirit in which I believe the Commission acted was that these interests should be served and not necessarily in the way in which it was done.

†In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, if you will allow me, I should like to refer to the issue of Dome, a student publication of the Natal University students, of the 21st February, 1973. On the front page you have the words:

And then it shows a Castro figure with a machine-gun. I quote from the final paragraph of the leader in this particular issue:

*I just want to add that the Government will under no circumstances tolerate or allow any disturbances in this regard, no matter from what direction they may come.

May I ask the hon. the Prime Minister a question? May I ask, in the first place, when the report will be available to hon. members?

The reply to that is that the report is being tabled at once and that it will consequently be available to hon. members right away. Hon. members who served on the commission already have the report in their possession.

Will the Government allow time for the discussion of that report?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is aware of the fact that the Third Reading of the Part Appropriation Bill is at hand, but if the hon. the Leader would like to have more time for discussion in this regard, I would suggest that he raise the matter with my hon. friend, the Leader of the House. I do not regulate parliamentary business and in the light of the discussion something may be arranged if it is found possible.

May I ask a question? Will the Prime Minister be willing to arrange for the terms of the restriction of these young people to be disclosed to this House as soon as possible? Otherwise a discussion will not be able to serve its purpose.

Unfortunately I do not have them at my disposal, but the hon. the Minister of Justice does. However, I shall arrange with the hon. the Minister to have them disclosed to hon. members as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Finance yesterday replied to the Second Reading debate on this Bill. I can only describe his reply as a tragedy for South Africa. The hon. the Minister of Finance is the most important man in the financial world of South Africa. He addressed the House for an hour. For a few moments he talked about gold, for 55 minutes he attacked members on this side of the House and for two or three minutes he enunciated some factors which he believed show that South Africa was now moving into an era of prosperity. Throughout the 60 minutes of the hon. the Minister’s speech, there was not one single indication of what the Government’s economic policy was going to be for 1973-’74. There was not a single reaction to the problems with which the country was going to have to deal and very quickly, problems which we raised in the Second Reading debate and in the No-confidence Debate. There was not a word from the hon. the Minister on the road he believed this country should travel following the events in Durban. There were no views expressed on the question of higher wages and the enhanced skills which must go with higher wages. There were no views on growth targets for the expansion of the economy. There were no views on the creation of greater local demand.

Were you awake when I spoke?

Well, I have the hon. the Minister’s Hansard, which I have read very carefully. I hope that, when he replies to this debate, he will tell me where he replied to the questions which I am now raising. I shall be very glad to hear this from the hon. the Minister, because I cannot find it in his reply. There was no word from the hon. the Minister with regard to the creation of greater local demand, of bigger local markets or of economies of scale with the eye on export development. There were no guide-lines for increased productivity; there was nothing said on the education and training of our reservoir of available labour. There was not a word about providing new job opportunities and adequate salaries for our Black people; there was no dynamic design to really activate the economy; there was really nothing to make the industrialist get up and go. There was a threat that perhaps foreign investors might do so if the local industrialists did not. There were no hard objectives or firm goals. Instead, what did we have from the hon. the Minister? We had the old hackneyed dissertation that incomes had risen faster than inflation. This is a dissertation which we have had in the short space of four weeks from no less than four and a half Ministers. We were told, as we are told on every possible occasion, that the growth rate of South Africa is higher than the growth rate of most countries. We were told again, as we have been told so often, that the per capita growth is amongst the top-ranking countries of the world. We were told, as we have been told so often, that most of our problems are imported and that the boom which the hon. the Minister predicted for 1972 had been postponed, but that he hoped it would be with us in 1973.

Let us look at the hon. the Minister’s speech in a little more detail. He said that my hon. Leader had made statements that over a certain period of time the per capita income in South Africa had grown by 3,4%. I presume that the hon. the Minister meant to say 2,4%. I accept that. These figures were for the period 1958-’68. Then the hon. the Minister went on to say that in the meantime other figures had become available. This is what he said: “Daarom sê ek vir die agb. Leier dat as hy van nuwer syfers weet wat beskikbaar geword het, hy in sy toekomstige toesprake van daardie syfers gebruik moet maak.” Very interesting! The hon. the Minister then produced a document called “The World Bank Atlas: Population per capita Product and Growth Rates”. The hon. the Minister then went on to say this: “Hierdie is die wêreldbank se nuutste statistiek vir die sestigerjare van 1960 tot 1969 van die per capita-groei en die bevolkingsgroei van elke land. Hier word Suid-Afrika se groei en per capita-inkomste per jaar nie as 2,4%, die syfer wat my agb, vriend genoem het, gegee nie, maar as 3,8%, ’n aansienlike verskil. Hierdie 3,8% per capita-groei van die inkomste van ons bevolking per jaar was oor die sestigerjare groter as dié van die meeste lande in die wêreld.” Then the hon. the Minister went on to say that it was greater than the United States, than Sweden, than Switzerland, Canada, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium and so on. He said it was one of the highest in the world. This is very interesting, particularly from one aspect. The hon. the Minister quoted from a document “The World Bank Atlas: Population per capita Product and Growth Rates” published by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1971. On the next page you will see “World Bank Atlas, 1971”. If you look at the following page you will see “Growth National Produce per capita, (1969)” and “Average Annual Growth Rate, 1960-’69”. But there is another publication also called “The World Bank Atlas: Population per capita Product and Growth Rates” and this one was published by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1972. On the next page it says “World Bank Atlas, 1972”. On the following page it says “Growth National Product per capita at Market Prices, 1970” and “Average Annual Growth Rate, 1960-’70”. When we look at this document we find some very interesting things. You see the 1960-’70 South African growth rate per capita was only 3% as against the 3,8% the hon. the Minister gave the House yesterday. The per capita increase of 3% per annum for that period was lower than that of the United States which was 3,2%, lower than Sweden which was 3,8%, it was lower than Canada which was 3,6%, it was lower than Denmark which was 3,7%, it was lower than Australia which was 3,1%, it was lower than Germany which was 3,5%, and it was lower than Belgium which was 4%. All figures given by the hon. the Minister yesterday had been higher than our growth rate in South Africa. And so I could go on. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister took a schedule out of this publication for 1971 and used certain figures. I have used exactly the same schedule brought up to date and used exactly the same figures. [Interjections.] Population need not come into the argument. The hon. the Minister advised my hon. Leader that if in future he was going to use figures, he should use the most up-to-date figures. I give the hon. the Minister back the words he used to my leader in exactly the same form—

The hon. the Minister then went on to talk about the question of devaluation. There are certain things we can accept. I think we can accept that South Africa devalued in December, 1971, by 12,28% I think it was—the hon. the Minister called it 12¼%—and by some 4% in October last year. That was what might be called the net devaluation; because when we floated with the pound we went down 8%, and then we went up 4%. So 4% could be regarded as our net devaluation. The hon. the Minister then gave us some figures prepared by the International Monetary Fund. According to these figures, the overall devaluation throughout the world in December, 1971, was of the order of 12%. When we devalued in October by 4%, many other countries devalued as well—the hon. the Minister told us—so that this October devaluation was in effect equal to only 1%. Then the hon. the Minister made the statement that when you took all these devaluations and the revaluations of the various countries together with the volume of our trade with them, then the devaluation after October was not 16%, but “presies 13%”—those were the hon. the Minister’s: words—and that since the further devaluation of the dollar our devaluation of the rand was 9%. These are interesting figures, but I think they do require some clarification by the hon. the Minister. You see, if you look at the figures which were published last Friday by the merchant banking firm of Outwich, you will find some interesting facts as well. They have two columns here titled, “Parity change against the rand as percentage of current parity” and “Effective change against the rand as a percentage of current trading rate”. Now we find that for the U.K. under the second heading there is a minus 0,68. The figure for Australia is plus 24%, Austria plus 18%, for Belgium plus 19%—this is against the rand—for France plus 14%, for Germany plus 21, for Israel, who went the other way, the figure was minus 15% and for Japan plus 32%. That has been the difference between the two currencies. So we can go on right down to Sweden, Spain, Norway. Portugal and then Switzerland at plus 27,55%. In an analysis of all these figures, we are better off than the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Israel and Malawi; but we are worse off than all the other countries in the world. Now the question is this—I would like an answer from the hon. the Minister, and it is a technical question—in these estimates of the hon. the Minister of the effective realignment of the rand, have the changes in currency values been weighted by the proportion of our trade with the countries involved? This is the crux of the matter.

Yes.

The hon. the Minister says “yes”; therefore there is merit in the figures he has given us. Today our net devaluation—if I can call it that—in relation to all currencies is 9%.

The weighted net devaluation is now 9%.

That is very interesting. You know, we hear one thing constantly from our hon. friends on the other side, namely that we are importing inflation, that because of our devaluation, we are importing more inflation. We have been under a misapprehension of the rate of our devaluation on a weighted overall basis. The hon. the Minister tells us it is now 9%. Surely this must affect the question of the importation of inflation, and therefore we expect inflation to decrease in the very near future. The hon. the Minister nods his head in the right direction, so we hope it is going to take place.

There are two other points on devaluation which I want to mention. Firstly, I am sorry to have to say this, but I have never congratulated the hon. the Minister on the success of devaluation. What I have done, and I am happy to do it again, is to tell him that we share in his satisfaction with the improvement in our balance of payments and the wonderful improvement in our reserves. We are as happy about that as he is. Secondly, I have never said that devaluation was not necessary.

No, you did not say that.

Well, probably by mistake you included me with one or two other members. You did say: “The hon. member for Parktown …” I have never said so, and the hon. the Minister accepts that. What I have said is that only one of the three objectives of the hon. the Minister which he hoped to achieve from devaluation has in fact been achieved, and that we have made very little progress indeed towards a more rapid rate of growth or towards the curbing of inflation. These were the hon. the Minister’s other two objectives and, as he quite frankly said yesterday, he was not satisfied with the progress which had been made. I have also said in this House—and I have not changed my mind—that it was the mismanagement of the economy of this country that led to devaluation. That is the point.

The hon. the Minister also discussed growth. It seems that our growth rate for 1972 was a little less than 4%, if I understood the hon. the Minister yesterday. We had hoped that it was going to be a little more, but apparently it was a little less. But the hon. the Minister not only seems to be satisfied with this growth rate of just under 4%; he seems to be quite proud of it. The hon. the Minister is very fond of quotations. I am afraid that I have a little quotation for him: “Pride goeth before a fall.” The E.D.P. required a growth rate of 5,5%. The hon. the Prime Minister set his target last year below the E.D.P. projection. He wanted only 5%, and we have not even made 4%. Then the hon. the Minister proceeds to read us a lecture on how well we are doing, and his whole case is based on what is being done in other countries in the world. Mr. Speaker, I really believe it is time hon. members on the other side of the House started taking this question of growth seriously. It is far too serious a matter to simply deal with by means of statistics and figures. The hon. the Minister told us that certain countries had done worse than we had done, and had had a growth rate of less than 4% in 1972. He mentioned the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, West Germany, etc. Now these are very old-established countries. It is more difficult to provide growth in an established country because of the circumstances than it is in an undeveloped country, or a semi-developed country, as we are, if you take our population of 22 million as a criterion, and the development that goes with that 22 million. These old countries have already established their bases; we are still busy establishing ours. I want to ask the hon. the Minister another question: Why did he not take Canada which had an increase in its growth of more than 5% for 1972? Why did he not mention France, which had a growth rate of between 5% and 6%? Why did he not mention Switzerland, which had a growth rate of 4¼? Why did he not mention the United States, where the growth rate was about 5¼%? Why did he not mention Spain, Portugal and Greece? All of them had greater growth rates than we had. No, the hon. the Minister picks out of a hat a few countries that suit him, and a few statistics that are in his interest, and then gives them to the House. There is an old saying that statistics are to a politician as a lamp-post is to a drunk, something to hang on to when you are in trouble, and this is the kind of statistics we are getting.

Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, what is the value and what is the purpose of an economic development programme if we are not going to be concerned whether we make the target or not? What is the purpose of the hon. the Minister of Planning and his experts sitting down and making projections if, after these projections have been made, we forget all about them and if, although we fall 20% or 25% below these projections, the hon. the Minister of Finance comes along to the House and says that everything is fine? What is the purpose of it? Are we to accept that all this fanfare that we had about the new 1972-1973 E.D.P. target is just a lot of ballyhoo, that it has no meaning, that people are not to take it into account, that they are not to be concerned with it, that they are not to base their expectations on it, that it is a target that we are not going to meet in our economy, that it is a target that our economy is not going to be geared to meet? Sir, is the hon. the Minister not aware that a 4% growth rate will lead to a degree of unemployment among our Black people which can be potentially dangerous to South Africa? Because if he accepts that—and the hon. the Prime Minister accepts it—then he cannot be sanguine about a 4% target having been achieved and come to this House and tell us that we are doing better than other countries in the world, because that is not the issue; the issue is what is our requirement, and our requirement is set out in the E.D.P., and this is what we are not meeting. Sir, I am amazed that my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, should show so little concern at last year’s growth and the growth rate of the year before and the year before that because we have had three years now of insufficient growth to meet the needs of a developing South Africa. I think the hon. the Minister would do better to say to the House and to the country, “We have not achieved what we need; let us all put our shoulders to the wheel and achieve what is necessary,” instead of giving us a lot of figures which are really of very little importance to us.

Then, Sir, the hon. the Minister moved on to some very dangerous ground indeed. He said that the hon. member for Constantia had said that another reason for the lack of investment in the private manufacturing sector was that investors feared that we would again experience the old bottle-necks when demand picked up. The hon. the Minister went on to say that he could not quite understand what the hon. member for Constantia meant when he talked about these bottle-necks. Let me help the hon. the Minister. What the investor fears is that if consumer demand should increase to any real extent, the existing spare capacity will soon be taken up; that any spare skilled labour will soon be absorbed and that then we will again have a shortage of skilled labour; that there will then follow more wage demands; that the result will be that prices will again rise; that money will become scarce again; that this will lead to high interest rates; that we will move into another era of higher inflation; and that then we will have the hon. the Minister coming to the House and telling us once again that we have to damp down the economy. This is what the hon. member for Constantia means when he talks about the bottle-necks which we experienced in the past and which could bring us back to the famous square one unless we do the things that have got to be done to adjust the basic problems in our structures. It is a cyclical process, Mr. Speaker. But the trouble is that the cycle seems to be getting smaller and smaller, and whereas before we had fairly long periods of time to overcome the problems, we are now having shorter and shorter periods of time. Sir, when we talk about consumer demand, I want to ask the hon. the Minister very seriously: Was he in earnest when he talked about the public not buying because they are afraid of being exploited? This is a very serious statement indeed, because it is accusing a lot of people of a lot of things. You see, Sir, if it is correct that the public is being exploited then certain hon. Ministers on the Government benches are not doing their job. We have price control. What is price control for? We do not believe in overall price control any more than the hon. the Minister does, but when a Minister of the Government says the public is being exploited, surely then it is the duty of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs to be advised of this exploitation and to see that this exploitation is put a stop to? Surely this is part of the function of government, or is it just to give us meaningless statistics?

The hon. the Minister must also not contradict himself. He said in his speech yesterday—

We are; we are very interested—

Then he went on to say—

I do not find any misunderstanding; I find a complete lack of understanding, because I do not know what the hon. the Minister is getting at, particularly when he goes on to say this—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister a few pages before told us how good things were, how everything was fine and how money was pouring in. I think I want to put it as kindly as I can. If this is what the hon. the Minister really believes, then he confused the public very considerably in his Budget speech last year when he came out with an optimistic forecast of what was going to take place. The hon. the Minister has to do a lot better than this. The hon. the Minister must put some meaning into his speeches. He must give the country a lead. We look to the hon. the Minister for direction. I tell him that openly and frankly, that we look to him for direction. He is the Minister of Finance of South Africa. He has to be our guide and mentor on these issues. In his hands is the key to the economic future of South Africa. His optimism is not going to get South Africa anywhere unless it is backed by realistic action, realistic action of which we have had much too little. The hon. the Minister is going to present his Budget in about a month from now. Let us hope to goodness that on Budget day we will see some action from the hon. the Minister and the Government.

Mr. Speaker, among other things the hon. member told us during the Second Reading, referring to certain statistics which were quoted, that he did not know on what basis those statistics had been determined. In my opinion, he implied thereby that the statistics were based on unreliable formulae, and then I am putting it euphemistically, but to put it at its worst he implied that those statistics had been manipulated. Sir, this is a very serious charge which is being made against the hon. the Minister and the officials concerned, and I am convinced that that hon. member would like to remedy that matter. But on that occasion he also implied that we who believed these figures supplied by the Department of Statistics are strangers in this country. But now I should like to inform the hon. member for Parktown—if he would gave me his attention I could reply to him on the points he raised—that he is a stranger in Jerusalem, in this country. He took half an hour to tell us how badly things are going in this country. He took three of the objectives of the hon. the Minister of Finance in the 1971-’72 Budget, namely, in the first place, the augmentation of our reserves. He said that the hon. the Minister had succeeded in that. At least he was grateful enough to tell us that. He said further that the growth picture looked very unfavourable. He wanted to imply that we should take no cognizance at all of the fact that our balance of payments would have a direct influence on our growth pattern. He did not want to admit that these stimulants now being applied to the economy by way of major salary increases, could lead to there being a greater demand for the products of our industries and that our industries would in this way be encouraged to produce. He does not acknowledge that pattern. He wants a damping influence to be applied to the country’s economy, for then of course they could say that the hon. the Minister of Finance was wrong concerning the second part of his approach to the 1971-’72 Budget, namely to stimulate growth. The hon. member, I think, was a practitioner at one stage. At this stage, however, he is very far from being that. I want to tell him to his face that he has no contact with the business world. I want to tell him to his face that if he does have contact with the business world and still says these things in the House, he says them with the object of doing South Africa harm and prejudicing our growth. I would like to quote him just one practical example. Mr. Tom King, the deputy chairman of the board and managing director of Stewarts and Lloyds, according to a report in the Sunday Times of 11th February, 1973—I know that the hon. member and the Sunday Times are not on speaking terms, but I shall take it that the hon. member does in fact read the Business Times section and I do not think that he will mind listening to this—said the following—

But the hon. member did not hold up a pleasant, optimistic picture of South Africa and its economic condition to us; he pointed a very black picture. I must say that that is strategically weak of the Opposition. They have still not learnt after 25 years. Do you know what they should have done? They should have outbidden us with a future pattern of optimism and anticipated prosperity. That is what they should have done; then they would have done the right thing, because then they could perhaps have said that they had hit the bull’s eye—no, not perhaps; they could definitely have said that. However, the hon. member chose not to do that. I want to state that with this conduct we have over the past 25 years been experiencing and witnessing a form of economic sabotage; recently the same thing has been discernible in this House. I want to put it to the hon. member that they should get away from the old idiom, the idiom of stagnation to which they have become accustomed. They must take cognizance—the hon. member for Turffontein is not here—of what young South Africa, and by that I include all those who are young in spirit and optimistic, expects of South Africa. That is, a fearless approach to the future and an acceptance of the challenge that by the end of the century we must make South Africa an industrial country of significance in the world. That is what that hon. member will not and cannot accept, because it does not suit his line of political thought. I maintain—I shall come to that in a moment—that the time has arrived, as the events of the past few weeks in the political sphere have also confirmed, that the Opposition will have to effect a total change in its pattern of thought in the political sphere in general and in the economy in particular.

But now you are echoing the Sunday Times.

I shall attempt to substantiate that in a moment, but I just want to tell the hon. members that if, 25 years ago, they had broken with the Sunday Times and with those newspapers which have attacked and cast suspicion on this side of the House, if 25 years ago, they had broken with the Rand Daily Mail and with those which preceded them, they would have been doing South Africa a service. They are only coming right now.

We broke with them a long time ago.

Only now, after 25 years, are they perhaps on the right course in regard to the economy, but then the hon. member must stop painting his black pictures and try to outbid us in regard to the true picture of future prosperity.

The problem we have to contend with, that of inflation, is a world-wide one; it is a phenomenon which apparently is to be debated later this week by way of a motion. Therefore I do not wish to anticipate it. I have here in my hand an article under the headline “Inflation: Sad story is worldwide”. Then this follows: “Inflation is the big worry of 1973.”

What are you reading from?

I read this article in The Star. Do the hon. members accept it? I do not know whether it accepts you. The other document. I can tell hon. member, was the Business Times. Does that shock you? This is not what the Business Times says; it comes from the president of the International Monetary Fund.

Is that the Business Times of the Sunday Times?

Before devoting more attention to the hon. member for Parktown, for I see the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is not in the House at the moment, I should like to have a question on record. The question is this: In his speech last Friday the hon. leader said with reference to a question on how representation in the federal council would be granted—

Earlier he had said—

“The contribution of each group” means just that and it implies further that it is not the contribution of a district or a region. Now I want to say to the hon. member for Orange Grove today that it is my impression that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made a slip of the tongue. I shall now return to the economic situation. The hon. member for Orange Grove must now tell me whether he is in fact contradicting his leader. In the no-confidence debate that hon. member put their federal plan more clearly than all the other hon. members on the other side of the House and he did so in the most intelligible manner. Because there were so many occasions on which this policy was in fact explained and because there was such great scope for confusion, and this was indeed the case, I have tried to confine myself to the most recent statement on their policy. It was in that speech made by the hon. member for Orange Grove. That hon. member referred to the composition of the federal council and said that it would be constituted according to what each federal unit contributes to the country in general. He said—

Then, a few columns further, he explained to us what he meant by that (Hansard, Col. 339)—

The hon. member’s reply was—

Now I should also like to have the attention of the hon. member for Parktown. I maintain that as a result of this criterion which is written into the United Party’s policy, their approach to debates on the economy will have to change in the future. If the hon. members for Parktown, Constantia and Gardens were to test themselves, they would find that their approach to our economy was completely centred around and based on the economy of White South Africa, and what the non-White worker means to that economy. They may consult the debates. The point is that we have come to the crossroads concerning our approach to the economy in this House, and that is that if those hon. members wish to maintain a semblance of integrity, if they accept the reality of their policy, they must have a totally different approach to the development of the homelands. Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity of telling the hon. member for Pietersburg that I intend making use of some of his ideas, but on an earlier occasion he did ask in this House for the gross domestic product of each homeland to be calculated. If I remember correctly, that thought went no further on the opposite side of this House. That is precisely what those hon. members will have to take into consideration when participating in future debates in this House. If they are sincere towards the Bantu of South Africa and if they want to prove to the world that their party is what it sets up to be, they will have to try to effect a maximum increase in the gross domestic product of each homeland. That can only be effected if that party no longer has arguments with us in this House on the principle of the development of the homelands; they will have to discuss the rate of development with us and they will have to compete with us to attract the maximum number of entrepreneurs to the homelands. That is the outcome of the policy of those hon. gentlemen.

(Inaudible.)

The hon. member for Orange Grove need not answer me now. He may go and think about that at his leisure because this is a tough nut for them to crack. I realize it; this is the crossroads for them. The hon. member should consult with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

Give us a sketch of your policy.

When the hon. the Leader of the Opposition expounded the basis on which the proportional representation would be determined, he spoke in an idiom which amounts to the fact that the party still clings to its old race federation, i.e., the representation of a particular group. The hon. member for Orange Grove may go and contemplate this point at his leisure. In respect of this point they owe South Africa an answer. He must come and tell us whether the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made a mistake or whether he is correct. It stands on record that the hon. member for Orange Grove spoke of homelands—a term of this side of the House. The hon. member is on record as having also referred to the way in which this calculation would be made. He said, and I quote from Hansard of 9th February, 1973, col. 339—

He admits therefore that it is a difficult question—

The hon. member says “unit” not “group”. The hon. member went on to say—

The hon. member went on and elucidated the matter. What then did these capable people tell them? They said, and again I quote the hon. member—

The hon. member does not say “must” …

This is again an “open-ended trust”, a back door to slip out of. You “can” do that, not “must”. I read further—

If the hon. member wishes to reply to me now, he may do so. If he has considered it at leisure, he is free to do so. However, we must ascertain from those gentlemen whether they are talking in terms of Bantu areas with fixed boundaries. I want to go further and tell the hon. member that he may go home and think about it till the day after tomorrow, but he will not be able to get out of this one. In dealing with these areas, he said firstly, “We do not wish to give representation to all eight of the present homelands”. They must be viable. His words were: “There are one or two of them which can never become independent states, let alone self-governing territories.” In other words, there are at least five which he accepts as homelands and which will have a share in the federal assembly of the future. I want to round off my statement concerning this by saying to the hon. member for Orange Grove that they must bring about a change for once and for all in this House as far as their approach to the debate on the economy is concerned.

Since I am dealing with this, I want to mention that the hon. member for Park-town asked what this side of the House had done to improve productivity. If the hon. member for Parktown will let me have his attention for a moment, I can tell him what has been done to improve productivity in the Bantu homelands. In this connection I may mention that trade schools have been established on a tremendous scale. For 1971 there was an improvement on the previous year of 67% in the training of artisan and technical staff. What of crash-training? Training is given at ad hoc schools of industries. There are factory operators who receive crash-training at various centres. In both the field of trade and the academic field, tremendous progress has been made. But let us look at the question of crash courses at ad hoc schools of industries. In this connection training is given in welding, woodwork, bricklaying and plate metal work. This is done at Babalegi, but this kind of training is being extended to Richards Bay, East London, Rustenburg and the Brits area.

Before resuming my seat, I should just like to put a question to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, now that he is in the House: During the debate on Friday the hon. the Leader replied to a question from this side of the House and said, in persuance of the question in what way representation in the federal assembly would be effected, “We have told him it will be determined by the contribution of each group to the country generally and to the well-being of the State. In other words, he spoke here of a group, while the hon. the member for Orange Grove suggested very clearly during the no-confidence debate that the federal unit inter alia would be constituted on the basis of the contribution of each unit.

I accept the word “Group”.

In other words, we have reached the stage where the hon. member for Orange Grove is admitting that he erred in his enunciation that day in the House. The implication to be drawn from that is that the hon. member for Orange Grove misled us here about the policy of the United Party. That is what it amounts to. We thought we had made progress. The hon. member led us to believe that they accepted that five of our homelands were viable. The hon. member led us to believe that he had begun to speak in our idiom. Now, however, he comes along and once again talks in the old U.P. idiom, i.e., that of group representation. I have made my point and I think hon. members opposite owe us an explanation.

Mr. Speaker, it would seem that the Opposition will have to react immediately to the statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister earlier this afternoon on the interim report of the commission to investigate certain organizations, and especially on Nusas. Therefore I, as a member of the commission, will take this opportunity of making the attitude of the Opposition in this matter perfectly clear as far as I can. I want to say at once that this commission has been very active. The report which the Prime Minister put before the House this afternoon was not one in which the conclusions were made lightly, but after due, proper and very lengthy consideration. It may be of interest to hon. members to know that the commission sat for no fewer than 50 days, that we interrogated no fewer than 60 witnesses, most of whom had legal representation, that the evidence was transcribed on to 3 500 foolscap pages and that the documents given to us as exhibits to study, mostly publications by Nusas itself, ran into 13 000 pages. I think that would show—I want to emphasize this—that the report which the Prime Minister presented to Parliament this afternoon was drawn up after thorough investigation and full and exhaustive discussion and examination and the testing of evidence.

As a result of this work, the commission, consisting of six Government members and three Opposition members—subsequently four Opposition members—came to a unanimous conclusion on certain facts which we felt to be so important that we submitted them to the State President by way of two interim reports. I want to say at once that we of the Opposition who served on that commission, stand by the factual report before the Government. We are ready to defend it in any forum before any person interested. But in all fairness—the Prime Minister will appreciate this—I wish to make it perfectly clear that we are unhappy that the Prime Minister announced this afternoon that he is acting under the Suppression of Communism Act. I think it should be made clear that nowhere could the commission find that these activists who are abusing the organization of Nusas, had been motivated by any intention to further the ends of Communism. We cannot substantiate that. We can substantiate that they are doing things which are dangerous to the public safety and which may tend to subvert good order in South Africa and even our State, as I will show in a minute. But we could not find that they were guilty in any way of furthering the ends of Communism or that they were communists in any way; except that, by way of coincidence, we found that on more than one occasion certain attitudes and lines were taken—we did not find this, we had evidence to this effect—by the students which corresponded to similar lines taken by the South African Communist Party in London. But that could have been pure coincidence, and we are satisfied that no court of law would accept that coincidence as evidence to establish a connection with Communism. Having said that in the time available to me, I should like to deal with some of the facts that we found. I do not want to repeat what the hon. the Prime Minister stated to the House this afternoon, because on the facts we are agreed. I want to supplement his statement by giving some further facts.

The first interesting fact we found is that Nusas is a student organization whose leaders are not representative of the student body. These leaders are political activists who give support to not one of the existing political parties in South Africa, not to the Nationalist Party, not to the United Party, not to the Progressive Party and, Sir, this may surprise you, they are most contemptuous of the Liberal Party and the liberal points of view that existed in South Africa in an organized fashion in the days when that was a political party.

In other words, they are more left than even the Liberal Party.

I would not say that they are more left, Sir, but if the Prime Minister will be patient, I shall try to tell the House what they are after. The hon. the Prime Minister has studied the report; he knows. What they are after, no respectable political party in South Africa can support. I say that without any fear of contradiction. They are political activists. They are a little group of activists, many of them living together in two houses in the Cape Peninsula, which they themselves describe as communes.

Would you say they were revolutionary?

Please, my time is very limited. I beg your indulgence. As I have said, they are activists. They enjoy the support normally of fewer than 5% of the student body at the universities which they claim to represent. As a result of that—and we have evidence which is incontrovertible—they from time to time seek to create issues which will cause an ad hoc perturbance in the minds of the student body and give them apparent support on matters that are not really directly related to their aims. An example is the protests we had last year over certain aspects of education in South Africa. They did not get much support for that, but they succeeded in obtaining a confrontation with the Police, a clash with the Police. Immediately we had the most tremendous propaganda the cruelty and the wickedness of the Police, which may or may not be true. But that was not the cause that they brought to the people, and they managed to gain apparent and real support from a very wide circle of students not in regard to their education campaign and not on their policies, but on the fact that the Police beat up the students. That, Sir, is part of their programme, part of their practice and part of their scheme.

The other fact we found is that this clique—and I call it a clique deliberately—has succeeded in certain devious ways, which I hope we shall deal with in the full report, to make itself self perpetuating. We found from the evidence and from their writings that they could every year groom their successors for the next year. They could assure that even with 5% of the support of the body politic at the universities, their nominated and groomed successors would take their place each year.

The other important fact we found is that for their activities Nusas is to a distressingly large extent—the leaders of Nusas -—dependent upon moneys that they obtain not in South Africa but from countries and organizations outside South Africa.

This I hope will be dealt with fully in the report, but let me by way of illustration refer to the interim report. In the year ending 30th April, 1972, the salaries alone paid by Nusas to its officials amounted to R13 000. But the total income from the student body, from the SRCs, was only R5 300, much less than half of what they need to pay salaries only. It is interesting, Sir, that in 1972 Nusas took a resolution, of which the general body of students was not aware and of which most of the SRCs were not aware, to transfer R9 000, which they had collected overseas for their present education scheme, to general account to cover up their deficits on current account, and there is some doubt, certainly in the minds of the minority, whether they had authority from the donors, who gave the money for a specific purpose, to transfer this money to general account. It is appreciated, and it is stated in the report and it is a fact, that in order to get this money from sources overseas—and I agree with the hon. the Prime Minister that they are sources far to the left of public opinion in South Africa—Nusas has to make itself acceptable to these sources for money and they have to paint South Africa as black as possible. They even have to make the Government worse than it is in order to achieve their ends. But not only that, Sir; they pose as the champions of the oppressed and they paint a picture about oppression in South Africa which I, as someone who is known for his opposition to this Government, say is grossly exaggerated, irresponsible and contrary to the real interest of South Africa. Not only that, Sir—and this was the most perturbing aspect of this collection of money overseas, which is done every year by sending missions of student activists overseas—but in order to get the money they go to sources to which the terrorist organizations, operating in Rhodesia and against the Portuguese territories and against South Africa, also look for money. In other words, Sir, they have to present themselves as appellants for money who are as worthy of support and as activist and as effective as people who use violence, who indulge in terrorism and in murder.

What is their objective?

I am coming to that, Sir. The hon. the Minister must let me make my speech. I never help him to make his speech; it would be a waste of time, and he must just accept that it would be a waste of time for him to try to help me. Sir, this interim report is not complete. It will take us months to give a complete report, and I think it will be a most revealing report. Let me say that at the moment we are satisfied that the leaders of this body are not bona fide students; that they are political activists; that they are a clique, and in that connection I would like to draw the attention of the House to the evidence we had from a student in this matter of the tight control over Nusas by a small clique sitting in 301 Galway Street—he meant Galway House—in Cape Town. That, Sir, is an apt description of what is happening to Nusas; it is tightly controlled by a clique living in two communes in the constituency of my hon. leader … Laughter…. which just shows you, Sir—no, I will not say that.

Mr. Speaker, somebody asked me about their motives. It is very difficult to know what their complete motives are. What amazed us was the ignorance of representatives of these students about what these activists are about. We put certain pertinent questions to principals of universities, to people whose names are advertised by Nusas as their advisers but who are seldom consulted, and to the heads of SRCs. We put pertinent, simple questions to them about the use of funds, about the activities of the present education fund and other things, and on each occasion we were amazed at the abysmal ignorance of these people, who supply the money and who put these people into office, or who support them, of the real activities of Nusas.

Now, Sir, I want to come to, not their motives, but their objects, and I do not want to spend too much time on it. I would rather have an opportunity to develop an argument. But let me say this immediately: I think the evidence shows that they want an extra-parliamentary revolution in South Africa. I believe, as I have said before, that they reject Liberalism. They do not want a system were by our Black people in this country or our Coloured people or our Indian people are absorbed in the existing order even on a basis of equality, as do my friends of the Progressive Party. They want the existing order destroyed. They want the capitalist system, as they call it, to be destroyed. They want a new order in South Africa, and this is to me the worst of all, Sir, and when I resume my speech I will give you the evidence for it. They believe that a polarization between Black and White in South Africa should take place and they actively propagate and organize that the students should take the side of the Black man against the White man. I just want to say that any persons in South Africa who think that we must envisage a future where there will be a polarization, a head-on conflict organized between the Whites and the other peoples of this country, are people who desire disaster for South Africa.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 30 (2).

The House proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

Mr. Speaker, I move the motion which stands in my name and reads as follows—

Mr. Speaker, sound relationships are our top priority in South Africa. This is an axiom in every country of the world, irrespective of how homogeneous in character the population of that particular country is and irrespective of whether tensions in such countries are founded on a basis quite different from that of relationships among various nations. Even if they were founded on tensions among interest groups, sound relationships among interest groups would still be of the greatest importance in such a country. But also in the restless and stormy world in which we are living, sound relationships between nation and nation and between country and country are a matter of top priority in the international sphere. One finds today that sound relationships are succeeding between Great Powers such as the United States and Russia and even Red China. Perhaps I should say they are succeeding partly, or are in the process of succeeding. But the degree of success is based on the recognition of every nation’s right to exist, on respecting the distinctiveness of that nation. If the U.S.A. were to lay down as a prerequisite for contact and better relationships with Red China or with Russia the condition that the Russians or the Red Chinese would have to adopt the American nation’s accustomed way of living, it would definitely not have made any progress whatever. In our own case the situation is of a more complex nature than it is in any other country in the world. The composition of our population is heterogeneous, consisting of various nations who speak various languages, who have various cultures and are in different stages of development. In addition to that our country also forms a strategic point in the pursuit of power between the East and the West, and we have at our disposal some of the world’s richest mineral treasures as well as other strategic raw materials. Inevitably the southern point of Africa is increasingly becoming the coveted Naboth’s vineyard for the purposes of the communist world strategy. The strength of Southern Africa, on the one hand, to grow to the maximum benefit of all its inhabitants and, on the other hand, to ward off evil designs, is based in the first and final instance on sound inter-relationships. That goes without saying. Without such relationships economic, military, political and even mental preparedness in the world in which we are living would be absolutely impossible. Over the past few years our own Prime Minister has repeatedly emphasized this necessity in the most unambiguous terms. To refresh our memories I should perhaps read out to you, Sir, what he had to say about this matter earlier this session, during the no-confidence debate. I quote from Hansard, col. 351—

He went on to say in the next column—

I do not wish to elaborate here on how essential this is, except to emphasize that this must be our top priority in South Africa with its special circumstances. This must carry even more weight with us than does material prosperity, about which such a great deal is being said in this House and which has in the past few weeks also received a great deal of time and attention in our debates, but without sound relationships between the people of South Africa material prosperity, too, will eventually be impossible. The way in which these are to be achieved, cannot be dictated to us by pedants from outside or even by demands from elsewhere. They cannot be remedied by the pronouncements of people such as Prof. Jan Loubser or a Breyten Breytenbach; they can only be determined by our own common sense, our experience of Southern Africa and its people, the sincerity of our Christian ways and the will of our hearts.

In the discussion of my motion I therefore want to confine myself to the alternatives. I have said that various nations within the borders of South Africa are a fact. That they are thrown together at present under one administration within one State, is a legacy from the imperial era. I want to make the statement that in order to reach our destination meaningfully via sound relationships, we need not accept that unitary state as the basis of our approach. This is a mistake which was often made in the past elsewhere in Africa and also elsewhere in the world and which upset relationships among various nations living within such borders. I believe that the maintenance of the identity of each nation, the necessary respect for it and steps to promote it, form the only basis for the perpetuation of sound interrelationships. Therefore this comprises, in the first place, the perpetuation of the national pride of each nation, of its language, of its traditions, its desire for self-realization in the form of self-government and eventually independence, and also that leaders be produced from its own ranks. It comprises the fostering of neighbourliness and it comprises material, educational and other forms of assistance by the more advanced White nation to the underdeveloped Black and Brown nations. It comprises in our own ranks, those of us as Whites, the curbing of selfishness. In my opinion these things form the basis of the National Party’s approach to our population situation in South Africa, one that has it origins in the soil of Southern Africa and takes into account the realities of our experience here and elsewhere in the world. If one individual is disparaging or rude to another, it is bad enough. It creates personal tensions between the two of them. If one nation does this to another, it is so much worse; it creates tensions leading to a rivalry for power. The recognition and perpetuation of the identity of various nations are basic to sound relationships, but these are not attained by scolding when criticism may sometimes be necessary in cases where, in the evolutionary process of emancipation, progress is not rapid enough or even where mistakes are made. I regret that, whilst I also have the greatest respect for the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I have to refer to him as a person who in his speech the other day used almost abusive language in this regard. He spoke here about the official examples set by the Government in regard to apartheid measures and described these as being nothing but “White official rudeness”. He said petty apartheid was official White rudeness. [Interjections.] Someone behind me here has just said that it almost sounded like the language used by Breyten Breytenbach.

What is your explanation of petty apartheid?

On a previous occasion I have had to tell the hon. member that his language sounded very much like that of Prof. Jan Loubser. I want to repeat that I hold the hon. member in high esteem, and at a later stage I shall dilate on this as well as the standpoints taken up by him, but I believe that to promote sound relationships in the situation in which we find ourselves we should be on our guard against this kind of thing in which the hon. member indulged the other day. In advocating this, I am reminded of a young professor at Stellenbosch, Prof. Christof Hanekom, who not so long ago pleaded on two occasions that the time had perhaps arrived for us to give attention to better relationships. While addressing the Rapportryers, he asked whether it was not the task of that organization to launch a Relationships Year. I want to associate myself with that today and say that since we achieved splendid results with a Water Year, with a Tree Year and with other such country-wide undertakings, the idea of a Relationships Year initiated by the State does to my mind show wonderful promise. However, then it must not stop there; then leaders of our Black and Brown nations within South Africa should also join in so that it may become a joint effort which may be arranged between these people and teachers and officials by way of conferences, by way of meetings of a cultural nature. At such venues the message can be conveyed positively, the message of how much value there is in the promotion of sound relationships, relationships created through the retention of identity and through respecting various national groups. While I want to refer to the alternative of the National Party’s approach, which I have outlined in brief, I want to say that the dilemma of the Opposition which over the past week or so has been publicized in the Press in such unsavoury terms—unsavoury for them—proves that the Opposition, the United Party, is in two minds. On the one hand there is, wittingly or unwittingly, recognition of the fact of the existence of various nations within South Africa. This has even found expression in their new formulation of policy. In that formulation of policy provision is now being made for legislative assemblies for the Coloureds and for various Bantu groups, although the borders will not always be defined around the specific nations. Provision has even been made for legislative assemblies for the Indians. On the other hand they are adhering to the old imperial approach of one power structure over various nations, of the attempt to make one nation out of quite dissimilar nations and thus ignoring the national aspirations of each. This is the dilemma of that party which has over this past week found expression in, for them, such unsavoury terms. In a previous policy statement of theirs, in 1967, reference was made to a policy of race federation. Now it is only called one of federation. After the remark I addressed to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout a moment ago, I now want to give him credit for the fact that in that party he, to be specific, is thinking in terms of nations in their own right, that the one will not dominate the other. In having propagated that idea so positively, he picked up problems with his own party. The dilemma of that party is that it does not want to abandon its old imperial approach.

The Progressive Party’s approach completely ignores the existence of various nations. I therefore do not wish to elaborate on it. Ostensibly merit is all that counts. Applied in practice this can eventually lead to one thing only, namely that it is material means which are going to count and which are going to bring us in Southern Africa back to the world-wide conflict between the rich and the poor. This is a false foundation for population relationships, a foundation which does already carry within itself the germs of steadily increasing conflict.

However, if we are honest in our belief that this is our course, the one of recognizing the identity of separate nations and of sound relationships among them, the necessary must be done for implementing it. It goes without saying that one cannot always progress at as rapid a rate as one has set oneself as an ideal, for in the implementation one encounters practical problems, but there are certain things with which we as Whites will have to help to provide the non-White nations. While saying this, I want to emphasize that the leaders of non-White nations should also start taking an initiative of their own in building up a pride of their own. They should not merely sit and wait for what is going to be done on the part of the Government, the authorities or the Whites. They themselves must do something too. There are individuals who find it so easy to blame the Government for certain bottle-necks in the implementation of this process of sound relationships, and to blame the Government for the lack of facilities. I want to grant that a lack of facilities is probably to be found here and there, but there was a stage when there was also a lack of facilities for us. However, I want to sound a warning in this regard and say that this is being done by way of reproaches in regard to individual incidents, as was done by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I do not wish to tire the House by reading out again what was said by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but surely this is the kind of thing which is bruited abroad against South Africa as an interpretation of the country’s and the Government’s standpoint which is simply not true. After all, this borders on what the hon. member for Yeoville said a moment ago about what these activists were doing in order to obtain money abroad. This does not mean that I want to accuse the hon. member of that, but one has to be careful with the way one expresses criticism. We on this side of the House could just as well have said to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition the other day: “But should it then be laid at the door of this Government if a representative of your party in Natal did not deal very courteously, to put it mildly, with a non-White worker?” Is it then to be laid at the door of the Government if, on a certain occasion, people in a small local community somewhere in the North-Eastern Transvaal do not want an Indian doctor there? Should we not rather, each of us, search our own hearts and, on our own level, remedy what has gone wrong?

But it is official policy.

The hon. member says it is official policy, but I want to ask him by name to refrain from stealing a march of this nature whenever the temptation to do so presents itself, because this will eventually do our country harm. The statement was also made here that the hostility abroad had increased as a result of the so-called petty apartheid. It was also said that as a result of it the policy of dialogue was not making sufficient progress in Africa. I do not want to elaborate on that; that will be discussed by one of my colleagues, but I just want to say that in a discussion of this matter we must also retain our perspective, that we must remember that these onslaughts, which are sometimes of a violent nature, are directed at White rule in South Africa, White rule over other nations. It is not directed at the things mentioned by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. As long as there is adherence to the idea of a unitary state in which various nations cannot ultimately reach the stage of self-realization, so long will the onslaught against South Africa continue.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is one of us in the House who does not agree with the hon. member for Stellenbosch in regard to the urgency with which he deals with the subject of sound race relations in this country. I think he has given us an opportunity this afternoon to discuss by way of a private member’s motion, a matter which is paramount in the minds of most South Africans today even more so than before. He has rightly emphasized the necessity, firstly, of good relations between State and State, that we in South Africa have to deal with the more difficult relationships of human being with human being within the borders of one country. I therefore propose to go a little deeper into the subject within the time at my disposal and to raise certain matters on which I think there are grounds for agreement between the Government and ourselves and where there are spheres of differences which exist between us. I believe this also gives us an opportunity this afternoon to examine the philosophies of the Government and ourselves in the matter of race relations. It gives us an opportunity to examine some of the many differences and difficulties which I believe are in the minds of people in South Africa because of the use of terminology without the explicit equivalent in the other language, an equivalent for the words which are being used in either English or Afrikaans. I believe there is also time to examine whether we can go on seeking to establish sound relations in this country by using slogans to attempt to convey a philosophy. Hon. members opposite know that over the 25 years which have passed, various names have been used to try to describe the philosophy of that side in relation to race relations—apartheid, separate freedoms, separate development, for the Coloureds it is parallel development, multi-nationalism, and so on. None in itself is sufficient to explain the real basis of the relations of man to man within the framework of that particular concept.

I believe that those expressions also meant different things in the minds of the persons who were actually using them, and perhaps conveyed different interpretations. So I believe we must not get bogged down in language at a time when there is an ever-increasing urgency to clarify our attitudes in regard to our human relations in this country. As an example: There are many aspects of apartheid—the hon. member for Stellenbosch has mentioned some of them this afternoon. He himself by implication regards as a petty action the case of a town, he said, in the North-Eastern Transvaal, refusing to allow an Indian doctor at some function. But there are so many of these acts done in this country which are hurtful and insulting to the individual and to the collective dignity of so many of the peoples in this country because they are applied solely on the grounds of colour and for no other reason. There is a type of discrimination which I believe is becoming more and more unacceptable to more and more people in South Africa. I believe it is clear that this type of discrimination is becoming a source of embarrassment to the administration of Government departments by this Government at the present time. Those embarrassments arise over and over again on the question of permits and so on, which have to be granted according to law, and because of changed approaches which are adopted and the irreconcilable decisions which are made on matters which are not really very important for the future welfare of South Africa. These actions are being questioned. We have the refusal of visas for people to come here—I do not have to mention their names; they are known to hon. members—and the following year they are granted. The initial refusal was a petty act which was not necessary and is causing confusion in the attitudes of our people. Therefore, I wish to say this afternoon that I believe that the mere maintenance of the identities of the various peoples who comprise the population of the Republic, does not in itself provide for the future of this country of ours. I believe that emphasis on the fact that there are differences between such peoples does not provide an answer to intolerance between peoples, one towards the other. Nor will such emphasis create and maintain sound relationships. On the contrary I believe that acceptance of the fact of ethno-cultural differences and respect for those differences, is only one of the basic factors upon which sound relations may be achieved and maintained.

Let me elaborate, Sir. We in South Africa are a plural society. Our population is composed of various identifiable elements, communities, peoples and nations, whatever you wish to call them. There are identifiable groups which comprise the population of South Africa, and no name whether it is “nation”, “people” or “community”, can be applied to each one of those particular groups. Let us take, for instance, the White people in South Africa. We have to a great extent English and Afrikaans-orientated groups within the White population of South Africa. They have differing cultural backgrounds and differing emphasis on language; but they have an indivisible loyalty to South Africa, because they form part of the South African nation. They are not respectively nations or communities, but they are persons or groups of people who have this English or Afrikaans-orientated background. It would be foolish and hurtful for any one section or language group to deny the identity, culture and language of any other population group in South Africa. I believe that with this mutual respect and out of this common nationality and loyalty, there is developing in South Africa a broader South Africanism, where we are prepared to accept both languages and cultures, as well as a broader public opinion, which is unable to support any approach aimed at separateness or exclusiveness for any section of our population in South Africa.

We must also accept that cultural and language differences exist between the various ethnic groups, customs and languages which are maintained and practised in the homelands of the various ethnic groups. But those language identities and cultures become clouded and dimmed when it becomes a question of looking at the urban Bantu population in South Africa. I know there are differences of opinion on this matter. I sincerely believe that those ethno-cultural habits and languages become dimmed and dulled when once these people become part of the urban Bantu population, namely the eight million who reside within the boundaries of White South Africa. I believe that being a plural society, the future of this country lies in the choice of one of three alternatives. Indicative and inherent in the motion of the hon. member for Stellenbosch, is the recognition of separate identities. And if there are separate identities within the framework of one state, then we have one of three future courses to adopt.

The first would be that the entrenched power of the Whites must be maintained for all time to dominate the other peoples and communities. The second would be a struggle for power which will develop between the component parts of the population of this country; component parts of our society will compete with one another for power, and this course will be disastrous to South Africa. The third, which I believe is our duty and obligation to find, is a basis for co-operation, a basis which, while recognizing the ethno-cultural differences, also recognizes the individual dignity and the collective aspirations of each community that forms part of the population of South Africa. That is the great problem before us in South Africa. We must establish a modus vivendi for which all our people are hoping. I believe that this modus vivendi is something that must be found and which must be found quickly in South Africa. I think that this modus vivendi can be established. In order, therefore, to make clear the point I wish to make, I would like to move as an amendment to the motion of the hon. member for Stellenbosch—

Now, Sir, this amendment which I propose to develop is that this House is of the opinion that sound relationships in South Africa will be attained if the identities of the various peoples and communities are respected and recognized within a federal structure. I have said that the maintenance of the identities is in itself no answer. I do not believe that it is an answer. It is, however, a base upon which we can build and a base upon which we can found the question of our future cooperation. It is only when we recognize the identity that we also respect the individuals that form part of each of those groups. In other words, there should be respect for the dignity of the individual and the maximum opportunity for each individual to advance to the full extent of which he is capable. The Government and the Opposition agree, I believe, on one matter in so far as these groups, communities or peoples are concerned, namely that they should have the maximum control and management of those matters which intimately and exclusively concern themselves. I believe that that is basic to the philosophy of the territorial authorities and the establishment of the Coloured and Indian Councils, namely that this Government is giving to these peoples the maximum of opportunity to govern themselves in matters which intimately concern them. This is not a new direction; it has been speeded up. One knows from the history of South Africa that the Government in the years gone by commenced with this form, albeit a very halting step, in the establishment of the Bunga in the Transkei. It was an elementary step towards this basis of giving a measure of self-government to the people within the Transkei.

We have at the present time several territorial authorities and the Coloured and Indian Councils, to which I have referred. But, Sir, there the Nationalist Party policy ends. It ends on the rights and the position of the eight million Bantu people who are living within so-called White South Africa, and where they fit into this picture. We have a further problem, too, where Nationalist Party policy ends, which came from the reply given by the hon. the Prime Minister in the no-confidence debate, namely that if the territorial authorities do not opt for independence, there is no other alternative for their future association with the other groups, peoples and communities within South Africa. They must either take independence or they must stay in the position they are in at the present moment.

As I see it, it is essential that some framework must be established whereby these territorial authorities should be linked together in some manner in which they can work together and co-operate with the Whites in South Africa to the benefit of South Africa as a whole. That is what we on this side visualize as the basis of a federal scheme which we have dealt with and which we have put before Parliament and the people, which means that these elements of legislative assemblies are there as a groundwork upon which a federal scheme can be developed. We believe that it is better that that should be done than that there should be the loose attachment of these elements of legislative assemblies which exist today merely by contact with the Executive, i.e. the Cabinet individually and as individual groups and peoples.

I believe that with that linking together there must be co-ordination, which is something in respect of which we on this side differ from the hon. the Prime Minister and his party. We believe that that contact and co-ordination should not be through the Executive, but that it should be through contact with this Parliament through standing statutory committees. The territorial authorities, these legislative councils, will then have contact with this Parliament through the standing statutory committees.

Even with that maximum of co-operation and the maximum of respect for the identities of the individual groups within our population, there remains the problem of where we are to go in the government of matters which are common to the whole population. I do not think there is a South African today who does not believe that we must find a way in which we can share the responsibility with the peoples that from part of the population of South Africa in that sphere of government. I did not rise here this afternoon to say that I have the answer. I would not be so rash as to say that I have the answer. But I believe that there is a direction in the federal plan which my party has put forward which enables us to regulate and to develop the sharing of authority in those matters which are common to all the peoples in South Africa. I believe that that could develop to a federal assembly. I am not concerned this afternoon as to how one is going to elect the various members. Surely, Sir, if there is a spirit desiring co-operation in the interests of every one of our people in this country, we will be able to find a means, by consultation and agreement, for representation in that federal assembly. Sir, that federal assembly in its initial stages will create the framework, the base, for consultation and co-opération between the groups in this country. If we do not create that machinery, whereby all the ethnic groups, the territorial authorities and the homelands’ legislative assemblies, can get together and discuss matters with us and with the other peoples in South Africa, then they themselves will get together and form groups amongst themselves to deal with matters which are of common interest to them. The Transkei and KwaZulu have already talked about the formation of a group of that nature. I believe that in the interests of South Africa as a whole that movement should be directed in some way, and I believe it can be directed, if we in this Parliament can find a basis of co-operation through a federal assembly.

Sir, the introduction of a federal constitutional structure is an evolutionary process. It is not an open and shut constitution drawn up by a lawyer who says, “This is what the constitution is to be.” It is an evolutionary process in which we believe, and we believe that it is in the interest of all our people. It is an evolutionary process which will be regulated by this Parliament as to its speed and the manner of its development. Sir, if we embark upon that course, we must assume that we embark upon that course in good faith and that we are seeking to find understanding and co-operation. I want to say to the hon. the Prime Minister that South Africa is waiting for him to indicate where his policy is going to go as the alternative to independence for the homelands. How does he visualize this country of ours continuing if the Bantu peoples say that they do not want independence; that they belong to South Africa and that they want to remain part of South Africa? How is he going to deal with the eight million urban Bantu? They are here and they will remain here for their economic opportunities and for our economic benefit. Sir, the territorial authorities may opt for independence. What then is to be the position of the Coloureds and the Indians in the framework of the future in South Africa? We on this side of the House have explicitly and clearly stated that we believe that we must now set ourselves on a path of a federal form of government in this country, where we give individual opportunities to the individual members of all race groups to advance to the greatest possible extent of which they are capable. We believe that we should show respect to the individual members and to the human dignity of the individual members of each of the groups of our population and that along those lines we will be able to work together instead of heading for strife and conflict. For that reason, Sir, I have moved the amendment which I have read out earlier. I believe that along these lines lies the future of good relations in South Africa.

The hon. member for Green Point indicated to us that he does not believe that retaining the identities of national groups could ensure South Africa’s future; the guideline does not lie there. As far as he is concerned, as is also reflected in his amendment, the guideline lies in the direction of a federal system. Mr. Speaker, in the first big debate of this year we saw how that side of the House was searching for a policy. We questioned hon. members on that side about their policy, and we saw that they could give us no clarity about it, and this afternoon the hon. member again presents us with that policy as the course by which to ensure good relations in South Africa.

Sir, in the course of what I have to say I shall come back by way of quite a few other matters to which the hon. member for Green Point referred. I want to refer to the fact that in the no-confidence debate the Leader of the Opposition argued that Government action over the years has been circumscribed and limited by certain theories that are supposedly outworn and outdated; that there is a measure of sterility in Government thinking, and then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the following (col. 34)—

That, says the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, is a fallacy. He goes further and says—

Sir, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is correct. That is what the hon. the Prime Minister believes in. That is what the National Party believes in and that is what the majority of the South African electorate believe in. And this is not a creed exclusive to the present day; it is a creed we can trace back to 1948 and even further. But I shall confine myself to 1948, and I shall quote to you from a policy document of that year, when there was mention of policies for non-White peoples and there was talk of apartheid. The following was written (translation)—

Sir, here there is talk of national communities, talk of individual character, of national pride, of self-respect, of self-assertion, all elements which point to an individual, clearly defined identity, one can almost say an individual national colouring, apart from skin colour, and an individual national tone. The National Party can speak about the recognition of identity, about the differences between people in all the spheres of life and all its facets of expression, because the National Party, with its philosophy of life, has chiefly been carried, through the years, by the Afrikaner portion of the population, and the Afrikaner portion of the population can speak about retaining identity, because that is what its history is about, the perpetuation of a distinctive consciousness and the retention of its identity. That, the retention of identity, is the basis of its philosophy of life, and it also finds expression in its political actions. In terms of this built-in policy, the maintenance of identity, the Whites claim for themselves what distinguishes them from the others who live with them in this fatherland, whether it be historical background, standard of living, codes of living, language and other cultural products. I say that they claim for themselves a position, and they do not want themselves deprived of this, because by their own right they have honestly won for themselves a place on this soil.

But together with the Whites having claimed the things I have mentioned, there is also another very important principle that goes hand in hand with that, and that principle is the recognition of the existence of other peoples on this soil, each distinguishable from the next. This policy of multinationalism and the maintenance of identity forms one large unit. If one recognizes a people with its own identity, with its distinctiveness, one must also act accordingly and give direction to the expression of that identity. When I say this, it is not that the Whites claim selfishly for themselves to the exclusion and detriment of other national groups. In its basic philosophy of life the National Party has a national duty to the White people, but it also has an ethnic duty towards the other peoples living in South Africa and it also has an ethnic duty, if we could discuss that, towards the peoples of Africa. However, it comes back to the retention of identity. If I claim for the Whites the retention of their identity, with what that entails, I do not begrudge it to the Xhosa, I do not begrudge it to the Zulu, and I do my best to make them proud of those things, too, and I arrange public administration in South Africa in such a way that they, too, would not lose their identities. In the implementation of this policy, since it is a basic philosophy of life to us, the following comes clearly to the fore. I have just said the recognition of the multi-nationality, the diversity of peoples or nations, some of them perhaps nations in the making, but each with a distinctive nature and character. Linked to that individual citizenship, eventually also of a state, member of a group of people from whom one descends with a specific identity that distinguishes one from all the other groups that live with one. In this process one also gives those people a share in the nation-building process in the political sphere. If we investigate the National Party’s achievements, we can find a string of them to mention: The systems of administration we have established, also for the other peoples, to exercise them in government administration from the highest to the lowest level, and each time for these people in the areas where they live as well. But then those hon. members may easily say again: What about the Coloureds?

The recognition of identity is not always a matter of commitment to a land area; it is also a matter of giving people self-respect and human dignity, and truly the National Party has also given that to the Coloured community in South Africa. We did not merely use it as a political football, as has been the case in South Africa on occasions.

Do you accept our policy?

In everything, in all these expressions of life and all the processes of development, every people is given the opportunity, in its own right, to be human to the full and also to progress as a people to the highest level. What does this entail? It entails that there be recognition for what I am, for my achievements, for my abilities and for my aspirations, and under the National Party, I want to say, there has again been, as it were, a new self-discovery of peoples in South Africa with a great appreciation for what is characteristic, even though this may be small and meagre. However, self-respect was given to people and aspirations have been awakened in them. However, this is presented to us as being a fallacy, but it appears that this fallacy does have something in it, because this fallacy has already been partly adopted by the Opposition, in some respects incorporated and in other respects completely swallowed by them in their policy. I wanted to mention quite a few of these things, which have to do with the definition of an anchoring to identity in which those people opposed us in our policies in South Africa, but which they now accept: The establishment of the Republic of South Africa to identify these White people with this fatherland and to claim loyalty for this fatherland, has to do with the maintenance of identity. This they now acknowledge and they inscribe it in their policies. Separate voters’ rolls, for Coloureds as well; therefore also an acknowledgment of, and a granting to these people of an individual identity. Administrative bodies for the Coloureds? The hon. gentlemen accept this, and where we have one they even want to give two at this stage. As far as the removal of race representation from this House is concerned, this has also been taken up in their policies. They have taken all that over from us, but—and now hon. members must take note—Sir De Villiers Graaff recommends his party’s policy, and on what grounds? In the debate, to which I referred a moment ago, the no-confidence debate, he said (translation)—

“The first is that South Africa consists of peoples with various languages, cultures and technical identities …"

Are hon. members listening to what I am saying? This is already coming from the United Party. They say that people with individual identities, languages, cultures and so on are living in South Africa. The great pity now is that this is acknowledged at certain levels, while at the very next level a ceiling is placed on the possibilities each group with its identity has. They come along with a White Parliament that can for ever be the master, as hon. members said, and this includes the hon. member for Orange Grove. Here are people with an individual identity, to whom we must give the opportunity of developing to the best of their ability, but their futures and their destinies will for ever be determined by a White Parliament. That is the philosophy of those hon. gentlemen. This will cause us to have friction. The United Party must learn the lesson that one cannot stick up for and maintain the retention of identities at one level and in certain spheres, while on another level one wants to place a ceiling so that people cannot eventually develop their human capacities to the full, as this goes for the political sphere as well. The hon. members spoke of the urban Bantu. In the recent Ciskei election 9 000 Xhosa voted in Cape Town alone. This is about 50% of those who have the vote. For the coming election of the North South area, Lebowa, no less than six candidates had themselves nominated from urban areas. This shows a commitment by those people to their national group, and as far as those national groups are concerned, we must give them the full opportunity, as the National Party would like to do it along its political lines. If we analyse it, the United Party men do simply retain that old policy of theirs, the policy of “one nation, one fatherland”. In “one nation, one fatherland” the maintenance of these identities, which we are advocating today, are going to melt away and disappear. Tensions will not grow in terms of the policy of this party, that of the recognition, the maintenance and, the development of identities, and we shall have good relations between the various national groups.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Germiston has linked the present policy of the Nationalist Party to extracts from their old policy, the old policy which referred to communities of people. Then he also spoke about …

He quoted from the manifesto of the National Party.

In other words, the old policy of the Nationalist Party was one of communities of people.

It is still the same policy today.

He later spoke about separate peoples with separate constitutions. That is of course the difference.

†This is the essence of the disagreement between the Government and this side of the House. The old Nationalist Party policy recognized communities of people, which is what the amendment of my hon. colleague for Green Point does. What we have been listening to today is an unreal debate, because we are talking of the whole population of South Africa while the Government benches are dealing with a small section of that population. The hon. member for Stellenbosch, who moved this motion, and the hon. member for Germiston have dealt only with that portion of the peoples of South Africa which can be identified in Bantu homelands. They forget the existence of all the other peoples of South Africa.

I think that the motion before us and the amendment to it pinpoint the three basic differences between the philosophies of the two parties. The motion starts off by talking of the maintenance of sound relationships, whereas our amendment talks of the attainment of sound relationships. I call as a witness to show that we are correct and that we still have to attain these sound relationships—because they are not there to maintain—I call on the hon. member for Stellenbosch, who, in the year 1973, after 25 years of Nationalist rule, pleads for a “courtesy year”, as though suddenly this is some new discovery, some new vision of the Nationalist Party. Suddenly after 25 years they realize that courtesy is something that is important, something that matters.

The process of education is never-ending.

We have been talking about this for those 25 years. We have been fighting the Government over this very matter. I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister, when he stands up to speak, whether he will set an example to South Africa in keeping with those magnificent sentiments, with which we all agree, that we, the White people of South Africa, must do all in our power to remove hurtful things. I ask the hon. the Prime Minister to stand up this afternoon and to announce that in the Nico Malan Theatre, a place of culture, the Coloured people of Cape Town will be able to share in Western culture by attending. That is the sort of thing that is required, not airy phrases, not pie-in-the-sky platitudes. Let us have a deed, a gesture, to show South Africa that we, the White people, are sincere in wanting to share the Western concepts of life, the Western cultural approach to life, with people of different colour from ourselves. That would be a practical way in which the Prime Minister could demonstrate to South Africa the depth of the sincerity of the Nationalist Party in wanting to remove the things that hurt. So I say …

Who do you say must share it?

I asked that the White people, who control it today, must make it available to the Coloured people. I started with the Coloured people, but I would like to see all cultured people, Coloured, Indian or Black, to whom the stage presentations of the Nico Malan Theatre are culturally acceptable, have access to that culture. All those who have advanced to the stage where it is meaningful to them, should have the right of access under conditions which the local authority with local control may lay down. Different towns may have different rules and different facilities. The thing is that we must not shut off from people who differ in the colour of their skin from ourselves, those things which make up a civilized way of life. I have given this as one example of something positive that could be done to remove the petty hurt which certain people have to suffer simply because of the colour of their skin. This is only one of the examples I can give for attaining what I believe we have not yet attained, namely sound relationships between the different groups of people in South Africa.

The second difference which our amendment pinpoints is that, where the motion talks of “volkere”, we talk of “nations and communities”, because there are in South Africa communities which cannot be called nations. That is why I said earlier that this motion is unreal because it deals only with those who can be called nations; it excludes those who are not nations. It excludes those who, like the urban Bantu, have in many cases intermarried with other groups and who have for generations lost contact with their so-called homelands. Those communities are not catered for. The Coloured people are not a nation, but a community. The Indian people are not a nation, they are a community. The Indian nation is in India but these are Indians of South African birth or background; they form the Indian community of South Africa. This is the second difference between us, the Nationalist Party thinks only in terms of those whom they can identify as a separate nation.

The third basic difference emphasized by our amendment is that the Nationalist Party thinks in terms of the fragmentation of South Africa into six or eight or more separate states, independent, each on its own, each with its own constitution, its total independence and sovereignty. We believe that this is unrealistic; that you cannot unscramble the economic egg of South Africa and that you must look at South Africa as one geographic unit in which the peoples of different colour are interdependent, one upon the other, for their future destiny, their future welfare and prosperity and their future security. We have pinpointed again the concept of a federal structure where under all the peoples of South Africa can live together within the territory of one state whilst respecting and recognizing the cultural identity, the language identity and the group identity of nations or communities within the geographic structure of South Africa. Those are the three basic differences.

We have established the point of agreement and disagreement in other debates this session. I am not going to repeat them. I want to say this: Some of us in this House listened in the dining room of this Parliament more than a decade ago to Mr. Macmillan’s winds of change speech. There are not so many of us left who heard that speech. At the time we thought it was premature and an abrogation of responsibility. But what we have today with the policy of the Government is equally a surrender of responsibility, a surrender of our responsibility in South Africa. We who have the knowledge, the skills and the wealth, should use them for the development of all South Africa and all her peoples. That is again one of the basic differences. Our policy is to use what we have, the privileges we have enjoyed in the past, to help those who have not had those opportunities. The Government’s attitude is that of surrendering—abrogating responsibility and saying: “Here you are—‘julle eie verbrokkelde state’, what happens to you in the future, is your own business; it is not ours; we wash our hands of it.” I say that there have also been winds of change in South Africa and this illusion of the hon. the Prime Minister’s that if the Bantu homelands reject independence all will go on just as it was before, is nothing but a mirage and an illusion, because the winds of change have blown through South Africa too. Each day, each week and each month that passes, things happen which change South Africa for all time. There is a strike in Durban, this happens here, there is a speech made there. Each one of those events is changing the face of South Africa. They cannot be wiped out and the clock cannot be turned back. Winds of change are blowing through South Africa. Where the hon. the Prime Minister and his party has only one solution—“Let us cut you off, and the quicker the better, and let you sink or swim in your independent states”.—He has no answer to the winds of change which have already blown and which are going to blow in the future.

You are irresponsible.

I am dealing with the facts of life in South Africa. One reads speeches today by Bantu leaders, speeches which ten or 15 years ago would have had them locked up on Robben Island, but today it is part of a new South Africa. It is part of the change that has already come about. But, Sir, more changes are to come. Surely it is not beyond the ability of this young nation, this young country, South Africa, to find the answers, to face the issues, to adjust our thinking and to work out a way of life which will enable us to come to grips with the reality of the changes which have taken place and which must yet take place ahead.

We talk of three detailed differences; but really there is one overriding difference which covers it all. I believe that Nationalist Party policy is a form of escapism, trying to provide a moral sop to conscience. [Interjections.] Of course, there is a guilt complex—one which can only be wiped out in one of two ways: Either by eliminating the things which make one feel guilty, or by finding some big end pattern—some objective which will justify it. When the hon. member for Stellenbosch talks of petty apartheid as he did, you cannot wipe that out simply with a blue pencil. It remains, unless you get rid of it. The concept of the independent states is a sop to conscience, a camouflage to try to retain the status quo in the world in which we live from day to day. But there is no status quo left in South Africa.

I therefore want to conclude by saying that the federal proposals of the United Party are not merely a constitutional plan. They go further. They are a way of thinking, a philosophy towards the peoples of South Africa. The prerequisites to our thinking and policy, prerequisites without which we could not succeed, have been stated before. Things like security of employment for every person, irrespective of colour or creed; things like security of home life, an undisturbed home life where a man can live with his wife and children, looking upon the police as symbols of law and order there to protect him—and not as someone coming to ask for a pass or to poke under the bed for kaffir beer.

Our policy comprises the building up of a responsible class of non-Whites, of Black, Coloured and Indian in South Africa, a responsible class with a stake; the building up of a people who will be with us in maintaining stability, law and order, because they share in the benefits and in the future of South Africa. I wish I had time to deal today with the need for consultation, the need to consult daily and in every way, not as master and servant, not as Government through official channels with people or Governments, but to talk realistically, not about people, as we are doing this afternoon, but with them. We are talking about other races when we should be talking to them and with them about the things that concern us.

Our philosophy depends too on respect for the dignity of the individual. This, Sir, has been written into our policy for as long as I have been active in politics in the United Party. I remember a speech made by the late Gen. Smuts in 1948, a speech which was published in pamphlet form, in which he set out seven points. I remember very clearly the last of those seven points, which was, respect for the dignity of the individual, for the dignity of a person as a person—what the hon. the Prime Minister pleaded for here in this House. Sir, I have said at dozens of meetings that there is more harm done by a man who kicks somebody unjustly into the back of a police van for something he has not done than by all the debates that can take place in this House. Because the point of contact is where an official meets the individual. U Hulumeni (government) is not this Parliament talking; it is where the Government meets the person as an individual. We are 100% behind the Prime Minister. We agree with him 100%. We have pleaded for this for a long time, and we ask him now to take a dramatic step forward with us into the new South Africa and to make a statement which will show that on this road, which we must all walk together towards a greater destiny, he as Prime Minister and his Government will start to remove these stones over which we are constantly tripping today along that path. I support the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, after the emotional speech of the hon. member for Durban Point, which is very clearly laden with emotion for a certain occasion today, I should like to know from him about whom and about what people his White parliament, which is to be so purely White, is going to speak one day; are they going to speak to people or about people? Sir, those are stereotyped terms that simply do not hold good in this House any longer; they are stereotyped terms that certain newspapers and certain politicians on the other side of the House have regarded as being very popular in the past few months. I want to give them the assurance that they are not all that popular. One of the reasons why they are not popular is that the people who are listening to them, in their opinion, are not prepared to listen to them. The people who attach any value to their federation policy, in their opinion, do not attach any value to it. Why not, Sir? Whites and non-Whites in South Africa attach no value to the United Party’s federation policy because it is not an honest policy. That is why no value is attached to it. It is not an honest policy because what it amounts to is that a person is discriminated against on economic grounds. In other words, one’s contribution to the national income will determine one’s franchise. Sir, I want to go further. Under that party’s policy the same line will again be drawn in the social sphere, i.e. the person who can buy his apartheid will have it and the person who cannot buy his apartheid will have to endure integration. That is what the United Party’s policy amounts to. The United Party is in the position of having people in their ranks who do not, in their heart of hearts, accept that policy, and I mention by name the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. In an article in New Nation in 1971, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout very informatively and with much progressive thought in this sphere—because that is what the National Party policy is—came to the very edge of the National Party policy, and that is what he still accepts in his heart of hearts today, i.e. the acknowledgment of multi-nationalism in South Africa, the acknowledgment of the right to self-determination, the acknowledgment of the linking up of the urban Bantu with their homelands in their national context, the acknowledgment of the right to eventual independence. The hon. member also went as far as saying that actually the future ultimately lies in a confederation. The other day, in his speech here, he asked the Government: “Please carry on with what you are doing; carry on with the good work that you are doing; just do it faster and just do it faster,” and then he added one short sentence by saying: “We see that all these matters will eventually be brought together in a federal context.” Mr. Speaker, the public of South Africa no longer has any desire to listen to speeches such as the one the hon. member for Green Point made here this afternoon. It was just words and words and words.

The public no longer has any desire to listen to speeches like the ones the hon. member for Durban Point made here this afternoon. It was also just a little emotion for the occasion. He speaks about speeches which are made today, for which a person would have landed on Robben Island fifteen years ago. Sir, what nonsense is that; what irresponsibility is that!

Is that not so?

The hon. member knows very well why he said it.

Sir, I should like to come to a matter which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout mentioned here the other day to the hon. the Prime Minister. What he said was this—

As far as I am concerned, the hon. member could just as well have said he would very much like to see the Nationalists doing this, because that is exactly what the National Party is doing and is going to do. I can give the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and his party the assurance that his appeal is exactly what the hon. the Prime Minister of South Africa will do, though we do not agree with the exact words with which he stated this. But how does the National Party do these things? How does it regard these matters? In the first place, fundamentally. We are not prepared to try to approach this problem with humanistic and liberalistic answers, nor are we prepared to approach it syncretically, i.e. humanistically/liberalistically and from a Christian point of view. Our approach is, and must also be, from a Christian point of view and conviction, where it is accepted that a person’s human dignity—or, what I find to be a very fine concept, a person’s “value”, as Prof. H. G. Stoker puts it—must not be injured. This is not a matter of high-handedness, but a law of God that must be obeyed. That is our point of departure. Neither do we see man solely as an individual being, as the humanistic liberalists do; we want to state the individual and the social sides simultaneously so that the one cannot be played off against the other. That is why the policy of multi-nationality is morally justifiable, and that is why the human rights of everyone are acknowledged within their national context and within their country’s borders. It is from this point of view that what the hon. member requested should be done, is being done and will be done. It is from this point of view that the present situation in South Africa will also be approached.

But there are certain realities that must be accepted and which are certainly accepted by a large portion of South Africa’s people. Firstly that today’s reality has its origins in our history under specific circumstances, i.e. specific circumstances under which racial differences have been reduced in South Africa to colour as a pointer according to which distinctions are made. That is so. That is a reality that must be changed. It will be a slow process. It will be difficult, but it must be done. A second reality that we also accept on this side of the House, and which must be accepted in wider circles, is that our policy has developed to such an extent that a Bantu homeland may obtain its independence. The serious question that springs from this is whether we, as people, are disposed towards accommodating such a situation. That is a question that must be asked seriously today. All these fine words do not bring us to the accommodation of the situation. It is a question that the whole of White South Africa must ask itself, and which we must try to get answers for, more quickly than we perhaps think.

A third reality that we must accept is that the Western world is no longer a predominantly White world, but that Africa and South America are part of it, and that we are a part of that overall Western world. We frequently look right past this problem. The problem can therefore not be solved by a few speeches to suit the occasion, as we had here this afternoon, and by a few topical questions, in order to embarrass us, such as those the hon. member for Hillbrow asked in the no-confidence debate the other day. Those questions can just as easily be reversed. It is the easiest thing in the world to do this. Unfortunately I do not have the time, nor do I have the inclination, to come back to that level by asking those questions again. If one now thinks about the problem in this fashion, certain practical considerations come to the fore, i.e. that the National Party is realistic, realizes the seriousness of the matter and also accepts that we must adapt and fit in to a changing world, but that this must always be seen from a fundamentally Christian point of view. A serious question is, however, whether we as Whites think hard enough along these lines. Do we really aim at reflecting upon these matters and accommodating these situations? We must reflect on this, and this will not be very easy. However, we shall have to obtain a blueprint, which makes provision for the day when one of the Bantu homelands gets its independence, and which also makes provision for the position we are in in this overall Western world. We must be geared to these changed circumstances and this changed situation in time. If one comes to the more practical level, it is certainly a fact that we can profitably think of changes and improvements to the present situation and I want to mention a few of them.

It is probably not necessary that there should be difficulties, under certain circumstances, for our Coloured people to obtain accommodation when they are travelling. We are making plans in that connection. The Government will, in all probability, shortly give the necessary answers and create the necessary situations in that connection. We must also ask ourselves seriously what the position is of the non-Whites, who come to a White town during the day, as far as facilities for them are concerned, such as eating facilities, drinking facilities and travelling facilities, particularly with reference to hotels. Hon. members are so fond of talking about the urban Bantu. I wonder how many of the hon. members are really in earnest about the position of the urban Bantu. We on this side of the House have always accepted, as part as our policy, that there will always be a reasonable number of Bantu woven into the South African economy and that they will live in the White part of South Africa. We accept, after all, that those people will have to be accommodated in a humanly dignified way. Some of the matters mentioned in the course of the debate, in respect of the urban Bantu, are matters that certainly must receive very serious consideration. However, we get no further than uttering accusations by asking: What is your standpoint in respect of the urban Bantu? What provision are you going to make? It does not help trying to make a popular allegation across the floor of the House by saying: I demand now that the Coloureds should be able to make use of the Nico Malan theatre.

I think that what is rather more necessary is that we sit and think very seriously about what our position will be tomorrow or the day after in this broader, changed world into which South Africa is all the more rapidly moving. We are delightfully and blissfully living with the situation and we believe that we can simply continue on the present basis. The question of human dignity and courtesy is all a very important part of that, but to my mind the most important part—that is what we in the National Party are keeping ourselves busy with, and if the United Party is not doing so that is their affair—is that we must try to obtain answers to the situation that must be accommodated, a situation that is already staring us in the face today and will be staring us in the face tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I have been allocated a very short time in which to speak. The result is that I cannot really furnish a reasoned reply now to the matter under discussion. Therefore I simply want to touch upon a few isolated points. In the first place I want to thank the hon. member for Stellenbosch for having introduced this motion. I think it is necessary for us to discuss this problem, which is after all the predominating problem in South Africa, viz. the relations problem, with one another as frequently as possible during this session. I am also pleased that it was done in such a controlled manner. I do not take offence at the fact that he said that I used acrimonious language in my previous speech. I did. However, I want to tell you why. His Government has been in power for 25 years. That is a long time. Not only has it been in power for 25 years, but it has a powerful majority.

You were with us for a while.

Yes, that is correct. I was a member of the Government side. Surely that is general knowledge. But how much longer must we wait? Here we have a government now, and one does not know whether there will again be a government which will have the numerical strength this Government has. [Interjections.] I feel that a government which is in such a powerful position ought to be capable of doing things. I think it is time we spoke harshly, time we used acrimonious language, for otherwise the Whites will not wake up in time. For that reason I am making no apology at all, for I believe that after all these years this Government should have made far more progress towards creating better attitudes in South Africa than is the position today. What the hon. member for Potchefstroom said was also correct, I did say to the hon. the Prime Minister that I should like to see steps towards an improvement in human relations coming from the Afrikaner. I want to tell hon. members why I say this. The non-White peoples, and unfortunately people abroad as well, regard the National Party as being synonomous with Afrikanerdom. We need not argue now about how this situation developed. To a certain extent the National Party has itself been guilty of presenting itself as being synonomous with Afrikanerdom. Wherever one travels overseas, or when people from overseas visit you, you find that they confuse the National Party as a political party with Afrikanerdom as a nation. The disadvantage of this position is that the errors which the National Party make—no one on that side of the House would after all be so conceited as to say that the National Party does not make any mistakes—and everything which it does which is wrong, everything which it does which another population group regards as being to its disadvantage, is credited to the account of the Afrikaner.

So the Afrikaner is the unmannerly White!

No, give me a chance, I only have a few minutes at my disposal. From the nature of the position which I hold as chairman of the foreign affairs group of my party, I meet many visitors, inter alia, through the State information service and through the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the result of that idea that it is the Afrikaner who is governing and not an ordinary political party, is that the Afrikaner is given the full blame for everything which is wrong in this country and for all the apartheid measures which are regarded as being objectionable and oppressive.

We always had this in the past.

Oh no; there was a time in the life of the Afrikaner when he was the hero of the world. He was the hero of the world. What happened then? When did he become the “polecat”?

What about the Black Circuit?

At the time of the Anglo-Boer War; at the time of the Second World War, the South African soldier who wore the orange tab, Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking, was respected in the streets of Nairobi and even in the streets of the cities of Egypt. At that time, when a Black man saw a South African, he extolled him and regarded him as a hero. This was the case until as recently as the Second World War. These are absolute facts.

Was he the hero of the Black Circuit as well?

I do not want to reply to that nonsense.

We are coming to the Anglo-Boer War now.

The hon. Chief Whip need not agree with me. I am saying here today—this is my opinion—that it distresses me as Afrikaner that what is regarded as being humiliating to other people is credited to the account of the Afrikaner owing to the light in which the National Party is regarded. [Interjections.] I am not saying that it should be credited to their account, but I am saying that people think so; you come across this everywhere. For that reason I said in all sincerity to the hon. the Prime Minister that I as an Afrikaner …

You are no Afrikaner.

… wish to see an Afrikaner taking the lead in this matter of eliminating this misunderstanding.

We as population group, we as Afrikaner nation, have more reason than anyone else to be sensitive in respect of measures which repress what is one’s own and deny what is peculiar to one’s nation. After all, we were the first nation in Africa to rebel against imperialism. For that reason we should also be the nation that should take the lead in eliminating all forms of imperialism against the Blacks and other people. I think that the Afrikaner has a special duty to fulfil. Hon. members can make as much of an outcry as they wish. I should like the initiative to come from the Afrikaner as far as the changes which are essential in South Africa are concerned.

The hon. member for Germiston was quite justified in stating that the Afrikaner was acquainted with the identity question. Of course they are. They are better acquainted with it than anyone else. That is quite true. The hon. member is correct when he states that the Afrikaner therefore understands the problem of identity very well. Frequently we have to hear how members of the Government tell the Coloured population for example: “Look, you must uplift yourselves as the Afrikaner did.” What my hon. friend there forgets is that the Afrikaner did in fact uplift himself; but he was never separated from contact with others. Where would the Afrikaans businessman have been today if he had not acquired his knowledge of business through contact with other population groups? From whom would he have learned? From himself? I should like to hear of one example from history of a nation which uplifted itself in isolation. It is quite impossible! Where would we have been if our artists, our singers, our Mimi Coertzes had not, for example, been able to learn from the Austrians? We as Afrikaners made a name for ourselves in business life, in the arts, in cultural life because we did not isolate ourselves. We were not isolated from the English-speaking sector. There was no legislation which prohibited contact.

What are you trying to prove now?

Nor is there any need for us to be afraid. There was regular contact between Afrikaans and English-speaking persons on a free basis. There was no legislation which prohibited the one from seeing the other or which prohibited the one from doing business with the other. Yet the Afrikaners did not lose their identity. The idea that a people can work themselves up in isolation is totally impossible. This is the objection we have to the Government’s policy. The Coloured people are isolated. The Coloureds cannot go to the Nico Malan theatre. Do hon. members realize the injustice we are committing? Listen to the radio in the mornings. I seldom do but one may hear schoolchildren being informed—but of course they mean only White schoolchildren; the others are excluded—of a good opera performance which will help them in their prescribed schoolwork. It is being advertised over the radio. Yes, the White schoolchildren have that privilege, but what is the position of a ballet, a music or an art student attending a Coloured university?

How do you know …

We are in a disgraceful manner denying them the basic right which a nation should have to uplift itself.

Oh, no!

Yes, it is true! Where can he go? Why may our children have the privilege of seeing the best and not theirs? The opera house was built with money from the Coloureds as well. This makes the entire matter so much worse: In point of fact we take the money from the other population groups; we build an opera house which costs more than R8 million and then we are selfish enough to say we are keeping it just for ourselves. Our side is bitterly opposed to that. The opera house ought to be open to all. I shall go this far: If there are Whites who cannot endure this, arrange an apartheid evening once a week for this small group of apartheid people. I have no objection to that. The opera house ought to be open to all, but to begin with we can, say once a week or once a month, hold an apartheid evening for the apartheid people. But we must protest against the injustice which exists at present.

These are the only few points I wanted to reply to. We stand for what one could call an open community. We will have to make political arrangements in South Africa and on that level we are to a certain extent in agreement with the thinking of the Government, namely that we will have to get away from all forms of political domination (baasskap) of one of the other. [Interjections.] Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would not be in politics if I could not say openly that I stand for the policy of “away with domination of one by the other”.

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

No, unfortunately my time is up. I have to sit down almost immediately. As I have said, domination must go. When it comes to the question of social functions, let them be open. Why cannot they be open? The hon. the Minister of Community Development put interesting questions to me and I undertake, when I receive the Hansard, to reply to all those questions. There is just one question I want to reply to now. Every time hon. members shout out: “What about the schools?” We are a White community and within the White community there are also various identities. For that reason one can walk around in Cape Town and see an Afrikaans school here. And why should there not be such schools? My children are in an Afrikaans school. There is an English school, a German school, a Jewish school, a Greek school, and what is wrong with that? [Interjection.] Why cannot every community have its own? All we are asking is that we get away from colour and accept what the hon. member for Stellenbosch is in fact advocating, i.e. the concept of multi-nationality. After all, it is not a humiliation to an English-speaking person, for example, when I say that I want an Afrikaans school with an Afrikaans character. What is wrong with that? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with the Catholic church saying that it wants a Catholic church school which has the character of the Catholic church. All that we have to do is simply to expand what already exists within the White community so that the same attitude applies … [Interjection.] Every community has the fullest right to retain its identity, to have its own schools and to have institutions which bear its own character. I do not think anyone in the world could object to that. That is the direction in which we are moving.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the hon. member for Stellenbosch introduced this motion in the House, because it affords various members on various sides of the House an opportunity of stating their standpoint in respect of this matter. I am sorry that there was, towards the end of the debate, this unfortunate digression from the original theme with which we started this afternoon. I am sorry that I am now forced to reply to some of these matters which I do not think are really relevant to the discussion of this motion, but I cannot simply allow them to go unanswered. I consequently begin with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout knows what my standpoint is in respect of his political views. He once again made it very obvious to me—I could not but gain this impression again this afternoon—that all of us sitting in this House, on both sides of the House, may have many faults, but that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout remains the greatest political opportunist.

That is precisely what I think of you.

I shall prove to him why I say this.

I can do the same in your case.

I would find it very pleasant to discuss this with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but now I am dealing with what he said. Amongst other things the hon. member for Bezuidenhout alleged here this afternoon that the National Party was being confused with Afrikanerdom. On a previous occasion I gave the hon. member a quotation, and I can look up the Hansard reference for him again, to the effect that the only man I knew of who had ever said this in the House was the hon. member for Bezuidenhout himself. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is on record in Hansard as having said here, when he was still sitting on our side, to hon. gentlemen on the opposite side that the National Party was far more than a political party—it was the Afrikaner nation. Now he is imputing this to us.

He was very young.

But even with age he has not yet learned anything, and I think the hon. member will agree with me. The hon. member has a way of making insinuations. Take, for example, the insinuation concerning the polecat which he used here. What is the hon. member trying to imply now? The hon. member is trying to imply that it is the National Party and the National Party Government which is exclusively responsible for what the outside world thinks of South Africa.

You own newspaper said that.

No, Sir, the newspapers did not say that.

Die Burger said that.

In quite another context. I am now dealing with the context in which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred to that here. But there is one thing the hon. member for Bezuidenhout knows as well as I do. It is easy for him to go and establish this. He need only look up the minutes of the United Party congresses in 1946, 1947 and 1948 to see how those congresses consisted entirely of one lamentation after another because the Smuts Government was being denigrated to such an extent abroad as the oppressor of the Black man, as the one that had deprived the Black people of their rights in South Africa.

The Indians said that, yes.

Not only the Indians said that.

At that time we had many allies and only a few enemies.

Those same arguments which were used against South Africa and which are being used against South Africa today, were used against South Africa when the United Party was in power. The great General Smuts, who had to go to San Francisco as our representative, met with the adversity there by which we are still dogged in South Africa today. Surely the hon. member is aware of this. Surely every child in politics knows that this is the case.

But there is one thing which I cannot allow to go unanswered and which I hold against the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. In part we were discussing the same theme, viz. courtesy to one another. In what spirit did I do this? I did this in a spirit of an appeal to both Whites and non-Whites. What did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout do? He pilloried the White man as the responsible person, as the only responsible person …

The Government, yes.

… and the Afrikaner as being pre-eminently responsible for that. That is what the hon. member did. He pilloried us. Why?

That is nonsense.

What the hon. member did was of course nonsense.

Prove this to me from Hansard.

We shall come to that. I did not interrupt the hon. member when he was speaking, and I am dealing with him now. Why did he pillory the Whites and the White Afrikaner? For laws which he helped to pass, each one of them! He helped to pass them in this Parliament and voted for them. There is nothing the hon. member mentioned in that speech of his which did not become law in the years when he was sitting here on our side. Sir, can the hon. member blame me for thinking and talking about him in this way?

I do not mind.

Of course, the hon. member does not mind, for what did the hon. member want to do? Actually, he was not speaking for my benefit when he spoke on that occasion; he was speaking for the benefit of hon. members on that side in order to say: “This is your saviour standing here; can you not see him?” That was the real reason why he spoke. Sir, I shall return to the hon. member, but I found it appalling to see to what depths the hon. member could descend to procure ammunition against the White man when he even referred to nurses’ uniforms. I asked the Minister of Health to ascertain for me where the uniforms worn by nurses today originally came from. Sir, they are 30 years old.

Then it is still wrong.

The hon. member wants to reproach the Government with this. These are uniforms which he designed when he was in the United Party, which he retained when he was in the National Party and which he still has now that he is once more in the United Party, but in order to make a little political capital and to pillory the White man even further in the delicate world of nursing matters he comes here with examples of this kind, but we shall return to this later. Sir, basically it is the same uniform. The capes differ …

Why?

The capes differ because the nurses prefer to wear them like that. What is more, Sir, if the hon. member was speaking on behalf of the United Party, why does Natal also have them? This Government has no authority whatsoever over Natal’s hospitals.

Then Natal is wrong.

But this Government and the White man are being pilloried because in that way the hon. member wants to satisfy his political ambitions and because he wants to make the headlines in the newspapers the next day.

He is berating his own people.

Sir, may I say this to the hon. member now: Each of us is looking for promotion. I do not blame the hon. member for doing so, but one never gains promotion by trampling on one’s own people.

I come now to the hon. member for Durban Point. The hon. member for Durban Point was guilty of something against which I had sounded a warning on a previous occasion. We must not try to hold out promises to other ethnic groups, especially not in a country such as South Africa, while we are certain in our hearts that we cannot keep them.

Such as independent Bantustans.

No, Sir, I shall deal with that and I shall furnish the hon. member with a full reply. For what reason did the hon. member for Durban Point refer to influx control in the way in which he did, knowing full well that it is also his party’s standpoint that it wants to maintain influx control?

I did not refer to that.

Yes, the hon. member did; he is welcome to look up his Hansard.

I was referring to the security of work.

No, Sir, the hon. member referred to the freedom of movement and things of that nature, and did so although, during the mini-elections we had last year, the hon. member for Yeoville went out of his way in a newspaper article to parade it before the voters that the great difference between the United Party and the Progressive Party was that they wanted to retain influx control while the Progressive Party wanted to abolish it, and he urged the voters not to vote for the Progressive Party under those circumstances.

But hon. members on the opposite side, such as the hon. member for Green Point, to whom I listened attentively, and the hon. member for Durban Point, saw as our salvation the federal policy of the United Party, a policy, to be sure, the details of which we will not be given. These will not be given to us this year, nor the next. I am convinced of that. But I would have had respect for hon. members on the opposite side if they had followed the federal course to its logical conclusion. But my hon. friends on the opposite side are surely not following the course of federation all the way. Sir, where in the world have you ever heard of a federation which has another umbrella power over it? Nowhere among all the political systems of the world—and you can travel all over the world, as the hon. member for Hillbrow did—will you find a federation which has an umbrella power over it, and, what is more, an umbrella power consisting of members of the population group of one of the federal elements, a minority group then, according to their view—not according to our view, but according to their view—a minority group of one of the federal elements, which has umbrella powers over the federation. After all, that is the dilemma from which hon. members opposite cannot escape.

You have it too.

Sir, surely that is what their honesty will be tested against. What does federation mean? Federation means that each one of the constituent parts of that federation has to be prepared to sacrifice a certain measure of its sovereignty for the sake of the federal element binding them together. That, surely, is the essence of federation, and that the hon. members opposite are trying to escape. They are trying to escape it in two ways. In the first place, they are trying to escape it—and whether or not they are being honest in this I would not know; this hon. members will simply have to decide for themselves. Are they being honest when they say the White Parliament will remain, or are they not being honest when they say that, or do they mean it is after all not going to remain? I do not know whether I can believe the hon. member for Durban North, but it is difficult to decide whether one can accept the hon. member for Durban North as an authority in this field. If one has to believe him, then it is there, but it is nevertheless not there either. But I think hon. members opposite owe it to the various peoples of South Africa to give them a direct answer to this question; for I shall in a moment furnish the contrasting view of the National Party in this connection. In their heart of hearts hon. members opposite—otherwise I simply cannot explain it—would not like to relinquish part of their White sovereignty.

This is an absolute fact, for they are so concerned about this on the one hand that they are building into their federal constitution two mechanisms aimed at preserving this. The one is Parliament, in respect of which we do not now know whether it is going to remain, and the other is the membership which will be determined according to the contribution made, and this, ultimately, is founded on economic welfare. Why have they inserted this? Because they believe at the back of their minds that the Whites will always be the well-to-do and consequently their numbers will always be predominant. Surely there is no other reason for inserting it. If one did not have this at the back of one’s mind one could not have inserted it, for then it would not have been necessary to do so.

Should one not have stability?

Yes, one should have stability, but does the hon. member now want me to infer from his question that as far as the Coloureds, the Indians and the Bantu are concerned there cannot be stability?

We are referring to the entire population now.

I am now to infer from that that they cannot be a stable factor.

As a whole.

That makes it much worse. The hon. member will simply have to go and ponder what he has now told me. However, I want to come to the philosophy of the National Party on the other hand. I want to come to the great discovery which the hon. member for Durban North made in regard to something which I conveyed to him by way of replies when he was putting questions to me. This is one thing about the hon. member and myself: We ask each other questions and we give replies. The hon. member for Durban North then thought it was a tremendous discovery he had made. What is our policy? Surely hon. members opposite recall how many clashes we had about that in this House. We said that in this Parliament only the representatives of the Whites would eventually remain. We did not merely say this; we saw to it that this was what happened, and if we had not translated words into deeds we could have been reproached for not doing so. Our standpoint has always been that we do not only take away; we give. Admittedly, we did remove non-White representation in this House, but we gave far more than what that representation meant here. Until last year’s session the hon. members were still arraigning us with the non-Whites for our not wanting non-Whites in this Parliament. I am referring now to the Parliament which, according to the policy of hon. members opposite, will also be White. They arraigned us and stirred up feelings between the non-Whites and ourselves because this was our standpoint, but without turning a hair of offering any apology they accepted as their policy the thing they had condemned. Until last year they were still saying that the only salvation for South Africa was that the Black man, the Coloured man and the Indian should have representation in this Parliament. They swore by that: That was the only salvation which existed for South Africa. But then they threw it away just like that. Why? They have never told us why. I think they owe it to us to say why, for the policy they now have differs radically in premise and principle from that policy which they still had last year. Our standpoint was—hon. members will recall how much abuse we had to endure in that connection—that we did not believe that the Black man should be represented here, for the Black man had his own territory and we envisaged a course of autonomy and ventual independence for the Black man, and we said that we were going to guide them along that course and that we were going to make it possible for them to become autonomous. Surely we have done this. These Black politicians, in respect of whom the hon. members on the opposite side are falling over one another in their eagerness to entertain them, who made them? Who brought them to the fore? Who gave them the status they have today? Surely it was this side of the House. If those hon. members opposite had been in power, surely people of that kind would simply not have existed. Do hon. members opposite recall how those people were reviled as being our stooges? Do hon. members recall how derogatorily they were referred to? In a unguarded moment my hon. friend was guilty of this in respect of the Owambo. I had to take him to task about it across the floor of this House. Now hon. members on that side have made a brand new discovery because of something I said by way of reply to the hon. member for Durban North, something which I have said so many times. Our policy and standpoint in regard to the Black peoples—and this is no secret—is that the land promised to them under the 1936 Act to round off their homelands will be given to them. Attacks have been levelled at us from many quarters because of this, and many attacks will still be levelled at us in future because of this, but we shall proceed with it, for it is the word of the White man which he gave in 1936 and we shall honour it. In that homeland they will have the right to practise their self-determination. How far can we take them? We can take them to the level of self-government; further than that we cannot take them. If they want to go further than the level of self-government, it is a decision they have to take themselves. Surely self-determination implies that one can decide how one wants to be governed. Then that Black government will have to choose between two things. It can decide that it wants independence at this stage or at a given time in the future, or in may decide, owing to the circumstances which may be prevailing, that it is as yet not ripe for complete independence. Then it retains self-governing status; then it stays just where it is. What is strange about that?

(Inaudible.)

If the hon. member wants to put a question to me, let him do so; but he must not sit there muttering so that I cannot hear what he is saying. Go ahead and put the question.

I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister how it is that one can be so dense?

I am responsible for many things, but I did not fashion that hon. member; consequently I would not know. [Interjections.] One need not be funny about this now. It is not necessary to try to score debating points off one another now. Here we are guiding the Black man along the road to self-determination. If we wanted to be funny now, we could say to him: “You must go no,” but if we want to be funny now and say this to him …

You cannot.

Of course the hon. member says “You cannot”.

Where in the world is there such a precedent?

But surely I am saying this now! Why the interjection? Surely I have just said this. Should one grab a person by the neck and throw him out while he is saying, “I am perfectly satisfied, for this is my own choice; it is not you who are keeping me there”? Why does one want to give these people independence? One wants to do so for two reasons: Firstly, because every nation is entitled to independence and one cannot deny them that, and, secondly, because one is being maligned, because the world is reproaching one for begrudging them their freedom and independence. What more can one do now than to say: “I am guiding them along the road to freedom and, what is more, I am helping them along that road and taking them to the level of self-government, and if they then want to go further to the next level, that of independence, they have only to tell me that they want it. Then I negotiate with them on this matter and they get it.

But if they want independence, plus additional land …

If the hon. member …

May I ask the hon. the Prime Minister a question? If you have guided them up to the stage of self-government and have told them they can now ask for their independence, and they return to you and say that the land which they have is not sufficient to turn into an independent state, what will you do?

If they return and tell me that the land which they have is not sufficient to become independent on, then I shall say to them: “The amount of land, whether great or small, which nations have, has nothing to do with their independence. The world is full of examples of independent nations with far smaller areas than the Black people have at their disposal.

Look at Lichtenstein.

What is more, then I shall tell him: After all, we all made our choices in the distant past. You chose your land and I chose my land, and, what is more, I said in this Parliament in 1936 through General Smuts and General Hertzog, without having been under any obligation whatsoever, that apart from the land which you chose, which is your land, I would give you an additional 7¼ million morgen. What could be fairer than that? Or do hon. members wish to intimate by way of that question that their standpoint is that they will give more land than that? If they level that reproach at us, it implies that they will give far more land. What land will ultimately be left then? Surely we cannot afford—and there is no country in the world that can afford to do this—to reopen every day in every other year the delicate question of land and start all over again with this issue from the beginning. After all, there was a time—and this has absolutely nothing to do with independence—when hon. members on the opposite side said: “We stand by the 1936 Act.” We did at least have that in common. We stood by it, and they stood by it, but it would seem to one as if hon. members no longer adhere to that basis. Last year it so happened that in the same debate three standpoints in respect of land were expressed by hon. members opposite. The one said it was too much. The other said it was too little, and still another said it was enough. As far as this matter is concerned, I have just said that one should be extremely careful not to make any promises one cannot keep. What is more, each one of us is called upon to justify to ourselves the basis to which we adhere. It is all very fine and pious to conclude that aspect and to state by way of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Green Point that one is taking one’s stand on the federal policy, but then one should do so on the federal policy in its pure form. Then one should not have this umbrella power which destroys the federation. I realize that the dilemma I am facing is precisely the same as the one hon. members opposite are facing in respect of the Coloureds. In fact, I raised this on my part even before hon. members opposite raised it, viz. that the dilemma is that we have, as it were, two peoples living in one country. Consequently one must find a modus vivendi, to use the words of the hon. member for Green Point. I held out this prospect, and I began where hon. members opposite now are, which they condemned at the time, viz. to give the Coloureds authority over what is their own, such as their education, their welfare, and matters of that kind, precisely what hon. members opposite also want to give them now. On that score we have no problems with one another.

I said at the time that I would negotiate with the Coloureds and that the Coloureds would be afforded an opportunity of telling me what kind of liaison there should be between their Parliament, call it that, and this Parliament, for there has to be liaison. There has to be liaison, for the simple reason that there are matters of common interest which are not specifically the province of one or the other, but in regard to which legislation nevertheless has to be passed. I thoroughly appreciate that problem. For the sake of that matter I sat down around the conference table with the Coloureds, not once, but many times. As I informed the House during the discussion on the no-confidence motion—we did it once again this year—the liaison which exists at present is not the liaison machinery which I prescribed. It is not the liaison machinery which I suggested. It is the liaison machinery with which the Coloureds themselves came forward. It is the liaison machinery which satisfies them. They may inform me tomorrow if it no longer satisfies them, and then we will negotiate on a different system. But they recently had this opportunity again, and they said they preferred it as it was. Should I now tell them that they do not have the right to prefer this, that it is wrong of them to have chosen this? I wonder what hon. members would have said if I had told the Coloureds: “No, I am not prepared to accept your suggestion in this connection; I am going to force my own suggestion on you.” Then we would have heard a different story. I have stated, and I want to reiterate this now, and hon. members may exploit it again if they wish, that I do not believe this form of liaison is the ideal one. Nor do I think that it will remain. I said at the time that the ideal form of liaison would probably be found only in our children’s time because one was dealing with an evolutionary process. Then hon. members and their newspapers went and bruited it abroad that we did not have a policy for the Coloureds and that we had said our children should find the solution, while this referred only to the liaison machinery which exists at present.

Did you not say that yourself?

In the Senate.

Surely I did not say that. Surely I have just said that I was referring to the liaison machinery. That is the point at which I left it and at which it still is at the moment. Everyone must take stock of himself. Perhaps I have, owing to the position I hold, more responsibility in this connection than any other hon. member has, and for that reason it is more necessary for me to take stock of myself. For me this remains basic. That is why I believe in the policy of separate development. That is what I say to non-White leaders with whom I sit down around a conference table. Now the hon. member for Durban Point comes along here, piously, and says it is time—just as the outside world is saying—we did not merely discuss the non-Whites, but held discussions with them. Sir, surely I have held consultations with more non-White leaders in the six years I have been sitting here than all my predecessors did between them. Surely the hon. member knows that. Why is he levelling this accusation now? Why is he saying this now? For that reason it remains a fundamental consideration for me—I am grateful to the hon. member for Stellenbosch for the opportunity of saying this—that if one wants sound relationships in this country in future—and heaven knows, we must have sound relations!—then every ethnic group must have the absolute assurance—now I want to speak on behalf of the Whites, that group to which I belong—then there must be the absolute assurance for the Whites that, whatever happens in future, their identity will under no circumstances be endangered. But not only do they want that assurance; they also want from one the positive assurance—as I know them and as my hon. friend knows them, they are precisely the same—that one is not going to renounce part of their sovereignty to other peoples and nations. If they do not have that assurance from one, there will always be turmoil in South Africa and one will ultimately pay the price of that turmoil. It is of no avail arguing piously about this matter now—one cannot argue away these facts, just as one cannot argue away the fact that there are Indians and Pakistanis, Greeks and Turks, or Israelis and Arabs. Those facts simply exist. If one takes into consideration what has happened and is still happening in Africa, that not a single democracy has remained in the rest of Africa, if one wants sound relationships in future, the Whites want from one the absolute assurance not only that their identity is safe but also that there will be no tampering with their sovereignty, that it will not be renounced to any other nation. However well-meaning and generous that nation may be, however well they will treat it, this is a risk they are not prepared to take.

In the second place, it is essential in a country such as South Africa that one prevents friction; for our future will not be determined by attacks made on us from outside in world assemblies. Our future will be determined by whether the various peoples here in South Africa are able to live with one another, yes or no. For that reason this is absolutely essential.

But, in the third place, it is necessary for opportunities to be created for every population group to realize itself. I make so bold as to say that this party to which I belong has done more to create opportunities for those people in the political sphere, in the educational, sporting, cultural and economic spheres, and in any other sphere for that matter, than was previously conceivable in South Africa under other parties. With that I conclude. In other words, people have been brought to the fore, people to whom one has given status and whom one has placed on a pedestal. The question resting on this Government is: What are we now going to do with those people? And that is the responsibility of this side. And I say this with due regard to one’s history, the road one has followed and the fact that one realizes every day that there are changing situations in South Africa. I want to conclude by saying that just as surely as this side of the House is responsible for establishing those people, just as surely—to use the words of the hon. member for Green Point—will this side of the House find a modus vivendi together with those people to the satisfaction of everyone in South Africa, without in any way endangering the identity or the sovereignty of the Whites.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the arrangement was as to time in respect of this debate, but it is quite clear that in the time available it is not possible to reply adequately to the hon. the Prime Minister. One thing is perfectly certain, namely that the motion suggested by the hon. member for Stellenbosch is totally inadequate in its wording. Respect for identity alone is not enough. You have respect for identity in the policy of the present Government, but is that offering us a solution? Members on that side of the House have been thanking the Government for its policy and for moving along this course. But what have we got? What was the race problem that they were trying to solve? I believe that the race problem that they were trying to solve is very much that which the hon. the Prime Minister was trying to solve this afternoon, by hanging out a carrot to the White electorate to vote for him, instead of seeking a serious solution to the problem with which we are faced. The carrot which he hung out to the White electorate is that under his policy there will be no need to share White privilege in any field and no need to share political power, privileges in respect of sport, economic affairs, culture or anything else. You name it and the hon. gentleman and his side of the House promise that the rights they maintain would be exclusive.

The tragedy, now that they have persuaded the non-White people that their policy means real independence, is that they now find themselves not ready to pay the bill. That is the snag with which they are faced on that side of the House. Black leaders are saying to them today: You have not given us enough land for independence to be anything meaningful for us. The Black leaders are saying today that they want their share of the economic cake which they helped to bake here in South Africa. What is the reply of the hon. the Prime Minister? He says: I give you self-government, and after self-government you choose; you can have independence on my terms, or you can stay where you are. That is the crux of the problem with which the hon. gentleman is faced. Has he taken the answer any further this afternoon with the things that he has told us? Has he told us that he is prepared to share any power with them at all at any time? Has he told them that he is prepared to sacrifice certain of his privileges and economic advantages in the interest of peaceful cooperation here within one state in South Africa? No, Sir. The hon. gentleman says: You can have it on my terms, or you stay enjoying a measure of self-government.

The hon. gentleman is faced exactly with that problem in regard to the Cape Coloured people. He knows that he is faced with that problem in so far as the Cape Coloured people are concerned. What has he been talking about this afternoon? He did not give an answer or a solution as to how he is going to live peacefully with the Cape Coloured people in one state. No, Sir, he has been talking about methods of liaison between the Coloured Council and Parliament. Let me tell him that he is never going to find an answer that way. He is never going to find an answer until he is genuinely prepared to share some of his powers and privileges with those people in the interests of peace and co-operation in South Africa in future.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 32 and motion and amendment lapsed.