Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (1) the constitution, powers and functions of the National Marketing Council and the extent to which it can still perform its duties in the changed circumstances, with particular reference to its co-ordinating function;
2. (2) the extent to which controlled marketing has developed, with reference to the number of marketing schemes as well as the degree of control in terms of individual schemes and the need to simplify control measures;
3. (3) the desirability and practicability of centralizing certain powers and functions of marketing boards;
4. (4) the feasibility of joint services by the marketing boards, with special reference to marketing, sales promotion, research and extension;
5. (5) the constitution of marketing boards and the appointment of members to and the number of members of such boards;
6. (6) the principles which should apply in regard to the collection and utilization of funds by marketing boards; and
7. (7) any other matters in the above regard which it may be found expedient to report upon,

Agreed to.

Sir, when the House adjourned last night I was speaking of the difficulties of the hon. the Minister of Finance in dealing simultaneously with the issues of balance of payments, inflation and growth. I wish now to deal with each of these three items in turn. So far as the balance of payments is concerned, I tried in the Part Appropriation debate to show that this adverse situation, which arose in 1969 and 1970, had been remedied mainly by fortuitous circumstances, by a windfall situation, and that had one been able to foresee the circumstances which would arise subsequently, it might not indeed have been necessary to carry out the devaluation of the South African rand. Indeed, Sir, I believe that devaluation with all its harmful side-effects could well have been avoided. There is a real danger, if inflation is not checked and growth stimulated, that the imbalance of payments will return. Sir, we have seen what I believe must be a real warning in the sharp decline in the terms of trade. This simply means that we have to run faster to stay at the same place; we have to export more in order to maintain the same volume of imports. I believe that this situation needs urgent attention. It is not as urgent as some other matters, but it is nevertheless a feature of our economy which must be carefully watched.

I come now to the second factor, which is inflation. I referred to it last night as a raging disease. We are looking at the moment at an official figure of 7,4%. I believe that this is an obsolescent figure; I believe that it reflects mainly an average of price movements as between 1971 and 1972 and that the real figure is now considerably higher than that. I believe that if one takes the figures for February, 1972, and February, 1973, one gets a much closer indication of what is really happening at the present time, and that comparison shows an inflationary rate of 8,9%. This assumption, Sir, is further borne out if one looks at the figures in respect of the growth of the domestic product. We find that as between 1971 and 1972 the growth of 11,9% was cut down to a real growth of 3,1%. This indicates a price inflationary factor of 8,8%, which is very close to the 8,9% that I mentioned. I mentioned also that in the mining industry the present working cost figure is 11% higher than it was a year ago. Sir, mines operate in a closed economy. They try so far as possible to ensure that by long-term contracting, by uniformity in procedure and so forth, they will be able to contain the rising cost to the maximum extent possible. Even in a contained, closed economy of that kind, or a partially closed economy, the costs are rising at 11%. This is not just grave, it is terrifying. If it goes unchecked, it spells the erosion of our whole economic structure; it spells the corrosion of wages and pensions, of our banking system, of our insurance system, of investments, of our export system and of our balance of payments and eventually of our monetary system.

I regret to say, Sir, that there is very little in the Budget to check this most alarming state of affairs except for certain gestures which the hon. the Minister has made in the direction of stimulating growth. The question is whether we can grow out of inflation. Theoretically, the answer is “Yes”, if we do the right things and if we realistically scrap and replace what is at present wrong in our economic system. There is little sign of this as yet. The real gross domestic product per capita at the moment is of the order of 0,5%. This means that our real growth is of the order of about 3%, and our real population increase is also of the order of 3%. Well, three from three leaves nothing, and we are very close to nothing in our growth per capita. Sir, why do we need growth? It has become fashionable quite recently for writers in certain highly industrialized countries to say that growth, or rapid growth, is not necessary, and that cry has been echoed in this House by people who have seen in it the cause of pollution and so forth.

The purpose of growth in a non-highly developed industrial country like our own is not just to get richer; it is to enable us to survive. We have to keep pace in this country with a rapidly-rising population and we have to satisfy the reasonable expectations of that rapidly increasing population. The reasons for high growth are, firstly, humanitarian—we must provide jobs and we must provide the goods which the people need. Secondly, it contributes to preserving internal peace in that it enables us to find time for essential changes which must take place. Thirdly, it is to provide security at home and abroad. Richelieu once said that reason is useless without power; if our power declines through lack of growth, we may have no power with which to defend ourselves. The hon. the Minister of Finance said—

With this we agree entirely. The Economic Development Plan has, in fact, calculated that if we are to meet these expectations, we must maintain a growth rate of the order of 5¾%. This means nothing less than that we must double our total productivity, our total production in this country, and double that a second time before the end of the century. This is a near-economic miracle and the question is whether we can achieve it. It is my contention that our essential growth targets cannot be achieved in a dual economy which is being sanctified by a policy of separate development, which is being reinforced by a whole armoury of apartheid legislation and tacitly underwritten by the present Budget. I believe that the set target can be achieved in other conditions, but I do not believe that this very high target can be achieved under present conditions. I shall devote the rest of my speech to explaining precisely why this is my belief.

The concept of decentralization is being used at present as an economic justification for separate multi-national development. We, too, favour decentralization in order to check the polarization of our society into an industrial sector on the one hand and a subsistence agricultural sector on the other. This polarization is accompanied by a population movement towards the rapid growth areas and away from the slower growth areas. Eventually this can create a very harmful and undesirable situation. But decentralization, if it takes place, must take place in accordance with economic criteria and not in accordance with political dogma. What we need is, for example, the judicious transfer of capital to new regions, regions which are fertile in infrastructure and natural resources. Conversely it means the judicious transfer of labour to areas of high employment. What one strives for is an overflow effect from one region to the other and not an artificial syphoning effect.

The homelands depend as much as we do on the overall national economic growth. We in this country form a common market; despite our racial plurality, we are a single common market. A common market depends above all on the free flow of capital between the various sectors, or regions, of that market. Our existing industrial structure is approximately apportioned between the primary, secondary and the tertiary sectors of industry in the ratio of 20: 30: 50. This is a ratio which corresponds to the economic development and the economic demands of our times. It is essential to the retention of efficient employment and productivity in our society. It is a ratio which reflects a state of affairs inherent in the present level of development in our society. If we decentralize, this ratio compels us to make the choice of regional development by the criteria of productivity and not the choice of regional development by arbitrary political dictates. On the contrary, for if development is allowed to proceed unchecked and if it follows these natural patterns and essential patterns, we shall see development moving from the Pretoria/Witwatersrand/Vereeniging area, the PWV area, eastwards towards Richards Bay and Lourenço Marques, along that axis of advance. We shall also see it moving southwards towards Durban and the Tugela basin. These are the main axes of development for our economy. This is where it must go if it is to achieve the economic criteria which are essential to the maintenance of growth, of productivity and eventually the retention of reserves and a proper balance of payments.

Within 25 years the population of this country is expected to rise to some 50 million people. If we are to feed, house and clothe these people, then some 20 million people of our population must be economically active. According to a recent United States model something like five million of that 20 million people will have to be of managerial class, engaged in managerial functions. Some six million others will have to be in the highly-skilled artisan category. This makes 11 million people. It is estimated that at that time the White population of South Africa will have some two million people economically active, i.e. two million people to fill 11 million jobs in those categories of employment traditionally reserved for and filled by White people. This leaves nine million jobs to be filled. Within 25 years we must find amongst our Bantu people, amongst our Indian people and amongst our Coloured people nine million people to fill jobs of managerial status and of highly-skilled artisan status. If we do not achieve this within 25 years, we shall not have a balanced economy and we shall achieve only low growth and low productivity.

What is being done about this? A certain amount of lip service is paid to this concept. I have before me the White Paper on the report of the Inter-departmental Committee on Decentralization of Industry. It pays lip service to some of these concepts, but it does nothing about it, for it persists in attempting the decentralization of our South African society, of our South African industry, with a view not to economic change so much as demographic change. That is its essential purpose. It is motivated by a desire to achieve demographic rather than economic ends. This leads to injudicious, uneconomic and wasteful employment of resources.

My major criticism of this policy and of the White Paper, and of the Budget to some extent, is that it advances or protects dualism in a single economy. We see before us in this White Paper proposals to achieve lower wage rates; to ensure that lower wage rates may be paid in one sector of our economy under Wage Board exemptions. There are certain preferences on sales to the Government. Within these areas producers will be able to sell to the Government—that is, on tender to the various departments—goods produced in those regions at prices higher than those which will be demanded by other people in other sectors of the economy. Additional production costs will be compensated. In certain sectors of our economy producers producing the same sort of goods will have their additional production costs compensated in comparison with producers in other areas of the country who will not have this advantage. This means an inequality in our economic society. It means that we do not in fact have a single economy, but that we have a dual economy. In this White Paper we also see proposals regarding the infrastructure of this country. We have scarce capital resources, and the question is how they should be allocated and how they should be devoted to the long-term purposes I have described. We see that it is the intention that infrastructure should be provided for certain regions in this country for purposes which I have described as demographic. An infrastructure is to be provided even to the extent of over-supply. This is contemplated. If this is done, the very infrastructure is being provided out of scarce resources at the expense of other areas which are in need of such infrastructure as well. In recent years and months we have seen the very rapid decay of our national road system. Any member who doubts this should travel around this country and see what is happening to our national road system. There is a very steady deterioration in this system, which is such a vital part of our infrastructure. We know that the railway services are inadequate and we know that the post and telegraph services are inadequate, but nevertheless it is contemplated that infrastructure should be provided in new areas which are not yet making any major contribution to the growth of this country and which are unlikely to do so for a long time. There is a distortion of priorities in this system which I think is going to cost us very dear and it will certainly not enable the Minister of Finance to achieve the targets which he has set himself because the priorities are wrong. I would like to draw to his attention the very real loss of revenue on tax which he will suffer in consequence of these proposals. There are remissions on tax and there are allowances of various kinds which in fact mean that the revenue to which the hon. the Minister could reasonably look forward on a normal expansion of the economy, will not flow to him in the ordinary way. I fear that the possibiltiy of a tax haven may be created in these regions and in these areas for certain industrialists and for certain producers. This is most likely to occur in cases where the industrialists have factories inside the so-called White areas, whilst they have extensions or branches inside the other regions. It is perfectly possible in theory, and I am told in practice, for these tax havens to serve as a means of hedging taxation in exactly the same way as certain people have been known to use farms for evading their dues on taxation.

What?

This is something which I believe should be looked at very closely. I feel that some of these concessions made will in fact lead to the uneconomic development of certain areas at the expense of other areas of our country. Our security depends on a strong economy, but under the present system the hon. the Minister of Finance will have to devote his resources increasingly to such matters as defence. Our defence expenditure in this Budget has increased by 25%. Then it will be spent increasingly on prisons, which are running at very high costs in our present society and which daily hold an average of 94 000 prisoners. This is also the product of our present system, and especially of our present dual economy. He will have to devote increasing resources to Bantu Administration. If we are to achieve the objectives of providing employment for the rising tide of new work-seekers in these homeland areas, we should not be spending these paltry sums but we should be spending something like R400 million annually to achieve the basic target. This amount is not being spent. The hon. the Minister does not have it to spend, and I do not believe it will ever be spent. It cannot be spent because R400 million is the theoretical figure for today assuming that 60 000 work-seekers come forward from the homelands and that it costs R7 000 to create a new job. These are figures which are real. I have looked at the figures of the Decentralization Board and it is costing them precisely R7 000 to create a new job.

What does it cost here?

It costs even more here to create jobs.

And private people pay it.

Yes, it is paid by private industry. Here we have the artificial creation of jobs for a special demographic purpose. While the hon. the Minister is meeting these high costs—and I wish to say quite seriously that Defence, Prisons and Bantu Administration will take an increasingly large slice of his Budget as a result of which he will have correspondingly less to spend on other services—he will find that, simultaneously, his returns are diminishing because Defence pays no returns; money invested in Defence brings no financial gain, no economic returns. Money spent on Bantu development programmes will not bring optimum gains, although they will bring some gains. The hon. the Minister will have continually diminishing returns. If we proceed along this course, I am quite convinced that, putting all these things together, the hon. the Minister will succeed in none of his three major objectives. He will not succeed in maintaining forever the favourable balance of payments, but we will go into deficit again. We will not succeed in maintaining growth at the rate which is necessary if we are to achieve the broad objectives of our society and we will not succeed in checking inflation, because without growth inflation will go on. Despite other checks its cure must depend on growth and if we do not get the growth we need, inflation will continue. I see little hope in this Budget for cures to any of these problems and I believe the time will come when the hon. the Minister of Finance, if he wishes to present a Budget which is real, which is geared to the needs of the country and which will check the imbalances in our economic system, will have to say to the other Ministers: So far, and no further! We must now return to economic realities; we must let the economic laws play their part; we must depend on the true economic criteria; we must abandon artificial planning and synthetic theories and we must get down to the hard facts of the situation; we must write a Budget which has to do with the real economic growth in this country and not with demographic pies-in-the-sky.

Mr. Speaker, before replying to the debate so far I would like to preface my remarks with certain general and personal observations. I listened to the introductory remarks of the hon. member for Von Brandis last night with a growing sense of dissatisfaction.

Hear, hear! [Interjections.]

Hon. members will have no reason to laugh when they have heard what I want to say. I do not doubt the obvious capabilities of the hon. member for Von Brandis in relation to that of some of his colleagues, but I think that that is a poor consolation, because to be above the norm when the norm is below average, is no particular achievement at all. My resentment does not stem from the hon. member’s criticisms of the financial and economic policies of the Government. In fact, I think he has the right to criticize. I would indeed go further and say that he has a duty to criticize. What I take exception to is that the hon. member should speak in derogatory terms about the Minister of Finance. I would like to suggest that the approach of the hon. member on the other side is typical of the general attitude of the Opposition party. [Interjections.] I shall give the hon. member a handkerchief so that he can wipe his tears. Whilst many responsible countries in the world envy this country its political and financial stability, the United Party decries it. Whilst many responsible financial leaders laud the effective economic and financial policies of this country, the United Party sees in this a stumbling block in their own way. While the hon. the Minister of Finance has brought stature and prestige to his country, a relative new-comer on the political scene speaks in belittling terms about him.

*I want to say that I take the strongest exception to this approach. Hon. members obviously have the right to criticize, but when this right is exercised as venomously as they have done, it can only invite the strongest condemnation from us.

†It is a fact that the financial world has unqualified confidence in this country and in its potential. It is a fact that the financial world has confidence in the financial and economic policies of the Minister and of the Government. It is also a fact that the financial world, the responsible world, has confidence in the potential and also the achievements of this country under the National Party Government. I want to bear witness to one fact, namely that the hon. the Minister of Finance has brought acclaim to his country despite the defeatist attitude of the official Opposition. The hon. member for Von Brandis is one of the architects of the old-new federal policy and I would have thought that his contribution in this regard would be most appropriate. I would like to pose one question: Why is it that hard-headed businessmen invest and advise their clients, potential investors, to invest in this country? Let there be no doubt about this whatsoever, the fact is that we are inundated with offers for credit and loan facilities from abroad. I think the answer is quite obvious. Notwithstanding the accusation that South Africa is a threat to peace, we have achieved a measure of stability and growth which the world envies. Notwithstanding the accusations that we are suppressing people in this country, I want to suggest that South Africa is leading its peoples to responsible freedom and meaningful self-determination. I would venture to say that we have experienced in the past decade in this country a measure of institutional evolution in the economic, social and political fields unsurpassed in any Western democracy. I would be the first to concede that a sound economy is a basis for development, but future stability must of necessity take cognisance of the social, cultural and political structure prevailing in this country.

*There is no point in hon. members opposite accusing us of wanting to bend our economic laws for the sake of ideological considerations. The fact is that if one does not have a meaningful appreciation of the circumstances, social, cultural and political, prevailing in South Africa, then we cannot ensure continued growth. The hon. member for Parktown put his standpoint in his customary courteous way, on which I want to compliment him.

†The hon. member derived some satisfaction from the fact that some of the forecasts he had made came true. I do not begrudge him his pleasure in forecasting, neither the satisfaction to have been right. Surely he must be right sometimes.

*If I had to stipulate the task of South Africa in the economic field, I would want to emphasize that we should utilize the people and the means at our disposal judiciously so that our chief objective of economic growth or effectiveness social and political stability and optimum justice and fairness towards all people, would be assured. But, Sir, when it comes to choosing objectives, this Government, just like any other Government, must arrange its objectives in such a way as to ensure the maximum benefit for the entire population in the long term. For that reason it is of no avail to concentrate on short-term benefits only. Of course our economic policy is growth orientated. But our target growth rate must be within the framework of our domestic potential in respect of production factors, man-power, ingenuity, knowledge and natural resources, together with a realistic, acceptable and assimilable contribution from abroad.

If I may return to present circumstances from the discussion of general objectives, I want to say at once that fruitful opportunities exist for the further economic development of our country and the raising of the general standards of living of the entire population. But the effective utilization of these opportunities is not the responsibility of the Government only. It is the collective responsibility of the public and private sectors. Economic progress is always the product of human effort, and by that I mean an effort by all the people. It would be of no avail to a country to be in possession of all the natural resources, without its having the enterprising talent or the people with the material and intellectual ability to utilize these opportunities and to convert those resources into goods and services. In the critical examination by hon. members of the activities and the operating account—if I may term it so, in the words of the hon. member for Constantia—they have obviously compared the Minister’s stated objectives to the results. These objectives, as hon. members quite correctly said, are, firstly that we want to improve the balance of payments; secondly that we want to ensure more rapid growth; and, thirdly, that we want to combat inflation.

Sir, let us look at the stated objectives and then at the operating results, again in the words of the hon. member for Constantia. Firstly, I want to make the statement that the sequence in which these objectives have been stated has had another important result and has an important meaning. That is that in the sequence of the objectives certain priorities have been indicated. No one will be able to deny either the mutual interdependence of these objectives, or, in many instances, the conflicts between them. Nor would anyone deny that the urgency also as regards the sequence given to them by the Minister, is to be found in the fact that the improvement of the balance of payments, must be put as a first priority. No real growth is possible in our circumstances without a favourable balance of payments. Hon. members concede that the balance of payments has shown a wonderful improvement. But the hon. member for Constantia, among others, said that this was not due to the actions of the Government, but to chance windfalls as a result of international circumstances to which the Government made no contribution. I think that any expert on the South African economy would concede at once that there were, as it happened, factors abroad which contributed, in the first place, to the deterioration of South Africa’s balance of payments in 1971, and, in the second place, to its improvement in 1972. But such experts would also have to concede at once that were it not for the correct and timely decisions of this Government, taking into account the potential of our country and its problems, it would not have been possible to turn these foreign occurrences to the maximum benefit of South Africa. For that reason I am unable to understand why’ hon. members do not want to give credit where, in my opinion, credit is due. Had South Africa not taken the correct decision in 1971 to curb excessive demand in the first place, to devalue to the extent that it did devalue and to set an example to the population by curtailing its own expenditure, we would not—and I want to stress this—have had any sound reason for advocating growth today. For example, the sound decisions of the past put us in a position to offer benefits to the exporter which are in point of fact a long term insurance premium which we pay with pleasure, to ensure that our balance of payments, on the export side, remains as healthy as possible in future. On the import side the Government ensured, by means of judicious restrictions and with the aid of import control in the sixties and up to the present time, that there would be no bottle-necks in regard to our industrial imports, while it did impose a restriction on the import of consumer goods. Therefore, when we talk about the balance of payments, the policy of the Government in the short and the long term, has, in my opinion, been a sound and far-sighted one. I think we owe the hon. the Minister a debt of gratitude for having acted in that way in those circumstances.

Sir, I now come to the second accusation made, inter alia, by the hon. member for Constantia. He accused the Government of a lack of planning. Let us now look analytically at this argument and this accusation to see whether it contains any truth whatsoever. Hon. members opposite are always saying that the Government only acts when crises force it to do so, and when the Government does act, hon. members say that it always does too little too late or too much too soon. That is the old, hollow cry which we have repeatedly heard in Parliament. I want to say at once that in my opinion this accusation is totally unjustified and also unjust. Surely the planning of the State in the economic, the social and the scientific sphere and in virtually every sphere is obvious to anyone who inspects it meaningfully. In the economic sphere this Government has been planning on a well-ordered basis for years, with the assistance of its economic development programme in the medium term, with the assistance of the advice of commissions of inquiry, such as the Viljoen Commission, the Reynders Commission and the Franzsen Commission in the long term, and with the assistance of the Budget and the Economic Advisory Council in the short term. Sir, how can hon. members bring the accusation against the Government, in respect of financial and economic matters, that planning does not exist? I challenge hon. members to mention to me an example of any planning of the kind which I have just mentioned, which existed in their time. This systematic planning, and this finger which is being held continually on the pulse of our economy, has, in my opinion, enabled this Government throughout to take the correct decisions at the right time.

A third attack by hon. members, one which was repeated this afternoon by the hon. member for Von Brandis, is that this Government has done nothing to combat rising prices and inflation.

Nothing.

The hon. member for Albany says “nothing”, but what was the attitude of hon. members opposite in 1970-’71 when this Government had to introduce measures to combat excessive expenditure? What was their argument at that time? Then hon. members said that we were not combating excessive expenditure, but curbing growth. This was the case to such an extent that the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens said they had been pleading for ten years that we should maintain a higher growth rate. And then, last night, the hon. member for King William’s Town told us of the high growth rate which we had had over the past ten years, namely 6,7% from 1960 to 1970. Mr. Speaker, I have a request I want to make in all reasonableness and in all fairness: Let hon. members opposite criticize the Budget measures; let them criticize economic and financial policy, but then they must please decide among one another exactly what they want.

Sir, what would have happened if the Government had not taken these steps in these particular circumstances? I refer to the period 1970-’71. These steps were not popular, but the Government cannot allow itself to be guided by popularity, as do hon. members opposite, because then we would be sitting where hon. members opposite are sitting. I just want to say that the only thing that is growing on that side is one of the hon. members over there; the others are not growing at all. Had we not taken those steps the consequences would have been fatal. To try and indicate how fatal they would have been, I want to say that we would have had a much higher rate of inflation today than we do have; then we would have landed ourselves in the very difficulty which the hon. member for Parktown fears and dreads so much, and that is a condition of demand-pull plus cost-push inflation. Sir, that is perhaps the most important reason why the Government cannot heed the advice of hon. members opposite. If we were to have done what hon. members opposite asked, then this country would have run into trouble and there would have been a lack of confidence on the part of investors, domestic as well as foreign, which would have had an adverse effect on our economy and our country for many years. Sir, the views of hon. members opposite are not shared by people outside this House who do not plead for sectional interests only, because the over-all evidence from outside is that in the particular circumstances which are prevailing, the Budget proposals are the ideal ones for our country in the times in which we are living. The strange thing about the approach of hon. members opposite and the approach of the hon. member for Parktown and the hon. member for Constantia in particular, is that when the balance of payments improves, it is thanks to foreign factors, but when prices rize, then the external causes and factors and the impact they have on prices are conveniently ignored altogether or their effect is minimized. But, Sir, it is not only in this sphere that hon. members take this point of view. They do this in various other spheres as well. After all, it is true, of course, that economic conditions in South Africa are influenced by foreign occurrences to a very significant extent, and this applies to prices as well. This was particularly so during the past year when international financial occurrences had serious consequences for the world economy and for international trade. Indeed, this is still the case. Sir, in South Africa, as an important trading country, we could not escape the effect of this and it inevitably had to have an adverse effect on us. Sir, the present uncertainty concerning exchange rates and the fluctuations in the exchange rates of the countries from which we import and the countries to which we export, is one of the major stumbling blocks for industrialists and businessmen alike. Indeed, I should like to say at once that this is one of the things causing the anticipated revival and expansion in economic activities to be restricted to such an extent that our economy has not yet developed at the rate rendered possible by our potential at the present time.

Sir, let us now have a look at the thing about which hon. members opposite are complaining most as far as this Budget is concerned. It is that the Government has done nothing to curb the high rate of inflation; that the Government not only accepts this conditions but, what is more, is in fact encouraging it, in the words of the hon. member for Parktown, by using a few hundred million rand from the Reserve Accounts to finance expenditure. Let us look at this criticism. Up to now there has not been a single speaker opposite who has come up with any alternative proposal. All they did was to raise points of criticism on isolated facets without judging the whole of the Budget as an instrument of economic and financial policy. We have experienced cost pressure in recent times. Is there any member—and I am challenging him now— who says that just wage and price adjustments should not have been made and should not be made in the future? Is there any member who wants to maintain that balanced salary adjustments should not have been made, that the wages of Bantu workers should not have been increased? But did this not have an effect on the cost structure in the industry?

Yes, but there are other reasons.

The hon. member for Yeoville, in another debate, made the statement that a 15% salary increase for Railway officials was not enough. Should it have been more?

Yes.

The hon. member for Maitland says that it should have been more. How is this going to be financed? How do you want to finance it? By increased tariffs? Hon. members say that pensions are too low and they referred scornfully to the increase of R4 per month, but I want to ask them how much the increase should be? And from what source must it be financed? The hon. member for Parktown says we must not use the Reserve Account to finance it. What other sources must we use to finance it? Must we increase taxes? Hon. members say that there were too few sales duty concessions; the motor industry should have received more substantial concessions and the duty on the so-called essential commodities should have been reduced or abolished altogether. Sir, how do we reconcile these viewpoints with the viewpoint concerning this injection into the economy which, according to the hon. member for Parktown is not a moderate one, but one with a tremendous impetus, and by implication a dangerous one? Let us analyse these statements. How can hon. members ask us to make further concessions and then in the same breath maintain that a 20% rise in State expenditure on current account is too high? Should it have been lower? And on which Votes should expenditure have been lower? Should we have allocated less to Education and Defence?

May I ask you a question?

No. Should it have been Education or Defence, or should it have been Agriculture? Sir, I ask you: How can we take any real notice of them when so many conflicting points of view are being stated. I should like hon. members to tell me where we must save, and I want to know where they would obtain the funds to finance the additional expenditure which they advocate. On the other hand, hon. members say that we are financing our Budget in an inflationary manner. What is the alternative? Must State expenditure be limited to 6% as was done last year? What then would happen to the plea for growth made by the hon. member for King William’s Town’s? Or must we freeze wages and prices? Is there any hon. member opposite who advocates that? Hon. members think that we can easily combat the problem of domestic inflation by means of total price control. Sir, then we would have a lack of real confidence, which would mean that the growth rate would drop to the lowest point and that we would get stagnation.

Who says that?

Obviously we cannot afford growth at any price. That, after all, is why varying stress is laid on growth and stability. If we should grow too fast we would lose the struggle for stability and who is of the opinion that that is not important in this country? Secondly, if we should become too stable, we would lose the struggle for growth. It is true that in the times in which we are living, the accent as regards economic and financial measures is shifting towards expansion. It is true that in the past, last year and now again, the Government has taken various steps to stimulate growth. But on the other hand it is the primary function of the private sector to initiate new development. Sir, I shall just refer to these measures in brief. They are the judicious expansion of State expenditure, particularly in respect of the economic infrastructure. They are a reduction of the income tax rates and the sales duty, reduction in the rate of interest by reduction of the bank rate; an increase in the liquidity of our economy by the utilization of reserve funds to finance expenditure; increased investment allowances; promotion of labour utilization and pre-service and in-service training of the available labour forces; the promotion of exports, consent to major State expansions such as Sishen-Saldanha Bay, the Post Office, the Railways.

†I should like to conclude by saying that I have attempted in the limited time at my disposal to state the reasons why any alternative policy in the financial field could not have been successful and would have made us all worse off than we are now. We would have had a higher rate of inflation and even lower rates of growth. It is the tactics of hon. members on the other side always to blame the Government when things go wrong and to praise someone else when things go right. This will bring them nowhere. I should like to say that history will point out the hollow arguments used by that side when action has been taken by this Government.

You will be surprised at what history will point out.

The hon. the Minister and the Government, through a very strong and forceful, effective machinery, have combined, in my opinion, wisdom with skill and virtue. Wisdom in knowing what to do, skill in knowing how to do it and virtue in doing it and doing it well.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister moves me to say with Shakespeare. “I think the lady protesteth too much.” He said that we criticized various facets of the Budget and that we did not see the Budget as the instrument applying national monetary and fiscal measures. This surprises me because he only discussed very few facets. However, I want to pose him this question: Why was it necessary for salaries to have been increased; why was it necessary for the Government to give old-age pensioners R4 per month extra? Because the Government had been unable to contain inflation, inflation forced them to do that.

The hon. the Deputy Minister said that many overseas people lauded the Government for the policies they pursue. That may be right, but we, too, will laud them for the financial policies they pursued if they are chucked out at the next election and sit in the Opposition and we sit on that side. [Interjections.] I should like to recommend to the hon. the Deputy Minister to read Hansard and especially the Budget debates from the years 1933-’34 to 1948. If ever he wanted to see dearth of good argument, completely negative approaches, then he would find them in the speeches of the hon. members of the Opposition who were Nationalists at the time.

Everybody in South Africa recognizes that inflation is public enemy number one. The tragedy in South Africa is that this “kragdadige” Nationalist Party Government has been given a knock-out blow in this fight against inflation. They have allowed the erosion of our rand to develop into a raging torrent. For the record it must be stated, and stated very clearly, that this Government carries the sole responsibility for this dismal performance in our fight against inflation because they understood as clearly as we understood the necessity for growth. We stressed—I think they must have got the message—that growth of our economy was critically and fundamentally essential, because the population explosion in South Africa had made demand escalate and if stimulus was not given to supply to keep pace with demand, we could have expected inflation, which is the fruit today of their policies of dampening growth. Growth was the only answer to combat the rising unemployment of the Bantu. It was urgently necessary to bridge the pay-gap between White and non-White and growth was the only factor in South Africa which would allow us to do that. Because of the shortage of White manpower and the Government’s refusal to introduce increasing numbers of non-Whites into skilled jobs they, the Government, spurned economic principles, choosing to pursue their ideological pipedreams. Consequently they clamped down on growth. As hon. members will know the Verkramptes have always equated growth with available White manpower and not with available manpower in South Africa. Until Budget day, 1973, the Nats on the other side of the House were all too timid to follow the trail blazed by the hon. the Minister of Transport who, in following United Party policy, introduced non-Whites into the railways in skilled jobs previously done by Whites. The hon. the Minister of Labour, on the contrary, slammed this door for the non-Whites in all other sectors of the economy. We all remember how earlier efforts by the hon. the Minister of Finance to ease the labour bottlenecks in industry and to create more labour for industry were blocked by his colleagues in the Cabinet. The anti-inflationary measures applied by the hon. the Minister of Finance in his Budget of 1972 failed dismally because they led us to this unhappy financial and economic situation called “stag-flation”. We are therefore permitted to ask very seriously on behalf of the country whether the measures now announced in the 1973 Budget are going to succeed in combating inflation, while it attempts to stimulate growth. It is heartening to see that the Government is going to encourage pre-service and in-service training of Bantu in the White areas. However, I would like to stress here and now that this is a matter of urgency and this is a question of time being of the essence. Of course my hon. leader urged the Government years ago to do just that. Hon. member will remember the jeers that met his plea for crash training programmes for non-Whites in industry. If the Government had accepted this wise advice, inflation could have been more successfully combated and better contained today. This completely new labour policy of the Government is as radical a change as their new approach to multiracial contact sport. If the Government seriously pursues this training of Bantu in White areas, it would sound the death-knell to their already ailing Bantustan policy. Would any Bantu living in the White areas today where he receives training in industrial work voluntarily return to his homeland?

*The industrial sector, which should serve as a catalyst for the national economy, cannot stand a stop-go policy, such as the increase and then again, soon afterwards, the reduction in sales tax, the stepping up and relaxation of hire purchase measures, the restriction and then again the raising of bank credit and the up and down manipulation of bank interest. It is easy to disparage business optimism and confidence, but it is much more difficult to restore them. Businessmen will only plan for development, i.e. growth, if they have every confidence that long-term growth plans as regards monetary, fiscal and labour policy will not simply be changed again soon. The labour policy must conform to the seventies, to the Concorde and not to the ox-wagon, as my hon. friend the hon. member for Orange Grove said. The labour bottleneck outlined in the economic development programme because there is a shortage of White manpower, can of course be bridged by employing non-White skilled labour. That will make it possible for a much higher growth rate than the target rate of 5,75% to be achieved. It will cause a rapid increase in opportunities for employment and a drop in unemployment amongst the Bantu. The skilled wages which will in this way be paid to more and more people, will cause the dormant domestic market of South Africa of more than 23 million people to develop to its full potential. It will bring about a tremendous expansion, vertically and horizontally, in our industries, which of course will also make us more competitive on the international market as it will mean a levelling off of costs. It will also mean that South Africa’s wealth will be distributed more proportionately amongst all its people; it will ensure economic, social and political stability in the country.

†To the rich, like the hon. gentlemen on the other side, inflation is only slightly bothersome and may entail sacrificing one of the many luxuries which they enjoy, but to our more than 100 000 old-age pensioners, the many who receive very low pensions or grants, the more or less 7 000 Whites who receive less than R100 per month and the 18 000 White who receive less than R200 per month on the railways, the legion of South Africans of all creeds and colours who form our lower income groups, inflation is a frightening thing; it is something which makes them and their dear ones go hungry, cold and roofless. They understand nothing of economics but they know that the prices of all the goods that they urgently need to live are soaring way above their meagre incomes and pensions. Do you know, Sir, that a 1948 rand is worth 43,4 cents and a 1962 rand 67,8 cents today? That is the sort of havoc which inflation, if not curbed, wreaks on a country and that is what has happened in bountiful, rich South Africa under 25 years of Nationalist Government. Those who have the vote in South Africa and cannot stomach further economic exploitation by the Government, can unseat the Government at the next election, as they will, but the voiceless majority can only suffer in silence till we are reminded of their plight by Coloureds rioting in Gelvandale on account of a one cent increase in bus fares, or by Blacks striking in Natal because their wages had not been raised in ten years. They remind us that the slice of the economic cake, which we cut for them, is woefully inadequate. It was, in truth, an historic occasion when Blacks went on strike in Natal quite illegally and were not arrested, but in fact encouraged to negotiate for increases. This was a precedent which completely changed the face of South Africa for ever. Increased rail and bus fares, higher prices for bread, butter, milk, meat, fish, rice, sugar, tea, coffee, canned goods, shoes, clothing and furniture—an endless list—all lead to frustration, dissatisfaction and then the problem of social instability rears its ugly head.

*In February, 1973, the index of food prices was 2,9% higher than the figure for January, 1973, and 15,4% higher than in February, 1972. What is the rate of inflation going to be in 1973? How many South Africans will by the end of this year no longer be able to eat seven days a week? It is not astonishing that the 15% increase granted to public servants, railway servants, etc., has given no satisfaction. The cost of living has been rising so rapidly that even after that increase their standard of living could not rise. The tragedy is that inflation always hits the Bantu in South Africa first, because it is calculated that 70% of our Bantu workers are living on or below the breadline. In the leading article published in Rapport on 14th January, 1973, a very interesting topic was discussed. It was devoted to the old hackneyed topic, namely the question of the painful poverty of our Bantu population. Rapport said the following (translation)—

If the Government were to allow inflation to rage on without taking effective counter-measures at once …

Such as?

Such as getting rid of you.

… measures which this side of the House has emphasized and advocated time and again and which are founded on economic laws and not on ideological dreams, everything accomplished in South Africa over the past three centuries would be jeopardized, such as our Western civilization, our democratic traditions and institutions, our possessions, our earnings, yes, our future. It is no use seeking consolation for the galloping inflation by trying to suggest that in this respect we still compare favourably with many other countries of the Western world. We must understand full well that our circumstances are quite different. Our development needs, our geographic situation, our political relationships, and the composition of our population, differ widely from all other countries in the Western civilization. If we as Whites want to preserve our identity in South Africa and if we want to live in peace with our non-White South Africans, we shall have to take steps now for sharing South Africa’s prosperity with them on a just basis. Inflation can cause values to change to such an extent that this objective will be defeated completely. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer as a result of inflation, and inflation can hold incalculable consequences for all of us in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, painted such a sombre picture that it would appear that this country was going to collapse tomorrow. The hon. member gave out that the United Party could come with manna from heaven, but he did not tell us what that manna looked like. I wonder whether this hon. member and his leader, under these circumstances today, could tell us for what reason that Opposition party did not nominate candidates in the by-elections which are going to be held at Colesberg and De Aar. Did that party nominate candidates at Colesberg or De Aar? Yesterday afternoon we had to listen to the hon. members for King William’s Town and Salt River, who kicked up a big fuss here about the cost of living. And for what purpose? Because a by-election is to be held tomorrow at Umhlatuzana. It was for that reason they painted such a distorted picture as one they painted yesterday. It was merely to influence those people, for the signs indicate that, on political grounds, they are going to encounter setbacks at Umhlatuzana. Sir, I shall demonstrate this to you. Since yesterday we have been forced to listen all the time to all kinds of philosophies on the cost of living and inflation. Sir, what did that criticism of theirs look like? There is no depth whatsoever to their philosophy on the cost of living. Yesterday in particular, on the eve of Umhlatuzana, theirs was a purely opportunistic and completely one-sided political approach. The speeches of those hon. members evaded the basic realities completely. They took the easiest way out by simply accusing the Government at random for every problem, They quite simply ignored the truly objective and scientific advice of scientists. By adopting this approach the Opposition is once again failing in its role, for some reason or other, of indicating where the rotten places are really situated. It seems as if they are in fact afraid to point out the rotten places in commerce. The Opposition concentrates mainly on bread and butter, for this is the most popular and easiest way out of the dilemma in which they find themselves. But I want to tell you that even if the price of bread and butter and the price of meat which the farmer receives had not been increased, the cost of living would still have risen. The products to which those hon. members referred, are controlled agricultural products. Those hon. members know as well as I do that when the prices of controlled products are increased, those increases are approved and recommended by agricultural control boards on which the consumer and organized commerce itself is represented. Those increased prices did not fall out of a clear sky. They can be properly accounted for. I can account for them in front of any audience in this country. Those hon. members know that the prices are determined in this way, but they fail to mention it in this House. Those hon. members also fail to say anything about those prices which are increased on the quiet, which really hit the White and non-White consumers below the belt, and of which no account can be given to the Price Controller or control boards. These are price increases which occur for which no one can accept responsibility, and least of all the Government. Nevertheless, we have to hear, blow for blow, how the Government has to take the blame for this. But, Sir, hon. members such as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central for example, who has just resumed his seat, are so clever. Let us hear what those who themselves play an active part in these industries have to say, those who are real experts in this field into which hon. members of the Opposition have ventured to try to catch a few votes in Umhlatuzana tomorrow. Let us see what Mr. Raymond Ackermann, the head of one of the largest supermarket-chain store groups in this country, has to say. This is a direct reply to the nonsensical things which members on that side of the House have to say about the rising cost of living, and particularly the rise in food prices. Mr. Ackermann fearlessly drew attention—for this we have to respect him— to an important point to which the consumer as well as the Minister in question and the Price Controller could give serious attention. In an interview with The Argus of 31st March, i.e. last Saturday, Mr. Ackermann had this to say—

Mr. Ackermann went further, and now those hon. members should listen very carefully, for what Mr. Ackermann had to say refutes all those arguments of theirs completely. I do not know whether Mr. Ackermann is a Nationalist, but he says—

Perhaps there are hon. members sitting on the opposite side who are also owners of chain stores; I do not know, but if some of them are, they could perhaps confirm the truth of what Mr. Ackermann said. Reference was made here to the processed agricultural product. Once those products have left the farmers, this manipulation which Mr. Ackermann mentioned takes place. It affects every consumer; the consumer becomes annoyed and mistakenly blames the Government for it. He blames the agricultural producer for it, while the agriculturist has no say whatsoever over this specific matter to which Mr. Ackermann referred. I want hon. members of the Opposition, the hon. member for Newton Park for example, their principal spokesman on agricultural matters, to rise to their feet here and to join me, to join Mr. Ackermann, to join the Co-ordinating Consumer Council which protects the consumers’ interests, in condemning these practices in unambiguous terms. They should join me this afternoon in making a request to the hon. the Minister that these malpractices be investigated, and that strong powers be given to the hon. the Minister to take action against this type of practice, because it hits the White as well as the non-White consumer hard, and we are just as concerned about the fate of the non-White consumer as we are about that of the White consumer.

Sir, since yesterday the hon. Opposition has been able to speak about nothing but productivity all the time. Apparently the Opposition does not see in productivity precisely what the hon. the Minister of Finance sees in it, who with this Budget wants to afford industry the opportunity to grow. The hon. Opposition sees only one thing in increased productivity, and that is higher wages for the Bantu, regardless of the quality of the work and regardless of whether those workers are suited to their particular posts. But those hon. members are quite wide of the mark. Long before the Durban strikes, as long ago as October of last year, one of our greatest experts in the field of productivity, namely Mr. Dave Jackson, the Director of the S.A. Institute of Personnel Management took commerce and industry specifically to task about the effect of rising costs as a result of managerial practices in which the course of price increases in order to maintain company profits is too easily adopted. The result of that is that the consumer is then burdened with the increased costs. Sir, I want to quote to you the gist of Mr. Jackson’s argument. It appeared in FCI Viewpoint of October 1972, in a series of articles entitled “How to improve productivity”. This defines precisely what the hon. the Minister of Finance wants. Mr. Jackson said, inter alia—

These are the businessmen themselves, not the Government—

He went on to say, and this is significant—

Sir, that is fundamentally what the hon. the Minister of Finance is asking of the general public, but a totally different interpretation is being attached to it by the Opposition. Sir, I challenge hon. members of the Opposition to rise and refute this statement by Mr. Jackson in respect of productivity, namely that our object should be an overhaul on managerial level in order to eliminate that wastage along the way until the article reaches the final consumer.

That is why our Leader called for a crash training programme.

I quoted what Mr. Raymond Ackermann said, and what Mr. Jackson wrote, simply to demonstrate to hon. members opposite how infinitely complicated this problem of rising costs of living is. It is not something which may easily be dismissed by blaming only the farmer or only the Government for it.

Sir, there are numerous further aspects, but this is not the occasion to go into these in depth, but I do nevertheless wish to point out a few aspects in regard to which the consumer is bearing a very heavy burden, and make a plea to the Ministers concerned to take strong action in this regard. In the first place there is the question of fuel prices, which we discussed in this House last year, which are of importance to both the consumer as well as agriculture. We are pleased to hear that an investigation is now in progress into the way the fuel prices is made up. We want to request that as soon as that investigation has been completed, every detail should be made public so that the consumer who has had to endure price increases every year during the past few years, may feel happier. If every detail of that report is disclosed as in the case of bread and butter and all other controlled agricultural products, and we have examined it and satisfied ourselves that we are not making rich oil magnates unnecessarily richer, then we would be satisfied and say nothing further.

Then there is the motor industry to which one of the hon. members opposite referred obliquely and superficially here, where the private motor car owner is bearing heavy burdens. The hon. member for Gardens referred to this very superficially. Sir, we are no longer all that certain that everything is as it should be in this industry which, as far as the consumer is concerned, is responsible, after his house, for his greatest current expenditure. Sir, the Government is opening up very wide doors to the local automobile industry, but we also want to see the consumer benefit from this by receiving good quality and good service. May we have the support of the Opposition if we ask the Government here this afternoon to have an in-depth investigation instituted into all aspects of the motor manufacturing industry—after sales service, reasonable profit margins, and firm control of the prices of spare parts? May we ask for guaranteed motor repair work?

Sir, I want to return to agricultural products and the prices of agricultural products. I am sorry that the principal spokesman on that side of the House on agricultural matters is not present. Sir, I lay it at the door of the Opposition that they are with irresponsible utterances, such as those we have had to listen to here since yesterday afternoon, on the increase in the price of agricultural products, deliberately attempting to drive a wedge between the agriculturist and the urban consumer. The proof of this is that they are running away from those rural constituencies, and are not going to nominate candidates there. That side of the House does not care a rap for the agriculturist and the real farmer. This attempt of theirs to drive a wedge between producer and consumer, is a disturbing phenomenon.

What proof have you of that?

The agriculturist and the consumer are inter-dependent, and for the welfare of both these sectors it is necessary to refrain from this unnecessary process of driving a wedge between them in which the official Opposition is engaged. I am asking the hon. member for Newton Park, who is not in his bench at the moment, but perhaps the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District, who always has such a great deal to say, to rise to his feet in this House and to dissociate himself from what these two preceding speakers of theirs, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens, who had such a lot to say yesterday about the meat and bread and butter prices, and the hon. member for King William’s Town, who referred so scornfully to the floor price of meat. He called out here: “But no, do you know what the floor price of meat is today? For super lamb it is 53 cents per kg.” Sir, the hon. member for King William’s Town scoffed yesterday at the attempts of this side of the House to obtain an increased floor price for meat for the farmer. On the other hand, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens tells his voters here in the Gardens that the farmer is being given too much, that he is being pampered. We demand from the speakers on agriculture on that side of the House to rise and dissociate themselves from what those two members of theirs said yesterday.

Sir, I want to say that this Budget promises much that is good for the urban consumer as well as for the agriculturist. It gives, as nothing else does, our hon. the Minister of Agriculture an opportunity to usher in, as it were, an entire new dispensation of streamlined agricultural production and marketing which will ultimately, in the long term, result in the consumer benefiting as well owing to the stability of agricultural prices. No matter what the Opposition asks for, the fact remains that this is a very difficult agricultural country. We are struggling, after destructive and disastrous droughts, to build up our stock of cattle and sheep sufficiently to meet the demand, and then that side of the House comes to light here with frivolous and distorted statements, as they did yesterday, to make things difficult for the hon. the Minister. We are struggling to eliminate wasteful bottlenecks from our marketing process of, inter alia, meat and perishable products. What is the contribution of that side of the House to find a positive solution to this? Sir, I want to tell you that from the agricultural side the contribution of that side of the House is a complete zero, and I am asking them now very seriously to rise and inform the House and the consumers of the country and the farmer of their standpoint in regard to this double-talk we have been hearing in this House since yesterday afternoon.

If what the hon. member for Pretoria District has said about monopolistic rings is true—and I have no doubt that what he has said is true—then I agree that not only must these monopolistic rings be investigated but they must be wiped out. At the same time I would remind him that some of the boards which control the distribution of our products must also be investigated; they must also be dealt with. It seems to me that the Dairy Board, if my information is correct, or rather the Milk Board, refused to allow supermarkets to reduce the price of milk. If that is true they must be dealt with. The Milk Board apparently told these people that if they reduced the price of milk lower than a certain figure, they would refuse to supply them with milk.

I remember that last year I had occasion to say to the then Minister that if the actions, which he threatened in connection with the price of bread, took place, he would be doing South Africa a disservice, a disgraceful disservice. What did he say? The then Minister, Senator Uys, said in this House that if bread was sold by supermarkets at less than a certain price, he would deal with them. That is what he said and the present Minister was here, I think, at the time. Afterwards he tried to get out of it.

But it was never done.

But he threatened to do it. Whatever the hon. member for Pretoria District said and whatever the hon. the Deputy Minister said, the man in the street knows that every day prices go up. There is no control over the position, and it seems to be going haywire.

No control?

I never said that I am standing for control of prices. This is what we find. The paypackets remain the same or, if they are increased, the increases in the paypackets cannot keep pace with the escalating price of goods. You cannot keep pace with it. This does not only affect the White man. Why are there strikes? What suddenly caused all this demand for more money? The hon. the Minister of Labour said only last year that this was a land of peace and contentment, because there were no strikes.

He said it this year too!

What do we find? Suddenly there is a rash of strikes, strikes are breaking out all over the country and not only in Durban or Johannesburg or Richards Bay.

Are you pleased about that?

I am pleased that the man who is striking today gets recognition of the demands he makes and that the entrepreneurs, the industrialists and the factory owners are conceding and giving them a better deal. That is what I am pleased about. [Interjections.] They are getting a better deal and they are living a little better. This Government prides itself on what it is doing for the man in the street. I want one member there to stand up and to tell me …

Yes, what?

… that the standard of living in South Africa has improved during the past three or four years.

Of course it has!

How has it improved?

By approximately 2%. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Carletonville takes a wild guess. He does not have the courage to say 3%. He says “approximately 2%”. Every single thing that we use, from the time that we get up in the morning until we go to bed or, as somebody said—I think it was yesterday—from the time we are born until we die, goes up in price. It is becoming dangerous to die, because the cost of burials is so high that the dead are liable to be left out in the cold. [Interjections.] Light, water, electricity, heating, food, clothes, transport, postage, telephones, repairs and replacements—these all cost more. And they do not only cost more, but they are also of inferior quality and they last a far shorter time.

I agree.

The services are poorer. Today when you go into a shop, do you get the same service as you used to? It is indifferent; it has all become inferior. I will tell hon. members one thing, and that is that the grievances that we get today are greater than they used to be. I want to know what this Government has done for the man in the street. What has this Budget done for the ordinary man who goes to work every morning and who comes back every afternoon? It has done nothing, nothing at all. He does not worry about the phrases which are being used in this House. Do hon. members think that he is worried about “acceleration in production”, the “gross national product” or “balance of payments” and all these technical terms? Do hon. members think that the man in the street worries about all those things? He does not even understand them; he understands one thing, and that is: Am I paid for my work, and how am I going to make that pay package stretch to cover my needs? If he is a married man, he is in trouble today, especially if he has a family. The hon. the Minister gave a concession to these people to buy a house easier. He says that if a person saves up to R5 000, if he has a R5 000 deposit, he can buy a house for R20 000.

How long is it going to take an ordinary worker today to save R5 000 to put down as a deposit for a house? By the time he has saved the R5 000, prices will have gone up to such an extent that he will have to look for another few R1 000. He will never be able to do it; this is therefore ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous!

I want to talk about this R4 per month increase in pensions which the old-age pensioners will receive. That increase works out to 13 cents per day, and is equal to the bus-fare from Sea Point to Cape Town. Therefore a pensioner who goes from Sea Point to Cape Town for 13 cents will have to walk back because it does not cover his bus-fare back again. I want to remind the pensioner that if he walks back too often, he will have to have his shoes fixed up pretty soon. Do hon. members know what it costs today for a pensioner to have his shoes half-soled and heeled? It costs them R3-50! It costs 70 cents to have heels put on shoes. This is what I would call a “bus-ride Budget”. That is what these old-age pensioners are going to get out of this Budget, a bus-ride, a one-way bus-ride. This is a one-way bus-ride Budget. If the pensioner gives up his bus-ride and decides to walk, he can really enjoy himself to the amount of 13 cents per day. For instance, he can buy himself a food hamper. The food hamper for 13 cents, as I worked out yesterday in the supermarket, consists of the following: Two carrots, one potato, one tomato and a small apple. That is what you can get for 13 cents when you go to a supermarket where you can get these products the cheapest. That is the treat you get for 13 cents. If you want to give up that and you really want to live, you can get yourself half a loaf of brown bread and a third of a litre of milk.

So much for the increase of R4 per month. What about the balance of the money that the pensioner is getting? What about the other R41? How far can the pensioner go with that? His rent must at least cost R25 per month. I think the hon. the Minister was here when the hon. member for Hillbrow pointed out that terrible things were happening to the pensioners because of what some of the landlords were doing. What happened there? They give the room a coat of paint and thereupon double the pensioner’s rent. That is what is happening to the people. What is going to happen to them now? Where are they going to live; how are they going to come out on the R45 they are getting now? I think this is a shocking business! I want to tell the hon. the Minister now what I told him a few years ago: Let him scrap his idea of giving a little bit here and a little bit there. The least he can give these people is what has been worked out as being the poverty datum line, namely R80 per month. That is what he must do. He must not say: “I shall give you a little bit extra; try to come out on it.” He must give them a minimum and the minimum today is approximately R80. From there he can then start building up, but this pittance he hands out to them every year or every two years is absolutely ridiculous. It does not keep pace with the rising costs of living, as all my friends here know. If they were getting something at the beginning that would give them a fair deal, it would not be so bad, but they are starting off with nothing. When you add 10% to nothing, you still have nothing.

As I have said, there are other factors as well. The sales tax, for example, is going to be reduced. I want the hon. the Minister to tell us in his reply—and I am serious—to tell the House how this reduction in the sales tax is going to work; how the purchaser is going to benefit by it. I am afraid that no notice will be taken by the seller of this reduction. The 5% or 10% sales tax which exists at the moment, will not be taken off. The articles are going to remain at their present price until increases take place, but I cannot see anything coming off the prices. In fact I do not know how they are going to do that. How are they going to work backwards; how are they going to go through the various channels to arrive at the point where they can say: This is what it costs you today. Everybody along the handling line will have to take off 5% or 10% and it just will not work. There are not sufficient inspectors to see that it is done. What is going to happen is that the present prices will become the normal prices. When percentage increases take place, these increases will not be based on what the price should be but on what the price is today. The man in the street is not going to benefit from this concession at all. As far as he is concerned, it is a status quo.

Is it your party’s opinion that we need not reduce the sales tax?

No, What I have said is that I would like the hon. the Minister to explain to this house how it is going to work and how we can be sure that the purchaser is going to benefit. How is he going to make sure that the purchaser is going to receive the benefit of the reduction which the hon. the Minister wants him to receive? He must tell the House how he wants to do that. It is easy to say that he is taking off 5%, but how is that done practically? How are the prices brought down?

You are saying that it is quite impossible. So, I should not do it. [Interjections.]

I do not want the hon. the Minister to say that we do not want him to do it. I want food, appliances, clothes, etc., to be as cheap as possible. What I want the hon. the Minister to tell us is how in practice he is going to bring the prices down by taking off the sales tax. I can understand his imposing the sales tax; everybody is keen to increase prices, but how do you take the sales tax off so that the man in the street will benefit? That is the point I want to raise.

He should never have started with this nonsense.

I want now to deal with another point which is very important in our country today, namely rising medical costs. There is a commission at the moment investigating costs that are charged at nursing homes, and I shall try to avoid, as far as possible, that particular sphere of medical costs. We have said it over and over again in this House that a serious illness can cripple any family today unless he belongs to a medical-aid scheme and has not taken from this medical-aid scheme a sum of money for previous illnesses which will put him out of court. He is not affected if he is a very poor man, and cannot afford private treatment, because then he can go to a hospital for free treatment. We are concerned about the middle man. What perturbs me is the rising costs of those people, firstly, who belong to medical aid schemes and what the Government has done in regard to these schemes in the last month and, secondly, the person who does not belong to a medical-aid scheme. Let us take the first case. A man pays Rx as his contribution to a medical aid scheme and he contracts to get a certain service in return. He contracts to get 100% of the service set out in the contract between himself and the medical aid scheme. What has happened in the last few weeks? The Government has decided by regulation that in future the contributor to the benefit society will no longer get the 100% cover from the medical scheme, but only 80%. That means that the contributor who originally paid for 100% can now only get 80% although he still pays his original Rx contribution. In addition to that, I find that levies are being put on in addition to this reduction of the 100% cover. The levy is a quite remarkable one, and I can hardly believe that it can be true. It is also stipulated that all registered medical benefit schemes will require members to pay a levy for the services of panel doctors and salaried practitioners as follows:

That is over and above what they contracted for, and I plead with the Minister to speak with the Minister of Health to see whether or not this situation should not be investigated.

It is scandalous !

It is scandalous, and it virtually means that this is the first step towards the breakdown of the whole of the medical schemes. If we do not do something about it now, we are going to regret what is going to happen in this country as far as medical services are concerned in the next year or two.

Now what happens to a person who does not belong to a medical scheme? He really is in a fix. I have brought along two records to show what the position is. Here is a record of a woman who was in a nursing home for nine days. Her accommodation fee was “only” R90. It is reasonable enough, R10 per day. It has become a practise to go to these five-star hotels. But do you know what the account was after nine days? Not only R90. Excluding the treatment by the doctor, she had to hand to this nursing home for accommodation there and for the drugs received R389. Here are the accounts; I have them in my hand. Here is another case of a person who was in for 5½ days. The accommodation was R10-50 per day. This person went out with a bill for R387 after five days. I do not know how they could give such a quantity of drugs in these few days; it is just beyond me. It does not include the doctor at all; it does not include any of the specialist services or blood transfusions, etc. It is just bread and butter stuff.

What about Aspros?

Yes, Aspros. They even charge for the use of a face cloth.

Sir, there is only one way in which we can obviate all these problems and the sooner we do that the better. This is again something for which we on this side of the House have pleaded for year in and year out. I ask once again that the Government introduce a State-wide medical-aid scheme, so that we can obviate these difficulties. We want free hospitalization back again. We want to see that the ordinary man in the street will know that by belonging to the national medical-aid scheme whereby he can have a free choice of doctor and can go into a hospital or into a nursing home, he is not going to be crippled financially by the fact that he or a member of his family is being plagued by illness.

There are one or two other matters that I want to talk about. Three years ago the Minister of Health said to me in the House that he would investigate the shocking discrepancies between the pay of White and non-White professional people. Here is what he said. I do not have time to read it all. In short, he said he was going to do something about it, but nothing has been done. I have advertisements here asking for applications for vacancies to be filled. These are the salaries they are prepared to pay. A White sister is being offered R2 280 a year as a starting salary and a Bantu sister with the same standard of education, experience, responsibility and pass, R1 260—a discrepancy of more than R1 000 per annum. A White auxiliary student-nurse is offered R1 020. A Bantu auxiliary staff nurse, a grade higher, is offered R618. The White nurse will get R1 020 and the Bantu R618, although she is of a higher grade. A technician if he is White, will get R2 280; if he is a Bantu he will get R1 018. Now let us have a look at the doctors’ salaries. Let us look at the salary of an intern. Remember, Sir, this is a must; he has to do the job, he has to become an intern when he has qualified. The White doctor will get R4 050, while the Black doctor will get R2 760. A senior houseman, if he is White, will get R5 400, and a Bantu will get R3 700. It seems to me that the higher the qualifications of a Bantu, the bigger the discrepancy and the more blatant the slap in the face he is given by those people who employ him. This is not private enterprise. This is not a case where hon. members on the other side can ask: “Who pays their salaries?” The Government pays these people’s salaries and they are responsible for this wage gap. They have to remove it and they must remove it now. The time has come for us to wipe out this inequality. Every bit of this discrepancy and this discrimination in regard to salary scales must be wiped out.

In the minute I have left I want to appeal to the Minister to do his level best to see that those people who are suffering from serious illness or disease are able to gain admission to hospitals, to see that the hospitals that are run by the provinces are supplied with sufficient money to pay nurses a decent salary, so that they can compete with the salary scales offered in nursing homes and in so doing to see to it that the beds which are lying vacant in Government and provincial hospitals will be used. There will then be nurses to look after the patients. That is what I am asking for, and I would like to see this done as soon as possible, so that the queues which are lining up outside our provincial hospitals will disappear. I would like to see this Government, if necessary, investigate taking over the running of nursing homes if their charges escalate as they have been in the past.

Mr. Speaker, during the 20 years I have had the privilege of sitting in this Parliament, I do not think that I have ever seen such confusion in the Opposition’s pattern of debating as we have seen in this Budget debate so far. It is about as confused as their own ranks. They are divided, and apparently this is the cause of this pattern of debating. Yesterday we had the spectacle of the hon. member for King William’s Town making a potpourri speech in the middle of a financial debate. I do not think he still knows today what he spoke about yesterday. The hon. member for Rosettenville, who has just resumed his seat, also spoke about a variety of topics. Right at the outset I should like to say to him that he has grossly insulted the male and female citizens of South Africa. If he thinks the people of South Africa are interested in one thing only, namely the amount of money which they take home at the end of the week, then he does not know the people of South Africa. They are people who believe in patriotism and who render a service to South Africa; unlike the view the Opposition has of them.

Mr. Speaker, we know the hon. member for Rosettenville to be a person who usually discusses the welfare of the mine-worker in these debates. Today we have heard nothing about that.

That will come.

It may be the case, Mr. Speaker, that he will speak about it later, but after listening to the brilliant speech made here yesterday by my colleague, the hon. member for Virginia, on the continued existence of the mines and also a high gold price and a future for the mineworker in South Africa, then I understand why the hon. member was today unable to scrape together the courage to talk about the welfare of the mine-worker. It seems to me that the United Party, just as they have lost interest in the farmer of South Africa, have also lost interest in at least the mineworker of South Africa. On his part, the mineworker also knows who his friends are in this House.

Sir, I want to make use of this opportunity, the first opportunity which I have had in this House, to convey my deepest appreciation to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. Three months ago, when our fatherland was in the grip of a devastating drought, we made so bold as to arrange a meeting in Wolmaransstad, the constituency which I have the privilege of representing as a member. I then telephoned the hon. the Minister and asked him whether he would meet a gathering of farmers there, not to make rain—if I may make a lighthearted remark, because some people asked me this—but to pay a goodwill visit to the Western Transvaal. This is a very centrally situated point, and I asked the Minister to meet the farmers from the drought-stricken areas of the Western Transvaal, Northern Cape and the South Western Free State. I may tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I telephoned the hon. the Minister at 6 o’clock in the morning. He said at once: “Yes, I shall come.” I telephoned my colleagues; they warned their farmers’ organizations and on the 9th January we held a meeting of approximately 3 000 farmers at Wolmaransstad. Allow me, Sir, not only to convey my appreciation on this occasion to the hon. Minister for having come, but also of the fine spirit which prevailed among the farming communities of those areas.

Were there U.P. supporters too?

Yes, there were farmers of all parties. There were farmers who were members of various farming organizations, but the spirit was the same; it was one of stoicism. There was no aggressiveness. The circumstances in which they found themselves, they accepted; they accepted them almost stoically. It may tell you, Sir, that the prospects at that stage were very grim, particularly for the agronomists. The hon. Minister arrived and I think that we held a very fruitful meeting. He was prepared to give the farmers of the region a hearing and to listen to all their problems. I want to tell you this, Sir: The farmers who were present at that meeting had the greatest appreciation and the greatest respect for the conduct of the hon. the Minister. I am not speaking now on behalf of my own constituency only; I am speaking on behalf of the eleven constituencies which were represented there, and I say this to the hon. the Minister: The manner in which he gave those farmers a hearing on a non-political basis enjoys the highest appreciation and the highest respect, and I have repeatedly been asked to express the appreciation of those people to the hon. the Minister at the right opportunity. Therefore I have great pleasure in doing so in public on this occasion.

Mindful of the function and the task of a member of Parliament for a largely agricultural constituency, I decided to speak, in the limited time at my disposal on this occasion, about (1) the oldest (2) the finest (3) the most important and (4) probably the most risky industry in South Africa, namely agriculture and those who practise it.

Is agriculture the oldest?

Yes, in case the hon. member is uninformed, I want to tell him that it is the oldest industry. In Paradise Adam also practised agriculture. It is the oldest industry in the world. The object for which Jan van Riebeeck was sent here, was to practise agriculture.

[Inaudible.]

No, I am not referring to tomato farming now, Sir. The hon. member for Mooi River made a remark. Sir, in preparing my speech I decided to look at this in the form of question and answer. The first question I asked myself, was this: Do the farmer and agriculture perform a function of national importance in South Africa? That is the question I asked myself and that is the question which I put to this House today. I want to ask that we should in an unprejudiced way furnish a reply to the question whether the farmer and agriculture perform a function of national importance in South Africa. I thought about it for a long time, and the answer I received was undoubtedly “yes”. But, Sir, I cannot merely say “yes”; I must advance a reason for saying “yes”. In the first place, primarily, the farmer in South Africa supplies food to a growing population; he supplies food not only to the White population of South Africa, but to White and non-White.

Why are you importing butter and meat?

Sir, when dealing with such serious matters, I really do not feel like replying to those clownish questions. Is the hon. member opposed to us importing meat when it is necessary? Sir, the reply I received to my question is that in the first place the farmer supplies food to a steadily growing population in South Africa, White as well as non-White. The farmer in South Africa supplies the secondary and tertiary industries with raw materials to process, and therefore he performs a function of national interest. The farmer in South Africa earns for South Africa the foreign exchange we need so badly. Sir, the farmer in South Africa protects our greatest immovable national asset, besides our children and our spiritual goods, because he is the protector of the soil of South Africa; he is the protector of our agricultural production resources. But the farmer in South Africa also lends stability to the people of South Africa; he lends political stability to South Africa; he performs a national function in the social sphere as well.

Sir, I also asked another question: Is the farmer in South Africa, mindful of the fact that people sometimes refer sneeringly to the farmer when he builds a decent house and drives a decent car, entitled to the same standard of living as the other sectors in our national household? My answer to this is, “yes”; the farmer is entitled to a decent, proper standard of living in South Africa. His social position in our national economy requires this of him. But, Sir, I ask a fourth question. What compensation does he get for the national services he renders to South Africa? I come now to a shocking figure, of which hon. members in this House are perhaps aware, but I want South Africa to take note of this: The profit which a farmer gets on his investment in his farm varies from 3% to 5%

Disgraceful!

Sir, that hon. member cries out “disgraceful”, but he is not a friend of the farmers. Sir, this low profit margin is too low for the farmer and I am pleading here today with the hon. Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Finance and the Government, the Parliament of South Africa, for a better dispensation for the farmer in South Africa. [Interjections.] Sir, hon. members opposite can shout as much as they like; I take no notice of what they say. I have a function and a task and that is to put the case of the farmer in this House, and I maintain that the margin of profit which the farmer receives for this national service which he performs in South Africa is too low, and I am pleading for a new dispensation.

Hear, hear!

That hon. member is now shouting “Hear, hear!”, but when we analyse this condition he no longer shouts “Hear, hear!”; he is merely superficial. When the margin of profit of any undertaking is too low, it has to increase its turnover. When the farmer’s margin of profit is too low, he must also increase his turnover. There are only two ways in which he can increase his turnover. He can either apply over-exploitation of our national asset, our soil or he has to purchase more agricultural land so that he may have a greater volume of turnover to enable him to make a living. Therefore I am pleading here for a better dispensation. Not one of us wants the farmer in South Africa to apply over-exploitation, to follow a short-term policy and take everything he can out of the soil, just to make a living, because he must leave the soil for his descendants in a better condition than that in which he found it.

Sir, I want to refer you to certain increases in the prices of agricultural equipment in recent times. I take as a base the years 1960-’61 to December, 1972. The combined index in the year 1960-’61 was 100,2 and it rose to 135 in 1972, an increase of 35%. But I want to refer more particularly to the increases which concern agriculture. Again I take the period 1960-’61 to December, 1972. In the case of tractors the base was 101,1, which increased to 159,1 in December, 1972, an increase of 59%. Trucks were 101,6 and increased to 144,2. Implements which the farmer uses every day, were 101,4 in 1960-’61, but have increased to 142,8. Pumping equipment— that is of importance as a result of the increased use of irrigation in South Africa— has increased from 101,8 to 158,6. Repair work, which has a tremendous influence on the production costs of the farmer, i.e. service tariffs, have increased from 108,3 to 264,9, an increase of 156%. Fertilizer, which the farmer needs to be able to produce in order to render this national service, rose from 96,5 to 109,8. Fuel increased from 100,1 to 119. Sir, these increases do not include interest which the farmer has to pay on his investment. Now, the burden of debt in agriculture has risen from R875 million in 1964 to R1 349 million in 1971. The interest paid, has risen, between 1961-’62 and 1971-’72, from R40 million per annum to R95 million per annum, a percentage increase of 138.

I think I have reason to advocate a new dispensation and a better dispensation for the farmer of South Africa, to make it unnecessary for him to apply over-exploitation and so that he is not forced to buy land above its agricultural value. We also have this experience in South Africa, that the bona fide farmer has to compete today with the professional man who buys land not out of love for the soil, and not to produce from it, but because money is depreciating and land is appreciating. Thus the farmer has to compete with this man who unfortunately uses agricultural land as a speculative investment. When I plead for a better dispensation for the farmer, I am not only pleading for the farmer alone. I am also pleading for the consumers in South Africa; I am pleading for the industrialists and I am pleading for the retailers in the country towns who are exclusively dependent on the buying power of the farmer. It is in the national interest that we in South Africa should have a strong, economically sound and established farming community.

I want to conclude by saying that the United Party has lost all interest in agriculture in South Africa. The United Party is not interested in the farmers of South Africa. Not only do we have the position that the United Party has written off the rural areas; the farmer in South Africa, the rural areas, have lost all confidence in the United Party. Allow me, since my time has almost expired, to summarize briefly. In the Cape we have 54 constituencies of which 33 are rural constituencies. Of those the National Party represents 30 and the United Party three. In Natal we have a total of 18 constituencies. There are seven rural constituencies and then I include the constituency of South Coast. Of those the United Party represents four and the National Party three.

By the skin of your teeth!

In the Orange Free State we have 15 constituencies—just say “by the skin of your teeth” again—and of these, 13 are exclusively rural constituencies. Thirteen are represented by the National Party and none by the United Party. In the Transvaal there are 73 constituencies of which 21 are rural constituencies. Twenty-one rural constituencies are represented by the National Party and none by the United Party. In South-West Africa we have six constituencies of which five are exclusively rural constituencies. Five are represented by the National Party and none by the United Party. We have a total of 79 rural constituencies and 72 of them have been entrusted to representatives of the National Party, while seven have been entrusted to representatives of the United Party. We have just received a report that in De Aar as well as Colesberg the United Party has not dared to nominate a candidate and as a result National Party candidates have been returned unopposed, because the country areas know what they have in this Government. This Government is truly the friend of the farmer in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rosettenville said in reply to the speech made by the hon. member for Pretoria District that he was concerned about the price manipulation of consumer goods and foodstuffs in particular, at the expense of the consumer. He even went so far as to say inter alia, that the Milk Board was quite probably one of the control boards which ought to be investigated. I should like to refer the hon. member to the Order Paper we have before us. In it he will see that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture today moved that a Select Committtee be appointed to inquire into agricultural marketing matters in South Africa. This motion does not imply that price manipulation or certain monopolistic conditions in the control board system has in fact developed. Nowhere in the terms of reference of the Select Committee can such a case be made out.

I want to inform the hon. member that in practice something like that cannot easily happen either, for the financial statements, etc., of the control boards are submitted for inspection to the Select Committee on Public Accounts of the House of Assembly annually. Consequently I feel that we need fear no dangers in this connection.

Since this marketing system will now be investigated, it is important to say on this occasion that we may speak with great appreciation of the work done by the various control boards—I think there are 22 at the moment—over the years, not only for the farmers in South Africa, but also for the consumer. These people have over the years handled hundreds of millions of rand which were appropriated by Parliament to stabilize the productinn and prices of foodstuffs in South Africa, and to prevent impossible increases in foodstuff prices for the consumer in South Africa. I think these people have accomplished an enormous task, and it is therefore merely a question of new marketing conditions which have to be taken into consideration and of introducing a greater measure of streamlining into the entire process of agricultural marketing.

The hon. member for Rosettenville also touched on another important point, to which I think I have to reply. There is a general tendency in the United Party to give themselves out to be the heroes when it comes to effecting increases in Bantu wages in the Republic of South Africa. The true facts of the matter are that this Government has never placed any restrictions on any industrialist in regard to increasing the wages of his Bantu workers. What the Government has always done is simply to determine minimum wages. It has been brought to my attention that influential persons in this House who are directors of major companies, are not even paying their Bantu workers those minimum wages.

Helen Suzman is one.

This Government has never placed any restrictions on a better wage structure for the Bantu.

I should now like to return to the Budget. The principal goal of this Budget is to stimulate sound growth. The hon. the Minister of Finance referred in his speech to various favourable factors which made the climate for growth possible. Reference was made to the improvement of our balance of payments, to the free availability of capital, to more favourable labour conditions, to surplus production capacity particularly in our manufacturing sector, to the relaxation of bank credit, to the major expansion programmes by our State corporations, etc. What is important, however, is to determine as well what the position of agriculture is when one wishes to make a projection of the growth of our economy in the Republic in future. The hon. the Minister of Finance mentioned quite justifiably that agriculture could have a damping effect on the general growth of our economy in South Africa as a result of the present drought conditions. It is therefore essential that we should in the present financial year make adequate provision for capital to be able to place agriculture in a sound position. The investment requirements should remain sound, so that when favourable climatic conditions return, agriculture may switch over to its full production capacity. Adequate investment during favourable climatic conditions is essential because if one offers insufficient assistance in a year of drought, the position may develop that agriculture takes a very long time to recover, particularly after a long period of drought. That is the problem confronting us in agriculture. Agriculture has a tremendous recovery potential, and I want to refer to a few of these agricultural sectors. Let me refer to the maize industry for example. If we experience favourable climatic conditions, we plant approximately 4 892 million hectares of land to maize in South Africa. Under favourable conditions and with adequate production and operating capital, this can easily give us a harvest of approximately 130 to 140 million bags in such a season.

The other production sector which is very popular these days and which everyone likes to talk about, is that of our meat industry. It has been scientifically proved that by increasing our calf percentage from 50% to 80%, we are increasing the weaning weight from 160 kg to 205 kg, and that by increasing our meat cattle turnover, which is at present only 16,6%—by meat cattle turnover I mean the ratio between slaughtering and total stock—to 30% we can achieve a position in the meat industry where we are able to export 2,25 million carcasses annually. This will bring us an additional R400 million in foreign exchange. We therefore have a tremendous growth potential in agriculture as well. What is this Budget doing to stabilize the position of agriculture? We see that the Minister of Finance has in the Budget made provision for additional amounts on loan account for Agricultural Credit. The contribution to the Land Bank was increased by approximately R5 million; R11 million is being borrowed at 2% to keep the average interest rate of the Land Bank to the farmer low. Taking all this into consideration, agriculture is being placed in a position where it may make its contribution as well to this anticipated growth rate. I think that we have the necessary potential among our farmers. They have the knowledge and the enterprise to enable them to make their contribution to the economic growth of South Africa.

I also want to refer to certain recommendations of the Du Plessis Commission which the hon. the Minister accepted, namely that an agricultural financing advisory council be appointed on which our commercial banks will also have representation, together with recognized agricultural financing organizations, to enable them, too, to acquaint themselves with the growth potential of agriculture in the Republic so that our banking sector as well may make their contribution to the capital of agriculture. It is also essential for us to examine agricultural financing in general. We are aware that agriculture is an exceptionally risky industry. During years of poor crops the income from agriculture in certain areas may diminish by as much as 90%. This means that one should therefore make provision in the financing process for tiding-over capital, over and above the normal financing which one requires when climatic conditions are normal again. This makes the capital requirements for agriculture tremendously high. We also find the position in South Africa, particularly since we have during the past few years experienced sound economic growth, that investment fields outside agriculture have become far more attractive to the private financing organizations, with the result that capital for agriculture has become less freely available from, for example, the insurance companies and even from the commercial banks. We cannot take it amiss of these people for trying to find the best investment for their money. After all, they are private enterprise, and have to look after the interests of their shareholders. It will therefore to an increasing extent become the practice in South Africa that we have to make use of State support in respect of agricultural financing, and that this will have to be done primarily through recognized organizations which specialize in this field, specifically: Agricultural Credit, the Land Bank and with that, also agricultural co-operatives which form an important integral part of the financing of the Land Bank. I think we shall have to consider making the Land Bank a field of investment for the farmers so that they, for example, may invest surplus capital with the Land Bank, with tax concessions similar to the concessions when investments are made with building societies. I think that this will strengthen the Land Bank’s capital position. Since the Land Bank, as hon. members know, is also dependant on funds which it has to attract from the open capital market, this will be an additional source of capital for it.

I want to refer further to the function of agricultural co-operatives as financing organizations in agriculture. A co-operative is the only practicable or acceptable form by means of which the farmers may effectively mobilize their capital to obtain production benefits for themselves. This is the case because the farmer in his capacity as producer is one of the many parties offering a product, and he should therefore not merely offer his product jointly, but should also purchase his production means jointly, otherwise he has to buy retail and sell wholesale, which is totally uneconomic in an economic marketing process. Agriculture does not lend itself, as other sectors of our economy do, to mass production either as a factory for example. In other words, the position is that one will always find smaller units with a smaller supply on the general market. The co-operative movement is therefore nothing but an extension of the production process of the farmer. Precisely because agriculture has become unattractive to a large number of our well-known financing institutions, co-operatives have to play an ever more important role in agricultural financing in the years which lie ahead, particularly as far as short-term and medium-term financing are concerned. If we consider the financing needs of agriculture, we see that on 31st March, 1971 the total debts amounted to R1 342 million, of which 63% was mortgage debt. We will accept that the remainder was short-term and medium-term debt, which amounted to 37% of the total. In other words, short-term and medium-term requirements of agriculture appear to be R500 million. The share in this of the commercial banks is very considerable, and amounts to a total of approximately R150 million. Commercial banks therefore play a very important role and it would be catastrophic for agriculture if commercial banks were to withdraw from this financing sphere. But commercial banks have a problem. We have learnt from experience that it is sometimes very difficult for commercial banks to discharge their financing duties in regard to agriculture from a nation point of view. Because it has sometimes been necessary, in times of inflation, for our authorities to place credit restrictions on commercial banks in order to curb spending, it sometimes happens at a stage when the banks have to call in their advances, that the agriculturalist is the person who can least afford this. When that ceiling is established, the banks, regardless of who it is, must inevitably call in their advances in order to comply with the requirements. The bank rate of 10%, and as we understand a bank rate of even 12%, is at the present stage entirely too high for agriculture. It is also a fluctuating rate and is not properly suited to agriculture because agriculture has a slow production cycle and a more stable and constant rate has to be acquired. For that reason commercial bank financing creates certain problems for us. For that reason it is essential that we shall continue to develop more strongly these recognized agricultural financing organizations to enable them to meet the financing requirements of agriculture.

I think the agricultural financing organizations which I have mentioned, and which I think we ought to expand, are also far more production-orientated in their process of financing, and are therefore able in that way to make a far greater contribution to the growth of agriculture, which we believe has a tremendous potential in the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I would have enjoyed discussing financial and economic matters in this Budget debate. I would have enjoyed discussing the labour problems of South Africa. I would even have enjoyed answering the last two members, who have spoken on the question of agriculture in South Africa. I would have liked to point out, for instance, that the hon. the Minister of Finance is losing a tidy sum in revenue by way of the agricultural co-operatives, which of course are free from tax. I would have liked to point out to him that they are exceeding their original function to an ever-increasing degree. They are now competing with private enterprise. I would think that something in the neighbourhood of R40 million to R50 million per annum is being lost to the State in this way.

But, Sir, I have decided that I will not touch on economic matters, because there is an important issue that has to be raised. It is particularly important, because it can only be raised in this House now, since the recent pronouncements of the hon. the Prime Minister about the stringent measures which he intends taking against anybody who criticizes what has now become royal game, the protected Schlebusch Commission. On 27th February this year, the Prime Minister made a dramatic announcement following on the recommendations in the first two interim reports of the commission—that is, those dealing with Nusas —that urgent action was required against eight students and student leaders. In terms of the recommendations, he forthwith placed them under restrictions in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act. The hon. the Minister of Justice in fact was the vehicle, but the hon. the Prime Minister announced that it had been done. In the ensuing week a further eight students— Black students this time were placed under banning orders, and two of them under house arrest, although the organization to which they belong, namely Saso, had not in fact been investigated by the Schlebusch Commission. In the furore that followed these bannings a number of statements have been made by a number of prominent people, including, for instance, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Indian Affairs—I am glad to see that he is with us today—and the Minister of the Interior, not to mention our old friend and ex-colleague, ex-Cabinet Minister and ex-Ambassador to Rome, Mr. Blaar Coetzee, and not omitting that soul of discretion, the wife of the ex-Minister of Sport, who today talked about “benevolent bannings”. Then too, several members of the Schlebusch Commission have also uttered wounded cries, more particularly the four United Party members of the commission, induced, no doubt, by the protestations and the unanimous condemnation by the Press that normally supports them, and by the roar of rage, which is the only way I can describe it, that came from their own supporters …

Where?

Everywhere, throughout the length and breadth of the country. The hon. member for Wynberg has enough telegrams, I should think, to start a small bonfire, congratulating her on the stand that she took. A roar of rage came from their own supporters, the long-suffering supporters, for whom, I would say, the United Party’s complicity in the Schlebusch Commission was the final betrayal. Then the commissioners ran squealing to the Prime Minister for help—all ten of them, if we can believe the reports that appeared in two Nationalist newspapers. Hand in hand, these ten commissioners, this little clique, linked by a common loyalty, ran to “Big Daddy” to get some additional protection. So I was informed by two Nationalist newspapers, and I would be very interested to hear if those newspapers are telling the truth. It would be interesting if the chairman of this commission, for instance, would give us the history of the additional threats which have now had to be issued by the Prime Minister, despite the fact that Government Notice 1238, and Proclamation 164 of 1972, which lay down the regulations under which the commission functions, do have one regulation, Regulation No. 14, which states that—

The penalties are quite severe—either a fine or a prison sentence so, of course, the hon. the Prime Minister acted forthwith; he issued threats and he is now attempting to gag the critics and to muzzle the Press. I say, Sir, that this is a pathetic business, and it is a sad and sorry indictment of the commission’s inability to justify its own findings.

Mr. Speaker …

No, I am not answering any questions.

On a point of order, Sir, may the hon. member for Houghton refer to a Select Committee of this House as “a little clique”?

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Sir. I believe that posterity ought to have a record of all the various and differing statements which have been issued over these weeks, statements which followed on the bannings and on the first two interim reports, so that future historians will have some insight into the curious thinking which has governed those who are the powers to be and also, I might say, that of their faithful collaborators, the official Opposition, when these historians come to examine this troubled era. Sir, I want to start with the hon. the Minister of Justice, who I am glad is here and who technically speaking …

I did not say a thing.

The hon. the Minister did say a thing, and I will tell him what he said. I daresay the hon. the Minister of Justice wishes he had not said this thing. I want to start with him because he is responsible for the banning of the 16 young people. Sir, having chilled our blood in this House with dark reminders of Bashee Bridge and Paarl, he then went on, by way of interjection, to reveal the real reason why the eight Black students had not been brought to court although they were all apparently planning murder and revolution. It was, he told us, because such a step would have given them a platform. This only goes to show, I regret to say, how little the hon. the Minister of Justice understands the prime function of our courts of law. The prime function of the courts of law, I have always understood, has been to decide on the guilt or innocence of persons brought before them and then to hand out punishment or no punishment accordingly, and it is absolutely irrelevant whether or not, in bringing them before the courts, a platform is provided for such persons. Then, Sir, we have the hon. Senator, the Minister of Indian Affairs, who is also the leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal. He is equally at sea about the functions of the courts of law. Sir, he is concerned about not exposing the security system of South Africa; he is not concerned about the guilt or innocence of people who are punished. But he, of all people, ought to know on what slender evidence, very often, people are accused of all sorts of leftist leanings. Sir, he might remember his own not so very distant past when he was a having a pretty torrid time as principal of the University of Natal, when he brought a complaint against the SRC and said that some of the members were inspired by leftists and that outside influences and agitators were influencing them. He will remember, too—he nods his head—that the Harcourt Commission investigated these charges and found that there was no evidence whatsoever of outside influences amongst the students and that there was no evidence of leftist leanings amongst the students.

Absolute nonsense!

I want to remind the hon. the Minister about his more distant past. I want to remind him about the time when he was a lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Perhaps he will remember that he was one of the leading lights in a lecturers’ revolt.

What nonsense!

My information is that this gentleman, when he was a lecturer at U.C.T., was one of the leading lights in a lecturers’ revolt against poor pay and bad conditions—just the sort of thing that students all over the world are doing.

Nonsense!

I am informed that the hon. Senator, who is now so perturbed about the upholding of discipline, in those days actually handed back to the university authorities a cheque for the amount of £93 18s. 4d. in order to show his disgust at the way in which the lecturers were treated. [Interjections.] For all this the hon. Senator, as he may remember, was accused of being a communist agitator by a professor who was the head of his department at the time.

Who said that?

The information I have is that he was accused by the professor in charge of the department of being a communist agitator.

That is an unmitigated falsehood.

The hon. Senator threatened to go to court about it.

You are a scandal-monger. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

He threatened to take the professor to court. He did not proceed with the action, and I can only assume that he did not proceed with the action because he was anxious, even then, not to expose the security system of South Africa—a lot of nonsense from beginning to end.

Order! The hon. member should not be so personal.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Very well, Sir, but I am only replying to some very personal remarks which have been made against people who are unprotected and who are now unable to defend themselves, for they are banned persons. It is only in this Parliament that one can defend them and quote them. I may say that we have also the opinion of another legal luminary, another commissioner this time, an advocate, the hon. member for Pretoria Central. He told what The Star described as a lack-lustre audience of about 150 Pretoria University students—and I do not wonder that they were lack-lustre when one considers what he had to say to them —that the reason why the banned students had not been brought to court was because our law required the State to prove a man guilty beyond reasonable doubt, That hon. member, who professes to have a high regard for Roman-Dutch Law, finds this a very tedious requirement of our courts of law. It would all take too long, he said, and he told his lack-lustre audience that if the State waits until blood flows in Adderley Street, in Eloff Street, and in Church Street, then it will have waited too long. Well, I would have thought that if the commission had produced any evidence whatsoever—and no evidence whatsoever was produced in either of the first two interim reports …

How do you know?

Because I have read the first two reports, which the hon. member apparently has not done. If there had been any evidence of all this imminent bloodletting, the State would have had an excellent prima facie case against the students, and they could have been taken to court and the court, if this was going to take too long, could have granted them bail under exactly the same conditions of restriction as have been placed on them by the banning where of course they have not been brought to court at all. Of course the hon. member’s statement has been countered by two leading lecturers in law, one at the University of South Africa and the other at the Witwatersrand University, so I leave that part of his statement there. What I would like to ask the hon. member for Pretoria Central is this: On whose authority did he inform his lack-lustre audience that if Helen Suzman had been on the commission she would have signed the report? That I really think is a bit of cool cheek; it is crass nonsense and the hon. member knows it because I have made it absolutely clear inside and outside the House that wild horses would not have dragged me on to that commission. [Interjections.]

Order!

And as for my signing that commission’s report, that I can only greet with what I would call a raucous laugh.

Now the latest extraordinary statement emanating from a Cabinet Minister comes from the hon. the Minister of the Interior. He was addressing, according to the The Cape Times, an enthusiastic audience of 200 at Randfontein. The report is dated 30th March. He said that if the Government had waited to try the banned Nusas leaders the country might have been overtaken by a revolution before the court could reach a decision, and then it could have been that there was no longer any court. What melodrama, Sir! What a grim warning! But the only trouble is that again there is absolutely nothing in the two interim reports to suggest indeed that revolution or bloody revolt was imminent. Eight young people appear before the commission. The most cursory methods of investigation follow. Some radical opinions are certainly quoted and that is enough to panic the hon. the Minister of the Interior into that sort of hysterical utterance. I want to tell the hon. the Minister to relax. I want to tell him that there is as much chance of Paul Pretorius and his co-victims fomenting a violent revolution in South Africa as there is of the hon. the Minister taking to pot. I think that that is something very unlikely. I wonder what the hon. the Prime Minister and other responsible members of this House think is accomplished by such statements.

Tell us about Philippe le Roux.

Does the hon. the Prime Minister think that the statements which the hon. the Minister of the Interior or the hon. member for Pretoria Central has made are likely, for instance, to improve our image overseas and to encourage foreign investors to come to South Africa? I refer in this connection also to the ex-Ambassador to Rome who states that South Africa’s position today is no less dangerous than it was during World War II. I believe it is not the criticism of the Schlebusch Commission’s findings or the critics of the commission that the hon. the Prime Minister ought to curb, but the hysterical pronouncements of his own Cabinet Ministers and other henchmen.

It is quite remarkable that the United Party members on the commission, who presumably had access to all the evidence that was before the members who have made these statements, have not talked of revolution or blood running in Eloff Street. They talk a different sort of nonsense, like the hon. member for Yeoville, for instance, who, in the teeth of all the evidence to the contrary, has announced that the clique that ran Nusas sought confrontations between the students and the Police as, for instance, what happened on the Cathedral steps last year. Everybody knows that in court and out of court that has been proved to be complete nonsense. The United Party commissioners talk about faces which are going to be red when the next interim report is issued and they mumble about the moral corruption of our youth.

I now come to the hon. the Prime Minister himself, who is, no doubt, basking in a glow of self-satisfaction at the “kragdadige” response which he made to the call for urgent action; that is, the banning of eight, now 16, student leaders, although the commission’s call for urgent action was against the eight White student leaders. I must say that this really is ironical. Here is a country that this year is spending R575 million on Security, on Police and on Defence and we have to ban eight young people in order to save the security of the country. Strangely enough, however, this stern defender of law and order apparently uttered no word of disapproval when the Afrikaanse Nasionale Studentebond during the war years was making very wild speeches indeed on the Pretoria campus and elsewhere. [Interjections.]

Order!

Why do they say “siestog” when I talk about this?

Because you are talking nonsense.

However, it is perfectly in order for everybody to disparage the students at the English-language universities. These students, as Prof. Malherbe, who was the head of Military Intelligence, told us a few weeks ago, were making the wildest possible statements during the war, during a time of declared war.

But they were detained.

Why did the hon. the Prime Minister, who is so keen on law and order, not suggest preventive detention for those students who were coming out in support of Hitler, as I say, during the time of declared war? On the contrary, I would say he was busy making a few provocative statements himself. As hon. members might in fact remember, he was a leading member and activist—actually an activist—of the very extremist organization known as the Ossewabrandwag which was plotting sabotage during the war. [Interjections.] He was eventually interned, as hon. members will remember, and there was actually a commission of appeal to which … [Interjections.]

Order! I think the hon. member is going very far when she says …

Well, Sir, I leave it at that …

Order! No. I think she is going very far when she says that the Ossewabrandwag was plotting sabotage.

Well, Sir, I can mention a name to remind you. Van Blerk, who was a member of the Ossewabrandwag, was actually sentenced to death for blowing up a post office.

Order! That is a different matter altogether. I ask the hon. member not to be so personal.

I thought it was common knowledge. I shall, however, leave it at that, very well. [Interjections.] I think it is common knowledge that the hon. the Prime Minister in those days uttered no word … [Interjections.]

Order! I must appeal to hon. members that I would like to hear the hon. lady speaking. I cannot hear her.

Thank you, Sir.

She is treading on dangerous ground and I must hear her.

It would all be very ironical if it were not all so sickening, if it had not all been so disastrous for the young people concerned.

I want to leave that altogether and come to some important evidence which has come to light since the two interim reports were published, evidence which refutes entirely some of the gravest charges which were made by the commission. I want to ask the chairman of the commission, who is here, and other members of that commission who are here, whether they do not think that common decency and simple justice demand that they reconsider their findings in the light of the disclosures which were made a couple of weeks ago by The Sunday Tribune regarding the use of funds obtained from abroad and the so-called falsification of the date on a letter to the bank. There is no time to go into very great detail. Suffice it to say that the commission alleged irregularities in the use of funds which had been obtained from abroad and they ascribed sinister motives to students, Paul Pretorius, who has since been banned, in particular, re the pre-dating of a letter instructing Nedbank at its Braamfontein Branch, Johannesburg, to close one of Nusas’s accounts there, the account of Nuswel, in order, as the commission put it, to get rid of the “hot potato”, which was a sum of money …

You will regret that.

I am quite prepared to take the consequences. This hot potato was supposed to be a sum of money which had arrived from overseas for purposes, they said, other than those authorized by Nusas. In two short telephone calls to Geneva, to the donor organizations, The Sunday Tribune disposed completely of the charges of unauthorized misuse of money. One inquiry made by the newspaper at the bank established beyond all doubt that there was nothing sinister whatsoever in the pre-dating of the letter to the bank; indeed, it was done on the instructions of the bank itself. The pertinent question I want to ask is why the commission did not make any effort to check on these allegations. Why did they not make any effort to check on the explanation which was given to them by the Nusas witnesses? Did they just disbelieve the students and leave it at that? The hon. member for Yeoville is reported to have said that he was satisfied that Nusas got fair treatment. In what seems to me a rather sort of flurried interview, he stated to The Sunday Tribune on 25th March—

I suggest that it is not surprise that he ought to be experiencing but shame. I think if there is a person whose face ought to be red, it is the face of the hon. member for Yeoville. He goes on to say—

I am quoting; it is not my language, it is the language of the hon. member for Yeoville.

Are you quoting me?

Yes.

You are not, you know.

Well, then you must stand up and say so.

I will sit down and say it.

All right; well, this is what The Sunday Tribune says [Interjections.] I would like to ask the hon. member whether it is just the word “hell” that he did not use; did he not say that if their explanations were genuine they would accept them? Did he not say that if they were now discovering facts they should have been brought to the notice of the commission at the time. “I can only express my surprise”?

I said that.

You said so. Therefore you are only objecting to the word “hell”. Well, then I withdraw the word “hell”. Then I believe he also went on to say that the Schlebusch Commission was not a prosecuting commission but a fact-finding commission. I wonder whether he did say that to the Tribune. No answer is the stem reply. I would say that most thinking people would have come to exactly the opposite conclusion, that this was not a fact-finding commission at all. It did not seem to me, in this instance anyway, and it is a serious instance, that the commission took any trouble to find out the facts. The Tribune however, had no trouble in finding out the facts.

Do you believe that?

Yes, I believe that. I submit that no new facts have been discovered by the students. I submit that the students gave truthful explanations to the commission when they gave evidence and I submit that the commission took no steps whatsoever to check whether these explanations were genuine or not. It simply assumed that the students were telling lies. With this in mind, and knowing the procedure which has been adopted throughout by this commission, the so-called “fair treatment” referred to by the hon. member for Yeoville, knowing the hopeless limitations placed upon counsel, the fact that the witnesses never knew what charges were being brought against them and never had a chance to examine any of the evidence which was laid before the commission …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, may the hon. member for Houghton refer to the “so-called fair treatment” meted out by the commission to the students?

Sir, I was quoting the hon. member for Yeoville. Those are the words he used.

No, you were not.

Of course I was! Do not tell me when I am quoting! I submit that the students could not possibly have had a fair deal—now I am quoting myself. I believe that they were prejudged. I believe that their life-style, to which the members of the commission took so much exception, played an important role in the findings of the commission.

Order! The hon. member is now reflecting on the commission.

Yes, I am, Sir.

She must not. She must withdraw it.

Well, Sir, may I say that on the strength of the evidence …

Withdraw!

What must I withdraw?

Everything you have said.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Sir. I am using my parliamentary privilege. The hon. member does not seem to realize that.

Using it?

If I am abusing it, Mr. Speaker will soon stop me.

I did not say you are abusing it.

Yes you did. To me the saddest part about this whole commission is that the commissioners have shown such an utter lack of understanding of young people. They misconstrue the fierce criticism of young people towards the Establishment as a sort of heresy. They misconstrue their rejection of our racially structured society as treason. They have no word of praise at all for the deep concern these young people have about injustices in South Africa. On the contrary, they consider that this makes them dangerous. Finally, I want to say that my sympathies are entirely with those people who have announced that they will not give evidence before the Schlebusch Commission. [Interjections.]

Just as your sympathies are with Mandela … [Interjections.]

Never mind about Mandela. It is just as well that somebody keeps an eye on prisoners. As I have said, my sympathies are entirely with the people who have said that they will not give evidence before the Schlebusch Commission. I would like to say that I myself would certainly refuse to give evidence for I have not the slightest confidence in the objectivity of the Schlebusch Commission.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton started by referring cuttingly to a common loyalty between the United Party members and the National Party members on the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Organizations. I want to tell her very definitely that a common loyalty does exist, and that common loyalty is to protect the youth of South Africa. I want to tell her that, irrespective of what she may say and irrespective of what may be said by the hysterical Press which supports her, this commission will carry on with its work and that it will display this common loyalty. I just want to say in passing that the hon. member for Pretoria Central will, at an opportune moment chosen by him, deny having said what was imputed to him by the Press. Then I also want to say that the hon. member for Houghton would of course dearly like me to tell her today whether certain requests were made by the commission to the Prime Minister. She would dearly like me to disclose further evidence which we have available, but I am not going to let her have her way. Surely it is as clear as anything in the world that she just wants to see how much she can draw out of us, for the benefit of the Press outside, from what is being said here today in privileged circumstances. Then the Press outside will just start up new arguments again. As chairman of the commission I say that it is quite infra dig for us to carry on in that way. From the nature of the case I cannot reply to certain accusations levelled by her at members of the Cabinet; it is for those gentlemen to reply effectively to them in their own time. I just want to say that in suggesting that there is no leftist influence at the Natal universities, she should refresh her memory as to what a certain Dr. Rick Turner has been telling students there. While giving a lecture on Herbert Marcuse, he said the following—

If this is not leftist influence, then I do not know politics or political writings.

I do not have a full turn to speak, and for that reason I shall really have to hurry up. In respect of the question why these persons have not been charged, I just want to quote what was said by a judge. I am referring to a recent Sunday evening radio interview that was conducted with Mr. Justice Snyman. At the time the following question was put to him (translation): “I want to put a last question to you. As you know, we often hear of late about detentions without trial, but now I want to ask you whether provision is made in the system of law of a democratic state such as South Africa for charging persons with revolutionary objectives?” This was his reply (translation)—

Sir, this is the reply to the hon. member, a reply given by a judge of our supreme court. At this stage the question of whether or not these people should be charged, is not relevant at all.

Now I shall deal with the hon. member’s charge against the commission. Quite groundlessly and submissively she repeated the challenge issued by The Sunday Tribune on 1st April. The Sunday Tribune challenge consists of two parts. I quote from The Sunday Tribune of 1st April—

A great deal was said in the English Press, in The Star, The Sunday Tribune and the Rand Daily Mail, about this part of the commission’s report. What did the commission say in this regard? The commission said (translation)—

Now, here we have the commission’s allegation concerning the back-dating of the letter—

Sir, Pretorius knew he was signing a letter bearing a false date.

At the request of the bank! [Interjections.]

Sir, that is just the point. Whether Pretorius changed the date on that letter, or whether he signed the letter bearing a wrong date …

But he had sent the previous letter with the same date.

The previous letter has nothing to do with the matter. We are talking about this letter. The point is that whether Pretorius changed the date on the letter or whether the bank changed the date on the letter Pretorius signed a letter bearing a false date, knowing full well that the date was false. Now I want to go further. The commission has been attacked and attempts have been made to make the commission look ridiculous in regard to this matter. I have just proved that it does not matter who changed the date—the commission’s allegation is simply that he signed a letter bearing a false date. The commission does not even allege, as certain newspapers are suggesting, that he changed the date himself. In other words, this criticism levelled against the commission does not hold any water whatever. Sir, I am not going to disclose any further evidence in this regard now, but I want to assure this House, and especially the hon. member for Houghton, that in its final report the commission will be able to give a great deal of additional and interesting evidence on this hot potato, inter alia, interesting evidence on how this money was used.

Sir, the first challenge has therefore fallen flat. But the second challenge is a very serious one. This Sunday Tribune is a very big hero of these people and has been using all sorts of ugly methods in order to bring the commission into disfavour with the public and to write up these restricted persons as martyrs and angels. Now I come to my serious charge: The Sunday Tribune of 1st April, 1973 …

April Fool’s Day.

… told a deliberate, downright lie in their second allegation. This challenge is as follows, and I shall read it verbatim—

I repeat—

Sir, I say that this last sentence is a deliberate, downright lie, and the commission will not leave this kind of journalism at that; we shall take it further.

Take them to court.

In this regard I just want to quote what the commission actually had to say about the R9 000, and I want to say in passing that Nusas had at all times collected money abroad and that they had at all times intimated to the donors that they would in the first instance spend that money largely in the interests of prisoners who had committed so-called political crimes. In this way they did, of course, get a great deal of sympathy and with that appeal of theirs they did, as we shall reveal, get a very great deal of funds from abroad, including an amount of R9 000. In connection with this R9 000 the commission said the following—

That is all we claimed. We did not say that it had been transferred without the necessary permission. In other words, this second challenge does not only fall flat; it is a downright lie.

In the last instance—and having said this, I shall resume my seat—I want to quote this great newspaper, The Sunday Tribune, of 25th March of this year. I want to tell this newspaper that they should not play with words; that they are not dealing with children. This newspaper quoted, inter alia, a certain Mr. Lars Gunnar Eriksen, head of the International University Exchange Fund. Sir, you must bear in mind that The Sunday Tribune telephones these people for certain statements; that information which they get over the telephone in this way, which is from the nature of the case not sworn statements, is used as against commission findings which are based on sworn statements, but, in any case, I shall leave the matter at that. They telephoned Mr. Lars Gunnar Eriksen, and what did this prominent gentleman have to say?—

In other words, he contradicted the commission—

And this is the important point—

Sir, I am telling these gentlemen that they are not dealing with children and should not play with words. Sir, this is my advice to the hon. member for Houghton, that when any newspaper announces again (The Sunday Tribune announced on Sunday that she was going to issue these challenges) that she will rise here and mow us down, then my advice to her is that she should in the first instance ask the newspaper whether its facts are correct.

The hon. member for Houghton commenced her remarks in this House this afternoon by suggesting that there were wounded cries from the members of the commission because of Press reports and Press comments and that there was a roar of party disapproval as far as my party was concerned, of the activities in which we had taken part. If that was so, if that was factual, I would have expected the hon. member’s pressure group to have offered candidates today in two urban seats where they could test this “roar of disapproval” in the United Party ranks. One of them includes Cyrildene in Observatory, Johannesburg. I think there is even a Progressive Party branch there, although there is no candidate forthcoming for the election. Sir, what is more appalling when one listens to the hon. member groping in various directions to find some substance on which to address us today, is that one is constrained to say that even amongst the students they now have different views of the hon. member and her political party; because the President of the Witwatersrand University Students’ Representative Council has said, and I quote a report which appeared in The Star

[Inaudible.]

In the time at my disposal there are many matters of which I must try to correct the record which has been so misrepresented to the public of South Africa. I want to deal with the attitude of the official Opposition in regard to the Select Committee on which we served, and subsequently on the Commission. I would remind you, Sir, that on the 10th February, last year, the hon. the Prime Minister introduced a motion into this House requesting that a Select Committee should be appointed of members of this House which would be a fact-finding committee, which would report its findings to Parliament and that Parliament would then be enabled to decide whether action should be taken or not be taken in regard to student activities at certain of the English-medium universities. Sir, it is history, factual history, that we on this side of the House opposed that proposal by the hon. the Prime Minister because we felt that a judicial commission should have been appointed. We believed that it should have been appointed and we accepted that a judicial commission was justified in the circumstances disclosed by the hon. the Prime Minister. We favoured a judicial commission because it would have been divorced from Parliament and would have exercised a judicial as against a fact-finding function. Sir, when Parliament debates a question we are here as members of this Parliament of the Republic of South Africa. Parliament, in the exercise of its constitutional functions, then decided that a Select Committee of this House should be appointed. That was the factual situation which then arose in the normal processes of a democratic decision arrived at in this Parliament. The hon. member for Houghton is responsible to no one outside a political pressure group, a political pressure group comprised almost entirely of the privileged class. We in the United Party …

[Inaudible.]

Order!

We in the United Party hold a basic and constitutional position in this House as the official Opposition in Parliament. We are answerable for our actions to some 40% of the electorate and we are answerable to our supporters, not only in the privileged classes, but in all walks of life in South Africa. When Parliament resolved to appoint a Select Committee by constitutional process, we in the official Opposition had two alternatives. We could either abdicate from our responsibilities by refusing to serve on this Select Committee, and boycott it and the subsequent commission, or, as the second alternative, fulfil our constitutional obligation and participate in the Select Committee appointed by this House. The United Party chose to fulfil its duty and to accept its constitutional obligation to serve on this Select Committee which, as we know, has been converted into a State President’s Commission.

South Africa is not a one-party state. We do not have a one-party state government. Government in all its aspects is regulated by laws adopted by the Parliament of South Africa and the Opposition has accepted its responsibilities according to those laws by which we are governed. Originally I and two other members were nominated to that committee and later an additional member was appointed to this commission by the State President.

I believe it was a correct decision by my party, the United Party, and a responsible decision that we should serve on that committee and later on the commission, whatever the inconvenience and the obligations which might accompany the acceptance of that duty by our party. Had we not done so, had we abdicated from our responsibilities, had we boycotted this committee and this commission, we would have been guilty of a dereliction of duty and of a failure to accept what I have already stated are legal and constitutional obligations. There was and there still is an obligation to serve. The acceptance of this obligation did not and does not require us, the United Party, to depart one iota from the political principles for which we have stood and still stand.

I want to remind the hon. member for Houghton, who I do not think has ever to my knowledge served on a Select Committee of this House …

That is quite wrong. I did serve on Select Committees for many years.

Yes, but not since she became a member representing this pressure group. I want to say to her that serving on a commission of this sort demands personal sacrifice and personal inconvenience to the members of that commission. In any event, when questions which affect or may affect the security of the State are involved, we as an Opposition are as vitally concerned as the Government of the day in South Africa.

There were two reports, and what were the findings of the commission? In the first report, after having heard the considerable volume of evidence and having studied the vast number of documents placed before the commission, the commission unanimously resolved to submit an urgent interim report to the State President recording, as was our mandate, the findings of fact. Let me deal with this. We recommended the establishment of a permanent parliamentary committee on internal security.

Who was to serve on it?

I wish the hon. member would be patient. We outlined the possible functions of that committee …

Order! I think the hon. member for Houghton must control herself.

Had the hon. member for Houghton taken the trouble to read the report she would have observed that the commission made it quite clear that the establishment of that permanent committee would require legislation before this House. That legislation has not yet been presented to this House. Whether the Government and the Cabinet will accept the recommendation, the ideas and the thinking of the commission, is still to be seen. We shall know that only when the legislation is introduced by the Government. The hon. member for Houghton and those who think like her and who make accusations in the Press, have suggested that this House, on the recommendation of the commission, would appoint a McCarthy-type inquisition for South Africa. That is absolute impertinence and it is unfortunate that the hon. member cannot concede that we in this Parliament are responsible people. I do not believe that there is one single member of the commission—and I mean all 10 of them—who would support the establishment of a permanent committee of the McCarthy-French Revolution type with which we are now being smeared. There can be no question of such a commission usurping the functions either of the police or of the courts in South Africa.

We now come to the second report of the commission. In the second report the commissioners again reported certain findings. It is necessary to remind ourselves of those findings. The findings were that Nusas’s political activities were regulated by a small group of activists influenced by persons outside Nusas both in and outside South Africa. The findings were that Nusas depends on foreign money to keep going. In other words, it did not receive sufficient financial support in South Africa to keep going. Thirdly, the commission found that these activists had directed their energies towards a Black/White polarization in South Africa and that they were fermenting confrontation between those Black and White polarities. It found that it was undesirable that this group, the members being identified by name in the report, should have access to the campuses of the English-language universities. Action was then taken, action by way of banning by the Cabinet under the provisions of the Suppression of Communism Act. Immediately, on that day, and on the day following that announcement, we on this side of the House, as we were entitled to do, expressed our displeasure and our opposition to that procedure, because we still subscribe to the attitude, as we have always done, that if a person’s liberty is curtailed in any way whatsoever, he must have access to some independent forum or tribunal where he can have his case reviewed or tested. That is our position; we have not departed from that viewpoint by serving on this commission. I said at the time that I believed these students should be prosecuted. I believe personally that there is a prima facie case against them. I hope that there will still be an occasion where that can be tested. Then the students must face the penalties that are prescribed in law on conviction of any of those crimes. Obviously all the evidence has not been disclosed in the interim reports. Because of the fact that there has been an attempt by the misinformed and the mischievous to question the findings of the commission, I would like to place on record two statements which appeared in the report and which were made by two of those persons who have now been restricted under the Suppression of Communism Act. The first is the statement by Mr. Neville Curtis in which he said—

The second quotation is that of Mr. Paul Pretorius. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must not draw out the hon. member for Houghton now. They must control themselves. The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Paul Pretorius put his views and objectives in these words:

If in the opinion of the hon. member for Houghton those remarks should be ignored I say without fear of contradiction that she is speaking for even fewer people than I thought she represented. If those are statements which are acceptable to South Africa, this House is entitled to reject by motion the commission’s report which has now been tabled. The House is at liberty to reject it. But I do not believe those are the type of statements, expressions of opinion and objectives that the people of South Africa will tolerate any longer.

The columns of the Press have referred to, and the hon. member for Kroonstad has dealt with, the question of a Nusas bank account. The issue involved is a simple one. A bank account existed in the name of Nusas. On a particular day certain action was taken and an irregular instruction was apparently given to the bank to close this account. The bank could not close the account and the account remained in existence because there was not a proper mandate to close the account from the holder of the account. Three weeks later a mandate was issued and signed, by Mr. Pretorius and others. That mandate was back-dated three weeks. One cannot validate a mandate which is invalid by signing a document three weeks later and saying that the account was legally closed on the first occasion. I do not deny The Sunday Tribune the “bohaai” they are enjoying. They can continue with it but they are certainly trying to make a mountain out of a small, legal molehill. This issue has been raised in an attempt to discredit the members of the commission.

Another false accusation has been made against the commission, namely that it is directed at putting a stop to the political activities of students. Nothing can be further from the truth. As I have said before in this House, I do not regard the students of our English-language universities as so irresponsible that they should not be able to express a political view in the affairs of South Africa. Most of them, if not all of them, are voters. They are entitled to exercise a vote in this country and they are entitled to take part in political activities. The suggestion, again, is that we want to silence them because their political thinking may not accord with that of the members in the Government benches or with the political thinking of the hon. members on this side; it certainly does not accord with the political thinking of the hon. member for Houghton. As I have said, nothing is further from the truth. I want to quote my colleague, the hon. member for Yeoville, when he spoke in this House on the day when this report was tabled. He said:

There is no desire on the part of any of us to restrict lawful political activities in the student life of South Africa. We may disagree with the views of some of the students, but they are entitled to express those views provided that in the course of doing so they make no attempt to subvert law and order in this country, which those who are now protesting would ask us to believe that they so piously believe in themselves. Let us see that in the fulfilment of their political activities they also realize that they have a responsibility in the maintenance of law and order.

There has been an interesting development and the hon. member for Houghton has associated herself with this development this afternoon, namely that people should not give evidence before this commission. She sympathizes with them and in the Press there have been exhortations in certain organizations that persons should not give evidence even if they are subpoenaed to do so, in other words, that they should incur the criminal penalties which would follow. I think the public and the country should know that amongst some of those persons—whose names have appeared in the Press—are the hereos who have already themselves given evidence before the commission. Unfortunately I cannot disclose the names of these brave heroes who are making these exhortations, but they will know who they are, and in the fullness of time South Africa will know who they are.

The hon. member for Houghton spoke today about the question of privilege and she mentioned in the Press that she was going to use the privilege of this House to the full to attack us on the commission. This is her right. The hon. member for Yeoville and I visited Wits University without that privilege and without that security! [Interjections.] We were subjected to hooliganism that one would not expect from a premier university in South Africa, but perhaps the hon. member for Houghton and the country will be interested if I assure them that our journey was not entirely without success. I am going to read this afternoon from a letter which I received, dated immediately after the visit, from a professor at Wits University who had been somewhat hostile to us; I do not want to exaggerate his position. He wrote this letter on the 12th March, the day after we had been at Wits, and he says the following:

Thank you for visiting this university on Friday to explain your attitude towards the Nusas bannings. I am very sorry that there was a certain amount of rudeness shown towards you, but I think some bad behaviour is inevitable at a meeting of that size. Nevertheless I do think that you made your dedication to and respect for the rule of law clear under difficult circumstances.

That is the reaction of one of our strongest critics. I want to quote another extract, because the chairman of any commission is the man who takes most of the brickbats when there is criticism of the commission. This gentleman who gave evidence before the commission wrote this in his letter:

That is the commission which certain sections of the Press have regarded as a justifiable target for attack. The gentleman concerned is in fact a professor of law.

Another one of your friends, Helen.

Order! The hon. member for Potchefstroom must restrain himself!

That reaction and the reaction, I believe, of the vast majority of South Africans, strengthens the resolve of us on this side of the House, the resolve of the United Party, not to be diverted from the task which we undertook in agreeing to serve on this commission. Sir, we will complete that task, whatever the suggestions or the pressures might be that we should resign from the Schlebusch Commission. We will continue to make contributions, wherever we can, in those deliberations to achieve what we believe in for the future and security of South Africa. I want to say again: It has been maliciously suggested that we have given support to a McCarthy type of standing committee, that we are lending support to a totalitarian, even described as a Nazi, form of government. I think it should be remembered that there are many of us here who spent many years fighting totalitarianism. We are still opposed to it in any form, whether it is the extreme right or the extreme left. We oppose totalitarianism, whether it is Fascism, Nazism, or Communism, and we shall continue to do so in this Parliament and through this House. Sir, we will continue in that service which we have undertaken on this commission. We will do it with the full backing of my colleagues on this side of the House. There is no division in the ranks of this party as to where our obligation lies; we on the commission are fortified by the support which we receive from our colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to participate in this debate but you yourself Sir, have heard the turn this debate has taken since the hon. member for Houghton spoke. At first I was inclined to ignore completely the accusations she levelled at me, but I know the leftists, their fellow-travellers and their ilk, and if one does not reply to these ugly things which are being said, one will be told later that one had no answer. For that reason and also for other reasons which will probably be evident from my speech, I should like to say a few words.

†I want in the very first instance to express my great appreciation for the attitude of the hon. member for Kroonstad as chairman of this Schlebusch Commission, as we are calling it, and of all the other nine members of the commission for the constructive and responsible attitude they have adopted throughout this important inquiry, and for the very responsibile manner in which they are carrying it out. I would like to go further and say that, whilst we would disagree on many fundamental issues of policy with our hon. friends of the Opposition, as far as I am concerned I have the greatest appreciation for the responsible attitude which these four members of the Opposition have shown in this inquiry. I believe they have done themselves great credit by their responsible conduct here. I would like to say that, whilst I would disagree with the hon. member for Green Point, who has just spoken, when he says he does not think that this matter need have been dealt with as it was after interim reports had been published—that is to say, after they had been tabled—namely that these eight people who were restricted should rather have been brought to court, I still have great respect and admiration for the way he and his three colleagues have gone about this very fundamental inquiry. I say that, because here we are dealing with the fundamental security and safety of South Africa. Sir, people like the hon. member for Houghton and those who speak with her and those editors and other associated with certain English-language newspapers and those whom I call the Left and their fellow-travellers, will always denounce and decry the efforts made by us to uphold not only the safety of this country, but also the morality and the integrity of this country against these cowardly attacks from inside and outside this country. But that will not stop us from continuing along this path which we believe is an honourable and responsible way to deal with this issue.

Sir, I do not have a copy of the Hansard of the hon. member for Houghton before me, but I believe I am right in saying that she said that I had had a direct part in a lecturers’ revolt some years ago at the University of Cape Town. What are the facts, Mr. Speaker? This was somewhere round 1953, if I remember correctly, when I was a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town and found myself chairman of this lecturers’ association. At that time the university granted certain increases in salaries, and it was felt very broadly among the lecturers—and it was felt very widely amongst the professors as well—that the increases which had been given to the non-professorial academic staff were out of all proportion too low. We, as the executive of the lecturers’ association, backed by the whole association and by many of the professors, even to the extent that the Senate, the senior academic body, passed a resolution in this regard, did our best to have this matter put right. I happened to be chairman of the association, and after a long struggle this was done. Sir, I went on long leave to Europe shortly after that, and I had no sooner got to England when I received a letter, which I still have, from the then principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, the late Dr. Davie, for whom I had the greatest respect and admiration and with whom I had worked very closely throughout my eight years at that university. In this letter he expressed his unreserved appreciation of the way in which I had handled this matter from beginning to end as chairman of the lecturers’ association. I still have that letter; it is dated July, 1954. I am speaking here on the spur of the moment, Sir, but these things are clear in my mind. What happened, Sir? Immediately thereafter, the University of Cape Town decided for the first time in its history to institute associate professorships.

They instituted four associate professorships, and I was among the first to be appointed an associate professor from senior lecturer. Sir, I have a letter from Dr. Davie in which he said some very complimentary things about me.

Sir, I did not want to mention my own case, but I know with whom I am dealing here. Then, Sir, there was the further allegation that a professor at the university, as I understood the hon. member, had called me a communist agitator. My immediate comment was that that was an unmitigated falsehood. Sir, I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton, who is an honourable member of this House and a member of Parliament, to repeat this statement outside this House. I say it is an unmitigated falsehood. She has utterly discredited herself.

I did not call you a communist.

Sir, there is a further issue with which I should like to deal, just to get the record straight. The hon. member for Houghton said that I had said that certain political agitators had come on to the campus of the University of Natal and caused a lot of trouble and that a committee of inquiry under Judge Harcourt had said there was absolutely nothing in this. What are the facts? In 1967, when I had been principal of the University of Natal for a little over a year, a group of senior students, egged on actively by a small clique of senior academic personnel—and I have all the names and all the facts—plus certain people outside the university, started an agitation to overthrow the control of the university. That is a fact. You can ask a number of professors and students about this if you do not believe me, because the body of students as a whole, when they discovered the facts, behaved with the greatest responsibility. That is why I have always said, on every occasion when I have spoken about students, that the majority, the great majority of students at our English-speaking universities, are decent and responsible people: but to this day there is a disgraceful minority, a minority whose activities and antics are so evil that I cannot exaggerate them if I try—and I am speaking from actual inside knowledge. Now, what did I say at the height of this attempt to subvert the authority of the University of Natal? I listed the issues which they said were such great issues, and this was in a Press statement I issued on 19th June, 1967. I said—

I went on to say—

I then went on to say this, and this was a Press statement—

Then I went on to say how important it was not to allow the good order and government of a university to be disrupted by a small group of evil and frustrated people. Eventually the trouble was so bad that I took responsibility for withdrawing recognition from the Students’ Representative Council of the University of Natal at Durban, which caused an absolute furore, every bit as much as this very fine report and the action that has been taken on it. And I was backed by the council of the University of Natal within a matter of a week by a resolution of 17 to three—three voted against me, and I think the hon. member for Houghton probably knows who they are; I expected that, but 17 voted for me—and I was also backed by the senate of the University of Natal overwhelmingly.

Now, Sir, those are the facts, and of course from that day to this I have never ceased to be vilified and attacked by precisely the sort of people whom the hon. member for Houghton is supporting and whose cause she is actively espousing here today. Sir, I apologize for this personal allusion, but I believe I had to make it because of the attack made upon me here. But I want to say just this. I took the initiative and moved in the council of the university that we appoint an independent committee to look at student activities, to report on what they thought the position was, and to give us the benefit of their ideas—an independent view as to what we might do. I was responsible for that. It was my motion, and we appointed this committee. I went to speak to this committee and I put this document in front of them, part of which I have just read out now, and I referred specifically to the issue where I said I had reliable information that political agitators were on the campus. I felt that I personally did not want to be vindictive; I believed I could handle the situation; that I did not want to name these people because some of them would be very sorry for their actions, and that I did not want to make an inquisition of it. That is a fact. The committee said that they did not wish to carry the matter further with me in that case. No evidence was given to the committee, but I still have the evidence. I have a file which is probably three or four inches thick. I have all the evidence, reliable evidence, of this political agitation. I have it in my possession and nothing that this committee said in its report goes against that. If the hon. member wants to argue about that, then she is under an obligation to read this evidence and the full report.

What about the …

I have said the issue goes much further. We are dealing here with the fundamental security of this country in a very dangerous world. In a sense we are at war. It is a war of ideology. If we lose this war against the communist philosophy and ideology, we have no future whatsoever. That is a fact in my humble opinion.

[Inaudible.]

Keep quite, Granny! [Interjections.]

What are we trying to do? I believe the hon. the Prime Minister deserves the gratitude and the thanks of this House, and of the country at large, for having been responsible for setting up this commission, which has not yet completed its important activities. This commission is going to give us, as the hon. chairman said a moment ago, a good deal more to think and talk about. In its interim reports this commission has gone very far. We have been told that there are certain people in this country who so much abuse their position as citizens of South Africa as to be creating a climate for revolution. They want to subvert the authority and the good order of this country. That is the position. The Government was told that here was a case where urgent action needed to be taken.

We can differ on the precise nature of the action. I do not in any way hold that against the hon. members of the Opposition, but I say that we took action with the greatest sense of responsibility and deliberation, the action that the hon. the Minister of Justice recommended once he had studied this document and found that it came within the purview of the Suppression of Communism Act. There was an obligation on the Government to do something about it, because if we had done nothing and this matter had got out of hand, what would the people of this country have said about us as the Government?

We used this procedure, a procedure which we had used before, and placed restrictions on the eight people, and ever since we have been branded as Nazis, we have been branded as totalitarians—the lot.

Let them do it. We know who these people are. The only tragedy is, of course, that this is pushed out wholesale to the countries abroad and we are held up, quite falsely, as people and as a nation which we are not. We are, in fact, a democratic nation. The whole attempt is to try to subvert the authority of this country, even at this moment, by making this false capital out of this issue. What is the position? There are two entirely separate issues here, as I see them. We have taken this preventive action, as the hon. the Prime Minister correctly called it. We have placed these people in a position where they cannot carry on with their diabolical activities against the State. That is what we have done. We have not put them into gaol, but we have put them, as one might say, in cold storage.

On the other hand, the hon. the Prime Minister said that the full report of the commission will go to the Attorney-General. That will take the matter entirely out of the Government’s hands, because the Attorney-General will then decide what he wishes to do with it and whether the matter will be brought to court and whether these people will be prosecuted and, if so, on what charges. We have two separate issues. The Government, which has a great responsibility, has taken certain preventive action, action to prevent this matter getting out of hand and leading to revolution, to a grave clash between Black and White, which these people were actively advocating and for which they were actively working. It is the worst thing that anyone can do in this country. And then there is the question for the courts. But we are told that we have completely ignored the rule of law, that we have no regard for the rule of law. It is an utterly false accusation. I believe that we on this side of the House have as much regard for the rule of law as anybody, as any democratic country in the world today. Having said that, one is tempted to ask who these people are with whom we are dealing, these people who are suddenly held up as such innocent and such mild little people who are absolutely guiltless of anything amiss and anything that impinges on the safety of the State. I have made a quick list of some of the things that Nusas and its associates have been doing of late. At the 1969 Nusas congress there was a formal motion that the South African flag be flown outside but the congress by 61 votes to 3 voted against it and in the most derogatory terms refused to do anything of the kind. They said that they could not have that flag flying at their congress. That is just one indication. At the 1967 Nusas seminar the following was reported of the seminar:

An example of what was discussed is the question: If the OAU was to attack South Africa what Nusas’ role would be? The answer was that Nusas was a pacifist organization and would merely condemn the war but would not support either side. In other words, they would not support their own country in such a case. A previous president of Nusas, John Daniel, who also landed in trouble with the authorities of this country for a very good reason …

What good reason?

… said that he sympathized actively with the attempts to exclude South Africa from the Olympic Games in 1964 and 1968 because of the hypocrisy and discrimination against the non-Whites which was practised by the South African Government. Hon. members, also the hon. the Minister of Defence, will have good cause to remember that a year or two ago there was the issue of arms for South Africa from Britain. They will remember that some of the members, senior spokesmen, of Nusas went to Ghana and there outside their country came forward and said that on no account must arms be supplied to South Africa. They even asked that support be whipped up amongst the people there to help them to stop arms coming from Britain to South Africa.

Then hon. members also know how they boycotted the Republic Festival in 1971 and the very serious techniques they employed to do that. A year or two ago a conference was held at Roma in Lesotho and there again the Nusas delegates called on the Black student delegates from a number of countries in Africa to help them to take active steps to end apartheid. This is what they did outside their country. Hon. members know what happened with the latest wages agitation, how students of the University of Natal sent a report to The Guardian and how suddenly we became the whipping boy of the world for paying “starvation wages”. It has been spread all over the world. What are the wages that are being paid in any one of 20, 30, 40 countries that I can mention by comparison? In some cases they are half of the wages we pay to our lowest paid people, but nothing is said about that. Nusas is behind that and I say that that is high treason; this is a war being waged against us. Hon. members will know how Nusas has tried to wreck the Springbok tour to New Zealand. They have taken great pleasure and satisfaction from the outcome of events and they admitted that they played a big part in bringing this tour on to the knife’s edge on which it is standing now. They said it in public. That is another thing they are doing. The other thing I wanted to say is that we must look at the backers of Nusas and its associates, because it has backers behind it. I want to say, if I may, that if there is one thing I hope our friends on the commission may be able to look at, if it is possible—I am not sure whether it is— it is to try to discover and expose the people who are backing these nefarious activities of Nusas. I believe that that will cause a sensation in South Africa.

I have had plenty of trouble in the past. One of the things that I was in trouble about with a small clique at the University of Natal was that I refused point-blank to allow them to bring Martin Luther King here to address them. I was then asked if a Black Panther could be brought out here. I refused point-blank to have anything to do with it. I received more requests; they had a whole list. The next one they asked for was Cohn-Bendit, “Danny the Red”, who had virtually brought the West German Government to its knees and had a lot to do with the trouble De Gaulle had in France. Hon. members know what that amounted to. They wanted him to come out. When I said I would not allow it, I was vilified night and day, also in certain newspapers. They brought out a man called Klug, from the National Union of Students in Britain, of which he was the vice-president in 1970. This gentleman did not come to my university, but went to others. He attended the Nusas conference in July and said he was expecting more varied student action against apartheid than ever before. He said it was now generally accepted by British students that the overthrow of the South African Government would never come through constitutional, legal means. He said there was now massive support amongst students for the African National Congress liberation armies. He went on in that vein and said it was their duty to end White rule in South Africa. This was the person Nusas brought out, and they thoroughly agreed with everything he said. One can go on in this way. Overseas there is the World University Service which has a very strong communist undertone—this is well known. I want to ask what Nusas’s associations were and are with the World University Service and what they are with the International Union of Students. I was principal at the height of the troubles I have just referred to and, when I took disciplinary action by kicking out the Students Representative Council, or rather, by withdrawing its recognition which meant that they were out, my office was broken into. A lot of damage was done. My new curtains and carpets were tom up and my furniture was all up-ended. My whole office was placarded with the sort of placard I have here which displays the name International Union of Students and a hammer and sickle.

Your pals, Helen!

This placard, for instance, says—

[Interjections.] This is an outright communist organization. They talk about these people not even being on the left! If they are not communists, I say that they are so near to being communists that I could not tell the difference.

I see my time is virtually expired. I want merely to end on this particular note, that we are facing here an onslaught, the danger of which cannot be exaggerated. I myself saw with open eyes, when I was principal of the university where these things also happened, that you cannot believe the limits to which these people will go to attain their subversive ends. I merely want to say that, as far as I am concerned, I will not rest until I have done everything I can, together with my party and the Government of which I have the honour to be a member, to get to grips with this cancer in our society and to end it, the sooner the better in the interests of every one of us in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that I want to dwell very long on this part of the debate. We know the hon. member for Houghton, and she knows me, too. As soon as I get up, she usually walks out. There she goes again. I believe in all the things in which the hon. member for Houghton believes, namely freedom of speech and all those fine things, but why have I never, not on one single occasion, heard her use her freedom of speech to condemn people such as the Left-wiches, the Jonty Drivers, the Wolpes, the Miss Kemps, the Joe Slavos, Van Riet, Harris, Goldreich and those people? Why does she never do that? Is it because she does not want to or because she shares their sentiments or what? Why is it then that her sympathies are always with these people? What game is being played here in this country? Why is there a certain group of people, journalists, who continually defend those people, rightly or wrongly, and who, when they can no longer defend them without feeling ashamed, simply keep quiet? Why does one never hear one single word of condemnation against those people? The hon. member for Houghton is not present at the moment but I want to mention what she did during my last election campaign. She made a statement in the Weizman Hall and said that the day the Progressive Party took over this country—which she hoped would be soon—they would make it legal for communism to operate in this country again. In all fairness to her I want to say at once that she said “on condition that they do so legally.” I had that small paragraph photographed, I had it enlarged and made into a large pamphlet. I had the following heading printed above it: “Communists and the Progressive Party.” I did not add any comment. I took over that paragraph without changing anything, from The Cape Times, in which this was said: “In a reply by Mrs. Helen Suzman to a question ‘Will you allow the Communist Party to operate in South Africa?’ she said the following: …” What she then said in reply, I had put up as a poster and I had these words written underneath: “The United Party will not allow communism or nazism to operate in South Africa.” She was almost hysterical with rage about that, and that of all things because I had given her free publicity! Free! It cost me a lot of money! Then she was angry with me and not with herself. She said it, but when I said she had said it, she was angry with me. Have you ever heard of such a thing in your life, Sir? Because the judge condemned Harris to death, the judge must hang, because Harris only committed murder. The judge said he had committed murder, so hang the judge!

That is the logic she uses on me. I do not feel like having any truck with that sort of nonsense. I know that the population of South Africa consists of loyal people; I know that the people of South Africa consists of just people. I also know that if people are hurt unjustly, the population of South Africa will speak out, and speak out loudly, against the Government. I also know that the people of South Africa will speak out loudly against the Government if it does not do its duty and is afraid to act against people against whom action must be taken.

Having said this, I want to leave this business about the report of the commission at that, except, to add that I have noticed that the Press has started up quite a propaganda campaign to condemn this internal security commission in advance. We still do not know what that legislation will provide, but the Press has already decided that whatever is provided in that Bill, will be pernicious because it obviously stands for internal security. They are calling it all kinds of names, as the hon. member for Green Point also said. I just want to say that I have always thought that it is the duty of every South African, whatever his politics may be, to co-operate with any agency, whether it is the Government or any other body, and that when it comes to internal security, as long as it is orderly and legal, we should stand together in order to bring about internal security. That also goes for external security. If I may say so, there is something which I took amiss of a certain section of the Nationalist Party during the war, and that was their conduct in not standing by the Government of the country at that stage in order to bring about internal and external security. But should I now, for the sake of pleasing a few journalists and for the sake of the hon. member for Houghton, make myself guilty of the same thing in respect of which I hope she joined me in condemning other people in the past? What sort of patriotism is that? After all, this kind of thing is unheard-of in South Africa. I hope that the hon. member for Houghton will realize that that nice publicity she is getting in the newspapers is of short duration. It is much more pleasant to know that one’s nation, one’s people and one’s country respect one as a loyal, decent and patriotic citizen, than to derive pleasure from the fact that at some stage or other one’s beaming, smiling face appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times, but with that reputation that one does not stand by one’s people. Sir, I leave the matter at that.

I see that I shall have just enough time to comment very briefly on the Budget. I want to talk to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad. He made a little sum here and added up the number of Nationalist members representing agricultural constituencies. Incidentally, he added correctly, believe it or not! He said that the farmers were having a very hard time and that they only received a 2½% return on their investments. Then he became angry with us because we supported him. Those poor farmers can only do two things: they can either get rid of the Government, or of their Members of Parliament. That is how they are doing under this Government, he says, and also under their capable Members of Parliament. But, Sir, it is barely 2½%. You know, once I heard a Van der Merwe joke, the one about Koos van der Merwe who lived at Pampoenfontein. He was 19 years old and could not pass Std. 2, because he could not do arithmetic. He never knew what two plus three came to. The teacher called in his father and said, “Look, Oom Jan, Koos is 19 years old now. There are small children with him in the same class, and he is just a nuisance here. You must give the man a job.” Then his father gave him £10 and said: “Son, go to Johannesburg and get yourself a job on the Railways.” Koos then left for Johannesburg, and the teacher never heard of him again. Fifteen years later he read in the newspaper that Koos van der Merwe was a wholesale fruiterer and the mayor of Boksburg. Then he said, “That cannot be true. That simply cannot be true!” Then he boarded a train and went up there. When he arrived there, he saw this written in big letters: Koos van der Merwe, Fruiterer. So he asked the lady, “Is that the Mr. Koos van der Merwe who went to school at Pampoenfontein?” “Yes,” she replied. He said, “Well, may I see him? I am an ex-teacher of his.” The lady told him, “Look, he is too busy. He has so many appointments today that he will not be able to see you.” He said, “Tell him that it is his former principal.” When the lady said over the intercom, “It is your principal,” he said, “Bring him in. Cancel all appointments. We shall go and eat at the club.” Then the teacher asked, “Koos, how did you do it?” Koos said, “Quite simple, Sir. Do you remember the day my father gave me £10? I came to Johannesburg and I arrived in the evening and knew no one. I looked for a place to sleep, and eventually found myself at the market place. Then I watched the clever people there. Then I saw that inside they were buying the farmers’ produce for a pound and selling it outside for two pounds. Then I also began to do that. I made pots of money, and I am still doing the same thing. And I am still getting my 2%.” For a person who is not a farmer it may perhaps be a little difficult to understand how to work out that 2%. A businessman need not be very clever; he just has to be very smart. But a farmer has to be both clever and look after his business. And if a farmer wants to be clever, he must get rid of his Member of Parliament, and of course, better still of the Government. Sir, since I shall not have time to deal with the whole Budget this evening, I just want to say this: This Budget Speech by the Minister …