Mr. Speaker, I stand here as a representative of the Province of Natal.

Hear, hear!

I must say that the applause for the hon. member for Zululand when he entered the Chamber this afternoon was an indication of the high esteem in which we hold our new Chairman in Natal, especially in the light of the triumph in which he played his part yesterday afternoon. I see some long faces on the other side, Sir. [Interjections.] There are also some members missing. I am sure that they must be clothed in sack-cloth and ashes in their shame. As regards the hon. member for Umhlatuzana on the other side—I beg your pardon, the hon. member for Klip River and the ex-member for Umhlatuzana—I have this afternoon the opportunity of thanking him for that magnificent pamphlet which he put out, and which helped us to do so well in the election in Umhlatuzana yesterday. I want to point out that it was only a few short years ago when that hon. member was the member for the provincial council for that particular seat. He held it, and in 1970 he lost it for the Nationalist Party by a small margin to this side of the House. I want to say that the swing continues. [Interjections.] This was shown by an increase in the majority of some 18%, notwithstanding a drop in the percentage poll of 5%, and notwithstanding the fact that we fought this election under the most difficult circumstances in which any party has ever been asked to fight an election in this country. Nothing was on our side; nobody was on our side. It was only the United Party which stood “rotsvas”.

*Sir, I am telling the opposite side now: They can come with all the by-elections they want, but we will still be standing as firm as a rock. [Interjections.]

†Mr. Speaker, I am very tempted to go on in this vein. I could in fact fill all my time with jubilation over this final answer to the Nationalists in Natal. We have got them kraaled against the Drakensberg, and we are slowly going to push them over the top. Unfortunately I notice that the leader of the National Party in Natal is not in his seat. I do not blame him, Sir; he is obviously hanging his head in shame.

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

He can make his own speech, Sir, time is limited and I must get on with the debate. Unfortunately we are dealing this afternoon not with the election result, but with the Budget.

Are you going to spend so little time on it?

Sir, I want to tell the hon. member why I shall not spend more time dealing with this election. There is somebody far more capable than I am who is going to rub this in. That will happen a little later this afternoon. My chairman of Natal, the chairman of the party in Natal, will rub it in for them, so those members can wait in anticipation for a most uncomfortable ten minutes a little later on.

As I have said, Sir, we are dealing with the Budget. I want to address my remarks to the hon. the Minister of Finance for a while. In his Budget Speech he made a statement of which much mention has been made. He announced plans to train Bantu in the White areas. I want to ask him: Does this indicate a change in the philosophy of the National Party? Does this indicate that at last common sense is prevailing and that they are now accepting the permanence of Blacks in the so-called White areas? Does he now accept this group of people as a permanent part not only of the economy of South Africa, but of the people of South Africa? Sir, he spoke only of the training of Bantu. During the No-confidence Debate the Prime Minister spoke about the strikes which had taken place in Durban. He said that he had learnt his lesson and that he hoped that everybody else who had had anything to do with these strikes had also learnt their lesson. What was the lesson, Sir? The lesson to be learnt was that the situation of Bantu employees had to be improved. But we are still waiting to see some sign of action to prove that the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government have learnt their lesson and that they are not only going to talk about this, but that they are going to do something about it. I believe that the hon. the Minister of Finance should have given the lead. I believe he should have given some encouragement regarding a new deal for Bantu workers in the Budget which he presented. He announced a tremendous surplus of something like R200 million in his Budget. It was a windfall which he did not anticipate a year ago. And, Sir, he has budgeted for a surplus again. But what has he done to help the hundreds of thousands of workers who do not receive a realistic wage to live on? What has he done to help the economy of the country in improving the lot of those hundreds of thousands of workers? The hon. the Minister of Labour announced a little earlier—and I believe that the Wage Board is sitting now—a review of determinations in four particular categories. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister and to the Government that this is not enough. To review only four is insufficient. I believe that every single wage determination, whether through the Wage Board or through industrial councils, should be reviewed and that a real wage should be determined for all the workers in our labour force. Particularly, Sir, a national minimum wage should be laid down.

When I say that I believe that all wage determinations should be reviewed, I include also the border areas. I want to remind the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister of Labour of the situation at Hammarsdale and in other border industrial areas as far as the clothing industry is concerned. I want to ask him when last a determination of wages was fixed for the clothing industry in that area. I hope he knows; in fact I am sure he knows, but I wonder if he has realized the pitifully low level at which that wage stands. Sir, I want to say to him that every time an industrialist is approached about this, he says: “I am paying more than the minimum that is laid down”, but when that minimum is fixed, as it is in this area, at R3-60 per week, then it is easy for industrialists to pay more, and they do pay more; I give them credit for that, but that does not mean that they are paying enough, especially when one considers that this determination was made in 1963, ten years ago, and at that stage it was ridiculously low anyway. It was not a real, genuine wage, but it was fixed at that time to induce industrialists to go to Hammarsdale and to these other areas for economic reasons and, from the point of view of the Government, for ideological reasons. Sir, this was a minimum wage of R3-60 per week …

Is that in Hammarsdale?

In Hammarsdale and other border areas in the clothing industry.

Not in Rosslyn.

That may not be the case at Rosslyn, but this is what pertains in those particular areas. I am speaking about the areas that I know; I do not speak about areas about which I know nothing. Sir, it is laid down that the worker shall be given an increase of 50 cents per week every six months, which means that after 18 months an employee in those factories will be getting R5-10 per week; that is all that the Government requires employers to pay. Sir, let us stop for a moment and consider what an employee of 18 months’ standing is doing.

Who prevents your people from paying more?

I will come to that.

What you have disclosed this afternoon is a shame.

Sir, I hope that that hon. member is ashamed of this wage determination of R3-60 in this day and age. I think hon. members opposite should be ashamed; that is exactly what I am trying to say. Sir, what is an employee of 18 months’ standing doing in one of those clothing factories? I am not talking now about the sweepers; I am talking about machinists, about operators who are turning out garments, who are productive, who have had in-service training for 18 months and who are now producing for their employers. This Government believes that all that employee is worth is R5-10 per week.

That is untrue.

Sir, I grant you that every single one of those industries is paying more than the minimum. But now we come to the question which the hon. member for Smithfield raised. Are those industrialists paying enough? I believe the answer is “no”. I do not believe they are paying enough to their Bantu employees. But, Sir, what is the incentive that this Government has given them to pay more? For the hon. the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Smith-field to say it is for the individual industrialist to pay his employee more, is entirely unfair.

Why?

Because it can lead to unfair competition; because every industrialist whose conscience tells him that he should pay more, looks at his competitor and asks himself whether his competitor will follow his example. It is a matter of economics. But there is another factor as well, and that is the whole question of the cost of living and the spiralling inflation. Sir, when this industrialist considers whether he should pay more, he has to think of his competitor. This is why I say that I believe that the hon. the Minister of Labour has failed the country in not reviewing immediately every single determination throughout the country and arriving at a real wage, because if every industrialist was compelled to pay a particular figure, whatever figure may be decided upon, then it would not lead to this unfair competition which can arise between different employers.

Sir, I come back to the hon. the Minister of Finance. What has he done to encourage these employers to pay more? He has not even helped his colleague, the Minister of Labour, to arrive at a real determination of what the minimum wage should be. I believe that the hon. the Minister of Finance should have used some of this tremendous surplus which he has acquired and which he anticipates again this year, to support and to assist the employer of Bantu labour to pay a real wage, because I believe that every single employer this year will have to budget for an increase of at least 30% in his wage bill, and I am prepared to say that some of them should budget for an increase of at least 100%. I am thinking particularly of certain industrialists who have made massive contributions to the funds of the National Party. They should be budgeting for an increase of at least 100% in the wages that they are paying their Bantu staff. Sir, the hon. the Minister of Finance had it within his power to assist them and to encourage them to do this but he has done nothing and I believe that once again he has failed the poorer sector of this country.

And he can set an example too.

Before anybody comes and tells me that the low wage of R3-60 per week which I have mentioned pertains in a border industry area because the cost of living there is much lower there than elsewhere, I want right away to dispel any doubt in that regard. The Minister of Bantu Administration and Development is here and I am sure he will agree with me when I say that the rentals which are paid by the Bantu in the Mpumalanga Township are exactly the same as those that are paid at Kwa Mashu and Umlazi and in Mbane. Does the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development agree?

He does not know.

Sir, he does not know what is happening in his department. I took the trouble to ascertain, and I found that the rental is exactly the same for Bantu in the same earnings brackets.

It is not calculated on the income but on the type of house.

With respect to the hon. the Minister, once again he is wrong. Then income is taken into consideration as well as the type of house. But, Sir, there is something else which I think the Government should also know and that is that the bus fares for the people from Mpumalanga township to Elangeni industrial township are exactly the same as the rail fare from Umlazi to Durban; so hon. members opposite must not say that the cost of living at Hammarsdale is lower than anywhere else, because I believe it is not. I believe it is exactly the same. They still have to buy food and clothing, and unfortunately food and clothing are no cheaper at Hammarsdale than anywhere else. Sir, I believe it is impossible for those people at Hammarsdale to live on R5 per week, which is above the figure which this Government expects an employer to pay his labourers at Hammarsdale. I believe that the Minister of Finance has failed the country dismally in not giving some encouragement to the employers of Bantu labour to do something about the wages of their labourers.

Sir, there is another side to this whole story as well which must be considered and that is that I believe that the Minister of Labour should go into ways and means of persuading the employers of Bantu labour to do something about fringe benefits for their employees. I believe that the problem is not only one of wages, although this is the prime one. The problem is also one of conditions of employment, service conditions, conditions within the factory, the provision of canteens and rest rooms, places of rest and things of that kind. This is another aspect that I believe the Minister of Labour should look into.

Then there is another aspect of fringe benefits, and here I refer to medical aid and pension schemes and sick leave. How many of our Black workers today get sick leave? Very few of them get sick leave, and then only, generally, at the instance of a benign employer. Then there is the question of leave on full pay—a minimum of three weeks’ leave on full pay; there is the question of insurance and whether these employees can qualify for insurance. Sir, all these things are necessary to create a responsible and a stable class of worker in this country and I believe that it is up to this Government to give a lead. I know that they cannot do it all. I do not expect them to do it all, but I believe that they can give a lead to the industrialists and the employers of Bantu labour.

Sir, while dealing with the urban Bantu I want, in the few minutes left at my disposal, to congratulate the hon. member for Transkei on what I believe was a brilliant exposition of the attitude of this party towards the urban Bantu, and to say that the sooner the Government accept those principles and deals with these people as a settled permanent part of the country, the better it will be for this country.

Why don’t you take over the Government and do it yourself?

Sir, the first step was taken yesterday. Yesterday we served notice on the Government at Umhlatuzana. Sir, when I say that we must do something to establish a responsible and a stable class of urban Bantu, I must tell you of the experience which I have had and which other employers of Africans have had regarding the payment of wages and the granting of these fringe benefits to which I referred a little earlier. I know that there has been the argument throughout the years regarding the payment of wages to Bantu, that if you increase his pay he works less, that if he has been working a five-day week and earning R15 and you increase it to R20, he says that all he need work now is four days and he can earn enough money on which to live.

Sir, that has been right up to a point. Those of us who have had much to do with Black labour in this country have found that up to a point that this is quite correct and we even have a saying, those of us who deal with these people, that it is a Gula wom’Sombylyko—Monday sickness. Nobody comes to work on Monday because he has earned enough; he can earn enough from Tuesday to Friday on which to live. This obtains up to a certain point until you reach a magic line, a line where all of a sudden you create in the mind of the worker a demand, a demand for better things. Thanks to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration he has now been given a house, a house which does not leak, a house which has a floor and doors and windows and very often water laid on as well. And in that house he is now able to put furniture and curtains and carpets and burglar guards. A tremendous business has grown up to satisfy the demand for burglar guards in these Bantu townships which have been established by the Minister of Bantu Administration.

Sir, when you reach a particular wage— at Hammarsdale, I understand from the industrialists there it is in the region of R24 or R25 a week—you have created in this worker’s mind a demand for the comforts which he can put into his house, and all of a sudden, from an irresponsible worker you get a responsible worker, a man who realizes that if he is not responsible, he has, if he loses his job, to go back to working for R10 or R12 a week instead of R24 or R25 a week. Sir, I believe that this Government has got to help the employer to reach that particular stage. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, one would have thought that the rejoicing on the part of the Opposition after Umhlatuzana would have been considerably greater, but most of the rejoicing on the part of the hon. member who has just spoken, was somewhat inarticulate, for the simple reason that they still remember what happened last year. There were great celebrations after Brakpan the First, and then came Brakpan the Second and Oudtshoorn, and they realized that they had progressed half a step forward and ten steps back. I think that is the reason for their rejoicing in the House here this afternoon being somewhat subdued.

I listened to the hon. member’s speech which he began last night. He raised a few points in regard to policy, and it seemed to me as though he did so rather cursorily. On the one hand he referred to the fact, or the alleged fact, that the Government is supposedly not having consultations with the Black leaders to a sufficient extent. But surely it was demonstrated, earlier this session, in fact when the question of their federal policy was under discussion, that the consultation on their part had been so minimal that the people they wanted to call upon as witnesses to the consultation, actually denied that there had been consultation. Who are they on that side of the House to come here and ask that there should be more consultation with the Black leaders? It is not something which we noise abroad. It is something which forms part of our normal procedure and of our negotiations with these people.

Another matter which the hon. member raised was the question of territory. We had allegedly not kept our word. But, Sir, the people on that side of the House really ought to keep quiet about this matter, for last year they were still opposing the purchase of land tooth and nail, and then it was the hon. member for Houghton, the Progressive Party, who voted with the Government in regard to the purchase of land for the Bantu homelands. Now they are maintaining a stony silence about it. That shows you how one can be caught out by one’s own argument. It is quite remarkable, Sir, how when these people find themselves in a jam, they suddenly set a major correspondence programme in motion there. The hon. member went on to discuss the disaster which would befall South Africa if the policy of the National Party did not succeed. Sir, he has reason to say that a disaster will befall us if this policy proves unsuccessful, but bound up with that he must ask what disaster would befall South Africa if their policy should succeed, for then they would in fact have surrendered the authority of the White man; and it is not very difficult to arrive at that conclusion. It has been debated time and again in this House.

Another statement he made was that our policy amounts to “divide and rule” in South Africa. To that one would be tempted to reply: Oh, what a pity, that is after all precisely the kind of policy for which your political predecessors were responsible, they who really introduced that slogan, the slogan of the old colonial system of “divide and rule”. It is not the policy of this side of the House; it is the policy of that side of the House. Even though they do not call it by its real name, it remains the practice they apply in their politics. As for this side of the House, our policy is not divide and rule, but shared rule. In this connection I should like to quote from what the former Prime Minister said in regard to supremacy and point out that he even used the word “baasskap”. I want to say that this is a word which has now acquired a noxious odour in certain circles, but the practice has not really changed. I would almost say the baby is there in any case; only that side of the House wants to give it a different name to that given it by other people.

You still call it “baasskap”.

Perhaps the hon. member for Orange Grove will listen to this. When Dr. Verwoerd addressed the Native Council in 1950 he said (translation)—

That is a very big difference.

Etienne is seeing the light in a big way.

From what are you reading?

I am reading from Verwoerd aan die Woord, and I am quoting from the first speech in this book. It is a speech which he made before the Native Representative Council on 5th December, 1950. He believed in supremacy, or rather “baasskap”. We are perhaps inclined to run away from the concept of “baasskap” because it has acquired a bad odour at the U.N. or wherever, but the fact of the matter is that in this country, where this Government is governing, it is government, supremacy, sovereignty and whether or not we want to give it another name, it remains political “baasskap” in the White area over our White people, and we do not begrudge this same principle to our Bantu people in their area—eventual “baasskap” when they are qualified for it. He went on to say—

What does he say about the Coloureds?

I read further—

What did he say about sport?

If the hon. member wants to play the fool he can do so later.

Do not be ridiculous!

Surely it is clear: The policy of that side of the House is one of “divide and rule”. They also want to divide. They, too, are reconsidering in terms of the policy of the National Party. They are also following after inasmuch as they have to accept that there are a variety of ethnic communities here, none of which one can force on any of the others, and none of which one can make subordinate to any of the others. However, they are only going half-way in that they also accept a division, but still have sovereignty in this White Parliament.

What is this if not mutually divided, but still with domination in the White Parliament. Now we know that the Opposition states that this White Parliament can in fact give away some of its powers. That is true, it can probably give them away, as a person gives one’s life away if that person commits suicide. However, having given it away, one can never get it back. One cannot give sovereignty away and allow it to become vested in another controlling body or in another governing power, and still be able to demand it back again. Once this is done, the sovereignty is vested in that body. If that were to happen, one would have the most dangerous “divide and rule” to be applied in this country, and that is that one has given away the authority of this White Parliament, or as they envisage it, that the White electorate may decide whether they want to give away their political power. Suppose the majority of the White electorate should decide to give away the “baasskap”, the sovereignty of White South Africa, or to share it with the non-White people. Do hon. members think that it will be a 100% decision? Do hon. members think that a nation with pride in itself would unanimously decide to give its political self-determination away to another nation? Do hon. members think it would do so? Even if it were to be a majority decision in favour of doing that, and may we be preserved from the day when the majority of White voters decide to give the political sovereignty of South Africa away, one would have such division in the ranks of the Whites that it would lead to the utmost bitterness. It is with that kind of “divide and rule” that the United Party wants to go forward to meet the future.

Absolute nonsense.

So much then for major apartheid, the overall guidelines, guidelines which were established by the former Prime Minister, by the present Prime Minister and by everyone in the National Party. This is major apartheid which has as its goal a father-land for the Whites, fatherlands for various ethnic groups in South Africa. This is major apartheid.

Now it is true that there are some members on the Opposition side who accept the idea of major apartheid only in part. They do not want to accept it in full, because they still want to retain the old 1910 idea of one undivided Union. They are prepared to go part of the way, to subdivide without there being a clear division in the creation of separate fatherlands in which the separate peoples will have full self-determination. I have said that they go along with it for part of the way, but then they do an about-face. The other matter which goes with it, one of the most dangerous …

What are you going to do with the Coloureds?

The hon. the Prime Minister furnished a very clear reply to that question of the hon. member when he made a speech in that connection a little earlier on this session. [Interjections.] I need only refer to a single sentence of what the hon. the Prime Minister said, and that is that as far as the White man is concerned … [Interjections.] If the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District would do me the honour of listening to me, I could tell him that the Prime Minister said that as far as the White man is concerned, he will continue to preserve his sovereignty and his identity. From that fundamental principle he will work out the future organization between the White man and the Brown man in South Africa. Therefore, we advocate the retention of the identity and the sovereignty of the White man in South Africa. One of the most subtle and dangerous onslaughts on the policy of apartheid comes from people who say that they are prepared to accept major apartheid, the overall political organization, but when it comes to human relations, to the group relations, it should not be applied so scrupulously; then the so-called “petty apartheid” should be thrown overboard. Admittedly the people who hold this view find themselves in quite considerable company. I can now enumerate that company to hon. members. For years now the world Council of Churches has been stating that there should be no discrimination on the basis of race, colour or creed. The same statement was made by the British Council of Churches which declared itself opposed to apartheid and called it “a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost”, as if those gentlemen are the only people who read the Bible and who are able to judge what is blasphemous and what is not. So, too, there is the Christian Institute. Without venturing into the sphere of the Schlebusch Commission, I just want to say that certain gentlemen of that Institute, in a publication which was made available some time ago, referred to the policy advocated by the National Party as a “demoniacal edeology”, where we supposedly have two Lords, two Christs, two Gospels. Such are the lengths to which those people go in their opposition to the policy of apartheid! So, too, there are the Verkuyls of the Netherlands and their kindred spirits, to mention no other names. Those people are strongly opposed to the policy of apartheid and say “break down the walls” not only in the political sphere but also in the social sphere, in the field of sport, in the field of mutual relations, in regard to residential areas, marriages and so on. They say that there should be no dividing lines or boundary lines anywhere, for otherwise those people are being insulted, and you are being un-Christian. Hon. members think that these are pious arguments; they become even more pious and say that it is “a tearing apart of the body of Christ”. As if—you will permit me to say this, Mr.Speaker—it is not also stated in the New Testament, which speaks of the unity of the faithful, that the beloved Creator created all the nations of mankind from one blood to dwell over all the earth, while he determined in advance the specific times and the boundaries of their dwelling places. In that way He laid down the principle that even under the Christian dispensation, knowing full well that there would be such people who would hold a Unitarian view such as the one which is prevailing at present, there is room for such an organization that it is normal that a specific nation would have its own territory. That is the norm, even from the Christian point of view.

I think you will allow me to return for a moment to what was stated previously in this House. I want to refer specifically to two concepts, viz. so-called discrimination and so-called petty apartheid. I agree wholeheartedly with our hon. Prime Minister when he says that he would be very glad if someone would give him a definition of petty apartheid. He said that there are certainly things to which we are not wedded, and that there are certain forms of social intercourse which need not be covered absolutely by legislation, but, when there are certain things which may in due course fall away or which wear off, it still does not mean to say that any person who is sensible and who regards the situation in South Africa with wisdom, can say that all petty apartheid should be thrown overboard, in other words, that all separation on the social level, and so on, should be thrown overboard. The person who maintains that this should be done, does not have a sense of reality in respect of South Africa. I should like to go into this point a little. The Leader of the United Party in the Transvaal—that is to say the present leader—referred last week to “petty apartheid” as “a horrible, rotten and despicable creed”. It seems to me as though he does not have many seconders on that side. So, too, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who has for many long years been waging a vendetta against so-called petty apartheid, made an attack in this House against discrimination, against petty apartheid, against colour and last but not least, against White jingoes. What is he referring to White jingoes? These are people who advocate apartheid, people who discriminate in the good sense of the word, for there are more than two senses in which one may interpret discrimination. Hon. members must not think that I am going to run away from that word; in a moment I am going to bind it like a rope around your neck. The White jingoes are people who discriminate. They are people who, as Whites, close their ranks at specific points, politically, socially, in the sphere of recreation and in the sphere of education. These are people who at specific points, include and also exclude. If we do not want to accept that, we are speaking at odds with what we do and with the basic reality in South Africa on which our major relations question is based.

If a community, a nation, is no longer able to discriminate in the good sense of the word, if it is not able to distinguish between what is its own and what is not its own, then it has lost its identity and it is on the way out. But now I should perhaps say, for the sake of members who get bogged down behind the negative view of the concept of discrimination, that there is also a negative emphasis which is placed on this concept of discrimination, for it can also mean wronging, prejudicing, the trampling underfoot of other people, exploitation and selfish treatment, etc. According to some we as Afrikaners and as Whites have caused the non-Whites nothing but grief, and we have done nothing but discriminate unfavourably against them. I want to deny most categorically that we have done them nothing but harm, and that in the relation between Whites and non-Whites in this country there has been nothing but ugliness, and that everyone was now, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, throwing small change to the non-Whites, and that everyone is acting in a derogatory and insulting way. That is not true.

I did not say that. What you are now saying is not true either.

I want to concede to the hon. member that he did not generalize. However, when he participates in a debate in this House, he should not single out a few isolated cases in such a way as to make it appear as though it is a general phenomenon. Of course this side of the House is endeavouring to put an end to negative discrimination. Of course we are endeavouring to do that. We are endeavouring to put an end to the major discrimination, i.e. in the political field where one has a White Parliament, and as the United Party envisages, a federal Parliament which will be subordinate to this White Parliament. What is that if it is not White “baasskap” and in addition to that discrimination, because no non-White will have representation in this White Parliament, and no non-White will have representation in this White Cabinet! Surely that is discrimination; surely it is negative discrimination. That is what this side of the House wants to put an end to. It wants to put an end to this in the interests of the White man and in the interests of the Coloured and in the interests of the Black man and the Indian. Of course we are endeavouring to put an end to negative discrimination and we are endeavouring to promote the development of the non-White peoples. Separate development is not merely for separation as an end in itself; it is also for development. Of course we are endeavouring to ensure better wages and better accommodation, but the Opposition must not expect the Government to take employers by the scruff of their necks and compel them to pay higher wages. They must not expect, as the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs pointed out in the no-confidence debate, that we should become a socialistic state to achieve those aims which they are suddenly seeking to achieve. Of course, a good Nationalist, and all who have representation here are good Nationalists, are endeavouring to bring about courtesy in human relations between White and non-Whites. Of course we are endeavouring to achieve mutual respect. That has always been the case. There are exceptions. Those who do not behave in this way do not do so in terms of the policy of apartheid, not at all. If there is rudeness, it is certainly not only Nationalists, but also U.P. supporters who do that, and it is not only Whites towards non-Whites. If we want to speak frankly, we can also point to rudeness from the other side towards the White man, if we have to use that as an argument. Of course we are also endeavouring to achieve, and we also recognize the need for eating facilities for non-Whites in the cities, for example, where the Whites hold sway and to which the non-Whites come to work, for surely they cannot disappear into thin air during lunch-hour. We realize those things. Of course, we will also endeavour to bring about economic progress, employment, and so on, because we realize the implications of unemployment. We on this side of the House are not like the Scottish elder who prayed for his minister and said “Lord keep him humble; we will keep him poor”. It is not the approach of this side of the House that we should keep the non-White poor, so that he may remain humble. We do not want to base the policy for apartheid on that foundation. The policy of separate development is not based on a view of the non-Whites as being inferior. That is precisely why it is called separate development. We have calculated the price of that separate development. It can and will be a development to equality.

What does it cost?

You will help to pay the price for that if you insist on the sovereignty of the White man in this country.

I have now discussed the negative content of the concept of “discrimination”. I want to state most categorically here that that word also has a positive content. The positive content amounts to one’s protecting what is one’s own, and distinguishing between what is one’s own and what is not one’s own; so that one need not humiliate and insult what is not one’s own to bring about separation or distinction between what is and what is not one’s own. I want to ask whether there is not, in respect of this concept, a good deal of hypocrisy to be found amongst many people who have these things to say about discrimination. Is there no a good deal of hypocrisy and inconsistency among the enemies of so-called petty apartheid? I want to point out that this entire agitation against so-called petty apartheid is unscientific and that the accuser in regard to so-called petty apartheid is inconsistent. If I have time enough I will come to that, and then I may perhaps hoist a few of them neatly with their own petard. I want to quote to you what an American socialist wrote with reference to a study which he made in America. He said (translation)—

I think that is clear. He went on to say—

Sir, this is a scientist who does not think in the idiom of apartheid. This is a man who lives in an integrated community and who has studied the effect of that on the various elements in that society. He states that this distinction and this positive discrimination is a normal and fundamental requirement for social organization.

I could go further and refer you to another English-language writer. This is not a person who belongs to the National Party either. I am referring to what was said by Richard Weaver in his book “Life without Prejudice”. He said—

This is then a fundamental truth in regard to inter-group relations in a country, viz. that those groups retain for themselves the right to their own inclusions and exclusions, in other words, to discriminate in the sense of distinguishing between what is their own what serves to promote what is their own and that which is not their own, or does not serve to promote what is their own. I am quoting another sociologist. It is a Fleming Max Lamberty. He said the following—

Then he makes one last statement, and I can understand it if hon. members in the back benches there find this unpalatable, for it is fatal to their point of view.

They cannot even understand it.

If they cannot understand English, then I do not know what they understand. Sir, this writer makes this apposite Statement—

That is precisely what the position is in South Africa, where we have within the total population a variety of ethnic and cultural communities. There one finds the discrimination, the distinction, where people regard themselves as being members of a specific group and where for the protection of that specific group they have their rules, their inclusions and their exclusions, as well as the sense of when what is unique to them as being threatened and when their own character and their own self-determination is being encroached upon. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, one always listens attentively to the speeches made in this House by the hon. member for Waterberg, because he is coming to accept the role of intellectual apologist for the apartheid policy of the Nationalist Party. I must say that he acquits himself to good effect in that capacity. But one must listen to what he says in the light of the Budget we are discussing at the moment. I was very interested in the anecdote he told us about the Scottish elder who prayed for the minister, “Lord, keep him humble, we will keep him poor”. It occurred to me that this was perhaps similar to the prayer of the Nationalist Party after the Budget. In respect of the ordinary man in South Africa and the widows, they pray, “Keep them Nat: we shall see to it that they remain poor”. [Interjections.] But more seriously. I say that I listened with particular attention to the hon. member for Waterberg. He acted as an apologist for a policy. He did so with conviction and with reference to Higher Authority and earthly authority. It was a very moving speech. But then the question arises: Whose policy is it that he is defending so movingly? There is one unavoidable conclusion which stems from the logic of the hon. member for Waterberg, even if one takes into account the logic of the quotation from our Lord, which he mentioned, and that is that peoples, if they want to avoid discrimination and friction, must live separately in separate territories. If that is true, I want to put this question to him: What is his point of view regarding the future of the Coloureds and the Indians in South Africa? According to his way of thinking, it follows that there should also be a separate political territory for the Coloureds and the Indians in South Africa. But that is not the policy of the Nationalist Party, and I say this on very high authority. We have it on the highest authority within the Nationalist Party that such a suggestion is a ridiculous one. The question is therefore: Whose policy is the hon. member for Waterberg defending? Is he not a member of the Nationalist Party and does he not endorse the policy of the Nationalist Party? Does he not defend the point of view of the Nationalist Party? Therefore I want to say to the hon. member in all love and with respect that one cannot attach much value to his brilliant defence of a policy which is not represented in this Parliament.

†Mr. Speaker, I do not want to continue the debate on the Schlebusch Commission which was initiated by the hon. member for Houghton the day before yesterday, but I think I am entitled to say that in my years in this House I have never seen a member so thoroughly demolished as that hon. lady was by the two speeches that followed her own on Tuesday. But I want to draw attention to one or two examples of the logic of the hon. member for Houghton. She made it perfectly clear that in her opinion a judicial commission was a parliamentary Select Committee which was afterwards converted into a commission. Our opinion remains unchanged, i.e. that this should have been a judicial commission. But can the hon. member for Houghton assure us that had a judicial commission been appointed, she would have supported the findings of fact of such a commission? I can remember some very dangerous days in the recent history of South Africa, for instance in 1963 when Poqo was active and when innocent people were murdered as near to this House as Paarl. On that occasion a judicial commission was urgently appointed, a one-man commission consisting of Mr. Justice Snyman. He produced an urgent interim report in which he warned that if legislation was not immediately enacted to deal with Poqo and other subversive organizations, the State would lose control over the Bantu in the townships and elsewhere to subversive organizations. As a result of that urgent interim report, the Government introduced the General Laws Amendment Act of 1963, and we, exercising our democratic right, opposed certain details of that legislation, particularly the 90 days detention provision. However, we supported the findings of the judicial commission as it was embodied in that Act in principle. But the hon. member for Houghton fought against the principle of taking action based on the findings of a judicial commission to prevent the State losing control over the Bantu in the townships and elsewhere, losing control as the result of the activities of subversive organizations. So, Mr. Speaker, what value must one attach to her sacrosanct attachment to the idea of a judicial commission?

She finds the Schlebusch Commission so bad that she stretches her parliamentary privilege to extraordinary uses, as I shall show in a minute. Then, when it suited her for political reasons, she finds this commission to be a wonderful organization which the Government can ignore only at the risk of being politically injudicious and unjudicial. Speaking in this House as late as March 8, 1973, her complaint, her major complaint, in regard to the banning of the eight SASO students was (Hansard, Col. 2262)—

So, it is not such a bad commission after all. People should not be banned in South Africa unless they are first referred to the Schlebusch Commission. So argues the hon. member for Houghton when it suits her to score a political point. But then suddenly the Schlebusch Commission in her opinion is so bad and so wicked that she, who claims to be the greatest protagonist, and the most important champion of the rule of law in South Africa, can announce in this House that she will break the rule of law and that she will adjure other people to break the rule of law. The rule of law means that all people are equal before the law. It means that all people should have equal access to the courts to protect their own rights under the law. But like every privilege and right it brings with it an obligation; that obligation is that all subjects of the State should be obedient to the law of the land. What the hon. member was doing in suggesting that people should not obey subpoenas to appear before this commission, and when she said that she herself would not, she was asking people to refute the obligation, to deny the obligation upon them to obey the laws of South Africa, and she was denying the rule of law in this obligatory respect. That puts a different complexion on what is happening to the politics of South Africa, when people can pose almost for their whole lives as being the only true champions of the rule of law, and when it suits them for political ends stand up in Parliament and call upon other people, and offer support to such other people, to break the rule of law in South Africa.

*But today I prefer to discuss a matter which strikes all of us as being very urgent in South Africa. This is how the need for change, the relentlessness of change in the South African community, is becoming more urgently clear to everyone. Three years ago I had the privilege of attending a lecture in London on the factors in the social and political life of a people which have the biggest influence on public opinion. In the course of the lecture the American expert, who based his conclusions on an investigation in depth undertaken by American organizations which investigate these things, provided us with a sequence of the influences and of the importance of the influences which affect public opinion. I think it would be interesting if I were to give that sequence. Second on the list was television. Third on the list was the contact which a person makes with people occupying positions of authority in one’s community and which has an important influence on one’s thinking and one’s insight. The fourth was personal contact with other people in one’s own community, irrespective of the position of authority which they may occupy. The fifth was the radio. The sixth was periodicals, particularly informed periodicals, and the seventh, and this gentleman took it no further, was the daily press. You would have noticed, Sir, that I started at No. 2. I did not do that in order to be dramatic. I did it in order to draw attention to the difference between the factor which has the biggest influence on an individual’s thinking and the other six which I have already mentioned. The prime factor which influences people’s thinking more than anything else—and political parties fight against this in vain, and newspapers fight against it in vain—is the hard, unmistakable facts of the situation. There are certain facts in the life of a people which nobody can escape and they influence public opinion and compel all of us to accept and endorse certain points of view. Now it is very interesting to see how our friends on the opposite side of the House have been compelled by the hard facts of the circumstances to acknowledge the merit of certain points of view on this side of the House, and then, for the sake of fairness, because as you know, Sir, I always try to be fair, how we on this side of the house have had to accept in some respects the inevitability of certain of the points of view-of the Government. I want to point out in brief how the Government, compelled by the hard facts of the circumstances obtaining in our country, have time and again changed their viewpoint by accepting the viewpoint of the United Party. One of the first things which struck me in the ’fifties, that was when we had a transport crisis in South Africa and the Railways were unable to transport sufficient coal and other goods in winter, the United Party advocated that our private carriers be used to solve the problems of the Railways. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Sauer almost had a fit. How could anything so revolutionary, so dangerous to the future of transport in South Africa, be suggested? However, it was not long before the hard facts of the situation compelled the Government to use private motor vehicles and to such an extent that the surfaces of the roads between Witbank and the Witwatersrand were damaged virtually beyond repair. One cannot escape the hard facts of reality.

I recall the matter of immigration. You will remember the cries, Sir, that the Afrikaner would be ploughed under as a result of immigration. You will remember the screen and the filter which the late Dr. Dönges applied on behalf of the Government to keep immigrants out of South Africa. Ten to thirteen years later, however, the Government became one of the most active agents in our history in the recruiting of immigrants for South Africa. Whereas the United Party—if my memory serves me concerning the reply to a question by the late Dr. Van Nierop—granted a total of R10 in direct subsidy of an immigrant to South Africa, the Government made a complete volte face …

Surely it must at least have been £10.

Yes, it was £10, which at that time was a lot of money say that the Government made a complete volte face and subsidized people, paid their passages and arranged accommodation for them at subsidized tariffs. Why? Because the hard facts of reality convinced us that if we wanted South Africa to grow, if our people wanted to maintain a reasonable standard of living and if we wanted to retain a civilization for ourselves, we needed immigrants. That cannot be contradicted.

I recall the matter of the Orange River scheme. Year after year the late Dr. Bowker pleaded for it and all along we had to hear from that side that the land there was not suitable for irrigation; it was either too brackish or not brackish enough. I cannot quite remember what the excuse was. The arguments which were advanced, however, were really convincing. Then, however, the Republic came into being in South Africa and the late Dr. Verwnerd wanted to do something by means of which his great achievement could be symbolized. What did he choose? The United Party’s Orange River scheme! [Interjections.] The United Party’s scheme was accepted, with changes, of course, and with the addition of hydro-electric power.

But did that not start as far back as the establishment of Iscor?

Yes, it did. In my opinion, one of the finest things done by the Nationalist Party was when they followed up the spadework of Gen. Smuts with the establishment of the Union Steel Corporation … [Interjections.] When the time was ripe they started Iscor, but I still think that they started Iscor on the wrong basis. On that point we are still at variance.

I recall the matter of television. I remember what a laughing-stock was made of us when we asked for television. We were told about the little box with the bright screen like a little bioscope which would undermine the morals of the people. Today, because the hard facts of reality tell us that South Africa cannot lay claim to being the most civilized country in Africa and then allow countries like Ethiopia to outstrip us as far as television is concerned, we get television.

I recall a matter like dialogue with Africa. There was a time when the Prime Minister of South Africa said that he would maintain South Africa’s diplomatic relations with the rest of the world by telephone. Today we have an exchange of diplomats. This is progress and a concession to the point of view of the Opposition.

I recall the matter of diplomatic association, even in the social sphere, between White and non-White, between representatives of states. This is absolutely right and we have always advocated it. I can only say that we on this side of the House deplore the way in which the Herstigtes abused, for example, the photograph of the Prime Minister dining with non-Whites and the even filthier way in which this was recently abused by the group of student leaders who publish Wits Student at the University of the Witwatersrand. This was so filthy that even the permissive principal of that University had to put his foot down and say that they could go no further.

I could go on and refer to the formal discussions between the Prime Minister and a permanent council of non-Whites in South-West Africa. I could refer to sport, and in this connection I may express our appreciation of the fact that the Government is adopting the point of view of the Opposition so rapidly. I could refer to the plea which we made for a Minister of the Environment to handle matters of pollution. At first this was refused, but now the Minister of Planning is also the Minister of the Environment. I could refer to the federal idea. Even then my list would not be complete because one of my friends here has just reminded me of the establishment of the Cane Coloured Corps in our Defence Force. For these things I am grateful. I recall the matter of our federal idea and of our idea of communal Parliamentary bodies which would give representation to all the races of South Africa and in which all of them could participate. This the Government has not yet accepted officially, but it is coming. Recently in Rapport, the biggest Nationalist Party newspaper in South Africa … I think the hon. the Prime Minister might maintain that it is the biggest newspaper in South Africa …

The Nationalist Party does not hold shares in it.

What is the viewpoint of Rapport? The editor-in-chief, Mr. Schalk Pienaar, writes (translation)—

Thus we progress. It is not always easy; it takes courage to do this. Today, and this may astonish hon. members, I should like to pay tribute to the hon. the Prime Minister …

But first add that the Republic was also your idea.

I said that I would get to that. I am pleased the hon. the Prime Minister is following my argument so well. I really appreciate it. It requires courage to bring about these changes just as it required courage from us to accept this Republic. In precisely the same way it took courage on the part of the hon. the Prime Minister to accept our policy. Mr. Schalk Pienaar wrote in Rapport on 1st April, 1973—not so long ago —as follows (translation)—

Schalk Pienaar and Marais Steyn pay tribute to the Prime Minister for this courageous deed in the interests of South Africa’s sport relations with the rest of the world. I just want to say that I do this …

Is Schalk Pienaar the best authority you can get?

I do this in all sincerity; of that I can assure the hon. the Prime Minister. We are pleased about it.

I am just asking whether he is the best you can get.

Now I should also like to say in all sincerity that we, too, as far as certain points of view of hon. members opposite are concerned, were also unable to escape the hard facts of the situation, the hard facts of reality. The hon. the Prime Minister mentioned one instance. We were opposed to the establishment of the Republic of South Africa. We fought it to the end and we lost by a minority of only 2% or a 2½%. And yet, when it became a fait accompli, we gave it, through my leader, the unanimous support of each member of this House and of this party and said that we accepted the Republic, that we pledged our loyalty to the Republic and that we would do our best to ensure that it would be a good Republic for all the people who lived in it. That, I think the hon. the Prime Minister will concede, also demanded courage on the part of a party which has traditionally been the commonwealth party of South Africa. Yesterday I heard rejoicing from the opposite side when our hon. friend, the hon. member for Mooi River, laid emphasis on the retention of the identity of the national groups in South Africa. This is something we have always believed in, but have never stressed, but the progress of the Nationalist Party with its policy makes it essential for the United Party to accept it as one of the important, inescapable facts in South African politics.

I also recall the matter of what we call the Bantustans. In 1963 my hon. leader said that if there were any Bantustans which had already become independent when we came into power, we would accept them. Later, two years ago, he said that if there were Bantustans which were on the point of independence, we would have to accept them too. In this way one has to concern oneself with the hard facts of reality. I want to suggest that we should take cognisance of another hard fact of reality with all the seriousness which the matter demands. Here I want to express my pleasure at the signs which have appeared that we are all beginning to take cognisance of it today. That hard fact of reality in the South African community is the fact that in South Africa there are hundreds of thousands of Black people who are permanently established in White South Africa, particularly in the urban areas, people who are permanent and essential for our continued existence, and whose presence we no longer dare deny. It was not long ago when all of these people without exception, were regarded by my hon. friends on the opposite side of the House as temporary sojourners, as people who were temporarily resident in White South Africa. Their families were brought here as a concession. They could possess no property— to this day they are still unable to do so— and they could not lay claim to the privileges of permanent inhabitants of a city. The acquisition of qualifications for permanent residence in terms of section 10 of the Act which deals with the Bantu in urban areas, was limited where possible. We had to accept that they were only here temporarily and would have to return in increasing numbers to the reserves. My good friend Blaar Coetzee staked his political reputation on the statement that by 1978 more of them would be leaving South Africa than entering it. But history and the hard facts of reality indicate to us that this is not happening and will not happen. It will not happen under the policy of the United Party, and it will not happen under the policy of the Nationalist Party; because, as someone on this side of the House—for the moment his name escapes me—indicated in this debate, even for the success of the Nationalist Party’s policy of separate development, the Nationalist Party would have to depend on the wealth, the wherewithal, produced by the existing industries in White South Africa for the means, the money, the capital, the investment to make those homelands viable countries for a section of the Native population of South Africa. That wherewithal can only be achieved by the utilization of Native labour in conjunction with White enterprise, White know-how and White skill. The unfolding of the policy of either of the two major parties in the House is dependent on the continued success and profitability of the industries of White South Africa, which are multiracial industries and where inter-dependence between White and non-White is already established to such an extent that it cannot be changed without a catastrophe occurring. Now we find—and I want to express my pleasure about this—that a gradual change in standpoint is taking place on the opposite side as well. Although the present Administrator of the Orange Free State, when he was still the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, said that the greatest danger to the Whites was the presence in the White area of the wife of the Bantu working there, we had a very welcome relaxation last year in respect of teachers and a few other cases who are now allowed to bring their wives to the cities where they work.

Actually, that is an old thing.

The first time I heard about it was last year. It must be something new, otherwise we were bluffed last year when it was announced with much funfare by the hon. member for Primrose, Minister Koornhof. Then we also had indications from the hon. the Minister of Finance last year that better use would be made of Native labour in the White areas. This year we have the cryptic sentence to which my friend, the hon. member for Maitland, referred before he took ill, in which the Minister of Finance says that plans are also being made for their training and their reinforcement as productive units in the White areas of South Africa. As a result of the way in which the hon. the Minister put it, it is very difficult to gauge the real importance of that one sentence I should like to ask the hon. the Minister very nicely to make a note of this and to give us more details concerning this important matter when he replies to this debate. The matter of the training of the Bantu was debated in the Senate on 21st March, 1972. I have many quotations of what was said by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education, but I should like to quote the following one only as his whole speech was in this vein. I quote from the English Senate Hansard, column 2145—

The hon. the Minister of Finance used the same terms in his speech, namely in-service training. What I should like to know now is whether this will lead—I hope it will —to Natives in White areas becoming full-fledged artisans or tradesmen. That is all I ask, because in that case we shall have to reconsider the position those people are going to occupy in White South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I found it very illuminating to listen to the hon. member for Yeoville. He spoke of the many changes that had taken place, but if a great change has in fact taken place, it has taken place in the hon. member for Yeoville. I remember him as an impetuous and eloquent fighter in this House. Today, however, he is calm and composed and he puts his questions in reasonable terms, and this change comes as quite a surprise to me.

It is a surprise to me that this member has come back to earth to such an extent and is able to state his case with composure.

There are a few small matters raised by the hon. member which I want to touch upon briefly, but I do want to mention that the only sources quoted by hon. members on that side in connection with the urban Bantu and other matters is Rapport, and more in particular Schalk Pienaar, and now and then …

I quoted from the Senate Hansard.

He was asked by the hon. the Prime Minister whether he could not quote better authorities. Apart from Dr. Rhoodie, who I see has also delivered himself of some wise remarks in Pretoria, I do think the hon. member should go a little further than these people, because I do not think that any of them has made a very thorough study of the problem of the urban Bantu. However, I shall return to this later.

I want to devote my attention to another matter which I regard as very important.

†In the first place I want to refer to a speech made yesterday by the hon. member for Transkei. He read out a long statement and said it was the policy of the United Party in regard to the urban Bantu. I want to refer to two points in that policy statement of his. He said: “Influx control will be made less irksome through the wider and improved use of labour bureaux and aid centres.”

*Now the hon. member for Yeoville has spoken of accepting a policy. These labour bureaux are an institution of the department and of this Government, as are these aid centres. We are very glad that the hon. member for Transkei has now stated clearly in their policy that they will make use of these things that were instituted by the National Party. I do not want to waste much time on the enormous number of points enumerated by the hon. member for Transkei. But there is one point which is very important. He says—

To me this is a significant statement. These migratory labourers will no longer be required to return home every year. But then they are no longer migratory labourers, after all. In other words, in terms of that policy he is a migratory labourer only once, because he need not return. That is the new policy of the United Party. I just want to point out that if it does not return every year he is no longer a migratory labourer. The other matters are not so important.

†I find it necessary, Mr. Speaker, to refer to something which was said last night by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. While he was talking about human relations and race relations he said this—

The hon. member for Pietersburg then put a question to him and asked: What has been promised that has not been given? To this the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg district replied: This is unfortunately not the time to debate exactly what has not been given. Later on in his speech the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District said—

The hon. member for Pietersburg then asked: The what? To this the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District replied—

*Mr. Speaker, we have the position here that an hon. member has said in this House that the late Dr. Verwoerd, the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development made promises to the Bantu which have not been kept. In the first place I want to say that to make such an allegation in this House without producing any proof is a serious crime as far as the relations between peoples and races in this country are concerned.

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must withdraw the word “crime”.

I shall withdraw the word and say that it is a bad mistake for a person to use such language in this House. In my opinion the use of such language undermines good relations. I shall tell hon. members why. We are in touch with these Bantu leaders regularly. What we say in this Parliament is very eagerly seized upon by them. So if the allegation is made that the previous Prime Minister, the present Prime Minister and the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development made promises which they are not keeping, it is very clear that we shall shake the confidence of those people in the White man of South Africa. They are not the only ones who will be shaken by it. These stories are carried out into the world. If these stories are not refuted they will be used. So I want to refute them. I feel that it is the duty of that hon. member to apologise for what he said. If he does not want to do so I hope that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will take cognizance of the fact. I believe it is extremely important that the handling of this matter, where integrity and relationships are at stake, be kept on a high level. But what has happened now? The allegation was made last night and reference was made to the discord which allegedly exists between Bantu leaders and ourselves. There are disagreements and I shall come to them. But let us go back a little to see what happened as far as that side is concerned, while we are talking about promises and the keeping of promises. Last year the first part of the plans for the consolidation of the Transkei were submitted by me and discussed in this House, arising from the proposals of the Select Committee in this connection. What did that side of the House say then, Sir? They are the people who are now saying that we are not keeping our promises in regard to land That was what was suggested last night. I want to read from the debate which took place last year. The hon. member for Transkei laid down five conditions for consolidation. I want to refer to them briefly. His first condition was that the South African economy as a whole should be taken into consideration. I do not want to read the whole speech made by the hon. member, but he went on to say the following (Hansard, Vol. 39, Col. 8008)—

That was the second reason advanced by the hon. member. Then he want to say—

This third reason is very important, Sir. For party-political reasons they do not want to keep that promise. Then the hon. member went on to say—

In the fifth place the hon. member said the following—

These are five reasons advanced by the hon. member for not purchasing land. Then a member on that side says that the Government, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Bantu Administration are not keeping their promises. Several members on the other side took part in that debate last year, including the hon. members for King William’s Town, East London North, Kensington, Albany and Pietermaritzburg District. In reply to that debate I told them that this was a solemn promise made by the White man to the Black man and that we should not look for reasons for not purchasing the land. Then a heated discussion followed between the United Party and the hon. member for Houghton because she said that she supported it in principle. What was the position then? We voted on the question of whether the land should be made available or not, and the United Party voted against it. Now a member of that side comes along and alleges that the Government is not keeping its promises. That is why I pointed out to you what happened last year. Sir, and I want to ask that serious cognizance be taken of this, because the Opposition is creating a completely false impression, and that is upsetting relationships in this country unnecessarily.

But let us go further. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District asked when the plans would be available and what we were doing in this connection. In consequence of what has happened and what has been said I believe that it is necessary for me now to inform this House that the drafting of these consolidation plans in terms of which the land promised under the 1936 Act is going to be made available is a comprehensive task. We are working on it and I hope that we shall be able to submit the plans to the House for approval within the next week or weeks and that the Select Committee will have enough time to go into those particulars and those matters. The department is working on the preparation of these plans. The position is that after all the evidence has been heard by the Bantu Affairs Commission that evidence has to be processed. In some cases they have to go back to certain areas. Unfortunately a reflection has also been cast on what the Bantu Affairs Commission allegedly said in connection with the maps and on certain officials as well. I want to state the position very clearly. There are various facets as far as this task is concerned, and the first is that the planning section of the department as such submits its plans on the instructions of the Minister; they are not the plans of the Government. Then the Bantu Affairs Commission, which is a Government commission, goes to hear evidence; then they publish their report and after that the particulars, as approved by the Cabinet, are submitted to Parliament here and the Select Committee and Parliament may express their opinions on the matter. But when all this evidence has been processed and submissions have been made and decisions have been taken, hon. members must understand that that land must be defined very carefully for purposes of submission to this Parliament, to make sure that it is properly covered by the decisions taken by this Parliament. After a basic pattern has been decided on, the definition that is submitted to Parliament must be thorough and comprehensive. It is a great and comprehensive task, but the plans will be introduced here shortly, and I hope that we shall then have a more responsible attitude on that side of the House. Sir, in one of the debates during this session the hon. member for South Coast said that they now supported the acquisition of land under the 1936 Act. But I want to indicate once again that it is important that the party on the other side, the Opposition, should settle the matter amongst themselves. The six speakers on that side who spoke here last year expressed different points of view, and the Leader of their Bantu Affairs group, in the five reasons he advanced here, certainly made a very bad impression as far as these matters are concerned. However, where that party has now indicated, through the mouth of the hon. member for South Coast, that it will agree to the acquisition of quota land, I hope that we shall get a clear explanation of their policy from that side.

So you admit that the first plan that went round with the commission was not an official plan?

What do you mean by “an official plan”? It was a departmental plan.

I say it is not an official plan.

It is an official plan in the sense that it is a plan prepared by the Department of Bantu Affairs.

Did the Government stand behind it?

No, the Government as such has nothing to do with that plan.

That was the point at issue.

It was a plan issued by the Minister or myself as a proposal from the planning section of the department.

So the Minister or the Deputy Minister issued a plan and it was not a Government plan?

No, it was not a Government plan. It was a departmental plan.

It was to invite suggestions.

You should have repudiated it then.

The hon. member for Langlaagte can reply to that himself.

No, he cannot reply.

Sir, I now want to come to the next point, and that is the general concept of land ownership and the distribution of land in this country, which is bound up with this question of consolidation and which is very important in regard to the relations between peoples and races in this country. I want to refer in this regard to what has been said here before by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and also to what was mentioned here last year by certain members on the other side, namely that more land may be given to the Bantu than is provided for under the 1936 Act. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has said here, inter alia, that 13% of the land was now being given to Bantu under that Act and that it was not sufficient; that we should revise the whole position.

Sir, with reference to what was said by the hon. member for Yeoville, that we should consider these matters in a practical and realistic and level-headed manner and that we should take into account the factual position as it stands, what is the factual position in this country? The factual position in this country is that the Whites own a certain amount of land and if certain people now ask why they own it, they are casting a reflection and they are implying that the Whites acquired that land in a dishonourable way. I am telling you that the factual position is that the Whites acquired the land they own in an honourable way and that there is not the slightest reason for this to be called in question. The fact that we are implementing this Act proves only one thing. It proves the goodwill of the Whites in making available to the non-Whites, too, the land they have lawfully acquired. Now we can also extend this thing, the question of land ownership. You may ask why we speak of land only; why do we not speak of the general wealth? You know, one of the mine-owners told me the other day: “But you are clamouring so much for higher wages; after all, we can now tell the world that we cannot pay higher wages because America does not want to accept a higher gold price.” Whose fault is it, then? This is the type of argument which can be extended to embrace a tremendous number of people and countries.

But let us dwell for a moment on the question of the acquisition of land and the distribution of wealth between Black and White in this country. I want to dwell on this because the impression is created, in this country and abroad, and it is being exaggerated, that the White man in this country possesses untold riches and that the Black man has been wronged, and that it is the White man’s fault that he has been wronged. In pursuance of what was said by the hon. member for Yeoville, that we must look at the position in a realistic light, we must emphasize very strongly that the White man is in fact here with that which he possesses, which he acquired in an honest manner, and that he is rendering a tremendous service. Furthermore we must be careful not to be so extravagant in the demands made for higher wages that the White man will be unable to help those people sufficiently in their development, thereby handicapping their entire development. But let us return to land.

The first argument which is used when a distribution of land is discussed is the historic argument. They say that history proves that our distribution of land is not right. Now I want to tell you that I looked again today at a book which was written as far back as 1947, namely Grensbakens tussen Blank and Swart in Suid-Afrika. I personally took great trouble and the department took trouble, in submitting those plans, to go back into history. If we look at the distribution of land as it is today, and as it was 300 years ago, and as it developed when White and non-White came into contact in this country, we come to the conclusion that the land owned today by the Bantu, by the various Bantu peoples, is the land they have owned over the years. They have in fact never owned more land than that which they have at the moment.

The greatest change which has been brought about took place at the beginning of this century, when the British Government decided, when the Union came into being, that the Protectorates would not form part of the Union, that that land, which was really Bantu land, would be excluded. At that stage the land owned by White and Black was more or less equally divided. So we go into the historical background when planning each of these areas the various peoples. It is very clear that the 1913 Act as well as the 1936 Act provided that they traditionally occupied certain areas, and furthermore that we are now buying another 7¼ million morgen under the provisions of the 1936 Act. Therefore there should not be any question of history proving that the Whites simply took other people’s land away from them. I want to mention the case of the leaders of KwaZulu. All kinds of sweeping claims are made. I do not want to mention particulars in this regard, but take Richards Bay, for example. Richards Bay never belonged to the Zulus. They never occupied it. Nowhere is it on record that it ever belonged to them. If we go back to see what Zululand looked like until it was annexed by the English Government, we find that it occupied a much smaller area than is the case today. I mention this just to show you that as far as this whole approach is concerned, the Whites are in fact giving to the Bantu in abundance the land which they have lawfully acquired over the years and which is lawfully theirs. So there is no question, not the slightest indication, of the Whites denying the Bantu something which is their due.

Then we have arguments in regard to numbers. People tell me: “But there are 15 million Bantu.” This is the type of question which is in fact raised and concerning which we should perhaps express a few thoughts. Where in the world do countries have a claim to the territory of other countries on the grounds of greater numbers? I am just mentioning this very briefly.

What about Location No. 6 at Richards Bay?

Land which is excised is amply compensated for under the Act. You are not taking away land and giving nothing in its place. The whole planning of consolidation amounts to the principle that where you take away, you have to give back the same in terms of stock-breeding or agricultural value. The 1936 Act provides for this. So nowhere is anything taken away which is not compensated for. The basic point at issue is that the ratio of landownership in this country should not be disturbed. Territory which lawfully belonged to the one group should not be taken away by the other group without land being given in return.

The argument has been advanced that numbers have to be taken into account. I feel that this argument, that because the non-Whites outnumber us they have a claim to land, is not acceptable, because they would then have a claim, too, to the mines and the wealth and everything that the Whites have, after all. Surely you cannot argue that because the numbers of the Bantu have increased in the meantime, they must have more. Surely we would then be accepting the communist principle and the State would have to take over and distribute everything according to the proportion between the numbers in the various families. Nowhere in the world is this the basis on which land or wealth is distributed. In a free economy everyone works for his own advancement. We have worked over the years for what we have today. The factual position is that the Whites own a certain amount of land and the Bantu a different amount, and in terms of the 1936 Act we are adding land to that owned by the Bantu, so that the obligation imposed on us by the Act may be fulfilled.

The argument is also advanced that the Bantu have contributed to the development of the country by means of their labour and that for that reason they have a right to more land. I do not know which of us who works in a mine has a right to a part of that mine merely because of the fact that he works there. Would Mr. Oppenheimer give me a part of his mine merely because I work there? We who are sitting here as representatives of the people are working for the people, but do we for that reason have a claim to or a share in the possessions of the State?

I want a farm now.

Everyone, Black or White, who has worked or fulfilled a function in this country over all the years or centuries, has done so in terms of an agreement and has been compensated accordingly. Surely we cannot say now that because these people have contributed to our development they should now be given a share in the possessions of the others. After all, they have been compensated for the work they did.

What about the foreign Bantu who work in the mines?

Yes, we could mention 110 things in this way. I mention these examples briefly to issue a warning, because some people get emotional about things such as ownership, compensation and human relationships as far as these matters are concerned. Unfortunately it is alleged by our very liberal Press that the Whites possess things and have an income in proportion to that of the Bantu to which they are not entitled because they are outnumbered by the Bantu, because it is allegedly at variance with the history of the country and because the Bantu have also made a contribution.

When we speak of relationships between peoples and the solving of our problems, I want to plead that these matters should not be approached in an emotional way only. There must be a realistic approach. It is not true that when we speak of discrimination it is necessarily the Bantu or the Coloured person who is discriminated against. Who is discriminated against most as far as development is concerned? If we have to speak of discrimination, I must point out that it is precisely the White person who is discriminated against, because it is the policy of this side of the House that we want to make the Bantu the employer in the Bantu areas. He must not remain the hewer of wood and the drawer of water; he must become the entrepreneur, and the White person is kept out of it. As a result of his stage of development the Bantu cannot compete with the White person in regard to the progress made in his area or the creation of capital, etc. For that reason there is greater discrimination against the Whites. It is our problem to reconcile these two extremes and to see to it that we as Whites, as country, make our contribution so that each of those peoples may develop. I want to go further.

May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question? Does the hon. the Deputy Minister see any difference between land ownership under the old dispensation of the Union of South Africa and the new policy of the creation of states which may become independent?

I do not know exactly what is meant by that, but I see no difference. That land was set aside at the time and in practice it is perhaps being distributed in a more balanced and meaningful way today. The purchases were made on an ad hoc basis at that time. Now things are thoroughly analysed before it is done. So I do not think there is any difference. The land has been reserved for these people from the start, those parts where they traditionally lived.

In terms of the 1936 Act, not as states.

Not as states. They are now getting a bigger say and they are getting self-government, for conditions have developed. This may throw a different light on the situation. As far as the ownership is concerned, it seems to me that it is the same. We must have clarity on these matters, amongst ourselves and towards the outside world. I am reading quite a lot about relationships at the moment. I want to tell hon. members that we are making demands on people and that we are talking to people. However, we are not sure whether they understand us correctly. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout may think that if he has spoken to a Bantu leader and he has carried on an ordinary conversation, that Bantu understands him as he thinks he understands, but they do not always interpret things that way. I have considerable experience of this in consequence of conversations concerning land. The interpretation of these people is …

Who says I do that?

I am just mentioning it to the hon. member in order to warn him. We tend to think that those people interpret things in the same way as we do. I can tell hon. members that first of all there is, unfortunately perhaps, a very visible difference, namely a difference in colour. This is always highlighted and puffed up by the whole world as though colour formed the basis for discrimination. However, we have here an essential and deep-rooted difference. If one goes into its scientific aspect, it becomes a race classification and even goes as far as a classification of sub-species. We are making demands on a certain group, while we are not sure whether they will be able to meet those demands. We must take these factors very thoroughly into consideration in our approach to, our negotiations with and the development of these people. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal initially with one or two points which have been raised by the hon. the Deputy Minister who has just spoken. Firstly, he dealt with the policy statement by the hon. member for the Transkei in regard to the use of labour bureaux and aid centres. When the hon. member spoke with approval about the use of these bodies, it was not a question of taking over Government policy. This was a reference to one of the recommendations of the Fagan Commission’s report, which appeared long before the Government came into office. The hon. the Deputy Minister dealt with another point recommended by the hon. member to whom I have just referred, i.e. that Bantu migratory workers would not be required to return home every year. There is nothing new or revolutionary in that situation either. All he says is that instead of compelling the migratory labourer to go home every year, which is more often convenient neither to him nor to his employer, that he be allowed to go home at 18-month intervals, or at two-year intervals, when it is convenient to both himself and to his employer. Even though this is the case he remains nevertheless a migratory labourer.

They used to do so.

Indeed, I am reminded that they used to do so before these regulations were made.

Then we come to the point raised by the hon. the Deputy Minister about a statement attributed to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. The hon. the Deputy Minister suggested that the Government and its policy had been placed in an unfair light when it was suggested that this hon. member was saying that the Government was not carrying out its promises in regard to the question of land. The point that was made by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District was to raise the very point which the Bantu leaders are making today over and over again. It arises in this form, that it was not until the advent of the present Prime Minister that we had a clear statement from the Government that the land which was to form the independent Black states would be the land promised in the 1936 quota and nothing else. The problem we had with the late Dr. Verwoerd throughout his term of Office was that he gave the impression both to us and no doubt to the Bantu leaders that he was promising them land far beyond the requirements of the 1936 legislation.

Quote!

Over and over again he said in this House: “I will restore to them the land that is historically theirs.” At one of the biggest meetings the Nationalist Party has ever held in the Durban City Hall, to a packed audience, the late Dr. Verwoerd used precisely that phrase. He said: “We must give to the Zulu people the land which is historically theirs,” and he held up his hand and said that the trouble with Natal was that the White areas were like the palm of a man’s hand: A strip at the coast and fingers of White land going into the interior. He said that the Government’s problem was to put that position right. If you look at the speeches from this side of the House during the tenure of office of the late Dr. Verwoerd, you will find that over and over again we were asking him: How can you make promises of this kind when you know what the situation in respect of the land is? We asked him: How can you make promises of this kind in this House when the leaders of the Black communities outside are listening to what you are saying and they will expect you to fulfil those promises? It is for that very reason that the hon. the Minister and his Deputy are in the trouble they are in today on this very question of land.

You are putting words into the mouth of Dr. Vewoerd which are not true.

It is not only the White people who interpreted it in this way, but some of the Black leaders did so as well. It was only when the present Prime Minister assumed office that he confined the question of the building of Black states to the requirements of the 1936 legislation.

They never used that argument with me.

Well, they may not have used that argument with the hon. the Deputy Minister because they know his standpoint, but utterances to that effect by people like Matanzima and Buthelezi are published almost every week.

But not on the grounds that Dr. Verwoerd promised it to them.

Where else did they get the notion from? This brings me to the next point that the hon. the Deputy Minister raised, namely the confusion which clearly exists in his mind and in the minds of others in Government benches with regard to the question of consolidation on the one hand and the fulfilling of the requirements of the 1936 quotas on the other. I have said over and over again, and find it necessary to say it again, that the question of consolidation and the question of the purchase of land to fulfil the 1936 quotas have nothing to do with each other. They are totally separate issues. They have always been totally separate issues until this Government attempted to confuse the two to suit their political ends. The hon. chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission at every meeting I attended in Natal did his utmost to confuse the two issues. The question is as simple as this: In order to fulfil the requirements of the 1936 legislation in Natal, to take an example, the quota can be made up entirely out of State-owned land. That is one instance. If the hon. the Minister did not want to use all this State-owned land for that purpose, it could be done by means of the purchase of land from voluntary sellers, people who wish to sell, together with State-owned land, provided that you are not obsessed, for ideological reasons, with the necessity for consolidation. If you are obsessed with the idea of consolidation, you must re-draw maps, and, of course, the ordinary purchase of land from willing sellers and the use of State-owned land are entirely inappropriate because the land that is offered and is available in such circumstances does not fit in with the ideological policy of the Government. That is the position as it stands. Let us please have no more of this attempt to confuse the issue as far as the purchase of land in terms of the 1936 Land Act, which the United Party supports and always has supported, and the Government’s policy of consolidation for political reasons, is concerned. It has nothing to do with the simple question of acquiring land for occupation by Bantu people who are going to remain citizens of South Africa. It is a necessity to acquire land in order to do state building to meet the political objective of this Government. Let us understand that situation and have no more confusion in that regard.

Of course, that leads to another difficulty which the hon. the Minister will have, and it will become more of a difficulty. It is germane to this issue. The Government is trading land for civic rights. The Government believes that by acquiring additional land and the building of Black states they can debar any demands for civic rights by those Bantu people who live in the White areas. This is their philosophy: “We will not concede civic rights, but we will concede additional land in exchange for those civic rights.”

Not in exchange, it has nothing to do with that.

In lieu of civic rights. Where the thing is going to fall down—and I shall say more about it later; we are seeing it developing before our eyes—is that not only are the hon. gentlemen in terms of their policy going to grant the additional land, but they are going to be forced to grant the civic rights as well. In other words, instead of giving with one hand, they will be required by the very force of events which my hon. friend, the member for Yeoville, dealt with this afternoon, to concede with both.

However, let me finally deal with the question of the map which was—I was going to say, “hawked”—taken around the country by the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission. Do I put the position correctly—and I am hoping to get clarity on this—when I say that this plan, this map, was presented to the affected communities by the Bantu Affairs Commission with the approval of the Minister? Did the Minister approve the discussion of the map with the different communities?

I would gladly reply, but I cannot do so in a two-letter word.

Was it approved by you or was it not?

If I may reply sitting in my desk I shall do so …

Was it approved or was it not; yes or no? [Interjections.]

It is not a question of “yes” or “no”. [Interjections.]

You see, Sir, they are running away from that original plan …

I am running away from nothing.

They have run away from it from the very first meeting that the hon. member for Langlaagte presided over at Dundee where, in a reply to a reminder from one of his own political supporters from the floor, the very first thing he did was to make it perfectly clear that this was not an official map, that it was not issued on the authority of the Government and that it was merely the work of an official in the department as a basis for discussion. If that is correct, it is something very different from what I understood the hon. the Deputy Minister to say this afternoon. Even by putting a direct question to the hon. the Minister, we cannot get clarity even at this late hour as to whether that was issued officially by the Minister or not. I do not think one need take it any further.

We had yesterday—and I may say that I shall be coming back to the question of Bantu Affairs in a moment—at Umhlatuzana something which bears examination. [Interjections.] Of late we have had a number of by-elections, some six or seven in all, beginning with the by-elections at Johannesburg West, Vereeniging and the other ones which took place at the time of the one at Klip River, culminating yesterday with a by-election at a place called Umhlatuzana in Natal. I believe that if one looks at the sequence of events, we have some lessons to learn, to use the phrase of the hon. the Prime Minister. I should like to look at this for a moment for that reason. Of all the by-elections which took place only two of the six or seven came as a surprise to the Government. Those two were Klip River and Umhlatuzana. At Klip River Mr. Theo Gerdener resigned from the Cabinet, I believe, without very much notice to them. In Umhlatuzana Mr. Percy Beldon died, a function over which this Government has not as yet assumed control. In every other by-election there was a resignation or the individual was elevated to Another Place. In every case the Government knew months ahead that that resignation was coming. The result was that they were able in every instance, but these two, to warn their party political machine in advance to enable them to register additional voters by the thousands, then to declare the vacancy and close the roll at a time when the United Party was unaware that the by-elections were coming and at a time when we could not also register a few thousand voters. In all those cases, we came through those by-elections with a position of almost stalemate. That was the general comment at the time. There were inferences that we held our positions but that we made no advance. The general comment at the time was that there was a stale-mate in the relationship between the parties as shown by the by-elections.

But there were two by-elections where this device of notice and action in Government favour could not be exercised and where the two political parties met on equal terms and started from scratch together. What happened? Before I deal with that, let us look at the type of constituency that we were dealing with in both these cases, namely Klip River and Umhlatuzana. We were dealing with constituencies which were not what Oudtshoorn is to the Nationalist Party and not what you might say Musgrave or Durban North are to the United Party. They are constituencies largely of ordinary folk, neither very rich nor very poor. They are constituencies where in both cases there is a large Afrikaans-speaking element in the community. They are constituencies where the large Afrikaans-speaking community lived in a largely English-speaking environment which one finds in Natal and finally they were constituencies administered by a United Party Administration in the Natal Provincial Council. What happened there? At Klip River there was a marked reduction in the Nationalist majority, so marked that a safe seat became marginal, with reduction of over 1 000 votes in the Nationalist majority. At Umhlatuzana the result is not quite as dramatic as that but there is, as has already been mentioned, an 18% improvement in the United Party majority. There has been an increase in the majority on a lower percentage poll. Now, whichever way you look at the results in these two seats, and the one follows the other, there has been a decided improvement in the United Party’s position, vis-à-vis our opponents. It is important that one sees the climate in which the latest by-elections took place. It was a climate where there had been an attack on the United Party by certain sections of the English language Press—this is something which one normally expects from the Nationalist Press—which exhibited a degree of hostility and venom towards the United Party which I have not seen for a long time and which in fact exhibit a degree of irresponsibility towards us and the issues of the day which I have not seen for a long time. Here one must bear in mind that the principal pamphlet issued by the Nationalist Party consisted of what one might call a small four-page newspaper consisting almost entirely of extracts from certain sections of the English language Press, judiciously salted with the type of misrepresentation and slant which one expects from any document drawn up by the hon. member for Klip River. In that light, and bearing in mind what we have had from the SABC, culminating in the announcement this morning, which said everything to make it almost impossible for the listener to find out whether the United Party had won with an increased majority or not …

Hear, hear!

… with all that, the United Party came through with flying colours. In a climate in which almost every card was stacked against us, what happened? The ordinary man saw through not only the Press attacks, but also the policy and the propaganda of this Government, both in respect of the cost of living and in respect of racial affairs, and, in a provincial by-election when, as anyone who is associated with politics well knows, the political atmosphere is at its lowest ebb, helped this party to come through with flying colours and show a decided advantage in its position. Finally, Sir, this election was fought on an old, 10-year old roll, which caused the greatest difficulty for all concerned to find the voters and to bring them to the polls. I believe this is something in respect of which the party can be very proud.

There is one final issue that I should like to place before this House, and that is that in the case of both Klip River and Umhlatuzana, the United Party fought an election on the federal policy which we have adopted. The National Party, in contrast, in both instances, in a more veiled fashion than they have elsewhere because of the circumstances, used every trick related to race and language, for which they are renowned, and they failed.

I think it is relevant, then, in the light of that result, for us to look at one of the factors which was discussed at great length and which no doubt influenced the voter. That is the growing lack of confidence on the part of the ordinary man in the Government’s ability so deal with the problems of the day. He is beginning to lack confidence in the Government’s ability to deal with the problems which face it. We see it here in Parliament in the Government’s inability to deal with the industrial strife which is facing us. Do you realize, Sir, that throughout the months that this has been taking place we have had no effort from the Government ranks to provide a solution to these problems? There has been none whatever. The only constructive suggestions have come from the side of the United Party. I believe that these election results have shown that the people are beginning to perceive that there are no answers to these problems from the Government side, because in both instances these by-elections took place in Natal. The people are not living 1 000 miles away from the problem as we are, who are sitting here this afternoon. They are living right in amongst the problem, and that is why I believe that these results are of some significance.

I would like, Sir, to come to the question of Richards Bay, which at the moment has become a focal point of the Government’s weakness and its dilemma in regard to its racial policy. Do you know, Sir, that Richards Bay is rapidly assuming the status almost of a disputed territory? Can you believe it, Sir? One of the main growth points in South Africa, in respect of which tens of millions of rands are being spent for the development of a new harbour, and in respect of which planning is going ahead to develop a seaport and town as large as Durban almost within the foreseeable future, is achieving the status almost of a disputed territory, if one follows the statements of some of the leaders of the day. The reason for my saying that begins, of course, with a speech made by the present leader of the Nationalist Party in Natal, a man who has sufficiently the confidence of the Prime Minister to have been elevated to the Cabinet. What did Senator Horwood say in the Other Place on 1st May, 1972? You must bear in mind, Sir, that according to the policy of the Government—I believe the hon. the Deputy Minister repeated it this afternoon, and this is certainly the position according to the plan that was exhibited; and I do not imagine that the plan in this respect will be changed in any way—it is quite clear that Richards Bay falls within a White area and will remain as such. The hon. the Deputy Minister said this afternoon that Richards Bay was always a part of the White area and would remain so. He made it perfectly clear. But what did the hon. Senator Horwood say last year? He was speaking on the Harbour Construction Bill for Richards Bay. It was not an aside; it was a set speech. He said this (Senate Hansard, col. 3037)—

I shall come back to that phrase, Sir. I quote further—

Now we come to the second important part, Sir—

So what does the hon. the Minister say? The hon. the Minister says to Chief Buthelezi: You must have patience in your demand for Richards Bay. You cannot expect us to hand over an expensive installation like this immediately. You must have patience. Sir, does one tell a person to have patience for something which you never intend him to get? Do you say, “You cannot ask for it immediately”, in respect of something on which you believe he has no claim whatever? If language has any meaning at all, what the hon. Senator was saying is: “You must have patience; I cannot give this to you immediately.”

Is that his Hansard speech?

I shall send this over to you immediately I have finished. If that is not what he meant, then what on earth does the English language mean? Sir, that is the first reason why I say that Richards Bay is assuming the status almost of a disputed territory.

He attaches his own meaning to it; that is typical of the United Party people.

Order!

Sir, what is the second point upon which I base this claim? We have had, as everybody knows, a great deal of industrial unrest in Natal of recent weeks. One of the focal points of that unrest, too, has been Richards Bay. During the last week there have been hundreds and hundreds of people on strike at one of the important strategic installations of our country, namely the aluminium plant at Richards Bay. So important a strategic installation is it that we have to send in 100 or more troops to keep the furnaces going. Who is it who has made all the statements in regard to that strike? It was not the Minister of Labour of the Republic of South Africa, but the Minister of Community Development of the Zulu Territorial Authority. Now, Sir, who has jurisdiction in the White area of Richards Bay when a labour dispute arises, the Minister who deals with labour in an embryo foreign government, the Zulu government, or the Minister of Labour of the Republic of South Africa? This is something we should like to hear about, because in the vacuum which exists in this field of endeavour at the present time, the Minister responsible to this Parliament has said and done, so far as one can understand, virtually nothing. All the comment and all the action …

I informed the Buthelezi Government of the proper thing for them to do, and that is not to interfere in Whie areas. [Interjections.]

Sir, what could illustrate more the impotence of this Government in the circumstances which they have created than that remark, because the Minister of Community Development of what is intended by the Minister to be a foreign government appears to have more say and to exert more influence on a major labour strike in regard to one of South Africa’s strategic installations than his own colleague in this Cabinet. You see, Sir, it springs automatically from the situation which Government policy develops. Their policy is to say that the urban African does not really exist; it is to channel his political interests to an area outside of South Africa where they are to be neutralized, and a vacuum is formed. A vacuum is formed in an area such as Richards Bay in regard to the urban African worker and, as we know from our science, where you have a vacuum, something is bound to go in, and where the Minister of Labour of this Government stays out, the Minister of Labour of the Zulu Territorial Authority moves in. That is the situation that we are faced with today, and the question that arises is this: Who has jurisdiction in these matters, the Minister of Labour of the Republic of South Africa or the Minister of Labour of the ethnic group government from which those workers are employed? Sir, this is a developing situation; it is a serious situation, and I believe it is a situation which requires immediate attention.

My final point is this: That policy has failed. What is required is a policy which provides the machinery to control and to regulate that type of situation; to regulate it as an integral part of our involvement, and the United Party is the only political party which provides machinery to control that situation.

Mr. Speaker, there are some matters which were touched upon here by the hon. member who has just sat down, the new leader of Natal under whose efficient leadership a glorious victory was scored, and on which I do not wish to elaborate at the moment. I think that he has said enough about this particular matter and that it is unnecessary to say any more about it. We are waiting for the general election to see how the new leadership in Natal will fare.

However, I just want to reply briefly to one matter, Sir, and that is the statement which was made with regard to the maps released in Natal and on which certain questions were put across the floor of the House. Sir, I am doing this merely in passing. I have no first-hand knowledge of the matter, but I may just give the hon. member this information—and thereby also straighten out the position as far as the House is concerned—that the leader of the commission, which investigated this matter, gave the express assurance that it was not stated anywhere that these were official maps. In fact, two maps were published in connection with Natal, and in both cases it was stated clearly that these proposed maps, which had been prepared by a section of the Department of Bantu Development, were open to inspection so that representations might be made and heard; and if that invitation is extended, it goes without saying that these were by no means final maps published as express proposals, but that these were proposals with regard to which representations were invited, and representations were in fact received. If the hon. member or any other hon. member were to deny this, I could humbly call the Minister to witness here that he himself also gave that evidence and that what was said by the chairman of the committee was therefore quite true.

Sir, I want to return to a topic raised by several members in the course of the debate yesterday or the day before, especially because this is a matter which was partly entrusted to my care and about which I find it necessary to account for to the House and to the country. In the first place I just want to say this to the hon. member for Hillbrow: I read through his speech and I noticed that he had said last night that I was not present when he gave special attention to me. Unfortunately that was unavoidable, and I apologize for not having been able to be present here for the whole of his speech, but I did read through his whole speech, and I should like to pay him the compliment that in the short time during which I shall occupy the time of the House, I shall speak with reference to the introductory remarks made by the hon. member for Hillbrow and, having done so, also refer to certain other things which he said. Part of his introduction was as follows—

This is followed by a few words which are rather obscure in the unrevised copy of Hansard, but it reads more or less as follows—

Hear, hear!

Listen to the rowdy member for Pietermaritzburg District saying, “Hear, hear!” I want to join him in saying “Hear, hear!” to a part of this statement. And, not only before this House, but also in the exercise of my official duties, I want to confess before the country—that with regard to one part of the accusation levelled by that hon. member against this side of the House, and against me in particular, because he referred to it later, I plead guilty with gratitude and with pride. I do have an ultimate aim in view, and I do not beg anyone’s pardon for having it. It is true that this party has always undertaken to ask the country unashamedly for what we ultimately envisage. Sir, if it is true that there are dangers along the way, to which I shall also return later on, then this side of the House is realistic enough to know that to deny their existence would mean that we were living in a fool’s paradise. But I say that anyone who tells the country and who tells the world that this country is on the edge of an abyss, is talking the greatest rubbish under the sun. We are not standing on the edge of any abyss, but the hon. member claimed that we did not see the abyss yawning at our feet. Where is this terrible abyss? I want to assure the hon. member that he does not have to fear the dangers, for in the face of those dangers —not abysses—this side of the House will undertake and carry out its task in humility, but also with relentlessness. Sir, I see the hon. member’s cynical smirk and I do not take it amiss of him. At a later stage we may return to the arguments he used, and then he may justify himself to his own people. I just want to say that this side of the House fully endorses and emphasizes what I said, namely that we have an ultimate aim in view and that we are not ashamed to say what that ultimate aim is, and that we are not ashamed to ask for sacrifices in order that that ultimate aim may be achieved. The following words were used by the hon. the Prime Minister in replying to this most important question, which is now being evaded here, which is being circumvented when future and chance problems are over-accentuated along the way (Hansard, 9th February, 1973)—

When he said we should leave it to our children?

That is the final reply which must be given. Sir, the hon. member is trying to put me off by way of interjections. If these were relevant interjections, I would not mind, but by making such interjections he is trying to lead me astray. He is welcome to continue with that sort of political game, against which the hon. the Prime Minister also warned and against which responsible people on that side also sounded a warning. When he makes a speech here, he does so by using pompous words and by telling this House that we are occupying ourselves with trifles while there is a yawning abyss at our feet; we must get done with these trifles and these arguments, and then he uses all sorts of learned words, and when one tries to answer him in earnest, he sits there with a silly smile like someone who has no understanding of the seriousness of these matters, who is only serious about one thing, and that is his own outlook on matters. Sir, the Prime Minister made that appeal, but he is not the only one who did so. He said we had to regard this matter of human relationships as an ultimate aim which we should set ourselves. This was also said by other people. To that question we have not as yet received any reply—in any case, not from the hon. member for Hillbrow. While he spoke yesterday, I interposed by asking a question, and this was held against me. I think it is necessary for me to quote at which stage that question was put. The hon. member was discussing rights of ownership for the urban Bantu and other matters when he said, according to his unrevised Hansard copy on page YY.3—

Then he continued—

Now I want to put a question to the hon. member about another dangerous matter. Soon after that, in the course of his speech, I asked him that if those rights were given in an integral part of a country, what right he would then have, morally or otherwise, to tell him that he may not have any political rights.

But it stands to reason that we will give him political rights.

I also asked him whether they would give political rights to those people.

Of course.

Perhaps it would be illuminating to the Leader of the Opposition to know this, too. Perhaps it would be a good thing for that party’s conservative supporters in the Transvaal to know this. The hon. member for Turffontein is, to a certain extent, regarded as being conservative. Perhaps he should not laugh; perhaps he should only listen. This is what the hon. member for Hillbrow said according to page BBB.1 of the unrevised copy of Hansard—

†“Full citizenship rights to all our people”—what does that mean in plain, common language? [Interjections.] I hear the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg saying “hear, hear”. I ask him whether this means that the Bantu will also have the right to vote.

Of course!

Will he have full citizenship rights?

Yes.

May I then say that I am glad that this is admitted and that I see that all the members of the United Party are in agreement. I now challenge them and especially the new leader of Natal, to go back to the people of Natal and to tell the English-speaking and the Afrikaans-speaking Whites of Natal that they are going to extend full citizenship rights, including the vote on an equal basis with the Whites …

No, no! [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I am in difficulty when I get muddled up with the English language, but I can tell you that if the phrase “full citizenship rights” means anything else but “full citizenship rights” which includes the right to vote, the right that your next-door neighbour has, I should like to learn what other meaning can be attached thereto and to what the hon. member said.

*Surely we cannot play with words and concepts as though we are dealing with so many small children. If the hon. members opposite are satisfied with our granting “full citizenship rights”, then let them state, if I am stupid and do not grasp what is meant by it, exactly what it means. The hon. member who is going to use the next half-hour, may then use his full turn to speak to explain it to us and to the Black and the White South Africans outside.

Unfortunately I must deal with other aspects. I want to say, as I did at the start, that I cannot agree that we are on the edge of an abyss. I think it is a gross exaggeration and it is actually a pity that the hon. member did not avail himself of the appeal made by the hon. the Prime Minister and the recent appeal made by the hon. the Minister of Defence. I am glad to be able to say that only a few hon. members opposite followed him in that regard. This appeal was made by the hon. the Prime Minister and by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, and they did not only do so in words, for if there were people who translated this appeal into action, it was they. They appealed to us to approach these matters in such a way that we would not be presented to the enemies of South Africa and to agitators as people who argue about trifles or who refuse to recognize those things which are of primary and vital importance.

What do you regard as primary things?

I shall discuss that if the hon. member would only exercise a little patience. The hon. the Minister of Defence recently made an appeal to this House. The replies given by the two hon. members on that side of the House who spoke after him, were striking. When we had a discussion here with reference to a motion on State security, the hon. the Minister of Defence said (Hansard, col. 3312)—

The hon. member for Durban Point then rose and, although he stated his party’s stand point, he did so in such a manner that one could have appreciation for it. A new shining light then rose—I am sorry if this sounds sarcastic, but I think it is necessary that I should say this in fairness to other people who do not share these standpoints—the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central, and he started with his argumentation on a vitally important matter such as this. He started to speak and used such arguments that I find them echoed in what the hon. member for Hillbrow said yesterday. I quote from Hansard, col. 3319—

And so the hon. member then continued. Every word he said there, was a reproach and actually an appeal to the non-Whites to say that they need support us, “for see how the-Government is treating you”. Anyone who denies this, may look up his Hansard to see what he said.

Read it.

Anyone who wants to be unbiassed, can go and read it. It is not necessary to return to it. When I listen to the responsible speeches made by, amongst others, the hon. member for Johannesburg North and the hon. member for Yeoville, I find that it differs drastically from the speech made by that hon. member. I drastically differ with the hon. member for Jeppes, but he does at least make responsible speeches. When one listens to these sort of arguments which we get in the speech by the hon. member to whom I referred at the beginning of my speech, then we read that the hon. member for Jeppes said—

And when one listens to the argument put forward by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central, who found it necessary to paint such a picture of South Africa, one sees the difference. “Locally we have strikes at the moment on a scale which we have had seldom before.” Yesterday hon. members said that there was a time when strikes took place on a larger scale, but I do not take pleasure in that, for I think it is foolish to discuss these things, to talk about bygone years so as to console oneself by thinking that if there were strikes in former years, there may as well be strikes now, too. I agree with hon. members when they say in a responsible manner that we should take steps to take a firm grip of these strikes, not in the sense that one should intervene by using force and violence, but in the sense that one should seek solutions to the problems. One will not accomplish that by way of speeches of the nature made by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central. By implication he said that these strikes were justified. By implication he said, as it was put by somebody else, that they developed spontaneously in every case. I think that the appeal made by the hon. the Prime Minister to everybody on that side, constitutes more than ample inspiration for us to say that we should discuss these matters in a responsible manner. I do not hold it against the hon. member for Hillbrow and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District that they make interjections, but what I do expect of them is that, as regards the important matters affecting South Africa, they will make appeals for proper approaches and that they themselves will not be frivolous about these matters either.

I think it is necessary for me also to say a few things to my own people and to South Africa. I want to say here today that I do not think that there is an abyss at our feet. To any person inspired with idealism, there is always an ideal. It is true that one cannot always walk along one’s eyes focussed on the distant future only, but that one should also look where one puts one’s feet. However, the man who only looks where he puts his feet and who does not have the light of the stars to guide him, does not get anywhere in the world. For instance, it is necessary for a student to apply himself to his studies from day to day, but he must also know that he wants to become a doctor or whatever he wants to achieve as an ultimate aim. The National Party has laid down its objectives. I want to state those objectives in simple language. We did not come to South Africa by chance; the years of our existence cannot be attributed to chance or to our own excellence—we are not such wonderful people and we are not better people than other people in this world—but the Nationalist Party (and those of you who are cynical, may laugh at this again) and many in the United Party, also English-speaking people whom I am grateful to know, know that they are in South Africa by the grace of God to fulfil a task. They know that they have a task which will also extend beyond the borders of South Africa; that today we have a task in Africa and in the world. The hon. the Minister of Defence said that we stood here as a bastion of Western civilization. Even if the Western civilization does not appreciate this, that is how it is. If the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District thinks that with a cynical laugh he can take a stand for party-political gain over against that inspiration which the people still have, the inspiration which the young people of South Africa have and which induces them to stay here, he is welcome to do so. I know we have major problems and that we shall need the help of that side of the House, indeed of everyone in this House. There were abuses in South Africa; I do not want to go into them but slum conditions existed here. Anyone who wants to deny this, denies the obvious.

They still exist.

I am coming to that. It is true that as a result of the war certain things had to remain in abeyance, but I fail to see what point it has as far as our future is concerned for us to return to it time and again during debates and to say how terrible those conditions were. We know that was the case. Now we have work to do. We have already done a great deal of work. When one is going down-hill, one cannot put one’s car in reverse and try to stop it when it goes out of control, for then one would break the whole car. One has to stop it first, and then one may start moving forward again. I have no reproaches against the then Government. There were emergencies; there was a world war. But the rebuilding, as hon. members know, took a long, long time. Foundations had to be laid, ruins had to be pulled down before we could start building anew. We did this through the years. Nor am I going to waste my time by saying that many of those things were done in spite of their being opposed by the Opposition, for that is history; that is what history teaches us, and it is not necessary for us to waste our time on that. As the Opposition it was their duty to oppose things for other reasons. At that time I also saw it in that light. Today there are still hopelessly too many abuses, and I accept co-responsibility for them; I accept the responsibility to do my share of the task of rectifying them. They must be rectified. When I think of the abuses existing outside Pretoria with regard to housing, I could write hon. members a book about them. I could make excuses and give reasons and say that there is a homeland government which is responsible in this regard; I could shirk this matter, but then I would be failing in my duty towards my Minister, towards the Government, towards South Africa and towards this Parliament. I could say that these abuses exist because the homeland governments allowed Bantu to pour in, and that it was not we who allowed them into the Winterveld area and other areas about which I answered a question here the other day. I shall be honest with the House. I admit that there are other abuses, too, but the foundations have been laid for rectifying those things. Because we recognize these things and know that the progress has been too slow, it was at the instigation of the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development that we thought of Bantu Administration Boards to enable us to solve many of these problems on a wider regional basis. While I now have the opportunity of extending a hearty welcome to a good friend, the hon. member for Durban Point, after his victory, I want to tell him at the same time that I am speaking about the administration boards. For the work which he has done, I want to tell him that if he takes an interest in the welfare of South Africa, he may become a member of an administration board after the next election, when he will no longer be here; I shall see to it.

In the short time at my disposal I just want to say a few positive things with regard to which I request the co-operation of all people who are interested in the achievement of the ultimate aim, as seen by the National Party and many other people outside the National Party. Recently a few administration boards were established and at the moment we are also constituting administration boards for the rest of the Republic. It is envisaged that these problems which were mentioned here this afternoon with regard to influx control and other matters which cause problems will receive urgent attention from these organization councils. It is envisaged that the whole of the Republic will be divided into 22 areas on a regional basis. The officials who have done this work over the years will now be able to participate on a wider regional basis in the development of the homelands situated in their vicinity. It is expected that these boards will help to smooth out the difficulties which exist there with regard to transport services and other problems. Aid centres are being established and we have already replied to questions concerning the work done by the aid centres. It is with pleasure that I am able to announce that these aid centres are being extended to other large towns in our country even before these administration boards come into operation, and that these aid centres have already achieved great success.

I also think it is necessary that we as responsible members of this highest council of the country should recognize that it is only the truth when people tell us that our prison population is much too high. I just want to say that this is the general opinion and that this Minister has been working since 1964 to find methods whereby these problems of people who land in prison, often through ignorance, can be solved. I want to tell you that the help of individuals and of groups is necessary to suggest practical solutions in regard to the combating of these things. It is necessary to say, too, that at the present time it is unfortunately so that everyone wants to get on the band-wagon in saying how much they want to do for the Bantu. The primary task of a Government remains the protection of an ordered society. There is no sense in discussing the abolishment of influx control and in discussing in general terms the abolishment of other measures if we do not suggest what should be done instead. I must tell the House that here in Langa, where we have an aid centre, I had to learn with disappointment that the number of people who return to that aid centre for a third and a fourth time has increased to such an extent that it showed a rising graph. And when we investigated this matter, it appeared that even here in the Cape Province, with the competent officials we have here, we have had an infiltration of a very strong tsotsi element during the past years, which, according to the newspapers, even led to migratory labourers in Langa taking the law into their own hands to protect their rights the other day. This will necessitate a sifting process which will not be solved in minutes, days or weeks. These people will have to be identified and taken from the ordered societies. Fortunately most of our Bantu areas are ordered societies. When I think of England with its labour unrest and of other countries where students create havoc overnight and I compare it to our heterogeneous population, in spite of the things which are wrong and which have to be worked on, we have reason to be grateful and proud. Therefore I have the right to ask South Africa, the Press, party groups, individual organizations such as Sabra and others that take a sincere interest, young people, responsible people in the Opposition, indeed, everybody, to keep in mind the appeal made by the hon. the Prime Minister. South Africa is not standing on the brink of a precipice. There is a beautiful aim in view. Fulfil your calling, and if you do so, all will be well with White and non-White and with South Africa.

The hon. the Deputy Minister became rather excited over the question of “full civil rights”. Now, I want to say to him, with all due respect, that this is a matter which we should like to debate with him, but before we can do so he ought to consider the difference between a federal system, federalism, and unitary system. The citizenship which we advocate, is citizenship on a federal basis, in other words the basis of division and decentralization of authority. This is something totally different from civil rights in a unitary state, which we do not advocate.

There are quite a number of important matters which I should like to raise, and for that reason I am not eager to return to the subject of previous debates. But unfortunately it so happens that, when I discussed minor apartheid a few weeks ago, some members reacted to it with so much excitement that it is necessary for me to say a few remarks on this thing about this. Questions were put to me, vehement statements were made, and there was even a challenge. To one or two members I said across the floor of the House that I would reply to certain questions, and I think it is best that I do so now before dealing with other matters.

I was not here when the hon. member for Welkom spoke, but I read subsequently with great pleasure in Hansard that he promised to “hound me from one platform to another”. In addition he challenged me to join him in addressing the same meeting. I do not know whether the hon. member was being serious, or whether he was merely bragging, which is something which happens to all of us at times. Unfortunately he is not present at the moment, but if he was merely bragging, I would have left the entire matter at that. But in his absence I want to say to him that if he was being serious, I would be grateful to hear when he is going to begin the hounding, so that I can send him the dates of my meetings regularly. As far as his challenge in regard to joint meetings is concerned—I see that he used the plural—I accept it with great pleasure if he was being serious, and I want to add that he can make it as many meetings as he likes; he can decide on the venues; he can choose his own chairmen; and he need not invite a single member of the United Party to come along, I shall come alone. The only condition I impose is that he should be fair enough, for we are all busy people, to reach an agreement with me on any date at least a month before the time.

Sir, the hon. member for Brakpan put a number of questions to me on standpoints which I have adopted in the past in regard to the Coloured populations. I cannot repeat all his questions here, but I can tell him that I still endorse every standpoint I adopted in the speeches from which he quoted. I am just mentioning in haste the most important: I still believe that White colonialism is obsolete, and that the sooner we effect the change-over from political domination to political co-operation with the Coloureds, the better it will be for the future and the security of us all. I still believe that there cannot be two Parliaments in and over the same area; and I still believe that at every level of national government we must co-operate with the Coloureds, and must not hold sway over them. This applies in particular and above all to that level where the most important laws are made which control and determine their lives just as they do ours. How this may best be implemented we can of course debate freely among ourselves and with the Coloureds; but the principle must remain. In conclusion I just want to tell him that my prediction that the Coloured Persons Representative Council, as it exists at present, would reach an impasse, has already been borne out. Two sessions ago I moved here by way of a private member’s motion that the Government should appoint a commission, on which leading Coloureds should also serve, and that that commission should draw up a comprehensive program for the reconstruction and the development of the Coloured community, and that it should establish greater clarity on the political future of this section of the citizenry of South Africa. I emphasized at the time that the Whites and the Coloureds were proceeding inseparably along the same course; that the Coloured Persons Representative Council had an extremely limited growth possibility, and would reach an impasse as far as its powers were concerned; and, that Whites and Coloureds could not in the long run be separated. Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Coloured Affairs, as he then was—at present the Minister of Coloured Relations—rejected this idea with scorn, and other members who discussed this matter, assured us that there was nothing to investigate, and that the Coloureds had finally been placed on the political course which diverged from that of the Whites. As the then member for Malmesbury put it: “We know precisely, and the Coloureds know precisely, where we (the National Party) want to go.” Sir, that was precisely two years ago. In the meantime the Coloured Persons Representative Council, as it exists at present, has reached the frustration point we predicted, and recently, too, the commission was appointed as we requested, a request which the Government rejected at the time but which it has now heeded. The commission has already held its first sitting in the shadow of Parliament, and the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations was present in person to wish the commission a good fortune in its future deliberations. Sir, this kind of situation puts one in mind of what a Tory leader, Lord Balfour, once said of his party: He said—

This is to a very great extent true of our party in this House. The National Party is in power, but the Government is regularly forced to accept the ideas and the advice of the Opposition. I want to say at once that there is nothing wrong with that. I am not criticizing the Government on that score, nor am I saying this to discourage it. To me the important thing in South Africa is not so much who governs the country, but how the country is being governed. That is, after all, what counts most. But what we do have to censure the Government for is that it always waits until the maximum harm has first been done to South Africa and to human relations in South Africa before it takes action. Mr. Speaker, we have just seen most clearly, in the field of sport, how we first had to be kicked out of the Olympic Games, and how we first had to suffer a good deal of harm in the field of sport, before the Government took action. It ought to have taken action before we suffered all the harm of the past few years. Once one has been kicked out, it is so much more difficult to be accepted again.

I can mention numerous other examples of the same kind. Look at the harm the strike by the 15 000 Ovambo did to our position in South-West Africa last year, and particularly to the position of the White man there. The Government knew that feelings were deteriorating seriously. The Ovambo church leaders had some considerable time before that, conducted an interview with the hon. the Prime Minister, and had told the Prime Minister frankly what their grievances were, and had pleaded with the Prime Minister to effect an improvement in the situation. But every time the Government waits until matters reached crisis point before it begins to take positive action. It seldom or even acts on its own initiative, imaginatively on its own initiative, to rid itself of obsolete policy. And, just wait, the same thing is going to happen with the question of petty apartheid practices. The Prime Minister will pretend to be quite blind to the question of petty apartheid until the maximum harm has been done to human relations and necessity forces him to act.

This mode of conduct on the part of the Government, of always reacting only when the pressure of circumstances forces it to, constitutes a special kind of danger to South Africa, for it is precisely this kind of thing which encourage the boycotters and the Peter Hains, and other pressure groups overseas to persist in their activities and constantly win new support for their efforts. I think the Government should display a greater perception and should more frequently rid itself, on its own initiative, of obsolete policy, and should not wait every time until it is so embroiled in difficulties that it is forced to take action. Now, various hon. members who criticized and attacked me, defended the existing minor apartheid measures with the story that these were intended “to prevent or eliminate friction”. Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that petty apartheid measures have been introduced to keep colour prejudice alive.

Nonsense.

I recall numerous meetings by leaders of the National Party which I myself attended where vehement attacks were made on what they termed the danger of colour prejudice becoming blunted.

That is a factual lie.

That was the basis of this kind of apartheid measures. Colour prejudice was praised as being good for the White man. They were regarded as being “marrow in his bones”. Many of us sitting here remember the time when the Luxurama Theatre in Cape Town was open to all sectors of the population. Night after night it was packed out, and no one objected. There was no friction. We remember the symphony concerts in the Cape Town City Hall where Whites and Coloureds were for generations free to sit wherever they pleased, according to the tickets they had purchased. No one complained. There was no friction. Friction and bitterness were created when the Government intervened from above and forced its apartheid policy, its exclusion policy, its partitioning policy, on the City Council of Cape Town. Sir, it is not altogether true to say that the petty apartheid measures were intended to eliminate friction. It was mainly in the service of the false theory which was kept alive for years in the country that the survival of the Whites lay only in the exclusion of contact with people of a another colour.

That is a lie.

Order! Did the hon. member say it was a lie?

Yes. It is a factual lie. I did not say he was fibbing.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “lie”.

I withdraw it.

The hon. member should not waste my time, for I really do not take any notice. He can cry out “lie” as much as he wishes.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there is a rule that an hon. member may not mention another hon. member by name or shout at another hon. member, using his name.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but I forgot what constituency he represents. It is so unimportant …

Order. The hon. member should rather address the Chair. It is always better.

Very well, Mr. Speaker, I then say “the hon. member there”, whatever his constituency is.

I concede that there are certain contact situations which do give rise to annoyance or, perhaps one could call it “friction”. However, this does not apply only to contact situations between one race and another. It applies equally well, and frequently far more, to contact situations between one class and another. Frequently the possibilities of friction arising between one class and another are far greater than those between one race and another. I want to mention a simple example. Most people—perhaps I should say all people— prefer to stay in a single room in an hotel rather than in a double room. Every person likes his privacy. He does not like having to share a room with a stranger, even if it is a person of his own kind of race. For that reason one finds that the modern hotel, simply does not place strangers together in the same room any more, even though there are two beds in the room and the same kind of people in the hotel.

In America they even made arrangements years ago to ensure this in trains. On the overnight trains each traveller has a small compartment of his own, complete with collapsible bed, washing and toilet facilities. On the modern day trains in Europe the seats are all single instead of, according to the old system, having benches. They have adjusted long ago to the need a person has, which is a justifiable one of being private and of having his personal autonomy …

To be separate.

There is nothing wrong with the ordinary person preferring, in intimate situations, to be as private and separate as possible in regard to people of his own race. What is wrong, where the fault lies, is that hon. members on the Government side can never think further, or do not want to think further, than the circumstances of skin colour. To them, colour and not calibre, is the total criterion, and they want to try to control every relations situation with coercion by law. In almost no sphere are people in this country free any longer to regulate their own relations according to their own liking.

I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Waterberg, but this is where he missed the point completely. The essence of our objection is Government discrimination in all spheres, and that this is official policy.

No one is opposed to distinction. No one is opposed to a cultural identity of one’s own, cultural institutions of one’s own, and private freedom. After all, Afrikaans as well as English-speaking persons also have their own identity, and their own institutions, but these exist without coercion by law. That is the essence of our charge, not the question of an identity of one’s own and the right which each individual has to his own privacy and which each nation has to its own cultural institutions.

Anyone who keeps his eyes open must surely realize by this time that we are living in an age where this kind of system is going to become more and more intolerable, and that it is going to form the basis of growing dissatisfaction in this country and increasing enmity abroad. For that reason commonsense requires of us to seek new ways, to devise new means in which people can realize their normal desire for privacy and their natural dependency on one another without coercion by law as it exists here but nowhere else in other multi-national countries of the world.

Recently we have been hearing a great deal about State security. If one hears what Government speakers have to say and how they carry on, one would swear that the student community constitutes the greatest threat to State security the country has ever seen. Every community has its quota of irresponsible people. If there are students, or any kind of people whatsoever in South Africa who preach revolution and plan uprisings, the law must deal with them. Everyone of us is in favour of “law and order”, or order and the law. I am deliberately saying “and the law” and I am emphasizing the “and”, for the two must go together. One cannot only speak of “law and order”, and place all the emphasis on “order”, and none on the “rule of law”. The emphasis must fall equally on “order” and on “law”. However, we are running the risk of allowing almost all the emphasis to fall on the “order”, and almost none on the “rule of law”. Up to now not a single student has been tested before the law. I repeat that if there are guilty people of any kind whatsover, they must be prosecuted. It seems to me as though some people in the country are losing their balance in regard to the students.

In every country of the world worth mentioning the studying youth, the academicians, the intelligentsia, these are the people who are the quickest to feel social injustice. It was precisely the same in the history of the Afrikaner. This country will become an intellectual desert, like Russia, if the studying youth are to be intimidated and are no longer to be allowed to react with definite feeling against what they regard as being wrong in this country. I want to say to the Government that if it wants to look for scapegoats, it need not look for scapegoats only on the campuses of South Africa, but that it should look at itself as well. It should begin with itself.

May I ask a question?

No, unfortunately I do not have the time. There are aspects of the Government’s policy which create more unrest and dissatisfaction, bad feeling and rebellious feelings than any agitation of which any student in this country is capable. If we want a parliamentary commission on State security, and if the Government is truly in earnest about ensuring a safe future for South Africa, I say to it that it should first, and above all, appoint a parliamentary two-party commission to revise all the apartheid legislation which has been made applicable since 1948 both in this country and in South-West Africa. If it is in earnest about our future and about our security, this is the parliamentary commission which it should appoint, with a view to seeing what we can eliminate which is unnecessary, which humiliates people, and which constricts people on the basis of their colour.

Do you support the members of your commission?

Our standpoint in that regard has been clearly stated. The commission which I have mentioned is the kind of commission we ought to have if we want to safeguard our future, and there is not a single member on this side of the House who will not be prepared to serve on such a commission.

I listened with great interest to the Budget speech made by the hon. the Minister of Finance. What struck me most about his speech was the colossal increase, an increase of R124 million in one year, on the Defence Vote. If one includes the expenditure on Loan Account, we are going to spend more than R500 million, almost R600 million, on Defence this year. In contrast to that the amounts which are being spent on the improvement of the standards of living of our underdeveloped human masses sound almost like small change. It is clear to us all that this is not a Budget of confidence; it is a Budget of fear. After the hon. the Minister of Finance had stated in his speech that provision was being made under the Defence Vote for an amount of R447 million, excluding the loan account, he started, almost in the same breath, that provision was being made for an increase of R48 million in the Bantu Administration and Development Vote for homeland development. Note the contrast! When the hon. the Minister of Finance mentioned these two amounts in almost the same breath, the idea occurred to me that if we could have reversed this situation, and could have spent the R500 million on uplifting our underdeveloped people, on improving the quality of their lives, on closing the wage gap, on eliminating inequalities, on providing better educational facilities and on developing the Bantu areas, then we would create so much peace and so much progress in the country that we would perhaps have needed less than R50 million for Defence. Nobody denies that, under the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we need every cent that we are going to spend on Defence. With the present Government in power that amount will, and will have to, become even larger.

However, we must realize one thing: In the long run not a single country can buy its security with weapons. One can only buy one’s security with the satisfaction of the people living in one’s country. If we are able to satisfy our people, if we are able to create an order in South Africa— no matter how expensive it may be— which will satisfy the population groups within South Africa and will cause them to feel that they can give their full loyalty to South Africa, then all opposition abroad collapses. Who can be angry at us if the people within the country are satisfied?

You want to commit suicide.

It is not suicide. The best way of counteracting external agitation is to create internal order which gives so much satisfaction that the external onslaughts collapse. For that reason I say that if we want to discuss security and the future, we should first give attention to this kind of investigation, this kind of two-party commission which I have mentioned here, in an attempt to eliminate that which humiliates people, that which makes people dissatisfied and aggrieved and is a happy hunting ground for agitators here and from abroad.

Mr. Speaker, I feel very sorry for the hon. member for Bezuidenhout if he and the hon. member for Welkom have to hold meetings together. On those meetings he will not have two or three days time in which to find replies to the questions. He will have to reply to those questions off the cuff. The hon. member has now come along and furnished us with replies to questions which were put to him in earlier speeches a few days ago, but these replies are far from satisfactory. I shall presently come back to deal with the petty apartheid of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. Something in particular struck me of this debate: The hon. members on that side of the House frequently spoke of “realities”. It was the hon. member for Transkei who started it. He said: “We must face realities and not fiction.” The hon. member for Mooi River also wanted us to consider “realities”. The hon. member for Hillbrow did the same. All those hon. members spoke about “realities” we have to come back to. It seems to me as if we are dealing here with a different approach among the members of the Opposition. Practically every one of them said that we want to take over their policy and that we are indulging in double talk. Since all of them are speaking about “realities” and of our wanting to take over their policy, it seems to us as if they had a caucus meeting on this matter. This Opposition feels that it wants to take over at some time or other the entire policy of the National Party in regard to their Bantu homelands, and they are now trying to pave the way for themselves to be able to do so at a later stage and to acquit themselves honourably. Because they are talking so much about our taking over their policy, I want to tell them that we will probably be able to draw up a list twice or three times as long of points of policy they have taken over from us. “What you can do we can do better,” they usually say and we can say the same to them. As an argument this does not hold water, and it is no use their doing so. As far as the development of the policy of the National Party is concerned, they want to advance the argument that this happens on account of pressure brought to bear on the side of the United Party. However, I want to tell them that if they were to consider the history of the National Party over the past 25 years, they would see that all the achievements of the National Party were due to the development of a policy and of basic principles laid down many years ago, even before 25 years ago. As a result of those basic principles and on account of that singleness of purpose, this development of the policy of the National Party is now becoming a reality.

Before dealing with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, let us consider for a brief moment the so-called deviations, the double talk, the taking over of policy and the “realities” we have to come back to. I do not want to go very far back; I merely want to go back to about one and a half years ago to the congress the United Party held in Bloemfontein. I think the United Party will still remember that congress very well. In this regard I want to pay a compliment to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. At that congress he posed three vital questions to the congress. Those were well-considered questions on account of an item on the agenda of that congress. The item on the agenda was to the effect that the congress be requested to reject the policy of separate freedoms as being foolish. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout got up and told the young people: “Young people, you now have to ask yourselves three questions. Do you not want to to give the Black man any freedom?” The hon. member then explained to them that it would mean domination, domination of the White man over the non-White. In the second place, he asked them: “Do you want to give the Black man equal freedom? If so, it will then mean domination of the one group over the other group, in other words, domination of the Black man over the White man.” In the third place he asked them: “Do you want to give them separate freedom?” His reply to that was: “If the Government is able to create any territory for any group of people to be free from apartheid, I do not think we should reject this.” These are very important questions the hon. member posed, important questions in this sense that they amount to the “realities” we should give attention to. The hon. member for Hillbrow also said that we should come back to earth. We have to discuss racial matters because it is one of the vital questions today. I agree with that hon. member, because our racial relationship in the country is one of the vital questions. However, with these three vital questions posed by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout he also tried, as he put it here yesterday, to bring the hon. member for Hillbrow back to earth. It seems to me as if the earth was merely a hot sheet of galvanized iron for the hon. member for Hillbrow, but this bringing back to earth was not only a hot sheet of galvanized iron for the hon. member for Hillbrow. It was also a hot sheet of galvanized iron for the other members, the leaders at that congress in Bloemfontein. For example we see here what the reaction of the leaders of the United Party was when these questions were put to them. According to Rapport, the hon. member for Newton Park, who is the leader in the Cape Province, was sitting as motionless as a gatepost at that congress when these questions were posed. According to certain observers, the Leader of the Opposition was sitting there haunched over morosely. I take it that all the Opposition members were inspecting their shoelaces. The Leader of the Opposition was sitting there haunched over. The hon. Leader of Natal—at that time the hon. member for South Coast—apparently studied an invisible fly against the ceiling. This is how observers saw the reactions of the hon. members there. And this was the state of affairs after this vital question had been put to them in order to bring them back to reality. This was the vital question which we in South Africa were facing. But the congress shied away from the question posed by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. They could not appreciate the crux of the matter. But in which respect did the United Party really go wrong? The United Party went wrong in that they could not distinguish between freedom and equality. They were unable to appreciate that there is a real difference between freedom and equality. I should like to quote what the philosophers have to say about this question of freedom. Sir Ernest Barker, the Scottish savant, states that there are three forms of freedom. I quote—

And what does he say about equality? He says—

The congress rejected separate freedoms on account of the item on the agenda submitted to them. They rejected separate freedoms and accepted equal freedoms. I now want to quote to you, Sir, a passage which indicates the consequences of separate freedoms. This brings us a step nearer to the so-called petty apartheid of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He says that, according to their federal policy, points of friction will be eliminated. I have here a booklet entitled “die Proses van Gelykmaking” written by Prof. G. D. Scholtz. On page 31 he states (translation)—

Sir, this is what we find in America when equality is forced upon people with might and main. One can now understand the reason for the double talk among members of the United Party. We had this double talk in their previous statement of policy: “You want it, we have it,” where they wanted to create a Parliament in which the Bantu would have eight representatives in the House of Assembly, the Coloured people six and the Indians two. In other words, in the House of Assembly itself the non-Whites would have 16 representatives while they would have nine in the Senate. There they created for themselves a policy which, according to them, would work, but subsequently they came along with their federation policy and in that federation policy they changed the whole of their previous policy; it was alleged that it would no longer work, and they subsequently came along with a completely new policy. Sir, they are going to hold another Bloemfontein congress in the near future and one wonders what is going to happen at that “Battle of Bloemfontein” this year; one wonders whether they are going to present a new policy there or whether they will perhaps come back to reality and face up to these vital questions of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

It is going to be a “Harry” of a noise.

But, Mr. Speaker, I should like to quote to you what the non-Whites themselves say about our policy and what they say about the policy of the United Party. Of course, the Bantu cannot accept the policy of the United Party. In the first place, I quote what Matanzima had to say (translation)—

Hon. members of the Opposition, in reply to a question put by the hon. the Deputy Minister, stated unanimously this afternoon: “Not equality as far as political rights are concerned, not equal franchise”, and here Matanzima rejects their policy altogether. Mr. Tom Swartz virtually said the same. Mr. Tom Swartz, leader of the Federal Coloured Party, about whom the hon. member for Bezuidenhout had so much to say, and chairman of the executive of the Coloured Council, said that it seems the United Party plan offers very little for the progress of the Coloured people. He also said (translation)—

Sir, the same applies to Mr. Sonny Leon of the Labour Party of the Coloured people. He says (translation)—

This policy of the United Party is also being rejected entirely by various other leaders; I do not want to quote them all. Sir, Matanzima yesterday issued a statement, appearing in Die Vaderland of the 4th, in which he said among other things (translation)—

This is in terms of the policy of the National Party—

Chief Matanzima states further (translation)—

This is what is being said by the leaders of the non-Whites. However, let us see— this is very interesting, but we cannot quote everybody—what some of the leaders of the United Party itself have to say. We shall deal with various members. The hon. member for Sea Point says (translation)—

This is a direct contradiction of what was said by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout at their congress. The hon. member for Sea Point is in favour of a policy of domination.

Where did he say that?

According to a report in Die Transvaler of 24th November, 1972, Mr. Jack Basson told Die Vaderland on 27th October that the United Party is in favour of a policy of domination for all times. According to the Rand Daily Mail of 23rd November Mr. Marais Steyn, M.P. for Yeoville, said (translation)—

But we have not had that distinction as yet. We do not know what the hon. member’s definition of that distinction is. Mr. Harry Schwarz, M.P.C., shies away from that question. He is the new star on the horizon of the United Party. He is the new Transvaal leader and according to the Rand Daily Mail of 22nd September, he said (translation)—

However, he does not say how. He avoided this question altogether. We also have the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, Sir De Villiers Graaff, who, according to Die Transvaler of 9th October, said the following (translation)—

But what he does not say, is how the development of their federal policy will create a safe future for our Parliament. He says (translation)—

Sir, we also find that various other members have expressed their opinions. As a matter of fact, this does not mean a thing. However, not one of them can give us a clear standpoint as to what their policy is or what it is not. Now, what are the implications of the policy of the United Party? They do not want to give full freedom to the Bantu or the other non-White peoples. What we ask them is: According to their new federal policy, in terms of which they will have an umbrella Parliament which, according to them, is to disappear in course of time and in terms of which they will have a federal council, who is going to hold the balance of power in that federal council of theirs? After all, they say we must face realities. Who is going to hold the balance of power in that council? They say the council is to consist of approximately 165 members. Forty-five members will be elected by the seven small parliaments or provincial councils, or legislative assemblies. Every one of them is going to designate a certain number of members for this federal council. This gives us 45. Furthermore, there will be a further 120 members who are going to be elected on merit according to the contribution they make to the prosperity of South Africa. According to the hon. member for Durban North there are going to be approximately five councils for the non-Whites initially. This gives the non-Whites 38 members and the Whites 127 members initially. If one divides the Whites between the United Party members and the National Party members, say, 67 United Party members and 60 National Party members …

At that time you will probably no longer exist.

Whoever there may be. Perhaps it is a different party. The hon. member says we will probably no longer be there. Then it must be some 300 or 400 years hence. However, it does not matter which party it is. Suppose there is a division of political parties. Surely the non-Whites will then wave the sceptre in that federal council. They will have those White political parties just where they want them, because if one of those non-White parties forms a coalition with the White party in the Opposition, the governing White party —suppose it is the United Party with 67 members—will go under. In other words, it will have to form a coalition with some of the non-Whites in order to remain in power. Those non-Whites will have the control in the federal council. This is as clear as a pikestaff. This is also the case according to their previous policy as set out in that yellow document, “You want it, we have it”. The non-Whites will have the sceptre here in South Africa and they will dictate whether we should move this way or that way.

Surely, the split between the United Party and the Sunday Times did not come on account of the crisis in the leadership. The split between the United Party and the Sunday Times came as a result of the non-White policy of the United Party, because the United Party did not want to accept the homeland policy of the National Party and because the United Party does not want to face realities and appreciate the consequences of their policy.

They did not want to listen to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

I should also like to quote what was said in the Sunday Times of 22nd August, 1971. What I am going to quote, was written shortly after the congress of the United Party. Unfortunately the hon. member for Yeoville is not here at the moment, but according to the Sunday Times, he said—

Has this federal policy of theirs been tested as such? Where is the precedent, wherever in the world it may be, for such a federal policy in a multinational country such as South Africa, with its unique position in the world? Nobody can show us where we have had an example of this nature. This reply of the hon. member is therefore quite contradictory. The hon. member went on to say—

It may be true that they do not want themselves to be bound to it, but this federal policy they have has been tested even less than the homeland policy of the National Party which Kaiser Matanzima accepts and which, according to him, already works. His people are experiencing the advantages of that policy even at this stage. The federal policy is full of potholes and it will not stand the test. I should also like to quote what was said by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. According to the Rand Daily Mail of 20th September, 1971, the hon. member said the following—

He is referring here to the young people—

Apparently the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has abandoned principles completely.

“Policy” is not “principles”.

All he does, is to see where he can derive political advantage for himself and he also forgets to tell the youth about principles and that principles are the essential characteristic of a future policy. One has to have principles. One lays down one’s principles at the beginning and then one builds one’s whole future policy on those principles on which one has decided at the beginning.

I agree with you on principles, but referred to policy.

However, this is what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout lost sight of when he spoke to the young people. He was only concerned about his political future. However, he goes on to say—

Here we have the very opposite of what was said by the hon. member for Sea Point. There is so much double talk among the United Party members that one simply cannot believe it. One can write a whole book on the double talk which is taking place on that side. One can write a whole book about the taking over of the policy and principles of the National Party. It would make an excellent rag magazine of the United Party with an abundance of jokes and caricatures. The hon. member goes further and says—

This the hon. member has already rejected and we take it that he shares the standpoint of some other person. He goes on to say—

Surely the hon. member then has to face realities. This Black power be speaks of is going to grow under their federal policy he now wants to hold up to us. The only solution is not equality for the Bantu, but separate freedoms according to the item on the agenda before that congress. In other words, homelands have to be created where these people may lead their lives to the full, where they may have the franchise in all its forms and consequences and where they may develop. According to a report in Die Burger of yesterday Chief Matanzima said that it is simply unbelievable to what extent they have already benefited under National Party rule. There are many other quotations I can read out to hon. members but I see that my time is running out. I may just tell hon. members that the National Party started facing the facts all over again. That is why it is of such fundamental importance that we should accelerate development of the homelands with everything in our power, that we should accelerate the development of the policy which goes with it, that we should accelerate the purchase of land, that we should accelerate the consolidation of the homelands and that we should accelerate the transport system in the homelands. If we could accelerate the transport system, these people could have a communication network. We should accelerate the development of the infrastructures of the homelands in order to enable them to develop accommodation, water supplies, shops, industries and everything they need for themselves there. We have to accelerate the development of their cities, their education and all their activities in the homelands. We must also accelerate the reduction of the number of Bantu in the White area and the increase of Bantu in their own areas. Yesterday the hon. member for Hillbrow said we should talk about racial matters. I fully agree with him. This is of vital importance. This concerns the relationship between Whites and non-Whites in particular, but what is equally important, is the relationship between Whites and Whites. We also have to pay attention to our relationship between Whites and Whites. From the outset the National Party and our former leaders requested and pleaded that we should have greater cooperation, but we can not find it anywhere among those hon. members … [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Potgietersrust has just tried to contrast the federal plan of the United Party to his party’s policy of homeland development. Actually the gist of his argument was to be found in the last few minutes of his speech when he said they must continue accelerating their policy of homeland development. He said they must have the cities, they must have the infrastructure, they must have this and they must have that, in order to give substance to that policy of homeland development. Surely what it amounts to in essence is that in this respect we are engaged in arguing about a South Africa existing in a vacuum. This policy of homeland development advocated by hon. members on the opposite side of the House, exists or paper …

It is a flight of the imagination.

… and it is a flight of the imagination as the hon. member behind me says. The hon. member himself admitted it when he asked that a start be made on a large scale with the development of those areas. In other words, no substance can yet have been given to the policy of homeland development. Members on this side of the House are not opposed to the idea of homeland development. If that hon. member were to look up the debates which were conducted in 1956 when the report and the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission were discussed here for the first time, he would find that this side of the House were more prepared than hon. members opposite to accept them. They were not even prepared to accept the recommendation that £104½ million be spent within ten years from that time just on the acquisition of the land, of the area. As yet those hon. gentlemen have not done even that. The Tomlinson Commission told them that if they wanted large-scale development, they would have to take thousands upon thousands of Black people off the land and would have to apply industrial development with the assistance of White capital and White initiative. What has happened to those recommendations? Hon. members opposite are moving at snail’s pace in the direction of allowing White capital into those areas. It is a fine thing to philophize, anyone can do it, particularly if one goes and sits under a bush or on a mountain and thinks in terms of separate freedoms. But the moment one philosphizes, one must bring it down or reduce it to what is happening outside. Must we always remind hon. members that South Africa is not like this House? The moment one steps out of this House, one sees South Africa; any hon. member on that side of the House thinks that if it were possible for us to divide South Africa justly into areas, and if we could apply territorial separation, absolute separation in South Africa, we on this side of the House would not have supported it? Of course we would have been enthusiastic about anything like that. Who would not like to see everyone living together in one area as one homogeneous people? However, the composition of South Africa’s population is a heterogeneous one. No matter how far one goes in applying separation in South Arica, one will still have eight million Black people in one’s White area; one will still have two million Coloureds who have no area of their own, and one will still have 600 000 Indians to whom one cannot give that. The United Party has always accepted that there are certain areas in South Africa which are predominantly Black. To those people one can give the maximum form of self-government as one can give it to the Transkei, Ciskei or to Zululand. No one argues about that. [Interjections.] I do not even want to argue about it because even in Gen. Smuts’s time there was the old Bunga system …

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

No. Let me first finish my argument. Even the old Native Representative Council with the system of government which we created at the time, carried the seed of homeland development and homeland government for those people. What the United Party has objected to throughout the years, is the idea that one can think in terms of totally separate politics, that one can think in terms of totally separate freedom while eight million of the Black people are here with one, and while one has two million Coloureds and 600 000 Indians whom one cannot grant a similar separate freedom.

Your bench mate does not even agree with what you are saying now.

I think the hon. member sitting next to me is just as much of a realist as I am, and that he accepts the South African situation. He is not living in a fantasy world as is that hon. member sitting at the back over there. Why has the United Party developed its policy further in the direction of a federal system? For exactly the same reasons as hon. members opposite are thinking in terms of federal development in South-West Africa today. I advanced this argument on one occasion, but at the time I did not have the newspaper cutting at hand. Today I do have the newspaper cutting of a report which appeared in Die Burger of 1st November, after it had become known that the Executive Committee of South-West Africa, too, had mentioned the possibility of a federal development in its memorandum to Dr. Escher. Die Burger then said the following about this. They tried to justify it (translation)—

What interpretation did the hon. the Prime Minister give? After all, you must accept his word.

I am quite prepared to accept the word of the hon. the Prime Minister, but as yet the hon. the Prime Minister has not said anything about this. The attitude of the hon. gentleman’s committee in South-West Africa is on black and white. Why then did the hon. the Prime Minister not reject or repudiate it?

Surely your policy is on black and white, too …

But give me a chance. This leading article deals with the facts of the matter in South-West Africa, and I maintain that the facts in this country are similar. I quote as follows (translation)—

That is what Die Burger said about the position in South-West Africa. But do we not have the same position in this country? Is the Transkei, for example, big enough to carry its population?

Yes.

Is the Transkei big enough to absorb the natural increase of those people, plus those who are being sent back form the White areas, since this is apparently still the policy of that side of the House?

Yes.That is a bad example you have chosen.

If that area is big enough according to that hon. member, then I want to ask whether the infrastructure and the development exist to make that area viable. [Interjection.] Someone said recently that the Black man was suspicious in so far as the homeland policy of this Government was concerned. The reason is that development is progressing too slowly and because precious little is being done by the Government in that direction. Now hon. members expect us to accept this fabrication of separate politics. Because the South African situation is what it is, the United Party says the fact must be accepted that one must give some form of self-government. It must be accepted that there are millions of people out there to whom one can give bodies of a similar nature. But we in South Africa, whether White or Black, are unable to exist apart from each other. At one stage or another we must be prepared to talk together, converse together and plan together. This is the only principle underlying the idea of the federal body which the United Party wants to create. After the largest number of powers have been given to the various councils, certain spheres will still remain concerning which we will have to plan together. It is this fact which those hon. members do not want to face. If hon. members do see it, they must be prepared now to change their policy in that respect. The Black man is simply no longer prepared to accept the dictates of the White man when we prescribe to him what he should accept. But if we plan together with these people, if we consider things with them and confer with them, we shall find how many of the Black people and other non-Whites in South Africa agree with us. The greatest danger of the policy of the Government is that each will protect his own identity without there also being a common loyalty towards South Africa. Emphasis on this without emphasis on the common loyalty towards South Africa, holds a great danger for the future of our country. It is the United Party’s point of view that in whatever way we protect our various identities, we must not forget that we have a common loyalty as South Africans and inhabitants of this country. Above all, our loyalty towards South Africa must also count. Then, let the future hold what it may; let dangers come, because White and Black in South Africa will stand together just as they are standing together today on the borders of South Africa. It is this truth, this reality, which the United Party wants to bring home to hon. members opposite.

You won’t be able to “sell” your policy anywhere; why should we buy it?

What happened at Umhlatuzana?

Sir, the difference between us and that side of the House is underlined by the resolution taken some time ago in Port Elizabeth by their own young people when they said that the Nationalist Party should take another look at its own policy; that it should take a look at its old blueprints to see whether they still worked; that it should accept the realities of the South African situation. Surely that hon. member will concede that one does not ask for that kind of thing at a congress if one is satisfied with the policy of one’s party. One only asks for that if there are certain shortcomings and if there are certain points in the policy of one’s party which one is unable to explain to one’s supporters.

Sir, I should like to come back to another matter which has also been dealt with in this House. One would have expected, since the hon. the Minister of Finance said in his Budget speech that he would not forget the farmer of this country, that hon. members opposite would have repeated all the amounts of money which are to be applied in terms of this Budget, as an example of how the Government is seeing to the welfare of the farmer. But they have not done this. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad came here and said he wanted to plead for a new dispensation for the agricultural industry. Sir, just as my argument in respect of that party’s policy applied a moment ago, so it applies here. One does not advocate a new dispensation unless one is dissatisfied with the old dispensation. What did the hon. member for Wolmaransstad do? He did precisely what hon. members on this side of the House have been doing for the past 15 years and longer, because what did the hon. member say? He said the reason for the farmer in South Africa being in difficulties, was that his margin of profit on his investment was too small. He said the farmer’s problem was that his production costs had risen too much and that the rise in his produce prices had not kept abreast of his rising production costs.

But is that not true?

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad said there was a tremendous increase in the farmers’ burden of debt. Sir, does that argument not sound familiar to you? After all, these are arguments which we on this side of the House have advanced. I still clearly remember how, 23 years ago, we stood up here and drew the Government’s attention to the farmers’ burden of debt. What reply did we receive at the time from the then Minister of Agriculture, Senator Dirkie Uys, who is enjoying his pension in the south-easter at the Strand today? He stood up here and said:“That amount of R1 300 million to which you refer is not entirely made up of debts; it is not debt incurred in the purchase of land and farming implements, such as tractors and trailers. That amount is pushed up because there are many farmers who bought seaside cottages, who bought motor boats, who bought new motor cars and who bought special pickup vans for pulling their motor boats.” Sir, what has happened in the meantime since the former Minister of Agriculture made that speech here? The hon. member for Wolmaransstad comes here and pleads for a new dispensation for the agricultural industry. He says the United Party has lost all interest in the farmer, but that this Government is looking after the interests of the farmer. That hon. Minister of Agriculture made a speech before 3 000 farmers at Wolmaransstad, and what did those farmers ask him? Those maize farmers asked him, firstly, to give them a final payment on the price of the previous season. I asked the hon. the Minister whether he replied to that.

Yes.

What was the answer?

They will get it.

Today for the first time the hon. member says that they will get that final payment. Will the hon. the Minister tell us what that final payment will be? And did the farmers at Wolmaransstad not also ask the hon. the Minister the question of what assistance the Government could give to those people who were being called upon to pay, people with loans from private institutions and not from the Land Bank or from Agricultural Credit, and who were receiving letters of demand to redeem their capital. This, after all, was the kind of request put to him by those farmers. What was the hon. gentleman’s reply? That he would help the farmers?

Give me the name of one man who has received a letter of demand.

The only reply the hon. gentleman furnished was that he would increase production loans from R4 000 per individual to R6 000.

And the co-operatives would get R25 million to tide them over.

Then I also want to ask the hon. the Minister another question.

Give me the name of one man who has received a letter of demand.

This R25 million which the hon. the Minister makes available to the co-operatives, does it differ in any way from what he has done in the past?

This is the second time the Minister of Finance has appropriated this amount.

I find it strange that we should have to wring these replies out of the Minister.

I also said so in Wolmaransstad.

There was not a word about it in the Press, except that the individual production loans would be increased from R4 000 to R6 000. Representations were also made to him to announce the maize price for the maize season as soon as possible, and that they wanted more than R4-75. Has the hon. the Minister furnished a reply to that?

We shall announce the price at the end of the month.

When the end of the month comes, will the Minister give us an indication whether it will be R4-75? [Interjection.] The hon. gentlemen opposite who say that they protect the interests of the farmers—I ask that Minister who persuaded him to introduce interest subsidies for farmers? When that gentleman agreed with us in this House that an interest subsidy was necessary, and when he turned his head to where the Minister of Finance was sitting, he did not open his mouth to ask for the introduction of that interest subsidy.

I do not discuss such things in front of you.

He says he does not discuss such things in front of us, but he should speak for the farmers in this House. But that hon. Minister, the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Minister of Finance have after all had one deputation after another from the farmers who came to see them about these interest subsidies.

And what of it?

The hon. member says “what of it”, but they are the hon. gentlemen who rely on being able to say that they speak on behalf of the interests of the farmer of South Africa, while it has taken them three years to give the reply. Now that hon. member for Bethal comes along and asks that we should give more attention to the financing of agriculture.

You will be sitting in the Opposition for another 50 years.

It will take another 50 years to apply this if you remain in power.

What is your maize price?

In 1967, when we had legislation before this House placing the Farmers’ Assistance Board under the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, this side of the House asked hon. members opposite why they did not make it a Department of Agricultural Financing? But in 1973 the hon. member for Bethal says that the situation will become progressively more difficult in the future and that more and more agricultural financing will have to be done by the Government. When hon. members opposite had an opportunity to give this matter their attention and to create a Department of Agricultural Financing, what did the hon. gentlemen do then? Was it not this side of the House which advocated that the Land Bank and the Department of Agricultural Credit together should form the Department of Agricultural Financing?

Plead for a maize price now.

These institutions will have to spread their wings much further and they will have to help more farmers in South Africa. That is what we plead for and have pleaded for in the past.

Are you afraid of the maize price?

This did not come from the hon. gentlemen on that side of the House. No, if there is one group in this House who have always pleaded for the interests of the farmer, it is most certainly this side of the House. [Interjections.] The best legislation in the field of agriculture which can compare with that of any agricultural department in the world, was introduced by this side of the House when it was still sitting on the other side. Just as we have continually advocated these things in the past, so we advocate today the establishment of an Agricultural Planning Board.

But plead for a maize price now.

The predecessor of that hon. Minister, former Minister Uys, told us that it was not necessary; we do not want it because we have an Agricultural Advisory Board and we possess all the information which we could possibly get. I want to ask that hon. Minister whether he is going to give us an Agricultural Planning Board, yes or no.

Are you going to give us a maize price?

Unless he gives it, I want to ask the hon. member for Bethal and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad and everyone who has advocated a better dispensation for our agricultural industry, on what basis we can get a better dispensation for the agricultural industry in this country. I believe that this is the first step which that hon. gentleman must take if he wishes to place agriculture on a sound basis. The second step he will have to take—he is only at the beginning of his term of office—is to give us his agricultural policy in black and white. He will have to put his policy just as the United Party has, four or five years ago, put its policy in black and white. [Interjections.] [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Newton Park started his speech and gave his explanation of their federal policy and its principles, it reminded me that he went on an overseas tour with a number of colleagues a few years ago. At the time we received the favourable report that, when the hon. member for Newton Park was abroad, he could explain our policy of apartheid so well.

You are too incompetent to defend it.

I should like to thank him for being such a good South African when he is abroad. What is more, I have sympathy with him. He has a real problem. In the days before they had this new federal policy of theirs, they had a policy which no one on earth could explain to anybody else. Whether that was the sixpence policy or not, I would not be able to say, but it was simply a policy which was quite impossible to explain to a foreigner. If one had paid attention today while the hon. member spoke about the basic principles of their policy, one would immediately have noticed that in their federation idea they suddenly threw overboard all the basic principles of our National Party views. It is not only he who did it; several speakers on their side did so repeatedly. They come forward with the acknowledgement of the preservation of a separate identity and with the idea of the protection of identity along individual lines, but when they come to their federal idea, they immediately proceed to stressing a common loyalty. In other words, they simply come back to the idea of one South African citizenship, a citizenship which knows no bounds, but which is so wide in scope as to include the whole of South Africa. With regard to this federal idea of the hon. members, I want to tell them that they cannot explain to us how the powers of this Parliament, the sovereignty of this Parliament, fit in with that federal idea. Indirectly they indicate that, in due course, this Parliament will have to disappear from this dispensation, that it will have to make room for dominant powers of the federal Parliament. They cannot explain that to us, and on that score their whole idea collapses. For that reason those hon. members cannot sell their own policy to their own party members, to their journalists and to their young people.

Now I want to say something about the hon. member’s remarks, in the second part of his speech, with regard to agriculture. He found fault with the agricultural policy and with the steps taken by the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. Then he mentioned a number of good things which the Government had done with regard to agriculture over the past few years, with the explanation that these were actaully things they had asked for. But what have they not asked for over the years?

And promised.

The Government could not possibly follow the promises and the requests of that hon. member, whom I accept is the main speaker on agricultural matters on that side. But where exceptional circumstances did arise, such as drought conditions in the country, the Government time and time again looked after the needs of the farming community in a positive manner. No less a person than Dr. Verwoerd said in his time that South Africa could not afford to allow its farming community to lag behind in the process of development and the progress of South Africa. That is the basic premise from which the one Minister of Agriculture after the other has proceeded through the years. This amount of R25 million which has been made available to the co-operative societies is proof of that. Today these bodies are carrying the farmers through times of drought and difficult circumstances. The hon. member mentioned it, but at the same time he criticized the Government. He dismissed it by saying that they had asked for it. He also spoke about interest subsidization. Who but this National Party Government introduced interest subsidization? Let us take a look at the establishment of the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure, and let us then get an idea of what has been done in the limited number of years since the establishment of that department for, in particular, young farmers and beginners in the farming profession. It is being done today and is still being done year after year. This year an amount of R47 276 000 was voted on the Capital Account for this particular department for aid to farmers and for the purchase of land. These amounts are, of course, within the bounds of the Budget and within bounds of the ability of the taxpayer, but just take the amount of R23 million voted for the purchase of land and assume that it will be voted for 20 consecutive years; then that vote would amount to at least R460 million, and then I am not even speaking of incoming interest. Did the United Party do anything during its regime that is in any way comparable to this sort of undertaking which provides a basis for the greater future of the agricultural industry, for better financing and for financing on a special level under the guidance of the National Party Government? I want to tell the hon. member for Newton Park that to me his story sounded very much like one told by somebody who was using up time, who had to say something but did not know exactly what he wanted to say. Therefore I want to leave him there and proceed to my next point.

I should like to use the few minutes at my disposal to talk about a few matters which have emerged during the course of the discussion of this Budget. The hon. member for Johannesburg North is not here now, but he elaborated a great deal on the question of strikes for higher wages by non-Whites. He made the statement that these strikes, and the power to strike which these people have, were actually dynamite in our political situation and in our labour situation. I want to agree with him that this is a difficult situation. I want to stress that I agree on the necessity of the systematic and responsible raising of the salaries and wages of our low-paid workers, non-Whites as well as Whites. But one involuntarily gains the impression that hon. members on that side welcome occurrences of this nature so as to use them as stones to throw at the Government and to incite the people by saying, “People, stir up a small commotion.” That is the impression one gains.

That is a wrong impression.

If it is a wrong impression, I want to say that the hon. members had the opportunity to state the other side of the case as well, but that they do not do. Therefore the impression gained by the outside world is that hon. members on that side, such as the hon. member for Johannesburg North, are in fact only saying this because it gives them pleasure and they would like the people to believe that they are absolutely correct. But there is also another side to the matter. Why do they not discuss it? I want to point out again that we are unanimous on the question of the necessity for the wages of the majority of our non-White workers to be increased. I endorse that wholeheartedly. In fact, from an economic point of view I think that it would mean a great deal for the development of South Africa and that basically it is a mistake on our part to pay these people too little in many cases. If they earn more, if their salaries are increased, as we see now, that money will flow back into our economy. It will give our economy a momentum which will imply benefits for us on a broad level. In other respects it will lighten the burden of carrying these people. But increases in wages and salaries are not something up in the air; they must be founded. To discuss this matter every time and to suggest that it is actually the sole responsibility of the Government, the responsibility of the White man, is folly. In talking about increasing wages and salaries, one has to come back and tell that low-paid White or non-White person: “Very well, I acknowledge that you are right, but in return you must also co-operate by way of an increase in your productivity; by your own efforts you must raise your efficiency and development to a higher level so that you may make a bigger contribution.” If we should allow ourselves, through the years, simply to be forced to increase wages by 10%, 15% and 20% per year, this question will arise in the minds of our industrialists— your people and my people: “You want us to compete on the foreign markets, you want us to export; but how are we to export if the productivity of the man who does the work is so low that we can gain no entry into world markets?” Today I want to say that if hon. members want to make a contribution with regard to this matter, they must stress this side of the matter. Then they must help us to say to responsible non-White leaders, “Very well, we agree in principle, but there is also another side to this matter. It does not only have a White side, not only a Government side, but it also has a non-White side”, if we accept that the vast majority of the low-paid workers are non-Whites. In other words, these people must use the opportunities which are available to them to acquire more learning, a better schooling, and not be satisfied to take at the first possible opportunity the course of saying that he is able to earn enough with the little learning he has at that stage. The Government is providing the facilities, schools and more schools. We cannot start with many universities and many vocational schools. We naturally have to start with primary education and providing the masses with a primary education. But during the next ten to 20 years we are still going to establish many more specialized institutions. We shall have to tell the non-Whites that they also have to contribute their share in order to use and avail themselves of these opportunities, and that they should not only demand higher wages but should also increase their productivity. If we do not do this, South Africa will run the risk of totally excluding itself from world markets as a result of one-sided wage increases. What chance do we have of competing with the Japanese on the world markets, if we consider the way they work and produce, if we are going to pay higher wages for practically no work? Therefore I am telling the hon. member for Johannesburg North that I listened to his speech and that he said a number of things with which I quite agree. However, he was biased and omitted to stress this aspect of the matter. That is why I questioned his good intentions. I gained the impression that he simply wanted to get at the Government without making a contribution.

What is more, the Government has proceeded to establishing in the various homelands Bantu authorities with considerable responsibility at this stage. There is a Coloured Persons’ Representative Council, there are institutions of the various non-White peoples which have responsibility and which also have responsibility in these matters. If one looks at the actions of some of these non-White leaders, one gains the impression that they only want to mobilize their people to ask for more money. However, these people must realize that whereas they have not been placed by this Government in positions of note, for which they are even being paid, they should also bring these basic facts home to their people.

But do you think we are not doing that?

I doubt whether they are doing it, for when do they do it? We have now been occupied with this debate for the best part of four days, and so far they have said nothing about this aspect of the matter. That is why I say that in spite of all the pious talk, the Opposition is leaving South Africa and our population situation in the lurch. If we merely goad people into saying, “Ask for more and demand more,” without us telling them, “Look, a people cannot get anywhere in the world if it does not exert itself as well and if it does not mobilize itself into taking the opportunities that are created,” then things will not go well with us. This is a task of education and a responsibility which all of us have towards the ordinary worker who asks us: Sir, or Master, could we please get more? Let us do it; there is occasion for increasing these people’s wages and salaries. However, it is just as important that they be mobilized into accepting greater responsibility and achieving a higher level of productivity.

I want to conclude with one thought, namely that it struck me that several members on the Opposition side have on more than one occasion behaved like very bad patriots. I do not say this with regard to this population situation or this particular point of labour and higher wages which I have discussed, but I say it in general. Let us look at just a few sentences in the speech made here by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who is not here now, on the theme of “White Rudeness” a short while ago. I quote from the Hansard of 21st February (col. 1137) as follows—

In the Netherlands there is a group of kindly disposed people who want to spread more information on South Africa and who want to present a more reliable image of South Africa to the outside world. This group is known as the Aksiegroep Suid-Afrika (Action Group South Africa). What do these people have to say about a statement of this nature? I quote (translation)—

As I have said, we have these people abroad who are kindly disposed towards South Africa, who try to understand our problems and who want to create a better image of South Africa in the world. Now the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, who is a sort of prospective leader in the Opposition side—he says he is not looking for anybody’s job, but he is available— comes along and delivers himself of these things. The conclusion he arrives at in his view of Government policy is official White rudeness. Mr. Speaker, now you can imagine what the position must be of our friends abroad who want to create a good image and a reasonable view of South Africa. They will look at the matter and say: This is not one of the bitter English-speaking people who said this; it is one of your own Afrikaner people who said it, a Mr. Basson. Official White rudeness! He is, as it were, drawing a low line through everything the Government has done. The impression which he created, is that good relationships do not exist. He says nothing about what the Government has done through the years and about what has been achieved. In all the Budget debates in Hansard many examples will be found of how many schools for the deaf, the blind and the crippled have been established for all population groups and of the great goodwill of White people who sometimes have to perform these services outside their community and with great sacrifice on their part. However, that hon. member’s conclusion is simply “official White rudeness”. We could go to the mission offices of our churches. The amount annually spent by Dutch Reformed Church from voluntary donations for missions work on behalf of our non-White peoples, amounted to R3 million over the past few years. These are moneys collected through voluntary contributions. They represent a world of goodwill. I am not mentioning what is done by English-speaking people and by English churches. I have only mentioned what one of the Afrikaans churches is doing in this regard. In spite of the few small hitches and difficulties which crop up now and again—and how many would there not have been without apartheid—we have not trod on one another’s toes nor pushed one another from the ring. That is why I say that there is a world of goodwill, and that is something the hon. member did not stress.