Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Agreed to.

QUESTIONS (see “QUESTIONS AND REPLIES”).

Mr. Speaker, in introducing his motion yesterday, the Minister spent his time apologizing for what he was doing. He spent his time in making excuses and appealing for understanding and co-operation. He thanked all the people involved in the preparation of the report before the House, and included the Select Committee. He regretted that certain members had withdrawn from the deliberations of that Committe. He was, of course, referring to the United Party members. I shall tell the sorry tale of why we felt compelled to withdraw from those deliberations and to dissociate ourselves from the deliberations of that Committee at a later stage.

Sir, the Minister had some interesting things to tell us. He said that in 1971 he put his plans before the Cabinet. I give him credit for apparently being the first nationalist Minister of Bantu Administration who has attempted to implement the Government’s policy. I was not much impressed, though, with his modesty. He referred to appeals he had had for additional land, for more land to be allocated than was provided for in the 1936 Act. He said—

*This is a strange admission, coming from a member of a strong-arm Government which did not hesitate to get rid of the entrenched clause of the Constitution when they took away the vote from the Coloured people.

Saying “no” is also a strong and positive action.

Sir, I would also remind, him that he altered the provisions relating to the acquisition of land and the removal of Bantu from their land last year. He had no hesitation in making those amendments to the Act when it suited him.

Sir, there is confusion amongst the people concerned. They hear over the wireless and see in the Press that these plans are to give final boundaries for the independent states, but that is not so. The excuse for passing the Bantu Laws Amendment Bill earlier this session was to finalize the boundaries. Large tracts of land in terms of that Bill can be set aside to be declared released areas by proclamation by the State President. In this way, Sir, it was contended that an indication could be given to the public as to where the boundaries of the Bantu territories would be. But the plans before us give no final boundaries, and the Minister, in his introductory speech, told the House that certain important recommendations of the Bantu Affairs Commission had been referred back to him by the Select Committee for further investigation. Sir, this Parliament in considering the proposals now before us will therefore not know what the final picture is to be. In any case, we know that as far as the Ciskei is concerned, more land has to be made available for acquisition by the Bantu, and the Minister himself has told us that in the Transvaal and Natal more land is also required.

Before dealing with our attitude towards this measure, I want to ask the next Government speaker if he will explain certain remarks by the Minister, because the Minister cannot tell us what he meant until he replies to the debate, but on page ZZ.1 of the Hansard report of his speech, he referred to mining concessions which would be allowed to remain.

It was misrepresented by the Times this morning.

No, I am not talking about the Times. I do not know why the hon. the Minister gets so excited.

I am not excited. I am helping you.

I did not even read what the Times had to say.

Anyway, it was misrepresented.

I have his Hansard here and I want the next speaker on that side to explain what he meant. I can understand his remarks about mining concessions remaining, but what we are not so clear about is his next remark—

I said that.

I know the hon. the Minister said it. I want to know what it means. It seems there is a new principle involved here in regard to the taking over of the land. [Interjections.] I take it that the next speaker, the hon. member for Langlaagte, will explain this to us. Does the Minister think that hon. member will be able to explain it to us?

He can do so. He is capable of doing it. [Interjections.]

Then he will wait to hear from him and will then discuss it further.

Sir, after 25 years of dilly-dallying in trying to avoid the consequences of its policy, the Government now, in two successive years, attempts to implement it, not because of any particular desire to do so but because of the insistence of its own intellectuals and morally concerned supporters that it show its earnest in establishing separate and independent Bantu states and probably also because of the clamour of the Bantu leaders that the Government should prove its bona fides.

Last year we had proposals for the largest release of land for Bantu acquisition since the passing of the 1936 Act. Now we have recommendations which far exceed the movements then proposed for the Ciskei. In terms of the department’s memorandum submitted to the Select Committee it is proposed to remove approximately 132 000 Bantu in Natal, but this is considered a bad underestimate by some, a matter with which some of the hon. members on this side will deal further, while the land to be added to the quota and to be acquired as compensatory land is 453 000 ha. For the Transvaal there are even more grandiose plans. The original plans placed before the Select Committee proposed, the transfer of approximately 654 000 ha of White-owned land and the removal of 231 000 Bantu. This proposal of massive transfer and the removal of several hundreds of thousands of Bantu requires careful study by any standards.

The proposals came to this House by virtue of the provisions of the 1936 Act. That Act was passed after years of close investigation and study and was introduced by a United Party Government. Now, in discussions of this nature, the setting aside of land for Bantu acquisition and occupation in terms of the 1936 Act, it is inevitable that the policy of the parties be discussed, and I want to give ours and I make no excuse for detailing it again because the more I think of it, the more I appreciate how sound it is.

Last year, on a similar motion, I gave the history of the 1913 and the 1936 Acts and I do not propose to do so again except to remind the House that when the 1936 Act was passed we were emerging from a depression and therefore land for subsistence farming was the only prospect that we could offer the Bantu at that time. We must also bear in mind that at that time the policy of the Government of the day was one of segregation, i.e. to keep the Bantu in the Reserves, and it was not foreseen that there would be a war which would bring about the equivalent of the industrial revolution in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Gen. Smuts described the transformation and the urbanizations of the Bantu which took place then, in the early 1940’s, as being as great a revolution as had ever happened on this continent. The United Party recognized this. It recognized that there was a new order, and it realized that it had to adapt itself to the changed circumstances. In order to fully assess what had happened a commission was appointed under the chairmanship of the late Judge Fagan, who reported what Gen. Smuts had already in fact stated to be the position. He said that the policy of only allowing Bantu to enter the urban areas to minister to the needs of the White man and thereafter to depart, was a false policy and had in the course of time proved to be false.

In viewing our present policy, it must be remembered that the 1913 and the 1936 Acts sought to limit Bantu ownership to scheduled and released areas, reserved areas. Only in those areas were they permitted to acquire land. After this revolution which had taken place during the war and the post-war years, the United Party appreciated that the Bantu were being permanently employed in the White areas on a scale undreamed of in 1936. The United Party also appreciated that their way of life had changed, and radically altered its policy in 1953 to provide for home ownership of the permanently urbanized Bantu in the large Bantu townships which had been established in the industrial areas of the Republic.

I may say that although the industrial development and urbanization of the Bantu had started in the early 1940s it continued unabated and, if anything, at an accelerated pace after 1948 when this Government came into office. The momentum of industrialization was there and the impetus was so great that the ideological restrictions which were applied after 1948 were not strong enough to halt or even contain it. This urbanization process has continued after 1953, thereby confirming the wisdom of the United Party in facing up to future problems. Our home ownership policy of 1953 was in direct contradiction to major principles of the 1936 Act—that is, that ownership of land by Bantu would be restricted to the reserves and scheduled areas.

In 1959, however, the United Party reaffirmed its acceptance of the spirit of the 1936 legislation—that is, to assist the Bantu to acquire as much land as they need for beneficial occupation. Incidentally, the Nationalist Party contended in 1936 that too much land was being set aside by the Government of the time, and one of its senior members moved a motion that the matter be referred to a Select Committee to reconsider the extent of the land which was to be set aside in terms of the quota.

While talking about the spirit of the 1936 legislation, I must make it quite clear, and no Nationalist can argue to the contrary, that it was never intended to set the proposed land aside for nation building. When we say that we accept the obligations implicit in the 1936 Act, we simply mean that we remain willing to assist the Bantu to acquire as much land as they need for beneficial occupation to raise their standard of living. However, we do not believe that this can best be achieved by the mere extension of tribal land. At the time the quota was envisaged as being sufficient for their needs as citizens of the Union, and it was never intended to set aside land for separate, individual states.

Let us get this quite clear too. None of the African leaders at that time was a party to the arrangement or agreement that the extent of land then proposed to be released would be accepted in settlement for nation building. Neither the Government nor any African leader can tell us that there was a final or any other arrangement or agreement made between the Whites and Blacks incorporating land in separate states for a nation building scheme.

When anybody talks of breaking faith with the 1936 Act, as Government members are wont to do, I want to remind him …

Hear, hear!

I hope the hon. the Prime Minister will say “hear, hear” also when I am finished. I want to remind such people of what Gen. Hertzog had to say on this score. What I am about to quote was also quoted by the hon. member for Langlaagte when we discussed the Ciskei proposals. Gen. Hertzog said:

So let us hear less from the hon. the Prime Minister and others about the pledges that were given in 1936 when we remember what happened to the pledge which the Nationalists gave them about their representation.

Hear, hear!

What are the considerations we bear in mind when dealing with considerations of this nature? These are: Firstly, the statement of intention if not a commitment inherent in the 1936 legislation. Secondly, the 1959 resolution of the central congress of the United Party. Thirdly, the fact that with the population explosion expected by the year 2000 and the demand which it will place on South Africa to produce adequate food supplies, it will be unwise to put additional land in the hands of people who might not only farm unproductively but as a result of overcrowding and of out-of-date methods may also well cause the soil to be eroded and rendered useless for a very long time. Fourthly, the fact that under the United Party policy consolidation of the Bantu homelands, although desirable, is not essential for nation building. It is interesting to note that the Minister in introducing this motion before the House admitted that they could not bring about consolidation in the Transvaal and Natal. Therefore consolidation of land is not necessary for their policy either.

What do you mean by consolidation?

What does the hon. the Minister mean by consolidation? Fifthly, we believe that the future well-being of the Bantu people obviously does not lie in pastoral or subsistence farming, but in industrial development coupled with efficient food production. Sixthly, the effect of such purchases on the South African economy as a whole, more particularly in respect to the uses to which the land is to be put, such as the efficient production of food or the development of new growth points of importance to the economy as a whole.

The acquisition of land should not be supported merely because all the land dealt with in the 1936 Act has not been made available, but only where such land is necessary for industrial development or for the establishment of economic farming units against the background of the entire South African economy. We do not believe that our aims can be achieved by the mere extension of tribal land. I want to stress that point. There are some 15 million Bantu in South Africa and within three decades their number is likely to be in excess of 35 million …

So what?

Now, listen. If land continues to be purchased on the peasant farming basis contemplated in 1936, all the good agricultural land will in the long run have to be turned over to tribal occupation. That is what will happen. South Africa is not richly endowed with fertile land and the needs of the ever-growing population will have to be met by far more intensive and productive land use. As is already the case with White farmers, the time will arrive when only the most efficient Bantu primary producers will be economically viable on the land. Only in undeveloped rural communities is land ownership essential for survival and the hon. the Minister has often stressed this point. In modern industrial countries people need jobs with closely convenient housing, services and amenities. It is in this way that the expanding population can achieve greater economic well-being on relatively less land per capita. The Bantu will not be asked to accept less land than was contemplated in 1936, for in the long run their people obviously need more land than that. Under United Party policy they would certainly be asked to co-operate in putting all land, both industrial and agricultural, to the best economic use. This does mean that relatively less land will be needed for tribal land extensions than the Nationalist Government and Nationalist leaders under its policy now contemplate.

To summarise:

1. (1) Our policy is that there was a commitment to buy more land in 1936.
2. (2) With the population explosion taking place, our productive land must be used as efficiently as possible for food production for the whole population.
3. (3) The future well-being of the Bantu lies in both industrial and enlightened assistance in farming.
4. (4) The consolidation of Bantu areas, although desirable, is not essential under United Party policy.
5. (5) Black spots which are not socially or economically justified should be eliminated.
6. (6) There can be the purchase of land for Bantu residential, occupational and home ownership in the neighbourhood of natural growth points.
7. (7) There should be individual land ownership amongst the Bantu as opposed to communal ownership.
8. (8) There must be large-scale industrial development inside and outside the Reserves.
9. (9) More land may have to be acquired for Bantu occupation than was provided for in 1936, but less tribal land may suffice if other land made available is more beneficially used.

What is our attitude to the proposals before the House now? As I said at the outset, the proposals are the most grandiose ever presented to this House. The original plan submitted to the Select Committee affected some 453 000 hectares of White-owned land in Natal and a considerable are of Black or Trust land. In the Transvaal an area of approximately 640 000 hectares was involved. On the hon. the Minister’s own admission, the proposals now before us will have far-reaching consequences. He mentioned that in his speech. In fact, he said they would have more far-reaching consequences than any other proposals put before this House since 1936. Yet when the United Party members of the Select Committee asked to be allowed to hear the people to be affected, this right was denied us.

Disgraceful!

Before the Select Committee met members started receiving memoranda objecting to the plans, not only from Whites but also from Blacks. We know, too, from newspaper reports that the Zulu Government was not prepared to accept the proposals. I have had telegrams and a letter from chiefs representing tribal authorities in the Transvaal objecting to the excision of the scheduled areas in the Nsigase area in the Eastern Transvaal. Bantu established themselves there nearly 50 years ago. They have built schools; they have clinics, and they have a tribal authority. They are now to be excised. The United Party members were also advised that the plans to be placed before the Select Committee were not the same plans as those plans which were put before the farming associations and the other people concerned. The plans had in fact been changed.

What is funny about that?

I am surprised that this Minister should ask what is funny about that. If this Minister had a farm in the affected area and he attended a meeting where the plans were explained to him and to the other farmers in that area, plans of what the Government intended to do and what farms were to be affected, I wonder what he would have done if the same had happened to him. The people listened to the explanations given to them and they were satisfied that certain farms would fall in and outside this plan. The next thing they found out was that the plans submitted to the Select Committee to present to Parliament were not the same plans at all. In other words, they did not know what the position was and they did not know how they would be affected. Two farmers who were unknown to me came down from the Transvaal to see me. They arrived here on the Friday, because they wanted to find out how their farms were affected. They said that they went to Pretoria and were shown a map there which was not the same as the map which had been shown to them at the farmers’ meeting. Unfortunately the officials were away on that Friday afternoon and they had to wait until Monday before they could see the map and know how their properties were to be affected.

Where are these farms?

Letaba. Even after seeing this, they were still not quite certain. The Minister thinks that that is funny.

Your attitude is funny.

Is my attitude funny? Sir, because I want to protect the rights of people, as it is my duty, he thinks my attitude is funny.

Because you ran away from the Select Committee.

Now the hon. the Minister says my attitude is funny because I ran away from the Committee. Being on the Committee would not have helped me because I would not have known what the representations of those farmers were. I want to hear what those farmers have to say and I want to hear what the Bantu have to say. We had representations made to us even after the Committee had finished its deliberations. Yesterday morning further representations were sent to us by the secretary of the Select Committee. The hon. the Minister himself said that he had received representations “tot vanoggend”— that is, yesterday morning.

Yes. And what is funny about that?

He says “yes”. I will tell you what is funny about that, Sir: The people who are being affected were not told when the Select Committee was going to sit; nobody knew when it was going to deliberate, and when certain representations were made these were ignored. The Select Committee was not given the opportunity of hearing what these people had to say. On the first day on which the Select Committee met, the hon. member for South Coast asked that the representations of the people affected, especially those in Natal, be heard by the Select Committee. This was refused by the majority of the members of the Select Committee. The United Party members of the Select Committee then left the meeting. At the next meeting the chairman of the Select Committee was asked if the Natal Agricultural Union had again made special representations to be heard because they had been turned down at the first meeting. We were then advised that they had petitioned the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister had arranged for them to see the Minister. We were meeting in the morning and they were to see the Minister in the afternoon. The hon. chairman of the Select Committee told us that if the Minister changed bis mind about the plans, he, the Minister, would tell the Assembly and the Senate. Well, what was the Select Committee there for? If the hon. the Minister is going to change the plans as he thinks fit, what were we there for? Why did we have to consider these matters?

What is funny about that!

At the same meeting we asked whether other representations had been received because members of the Committee, including myself, had received a stack of representations. We were advised by the chairman that applications had been received from, inter alia, the Eshowe Chamber of Commerce and from many other parties—I am not going to read them all out. The chairman then moved that the Committee only hear evidence from the officials of the Department of Bantu Administration and that the other applications which were received, be referred to the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development—not to us! He then told us of the petition to the Prime Minister. The hon. the Minister has stressed the importance of the matter before us. He himself said that many people would be affected. I want to quote from the speech which he made yesterday—

I have already said that in terms of the memorandum submitted by the department hundreds of thousands of Bantu are going to be moved if this resolution is passed. Sir, we must be careful before we agree to this removal. Once this House approves of this resolution we will have no more say. At the beginning of the year this Government passed the Bantu Laws Amendment Act. Now, prior to the passing of that Act, if the Government wanted to move any tribe, it served a notice on that tribe. If the tribe refused to move the Government could do nothing more without getting a resolution from both Houses of Parliament authorizing them to remove that tribe. That gave Parliament an opportunity of discussing the removals and of going into the matter as to whether the Bantu should be removed or not. In view of the amendment of the law earlier this year, once we approve of this mass declaration of released areas and withdrawals, these people can be moved at any time after the State President has issued a proclamation. We have no more say.

You did not utilize the opportunity of having a say.

I do not know whether that member has been sleeping. I have just told you why we did not take part in the deliberations. It was because we were not going to talk in ignorance; we wanted to know what the people had to say; we wanted to know what the real representatives of the Bantu had to say; and what the White farmers had to say. Why has the Select Committee now referred certain matters back to the Minister? Is it because of the representations that the Minister received from the Natal Agricultural Union? Is that the reason why certain matters were referred back to the Minister? I say it is quite wrong for a Select Committee …

Did the Natal Agricultural Union not give evidence also before the Bantu Affairs Commission which visited Natal?

I do not know whether they gave evidence or not. Let me address the hon. member on that point. It made no difference whether they gave evidence before the commission or not and I will tell you why. I attended a meeting at King William’s Town in regard to the Ciskei where evidence was given by the farmers’ association. They were ignored there but they came down subsequently to see the United Party members of the Select Committee and the Leader of the United Party. They then went to see the Minister.

And you left them in the lurch.

We did not leave them in the lurch. When the matter was proposed here in Parliament we opposed certain of those representations. The main representations made by the farmers when they came down here and saw us and the Minister was that the Government agree to drop those proposals. We had telegrams and letters of persons who were going to be affected and who wanted to put their case before us. They wanted to give evidence here. We said that the least we could do was to give them a chance. They are being affected as the hon. the Minister said. They are being sadly affected and the least we could have done was to give them the chance of appearing before the Select Committee.

The hon. the Minister appealed for co-operation with those people that are to be removed and also between the Bantu and the White farmers who now find themselves as neighbours. He pointed out that there were going to be “kolle” and that they could not have a consolidated area. This proves that the measure which is to be passed now is not going to be effective in carrying out the policy of the Government. We understood that the whole idea of consolidation was to get one contiguous unit as they have in the Transkei. Otherwise, why try and consolidate at all?

The Transkei is not one area.

The Transkei is not one area?

You don’t even know it, yet you live there.

Good gracious me, listen to such ignorance from the Minister. Of course it is one area. There is one separate little area, Umzimkulu, at the end. They were going to make it one area but they have changed their plans again. They were going to bring it into the area but, as I have said, they have changed their plans.

These plans of the Government’s are not necessary for their policy. They are going to cause hardship and concern to people, and people have not been given a proper opportunity of stating their case and of saying what they want done. After all, they are the people affected, as the Minister himself admits. We say this is a wrong procedure to adopt; it is wrong to proceed with such a large-scale, such a massive movement of land and people.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to the hon. member for Transkei, who has just resumed his seat. The hon. member covered a wide field and I do not intend reacting to everything he had to say. What I do want to do, is to reply to three of the points he raised.

The first point made by the hon. member is in regard to the hon. the Minister’s statement that when the Bantu Trust takes over land from the White farmers, those improvements will be maintained. That includes the sugar plantations, the forestry plantations, etc. It is not necessary for this to be seen as a new principle; this is an old principle, as old as the hills. These will be maintained by a corporation or by the homeland government itself.

Secondly, I want to react to the hon. member’s statement of policy which he made this afternoon. I have here in my possession an extract from The Argus of 2nd July, 1972, in which the hon. member made a similar statement of policy. The heading of this report reads as follows: “United Party plans to give townships to Africans.” I do not want to read the whole article, but the last paragraph reads as follows—

In other words, what this means, is very clear: This federal policy of theirs seeks to effect one thing only, and that is integration.

The third point made by the hon. member has reference to the evidence given before the Bantu Affairs Commission. I shall come back to that later on. Firstly I just want to point out today that this debate is a historic one. For 37 years there has been uncertainty about the borders of the future homelands. Now the final borders are being drawn. I heard the hon. member for Transkei say that these borders were not final. There is a small balance of quota land which is being kept back, the only reason for this being that consolidation may be finally rounded off without any problems being created for individuals in the future. For that reason we are perhaps not quite satisfied as far as idealism is concerned, but we are realistic, and that is why we are now trying to consolidate in this way. The Bantu Affairs Commission, together with the hon. the Minister and his deputy, applied consolidation in the case of KwaZulu. The 200 Black spots have been reduced to 13, and when a final answer is eventually given in regard to the Drakensberg locations, there will in fact be only ten spots in Natal. Swaziland will be one single area. In the case of Lebowa the number of spots is being reduced from 15 to four; in the case of the Venda it is being reduced from three to two, and in the case of Gazankulu, the Shangaan area, it is being reduced from five to four. In the case of the South Ndebeli the number of spots is being reduced from three to one. In other words, the last four homelands I have mentioned, are going to become five black spots in the Transvaal.

But, Sir, I do not want to dwell on the Transvaal today. I have colleagues here who will dwell on that aspect. I just want to point out that whereas we have consolidated the KwaZulu area, it was not the National Party which scattered the Zulu area so widely over the whole of Natal; historic factors were responsible for that. The then British Government introduced the so-called “grid” system so as to scatter the Zulu all over Natal as much as possible, and we are trying to rectify the position today, but unfortunately it is impossible to consolidate all the separate Zulu areas scattered all over Natal into one single area.

Sir, I should be failing in my duty if I did not express heartfelt thanks to the hon. the Minister, the hon. the Deputy Minister (Mr. Raubenheimer), my colleagues on the Bantu Affairs Commission and all officials charged with the task of effecting consolidation for all the advice and help and assistance we have had from all quarters in achieving this tremendous accomplishment and in achieving this ultimate objective of ours. But, Sir, I should also be failing in my duty if I were not to thank the public in particular at this stage—the public of the Transvaal as well as that of Natal, but in particular the public of Natal —because in spite of the fact that the English-language Press as well as hon. members of the Opposition in this House did their best to incite the public of Natal, I can attest today with all due respect that the public of Natal were nothing but courteous and sincere towards us and that they were prepared to co-operate with us under all circumstances.

What do you expect?

They did so in spite of the attitude of hon. members of the Opposition.

What happened at Brits?

Sir, I just want to quote to you what was said by a United Party supporter. I have here a report from the Daily News of 16th May, 1973—

What a lot of nonsense! —

Sir, this standpoint is true to the “Natal stand”. They are “marching” again. Sir, the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Zululand were present at most of the meetings held by the Bantu Affairs Commission in Natal. The chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission is sitting here in front of me. Sometimes I became impatient with him about the way in which he acted, but did he ever prevent anyone from giving evidence before that commission? I challenge those hon. members to prove that he prevented anyone from giving evidence.

Dead silence!

On the contrary, no one was prevented from doing so; everyone who wanted to, was able to give evidence before the commission and did so ad nauseam. Sir, after the Select Committee had met, hon. members of the United Party walked out.

“Marched out.”

Yes, the anti-consolidation element marched out. When they should really have been representing their voters on the Select Committee, they failed to do so. At the meeting of the Bantu Affairs Commission at Harding, the hon. member for South Coast made a venomous political speech, after the conclusion of the meeting. The hon. member for Zululand made a venomous speech at Eshowe, when everything had been concluded. But when they should have been representing their voters here on the Select Committee, they were conspicuous by their absence. Now, after the Select Committee had sat, they came along here with evidence. Where does that evidence come from? Why did those people not give evidence before that commission? After all, they had the right to submit evidence. Was anyone gagged and prevented from giving evidence? Sir, I can attest—and I shall defend the Bantu Affairs Commission as far as I go in this respect—that the Bantu Affairs Commission acted correctly and sincerely under all circumstances. Everyone had a chance to give evidence; members on that side of the House also had a chance to give evidence. If they had not made those vicious speeches of theirs, if they had rather given evidence and tried to offer their co-operation under these difficult circumstances, things would have been much better.

Sir, today I want to say something here in regard to our policy. Our policy is one of multi-nationalism. We acknowledge that a Zulu is a Zulu; we acknowledge that a Venda is a Venda and that a Shangaan is a Shangaan. The policy of the United party is race federation policy. In other words, the basic difference between the United Party and ourselves is this: We do not look at the problems of Africa through Western glasses; we do not look at the problems of Africa through Eastern glasses; we look at the problems of Africa through South African glasses, because if we did not look at the problems of South Africa through South African glasses and in the light of our knowledge and experience, we should under no circumstances be able to solve South Africa’s problems. Sir, we know that wherever Western norms or recipes have been applied in the rest of Africa, they have failed to a large extent. How many states are there in Africa today where the policy of “one man one vote” was originally followed and where today it is a case of “one man no vote”? There are even parts in those states where one has the position of “no man no vote”. We do not intend following that road here in South Africa. We shall train the Black man in South Africa in a direction enabling him to help himself eventually. This idea of hon. members of the United Party is an idea which will do South Africa no good; it is an idea which cannot succeed. The reproach is levelled at us that we have given too little land to the Bantu. Sir, when I mentioned in a debate on the Bantu Administration and Development Vote that a migration from foreign states to South Africa was taking place, the hon. member for Hillbrow told me that I was talking nonsense; I saw this in Hansard later on. Sir, why are there more Basuto and more Swazi in South Africa today than there are in those countries themselves? This is the position because of infiltration over a period of many years. The land we have put at the disposal of the Bantu, together with the land which was their property, is sufficient for meeting their basic needs. Sir 75% of the rainfall of that land is more than 40 mm per annum, and if the Bantu were to utilize that land more effectively they could make a good livelihood there. The answer, as far as this problem is concerned, is therefore more effective utilization of the land they have and not more land. Sir, since our policy is one of consolidation, we shall apply it and give every people the right to develop in its own territory to eventual independence, but under no circumstances shall we give the Bantu the right of ownership or independence within the White area of Southern Africa.

The hon. member for Aliwal will forgive me if I do not reply to his speech. I shall deal in the course of my remarks with some of the points the hon. member made. We have here today an historic occasion, an occasion in the history of this country as historic as the occasion when the Bill to create the Republic of South Africa was debated in this House, because just as that brought into being, in a sense, a new state, so will the consolidation measures which we are at present debating in due course, in terms of Government policy, bring into being new states within what we know now as the Republic of South Africa. It is such an historic occasion, not only in my view but also in the view of the Natal Agricultural Union, which describes it in this way: “Nothing in Natal’s recent history, if ever, is as important to the future of the province as this division of land”. Because it is a matter of such historic importance you can imagine my disappointment, Sir, at the proceedings which occupied the last half-hour of yesterday afternoon when the hon. the Minister, introducing this momentous resolution, found it necessary to gabble through his speech in the 25 minutes which remained of yesterday afternoon’s time, in a speech which was superficial and delivered in the absence of the hon. the Prime Minister, who apparently could not be here, and with the Government benches in this House half empty.

Your benches are not so full at the moment!

As your benches are now!

One stands up to speak this afternoon with a great sense of responsibility because in respect of this issue—and I emphasize “this issue”—I can validly claim to represent the opinion of a great many more people, those of Natal, than all the Government members sitting on the opposite side of the House are representing, because for the first time in a long period of time there has been almost unanimous opposition to these proposals from all races and all classes of society in Natal. I make no bones on this occasion to speak only in respect of my own province because there are others who will deal with the other provinces. Sir, this is not a debate about consolidating, it is a debate about fragmentation. Natal is a consolidated province at the present time and this debate is about the partition, or the procedure towards the partition, of that province. So, we are not concerned today with the question of consolidation; we are concerned with the question of fragmentation, fragmentation of an existing entity. Not even the Bantu areas, so far as these proposals are concerned, are to be consolidated, if that word has any meaning at all. All we have in terms of these proposals, is a partial consolidation of the Native areas of Natal. And this is important, Sir, because when once you concede that you cannot bring about consolidation into one unit, then you have conceded the invalidity of your argument which is based on consolidation, and that has already been done when these proposals were formulated.

Now, there are two clear issues involved and of course the Government, from the hon. member for Langlaagte to the SABC, have done their best to confuse the issue. I have no time, unfortunately, to deal with the SABC on this but I have one of its reports, which comes after the news, its small, sort of mini “Current Affairs”, in my hand. You know, Sir, if we are going to go along with this sort of distortion of the truth over our radio then we have no right to criticize Pres. Kaunda when he makes statements about the Victoria Falls incident. There are two clear issues. One is the question of the disposal of the remainder of Natal’s quota in terms of the 1936 Act, which is something like 140 000 acres which have to be acquired for the purpose of fulfilling Natal’s quota in terms of the 1936 Act. That has to be acquired in terms of these proposals entirely from State-owned land. There is some 290 000 acres of State-owned land from which the whole of the quota of Natal, in terms of the 1936 Act, will be acquired in terms of these very proposals. There is no debate on that issue. The fulfilment of the 1936 quota in so far as these proposals are concerned require no debate whatsoever. That is the first point.

The second point is that what we are debating has nothing to do with the 1936 Act, but is the massive exchange of land between Black and White. It is an exchange of land entirely divorced from the 1936 Act. There you have something like a million acres under the original proposals of White land to go Black and something like a million acres of Black land to go White. In terms of the recent recommendations of the Select Committee which, of course, are the proposals before us, those figures are roughly the same—slightly less in the case of Black land to go White.

We are debating a massive exchange of land with the consequent massive exchange of population which, as I say, has nothing whatever to do with the 1936 legislation. That is what we are concerned with today and that is what the people of Natal see as unnecessary and are opposed to. This is purely a political issue. This massive exchange of land is being done purely for the purposes of this Government’s political philosophy to create a geographical basis for the independence of KwaZulu.

It is necessary that one belabours this because of the distortions which we have heard, as I say, from the meetings of the Bantu Affairs Commission under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Langlaagte on this issue. Unfortunately there has been throughout the piece, right up to the hon. the Minister’s speech yesterday, complete lack of clarity, indeed, complete confusion over many of the issues which are involved. I say that was the case right from the beginning. Let me refer to an editorial which appeared in the paper NAUNLU of 18th August, 1972, which is the official mouthpiece of the Natal Agricultural Union. Not only did the hon. the Deputy Minister, Mr. Raubenheimer, have a complete misconception as to the function of the NAU, but the NAUNLU editorial went on to say—

That is the Agricultural Union.

… has managed, to acquire a map and two lists of farms, all from the department and all different. The map was factually incorrect, apart from showing different boundaries. Is it any wonder that we and the border farmers, who are one week in KwaZulu and out the next, are a little confused?

There has been this other confusion from the beginning, not only on the function of the Bantu Affairs Commission and the Select Committee, but on the part of the Deputy Minister concerned. One may ask a question. How is it that when we are debating this important issue of consolidation the hon. the Deputy Minister who has handled this from the very first Press conference, Mr. Raubenheimer—right through the piece all negotiations have been with him—is not here? Where is he? Touring the United States of America. [Interjections.]

Let us come then to the Bantu Affairs Commission. It was to investigate Natal, the Eastern and Northern Transvaal and the Northern Cape. It consisted of the hon. member for Langlaagte, who represents a seat in Johannesburg, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, the hon. member for Aliwal as we have already heard, a professor Lombard from Pretoria. In other words, there was not one person who had any close acquaintance with the province of Natal, the very province in which the problem is most acute and demands an intimate knowledge of the province in order that the work could be properly done. That commission toured Natal and it was hospitably and well received, as the hon. member for Aliwal has said—I am surprised that he should have expected otherwise. However, there were one or two memorable moments in the sittings of that commission. It is quite correct, the hon. member for South Coast and I attended all those sittings. The first was that at every meeting of that commission there was a disclaimer by its chairman, the hon. member for Langlaagte, that the plan then being discussed had anything to do with the Government.

Hear, hear!

What he said was that it had been drawn up by Mr. Pepler, and, in fact, pointed at Mr. Pepler who was sitting next to him. He added that if there were any criticism it should be directed at Mr. Pepler. He was reminded to do it at the first meeting at Dundee by a well-known Nationalist from the floor. You may draw your own conclusions from that. The second point is that no record was kept of the evidence given before the commission. When this matter came to the Select Committee whose job it was to inquire into this, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District proposed that such notes as were kept of the evidence and the documents placed before the commission be placed also before the Select Committee, it was refused by the Government majority. That Select Committee did not consist only of the members of the Bantu Affairs Commission, but consisted of a number of other members who had never heard or had read the evidence given before the Bantu Affairs Commission, most of whom, in addition, had no intimate acquaintance of Natal whatsoever. We are expected to give serious attention to proposals emanating from the Select Committee who not only had not seen the evidence, but actually took active steps to prevent their having any sight or sound of the evidence. What is the function of a Select Committee? It is to inquire into these matters and to apply what some hon. members like to call its “mind” to it and to make a recommendation to this House. None of that was done. Is it any wonder that the members of the United Party on that Select Committee walked out in disgust, something they were entitled to do?

That is a disgrace.

The hon. member says it is a disgrace, but that is precisely what has taken place. If it is not so, I invite the hon. member to get up and refute what I have been saying.

There is one final point. The Bantu Affairs Commission showed a certain plan to the people affected and invited their comments. The plan that is now being considered, the plan that emerged from the Select Committee, is in many respects quite different from the one that was shown to the people at the time. That has never been exhibited to the public. If there was one golden thread that ran right through the sittings of the Bantu Affairs Commission it was that on being told that the plan that was being discussed was merely a basis for discussion and that it was not the Government plan at all, there was a unanimous opinion at every meeting to this effect: When you have considered our evidence in relation to this plan, come back and show us and discuss with us the Government plan. They said they were not concerned with the ideas of Mr. Pepler or any other civil servant; they wanted to consider and they wanted to give evidence on the Government proposals. That has never been shown to the public to this day, nor has it been adequately considered by the Select Committee. There was total opposition at that time to the Government’s original plans, the ones that were discussed by the Bantu Affairs Commission, and they can best be summed up as they have been summed up by the Natal Agricultural Union. Perhaps I should say at this stage that because of the imputations of political bias on this issue by the hon. member who spoke before me, there are persons known to me personally who favour the Nationalist Party, the United Party and the Progressive Party on the Natal Agricultural Union. All political points of view are represented on that council. What were the grounds of their opposition? It was, firstly, that there was to be a vast expenditure of money on the unnecessary purchase of land, unnecessary in the sense of the exchange, not under the 1936 Act, probably in excess of 300 million hectares. Secondly, that it involved a vast movement of population in excess of 300 000. Thirdly, that there would be an immense loss of agricultural output, which the country cannot afford. Fourthly, that there would be the jeopardizing of important routes of communication, about which I will say a little more. Fifthly, there would be a marked deterioration in public goodwill, and this I think is an aspect with which we should all be very concerned. If I had more time I would like to have read the whole of the view of the Natal Agricultural Union on this question of the deterioration of goodwill, but I am afraid I do not have the time for that. The point they make is that, having received representations from all affected communities, the overwhelming majority of which were against the Government’s proposals, they came to the conclusion that those people who would hereafter be required to live amongst the Zulu people after this exercise had been gone through, were gravely concerned as to the effect these proposals would have on the political stability and the social stability of those people. This is the feeling of a representative body of the people who are concerned.

The sixth point made was that the scheme makes economic nonsense. Of course it does. What are we doing in this land exchange? We are deliberately exchanging something like a million acres of, on the whole, highly productive and developed farming land producing food for the nation, for approximately a million acres of denuded, worn-out, eroded land which will for a long time produce nothing. Does that make economic sense when one of the scarcest commodities in South Africa today is well developed and farmed agricultural land? The Natal Agricultural Union’s attitude was not that it was against additional land for Bantu occupation, but it is known that the Bantu people cannot economically farm on limited land. All the NAU’s attitude amounted to was that until such time as you are prepared to spend an equivalent amount of money on training them to use land properly, what is the point of handing over good productive land to become non-productive on the basis of subsistence farming? I must say that that point of view makes a lot of sense.

I said earlier that the commission’s work was surrounded by a great deal of confusion. One of the unfortunate aspects of the commission’s work was the apparent open access that certain important officials of the Minister’s department had with people who had the ear of those officials. I have had personal experience, and I raised this with the hon. the Minister’s deputy at the time; that is why it is so difficult to debate, when the man with whom you have been negotiating all the way through the piece is not present. I raised this at the time because senior officials intimately involved wth the drawing of these plans would receive interviews on a telephone call from private individuals who were affected or whose friends were affected. These persons were given information by this senior official which was quite contrary to Government policy. It was done with the intention of selling to affected persons an acceptance of this plan. I will give two examples, and I have it all in black and white. One was that displaced farmers would be given priority when it came to the disposal of land excised from Bantu areas.

No.

That was said; I have the details here in black and white. The other was that persons who proved to be willing sellers, would be more favourably treated than persons who were not.

That is nonsense.

I know it does not represent Government policy but I raise the issue with the hon. the Minister because he himself made statements to the effect that there would be none of this private “toenadering” with officials, and that there would only be hearings on a formal basis, and from representative persons and associations. However, I know of instances of individuals who were so closely associated with the officials concerned that they did not even have to consult the telephone directory in order to get the phone number and the extension number of the person concerned.

Nonsense!

Furthermore they took with them on deputations representatives of farmers’ associations and municipalities. This is the thing we were dealing with. However, that is merely one of the many confusions that surrounded this whole procedure.

Let us come to the Select Committee. As I said a little earlier, the majority of members of the Select Committee were not members of the Bantu Affairs Commission that heard the evidence. The Select Committee sat soon after the announcement of the changes in the original plan for a short period of time only and passed a resolution which prevented it from hearing such evidence as was available. This combination of circumstances meant that the great bulk of the representations from the affected people arrived here, addressed to the chairman of the Select Committee, after it had already reported to this House.

These were all repetition; we saw all of them.

They were not all repetition, because the plan had changed and I have copies of most of the memoranda in my possession. Secondly, I know for a fact that they were not all seen because one of them I followed up myself. Do you know what the history of that memorandum is, Sir? The gentleman concerned happens to own land both in my constituency and in that of the hon. member for Aliwal, who is a member of the Select Committee and of the Bantu Affairs Commission. Because it was impossible to get the memorandum here in time this person, who is the chairman of the farmers’ association, phoned the hon. member for Aliwal and got from him an assurance that the proceedings of the Select Committee would be held up until that memorandum had arrived. That memorandum arrived only after the Select Committee had finished its work and found its way into the office of the chairman of the Select Committee and into no one else’s until I personally made inquiries. This is the way in which this matter was being handled.

You are talking nonsense.

The hon. member says I am talking nonsense. Well, if I talk nonsense …

You know it is not so; you are just a gossip.

Order! The hon. member may not say that another hon. member knows that what he is saying is not so. Therefore he must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker.

Let us as reasonable men consider the function of the Select Committee. The function of the Select Committee is to apply its mind and to consider the facts and the evidence—it prevented itself from doing that—with the object of making a recommendation to this House which might vary or change the original proposals which were put before it. What weight can be given to the proposals that emanate from a Select Committee that has behaved in that manner? However, I will say no more about that than it is a matter which will be dealt with by others on this side.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

Yes, please.

Did you not approach me when the recommendations were on their way to the Select Committee?

I approached you long before the recommendations went to the Select Committee. What is wrong with that?

Nothing.

Well, then what is the point of the question? I have very little time left and I still want to try to illustrate the completely unscientific basis on which this plan has been presented. It is necessary that I give two examples in the short time that is left. I have said before in this House that the whole object of any consolidation, if it is to be done on a scientific basis and if it is to have any meaning for the purpose of building a state—which is what we are supposed to be doing here —is to mould your consolidation around an infrastructure, around roads and communications, industrial growth points and towns. What has been done here because of the historical fact that the whole infrastructure of Natal is in the White areas, has been to consolidate, as it were, the flesh without the skeleton. Let me give you an example, Sir, of the nonsense that is being created. Let me give you one example of consolidation at Eshowe. Eshowe is a large country town. It is the administrative capital of the White part of Zululand. A whole lot of Government offices are situated there, and will continue to be there. Now, that town and that farming area having up to the moment a direct access to the coast, Durban and the outside world through White farming land, has had that access deliberately cut off by the Select Committee and by the hon. the Minister. A route is now closed which is the natural route from the days of the early missionaries— that is over a century ago—up until the present time, containing road, rail and power line communication, not only for the district of Eshowe but for the whole interior right up to Vryheid. Here is a natural route which the Government in other respects has been at pains to open through KwaZulu territory, a route already existing, which for reasons best known to the Select Committee is now deliberately closed. What earthly reason can there be for the deliberate closing of a main arterial route to the interior from the centre of Natal? This is done in respect of territory which cannot be viably used by the Bantu because it is too steep for their agricultural purposes, this being territory which is already under sugar and timber. This is done in order to join two Native reserves in respect of which there is no cross access, reserves which are already joined to the north of Eshowe but which are to be excised so that they no longer join, by the work of this Select Committee. In other words the territory which is suitable for Bantu occupation and which is under Bantu occupation at the present time is to go White, while the territory which is not suitable to Bantu occupation and which provides an important communication route is to be done away with and is to go Black.

Let me give you another example. I know of a viable farming community, viable in the sense that it is complete in a social and an economic sense, which is being cut in half by the work of this Select Committee on a basis which pleases nobody. Had they been consulted, Sir, an agreed boundary could have been reached which would have met the requirements of the hon. the Minister. They were, however, never consulted. If this is the way we are to handle this matter is it surprising that the ill-feeling has been created which has in fact been created?

Mr. Speaker, I could make a lot of recommendations to the hon. the Minister as to how this could be improved but unfortunately I have not the time. When I came to this House twelve years ago I made a speech, my first speech on the very subject that we are dealing with now. It was reported in Hansard col. 629. The effect of what I said was that you can ask people to make sacrifices, however serious they may be, if you can demonstrate that by making those sacrifices something worthwhile is achieved. These proposals which we have now are not consolidation. They do not look like consolidation, they are not consolidation and they will not have the effect of consolidation. All I can do is to remind the hon. the Minister of his own newspaper Die Vaderland which closed its editorial as follows—

I agree with those sentiments.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pity that one has such a short time, because what we are discussing now is a very wide subject. However, I want to come back immediately to the hon. member for Zululand. I find it most amusing that the hon. member should tell us and South Africa in this House that people and organizations did not have ample opportunity to put their case. In the first place, maps were published in newspapers; later on we had the Pepler map and other administrative maps, and eventually we had the diagram on the basis of which the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs had to decide, and now the hon. member says that people did not have the opportunity to put their case or to make representations to the Bantu Affairs Commission and, at a later stage, to the Select Committee. Today I want to state frankly that the hon. member is not being honest politically.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words “politically dishonest”.

I withdraw them. The point is that the hon. member for Zululand said to his own voters that he did not accept consolidation, that he could not give them any advice, that he could not speak on their behalf, and that they should rather go to Mr. Volker, the hon. member for Klip River, in connection with this matter. This the hon. member said to his voters in his own constituency because they were Nationalists. But what he omitted to tell this hon. House, is that when he made his representations, by a back way, to the Minister and the department …

Why do you say “by a back way”?

I shall tell you shortly. When he made his representations, he mentioned certain areas in the south—I have the numbers of the farms here—and asked that they be removed from this last map which was tabled, and that they be removed from the consolidation plan. This would have resulted in his own property being two more farms removed from the border of KwaZulu, because he himself did not want to abut on that KwaZulu border. [Interjections.] Now I challenge that hon. member to deny this, because I have written proof of it here in my possession. In this regard I also want to issue a challenge to the hon. member for South Coast. He said to the people of Natal that they should have demonstrated last night, when the Provincial Council was in session, so that Natal could prove to the Government that they were not at all in favour of consolidation. I challenge him to stand up today and tell this hon. House that he himself has never personally, on Cabinet level, approved of this consolidation. I challenge him now as an honourable person to do this. He must stand up and tell us that. Mr. Speaker, the whole problem lies in the fact that, as far as the question of consolidation is concerned, it has never been said that this consolidation would take place in such a way that there would be one geographical whole. Consolidation does not mean that to us, nor does it mean that to the people involved in it. That is how the people of Natal accept it. This consolidation is aimed against the fragmentation dating back to British rule of old. South of Durban, at the Kamperwa holiday resort, there are still small fragments of land which were granted to those Bantu by Queen Victoria. Each one of them who quarrelled with his neighbour, simply left for the interior. There he went and settled, and the old Natal Government said: “Leave them alone; they are quite all right there.” In this way some of these more than 200 Black areas came into existence. The point is that although this did take place, we felt that there had to be consolidation, not only of the homelands, but also of the White part of Natal. We cannot speak on behalf of the other provinces; we speak as people from Natal, and this hon. member said that he spoke about his province. It will not remain his province for long. If he carries on this way and tries to make the people believe that no consultation with other bodies and persons did take place, then I do not believe that it is necessary for me to talk about that.

But, Sir, I come back to the question of the Natal Agricultural Union. The hon. member for Zululand said that the Natal Agricultural Union comprised Progressives and Nationalists and United Party supporters. I want to ask the hon. member for South Coast to stand up here today and deny that while he was still the leader, he received a letter from a senior member of the executive of the Natal Agricultural Union in which the author told him, “We in the Natal Agricultural Union will continue to stand by the United Party.” He must stand up and tell us whether or not this is true.

He cannot remember.

What has that got to do with it?

It has a great deal to do with it. The point I want to make is that the actions of the Natal Agricultural Union are prescribed to them by United Party members of that union. In the second place, I want to point out that at the last congress of the Natal Agricultural Union a resolution was adopted in which they accepted consolidation as a fact, and in which they gave notice to the farmers’ association to make representations to the commission when it would come to hold meetings in Natal in September. The farmers in Northern Zululand, in the constituency of the hon. member for Zululand, did not receive notice of the meetings and were not asked to make representations to the commission. Apparently that is why the diagram looks the way it does, because, after all, he is the member for Zululand and he merely let things go their own way there. But the Natal Agricultural Union passed a resolution at its congress in which they made five points. The hon. member has now put the standpoint of the Natal Agricultural Union here, but I can assure you, Sir, that the Natal Agricultural Union said that consultation would have to take place. Amongst other things it laid down certain rules. It decided that there would have to be consultation with KwaZulu and with various bodies and persons. Sir, the reply to the question whether consultation did take place, is very clear. I say “Yes”; there was consultation with the farmers’ associations, with the Natal Agricultural Union, with the Chambers of Commerce, with the Federated Chamber of Industries, with individuals and with M.P.s worth their salt. I personally received a constant stream of representations and memoranda and letters, not only from my voters but from voters throughout Natal, who did not have access to their own M.P. I forwarded those representations to the Bantu Affairs Commission. Sir, I want Natal and South Africa to know that those memoranda and the requests of each individual member and each individual body were duly taken into account, as the hon. member for Zululand also admitted when he said that everyone in the department, from the Secretary down to the commission, the Minister and the Deputy Minister were accessible to anyone who was prepared to make representations; and those representations were in fact made. Sir, the second point dealt with the method of purchasing of farms. The hon. the Minister made a statement in that regard. He said that we were still looking into the matter and that we would see what method should be followed in regard to purchasing and paying people out, and that it could possibly take less time to finalize these matters than it did in the past. As regards the point that there should be effective control over lands which will have to be vacated, I just want to say that that is a sine qua non; it goes without saying. The next request was that an arrangement be introduced in order to give preferential facilities to farmers with a view to the acquisition of other land. Sir, it is in this regard that confusion developed. The Natal Agricultural Union laid down the requirement that farmers who were removed from their land be given preference. Sir, if a farmer should lose his farm as a result of consolidation, surely it is only logical that the Government would be able to settle Bantu on that land immediately and that the farmer might still be able to stay on as a tenant while other land was being found for him—and we shall find other land for him. I shall look after those farmers in my constituency who have sacrificed their farms, and I give the undertaking here to my voters that I shall assist them to the best of my ability. Sir, today I want to say frankly, on behalf of the satisfied people in Natal, that we owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. the Minister, to the commission, to the committee and to the officials for the great task they have performed, but we owe no debt of gratitude whatsoever to the U.P. members of this Select Committee, because when they should have done their duty here in the House, they were off to seek gossip amongst the general public. What kind of gossip? As the hon. member for Zululand said here, “I picked it up here and I picked it up there.” That was their task. Instead of representing their voters and the people of Natal here, they simply withdrew from the proceedings of the Select Committee.

Because my time is short, I should just like to make a few points. One is that consolidation is clearly being accepted by most of the people of Natal. At that same point, where the hon. member for Zululand entrenched himself and his friends and cut into the White area, he left one of my National Party supporters there with a long finger of land because he was English-speaking, and now he is saddled with a farm extending into the Bantu area like a long White finger. I would have had more respect for him if he had also offered this man’s land to the commission when he put matters right for himself.

With these few words I want to say that it is a pity that one does not have enough time to lay the matter open, right from the start to where we are now with the method employed by the United Party to see whether they could not wreck this matter. The fact of the matter is that they are opposed to and we are in favour of a solution being found, and we want to convey our sincere thanks to the Government.

I think it would perhaps be as well if I, just for a few minutes of the short time at my disposal, were to deal with one aspect of the matter which the hon. the Minister failed to mention in his introductory speech yesterday. What is the position which is facing us here today? It is a request by the Minister for us to accept a resolution. That resolution, if approved by Parliament, will provide that certain areas of land which are set out in detail shall hereafter be available for the State President to proclaim within those areas of land released areas. From those released areas then land can be purchased for Bantu occupation. It will be possible, on the passing of this resolution, for White-owned land, and also Coloured-1973-06-5 and Indian-owned land, to be taken and really to revert to the status of State-owned land, as I see it at the moment. To talk about an exchange of land, is completely fallacious. The Bantu, when they are moved from their area, are put on to land. They get an exchange of land. The Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians who are land-owners do not get an exchange of land where their lands are expropriated or purchased by the State. [Interjections.] Hon. members opposite laugh. It is a matter of considerable levity to them that White people should lose their land in that manner. Now, having reached the stage where the land may be proclaimed by the State President as released areas, it can be purchased hereafter and the Bantu can be settled on it. The point I want to make is that before any Bantu can be moved land must be made available and the first people to go are the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians. For the sake of what I want to say here, and to prevent repetition, I want to deal only with White-owned land. Sir, the Whites must go first. Now, a point that has not yet been mentioned by the Minister, and I hope that when he replies he will come to it, is what will he do if the Bantu refuse to move? He says in Natal there are 130 000; that is what the papers say. Sir, there are well over 200 000 in Natal, and I am not now dealing with the question of the Transvaal. And may I say, in regard to the talkative hon. member for Vryheid, who has just sat down, as far as the Select Committee is concerned there were no members from Natal on the Select Committee, not from his side of the House; not one. He did not have any representation on the Select Committee from his side of the House. So, what he is talking about here is a lot of hearsay, bits and pieces, which do not really concern the matter.

Now I want to come to the question of the events which led up to the appointment of the Select Committee. First I want to reiterate what the hon. member for Zululand said. In spite of what the SABC says, there are not 188 small pieces of land, Black-owned land, in Natal and which have to be consolidated. So far as I have been able to make out from the schedules and from the maps there are 41. The figure 188 is put in deliberately; it is put in on purpose because in the famous words of Disraeli: “These details are brought to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”. That is what the SABC are doing. They are showing that it is a big consolidation if you reduce 188 pieces down to ten. But what is the history of the two maps, if I might interrupt myself for a moment? The first map reduced the area for KwaZulu to six. The second map, which is at any rate theoretically officially before us today, has reduced it to ten. So from six, on reconsideration, the Minister has brought it up to ten. And he calls that consolidation! I believe he was a schoolmaster at one time. What sort of marks did he give his class for addition when they made six into ten and call it more consolidated? What sort of arithmetic is this? Of course, ten is not consolidation either. It never was, but to show that it has come down a long way, the SABC talks about 188 pieces of land. Let us pursue this for a moment. The hon. member for Zululand dealt with the absence of the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development. I think it is a public scandal that he is not here, with a debate like this coming on and when he has been handling the whole matter and has been associated with it throughout. It is a matter of top priority that the one man who should have been here to deal with it was the man who had been handling it all the way through the weeks and the months that have gone by.

He knew too much about it.

Yes, he knew too much about it. He has been giving assurances. That is the trouble.

You are listening to his master’s voice.

Yes, his master’s voice. How right the hon. member is. The hon. member will have the opportunity to stand up and say his little piece but I am willing to bet you, Sir, anything you like, if you are a betting man, that he will not say anything about the circumstances leading up to this Select Committee. That is taboo as far as the Nationalists are concerned. We found that out from the hon. member for Aliwal when he spoke just now. Because what happened? The hon. member who has just sat down, the hon. member for Vryheid, together with the hon. member for Aliwal and the Minister himself continually referred in the Select Committee to the evidence which was given before the Bantu Affairs Commission when it went through Natal and Zululand, etc. Sir, that evidence was not recorded. There is no record of it. What notes that were taken, were not made available to the Select Committee. We were voted down when we wanted to see those notes. There was no record whatsoever. And since when has the Bantu Affairs Commission been the hand of Parliament? It is not the hand of Parliament; it is the hand of the department. The hand of Parliament which was seized with the duty of investigating this matter was the Select Committee. When a Select Committee was appointed Parliament was seized with the job of looking into the whole question of consolidation in Natal, and only the Select Committee. And if there was evidence given by anyone in the past two or 2½ years, as was said by the hon. member for Aliwal, the answer is that it was of no avail. That was an outside body charged with dealing with departmental interests. And if there was evidence and witnesses prepared to come and give evidence hostile to the Government, we were there in the Select Committee to protect those witnesses and to hear them. We are not there to see that the evidence and the witnesses are in favour of the Government. That is not the job and the duty of a Select Committee. A Select Committee sitting there in a quasi- judicial capacity had to give us the evidence on which we could come to Parliament and discuss the matter as we are doing here today, on the same basis that any judge or any magistrate or any person with a knowledge of fairness and justice would say that they want to hear both sides before they give a decision. What do the people of the Transvaal know about the details of consolidation in Natal? And what do the people of Natal know about consolidation in the Transvaal? Those of us who have lived in Natal all our lives and know it like the palm of our hand are not in a position to take the second map and to compare it with the first one in minor details to see to what extent it was changed. Here I go back to where my hon. friend, the member for Zululand, referred to the meetings that we had. The hon. member for Langlaagte, the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, said there in the light of day, before more than a hundred people, at each gathering that it was not an official map. Subsequently it was admitted by the hon. the Minister that it was a map I think he said of his department when we were debating the amending legislation earlier this session. He said that it was an official map in the sense that he and his department had prepared it. However, the hon. member for Langlaagte did not say that when he was officiating as the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission. He sat there and he said straight out in so many words: “This map has no official status whatever. It was prepared by a clerk sitting in an office in Pretoria. His name is Pepler and here he sits beside me. If you have a quarrel with anyone and if you want to have a row, then have a row with Pepler and not with me; it is not my map.” What an incredible situation did we have!

Do you not have a sense of humour?

Oh, now it is a joke?

We had the incredible situation that an official of the department was put in that position. That map was the map which was then jettisoned. The map that we now have officially before us is a map that was never put before the people of Natal. In what position are we put now? In what position do I find myself? Do I now find myself sitting in the Parliament of the Republic having to protect the Bantu in my province? Is that the position I am in? The other day the hon. the Minister was furious with the hon. member for Houghton when he held up a photograph showing her with Buthelezi and Eglin, I think it was. He then shouted and waved his arms and said that if this kind of thing continued, it would be the downfall of the White man in South Africa. What kind of thing? I am going to go much further than a photograph.

I am going to say that this is one of the most deplorable breaches of faith with the Bantu in Natal that we have ever had in the history of the White man in this country. The 1936 Act, Gen. Hertzog’s Act, was an act of faith; it was a promise; it was an absolute pledge to the Bantu who were put into the scheduled Bantu areas. From these scheduled Bantu areas they are now in due course to be moved, in terms of the Bill which we had earlier this session, without having recourse to Parliament. At that time I pressed the hon. the Deputy Minister to state which were the tribes that would be moved and where were they living at the present time. We did not receive an answer, because that deplorable breach of faith was going to be shown up in all its nakedness the moment they admitted that there were Bantu who were going to be removed from these scheduled Bantu areas —not the released areas, not their own privately held farms.

Let us face this clearly. If we are trying to bring about good relations between the Bantu and the White man in South Africa, do we do so on broken pledges and broken promises, promises which have stood here in the name of Gen. Hertzog since 1936? Is that the basis? We on this side of the House now have to speak for the Bantu and to say that it is just as much a cause for trouble, for difficulty, for bitterness to take a Black man from his home where he has lived believing that he had complete right of occupancy and moving him holus bolus by the process of Parliament to some other area, as it is to take a White man from his home and move him by process of Parliament to some other place. There is no difference whatsoever. It is all very well for hon. members opposite to say that the Bantu cannot cultivate the land that they have. We should hang our heads in shame because the Bantu cannot cultivate the land which they have. How does he own that land? Communal tenure!

Whose fault is that?

Only in little isolated spots here and there in the Transkei is there individual ownership. As to the rest, it is communal ownership in these Bantu Reserves where the Bantu do not own the land on a basis of individual tenure. They cannot put their lives, their money and their effort into the land. Everyone knows that the Bantu who put their time and their effort, fertilizer and money into their lands in the Bantu areas today are liable to be moved by the chief in order that he may put his pals on that land next year. It is common knowledge, and everybody who has something to do with the Bantu knows that. When we lease our farms we say that the worst pest you can have on your farm is a man leasing your farm from you. It is worse than the locust; it is worse than drought. When you have a man who is leasing your farm you will find that he will milk it. What do we expect of the Bantu in their areas when they are not trained properly, where they are not given an adequate chance to earn anything like more than a subsistent living and where they are not earning a subsistent living today. The figures show that they are pouring in their thousands into the White industrial areas in Natal in order to earn money which they can send back to their homelands. If that was not done, the starvation would be even greater than the want which they are suffering in some places at the present time.

What do you pay yours?

I do not propose to answer that kind of inane question. We are dealing here with the biggest movement of human beings in the history of my province, I think in the history of South Africa. We are doing it in respect of people who have never been given one opportunity to come and express their point of view before any committee or commission of Parliament. When the Select Committee sat there was the opportunity for Parliament to do that. We were the ears, the eyes, the tongue and the arms of Parliament sitting in that Select Committee and it was our job to search every single facet of the question before us in order to be able to report to you, Mr. Speaker, and say that here we have a report which we believe is a factual representation of the position and we have heard everybody who has decided to give evidence in protection of his own interests, whether he be Black or White. That did not happen. We were deliberately stopped by the Government. When an hon. member said in the Select Committee that it was going to take too long, did he not give away the show? Did that not indicate the thought that there was going to be a great deal of evidence? The very fact that they said it would take too long meant that he thought that there was going to be such a lot of evidence that we would not be able to report before the end of this session. We have waited since 1936. It would not have mattered if we waited a little longer as long as we did justice. I say that we in Natal have lived in harmony with the Bantu people since 1906, since the Bambata Rebellion. We have lived in harmony with them ever since. We are not a party to this trouble and we refuse to participate in the guilt of the Government and the Nationalist Party.

Hear, hear!

I repeat that we refuse to participate in their guilt. The names of hon. members who may vote for this motion when the time comes, will go down in history. They will go down with a black mark behind every one of them. Mark my words, in ten years’ time, this will be the case. My hon. friend said that this was an historic occasion. It will be an historic occasion when hon. members led by party loyalty and without using their brains and their intelligence are prepared to go along and vote for a motion of this kind. Let me tell hon. members something. Take any hon. member who did not serve on the Bantu Affairs Commission, the ordinary run of members behind the hon. the Minister and make him stand up for 30 minutes to talk about the facts behind this motion. Not one of them will pass! [Interjections].

May I ask the hon. member a question? I should like to know whether the hon. member for South Coast is in favour of the removal of a single Bantu area in Natal.

I am sorry that I have made way for such a stupid question.

Just answer it.

Of course, we are in favour of the removal of Black spots and we have said so already. There is legislation dealing with it as well.

I do not want to repeat what my hon. friend has said, but he has already pointed out that you can fulfil the whole of the Hertzog promise by giving them the 120 000 to 130 000 acres at the present time without having to remove a single White man from his home, nor for that matter do you need to move a single Black man from his home. Where the Natives are already living on State-owned land, that could be provided for them and that could be the end of the matter in Natal. However, it will not be what my hon. friends opposite are pleased to call consolidation. They have reduced 42 Bantu areas to ten, and this is what they call consolidation. Because of a simple sum of arithmetic the whole of the racial relations between Black and White have to be completely upset, bitterness has to be sown and the Bantu is to be given the impression that the pledge word to the Black man which came from the mouth of the then Prime Minister, Gen. Hertzog, is not any longer to be trusted. What happens today, through the mouth of the present Minister, will in a few years’ time be “die dooie hand van die verlede”. All that because they will not comply with the Hertzog promise to give them the quota land in Natal, finish and klaar. Now this hon. member comes along with his chit-chat about the black spots. [Interjections.] I do not intend to go into the details of this map at all, because as I have said it is completely unacceptable as a whole to all the people in Natal …

That is not true.

… to the White people, the Bantu, the Coloureds and the Indians. It is unacceptable. I want to point out that if you take a place like the town of Umkomaas with its surrounding area, including Umzinto, that is now a White spot in a Black area. The Minister is perfectly happy about it. When I saw him before the Select Committee sat and told him what it would look like and what is likely to happen he shook his head sadly and said: “Tut, tut, we cannot allow that to happen.” But he did, so that this famous plan, the second plan, is now actually providing for White spots of that magnitude, the very thing that we have set our faces against in the past. I want to emphasize that the plans we have before us at the present time is not the first plan that was hawked around Natal and Zululand by the hon. member for Langlaagte. Let us take something like which we always call the “Strydom award”. When he was Prime Minister the late Mr. Strydom visited Umfolozi and he himself called what he gave us the “award”. He did so in the presence of Mr. Paul Sauer, the Minister of Lands of that time, who is still alive today and Mr. Blackie Swart, the Minister of Justice of the time, who later became State President and who also is still alive today. The two Ministers and the Prime Minister gave the award for the purpose of nature conservation. They added it to the Umfolozi Reserve. But it now comes before the Select Committee and they just draw a line through it, a nice straight line across the map, and the whole Strydom award is thrown overboard. They talk about these areas being handed over to the Bantu so that they will keep them as nature reserves, game reserves, and so on, is the same as the question of the cultivation of their land. It does not come overnight to people who are not qualified or trained or ready for it. This comes after years and years of training and comprehension. And the comprehension must not only be in the minds of the leaders; it must be in the minds also of the tribesmen. The tribesmen must know what is happening. When I discussed this very issue with tribesmen they asked me, after I had told them of all the benefits of tourism, and so on; “Where will our cattle graze?” That is all they are concerned with. They are not interested in game conservation, nature conservation and tourists. They want the land on which those animals are grazing to be available as gazing for their cattle. They have said so without any beating about the bush, because cattle are of course their traditional way of life. They are pastoralists. [Interjections.] No, the hon. the Minister does not know anything about it.

Now I want to come to the question of what happens after all this has been done. Areas are dealt with in terms of this resolution and the State President can then proclaim areas as released areas. Months ago the hon. member for Zululand and myself went to the Deputy Minister and subsequently to the Minister to say that we believe that the only fair way to go about this—we hoped that it would be done, although we opposed the whole thing bitterly and I still insist that this is going to lead to such trial and tribulation as we have never seen in South Africa, a fact that hon. members opposite do not seem to appreciate—is to set aside blocks of land and then to purchase the blocks one at a time. People will then know when their turn is coming and when their land is going to be taken. The random buying at odd places of odd farms where friends of friends will be able to get in as has been the history of this matter up to now, must not be allowed to continue. Let blocks of land be surveyed and set aside and the farms in that area purchased. Then move on to the next block and purchase that. It may well be that years and years will pass before this exercise is finally completed. But what of the young man who wants to get out because he has a wife and family. They want to sell and go because this nemesis has overtaken them. If the Government is going to come along with a burning sword and is going to chop their farms to pieces and hand it over to the Bantu, then they want to go. They want to go and try to find land elsewhere, before the price of land has risen against them. They want to find a home for their children and their wives. What about the old people? I have a case in mind where the farm was cut not in half but three quarters have been taken for the Bantu and one quarter was left to these old folk. What about those people? I believe that out of three of those old folk, two of them are over 80 years of age. What are they going to do now? They have no descendants; they are going to sit there day after day and month after month waiting for the sword to fall, waiting to be told that the land is going to be taken from them. This is an impossible situation! If the Government is going to do this, let it do it adequately by setting aside blocks of land and saying: “That block will be No. 1, that No. 2, and that No. 3.” The hon. the Minister says that the money will have to be made available year by year by Parliament. Of course it will; we know all about that, but that is trying to hide behind the procedure of Parliament. The hon. the Minister knows that if he has made up his mind and has set aside these blocks of land, he will be able to buy the land year by year in terms of the schedule that he can attach when the time comes in respect of the released areas.

Then I want to deal with the question of the corridors. According to the present map there are at present three White corridors leading inland from the coast, three corridors which cannot be maintained, three corridors which can be closed by the people on both sides of the corridors if they so desire, and if the urge and incentive are big enough. Nowhere in the history of the world has a corridor yet remained a constant and permanent feature.

Never mind, let them alone; they are our corridors.

Those corridors, as I say, can be closed and that will be the end of Natal. Hon. members opposite may think that it would not be a bad thing if it did bring about the end of Natal; they do not win any seats there. The hon. member for Vryheid knows he is going to lose his seat next time. A precedent established in Natal will be followed in the other provinces. Let no man sitting safely in the shadow of Table Mountain believe that what happens in Natal is not going to affect him vitally. There is all this talk about Richards Bay and the hundred of millions of rand which is being spent on it, there is the new railway line to the north and there is the existing Durban harbour—and I am very serious—will all be hemmed in. The existing Durban harbour will be hemmed in in a corridor which is only seven miles wide. Close that corridor of seven miles in width and Durban is completely cut off from the hinterland, and Durban is the harbour for the Transvaal, while Richards Bay is anticipated to be the harbour of the future. In the Northern Transvaal there is a White area along the border that has been left there deliberately. We are told that it has been left there for defence purposes. In the case of Zululand there is no White border left for defence purposes. Let me repeat what I have already said many times in this House: The coastline of Zululand is an international border, as is the whole of the South African coastline. The sea coast here is an international border. Russian battleships and Russian submarines are just on the other side of this international border, but yet there is no White area left there. We have anti-aircraft missiles on the sea coast at St. Lucia—it is common knowledge; part of the area there right on the sea coast has been set aside for military exercises, but the whole of that White coastline today goes Black in terms of this resolution, or can be made to go Black in terms of it. There is no White area there for defence purposes. What really do we anticipate is going to be the future of mankind when the Government comes with this provocative method of putting in front of the Zulu people the means whereby they can acquire everything they want, including political independence? For the Government to talk of their having to be economically viable, is the greatest nonsense; they have not read modern history. There has been no nation in the world yet which has looked for economic viability before it has gone for political independence. Political independence has come first every time and there are plenty of nations who will make people who are politically independent, economically viable by pouring aid into their laps in endless measure. Such is the history of our time. I repeat: If the Republic loses Natal, then the Republic itself is doomed because the precedent there will be followed in other parts of the Republic.

We condemn this measure completely and at this late hour we appeal to the Government to go back and get the evidence of the people who are affected by the measure which we are dealing with today.

Mr. Speaker, we have just listened to a few speeches by members on that side of the House. Before I say anything in connection with this plan, I just want to correct a few statements made by those hon. members. The hon. members for Zululand, Transkei and South Coast referred to a map which had been displayed at the various meetings held by the Bantu Affairs Commission in Natal. The hon. member for South Coast made a statement, and I quote from a report in the Rand Daily Mail—

I object most strongly to the hon. member making the accusation against me that I hawked around a plan in Natal. The hon. member is guilty of a gross distortion of what I said at that first meeting which was held in Dundee.

Mr. Speaker, you heard the statement by the hon. member for Langlaagte. I submit that he should withdraw it.

Order!

I said that it was a gross distortion of what I had said at Dundee.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Members of the commission and other people were present there, and if the hon. member had any sense of humour, he would agree that the meeting was conducted in a very humorous and good spirit.

You were scared stiff.

I was scared? There were two people who acted worse than Jaap Marais did at Brits, Zeerust and Vryburg. I want to tell hon. members that the conduct of the hon. member for Zululand and Eshowe and that of the hon. member for South Coast at Harding, quite overshadowed the conduct of the H.N.P. members at Brits. Through their actions they completely “out-verkramped” the Hertzogites and the H.N.P.S on that day. On that day I gave an explanation at Dundee and said that the map which had been circulated was one which had been drafted by the planning division of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development under the guidance of Mr. Louis Pepler, who is the head of that division. Mr. Pepler sat beside me and in quite a jocular manner I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Gentlemen, this is the person who drafted it. You may go ahead and cross-examine him this afternoon if you want any further particulars in regard to this plan.” That is what happened. Now that hon. member actually says that I hawked the plan around. It was made clear to those people that this was a plan which had been drafted by the department merely as a basis for discussion. It was a suggestion made by the department as to how consolidation should take place. This was said everywhere. I said it at Dundee, and I repeated it at Eshowe, Pietermaritzburg and at Harding. There are only two people in the whole of Natal who misunderstood the thing and did not accept it. They are these two hon. members who are sitting over there. We probably had about 300 people in Dundee and about the same number of people at Eshowe and at all the other meetings. They were very well attended meetings. All those people understood the position. The only people who have been obtuse, who have been unable to understand something of this nature, who have been unable to understand simple language, are those two hon. members. Sir, I also tried to explain this to those people in the simple English I speak. I tried to explain that this was not an official Government plan. I said that it was a plan suggested by the department merely as a basis for discussion. Everyone accepted it as such, but it suits the book of these hon. members to try to make political capital out of it and to try to give out that this is the Government’s plan. The hon. member for Zululand is now looking at me so intelligently. He is probably trying to follow what I am saying here, so that he may be able to understand it in future. Time and again we called the people at that meeting to order and said, “People, please; your terminology is wrong when you talk about an official Government plan. This is not a Government plan. The terminology you should use is that these are departmental proposals that have been submitted.” After a while this was accepted by everyone, but now these people are intentionally saying, after having quite possibly been coached by the Press and others, that this is the Government’s plan. They have been trying to imply this in order to make political capital out of it.

The hon. member for South Coast also made a statement which to me was an absolutely politico-hysterical outburst from an old, retired leader, an outburst from someone who, for old time’s sake, still wants to try to pump life into the bones of the United Party. Now he makes this kind of statement. Sir, the hon. member is in this respect, too, guilty of a distortion of the facts.

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

Sir, I withdraw it, but he states the facts incorrectly. The memorandum submitted to the Select Committee is in the possession of the hon. members. The hon. member for South Coast has a copy of it, but he has not even taken the trouble to read the first page of it. On the first page, in paragraph 4, the position is set out explicitly, in language which everyone can understand. This document was also published in English. In it the following is stated: “The proposed excision implies the removal of approximately 132 000 Bantu.”

We do not accept that.

Sir, the hon. member now says that he does not accept it, but it is for political reasons that he does not accept it. These hon. members are now talking about a quarter of a million Bantu who are to be moved. I want to ask the hon. member: Has he gone and counted these people? Today I want to make the statement—and I can support it —that I should much rather accept the facts submitted to us by the Department of Planning than the guesswork of this hon. member. Sir, I want to say this now, and hon. members must accept it as the truth: In these proposals which were submitted to the Bantu Affairs Commission by the Department of Planning, and which are available for inspection by the public if they want to do so, we find that those people have done a fine piece of scientific work. The officials who were charged with it, who performed that task and who advised us in this regard, are people who are highly trained in this field. Ethnologists, people with degrees in economics and in agricultural economics and agricultural experts worked on this, and they made use of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services in regard to the compilation of the reports submitted to us. This is a very good piece of work which has been done.

I was furious with the hon. member for Zululand, because he stood up in a place like Eshowe and did a truly disgraceful thing in public. He insulted an official of the department, a well-trained person of high standing, by saying that proposals made by these people were unscientific. I think that it really did not behove the hon. member for Zululand to do this. As I said, their conduct and the speech which the hon. member made there, could just as well have come from Jaap Marais or any other Hertzogite.

Sir, the evidence we had before us was well founded and well planned as far as these proposals were concerned. I do not want to go into the whole history of the Select Committee at this stage. There are other hon. members who will go into it and who will reply to the points raised by the hon. member for South Coast and the other hon. members on that side of the House. However, I just want to say that the conduct of the United Party members on the Select Committee really came as a shock to me. Here hon. members had a chance to perform a very great task.

Why did you not give us a chance?

Sir, I gave the hon. member every right in the world to put questions. When it suits those hon. members, they appeal to democracy, but when democracy is functioning the way it does, such as in the case of Select Committees, and when things go against them, they act in the way they in fact have done. No one acted like a dictator, Sir. The Select Committee decided on the matter and the hon. members had to abide by that. At all these meetings we held, we told the people that through their representatives on the Select Committee, they could still put questions in regard to these consolidation proposals later on. When those hon. members had to do this, they ran away. I want to say today that those hon. members were forced by the liberal element in the United Party to act in that way. [Interjections.] This conduct of theirs is nothing but a political move, because the liberal element regards their conduct in connection with the Schlebusch Commission as a mistake, and in this way, on a Select Committee such as this one, they want to try to remedy the position. Sir, this is reprehensible. The hon. members should have sat with us on that Select Committee; they should have taken these decisions together with us so that they, too, might have been part of this whole consolidation effort which is now being made.

The hon. member for South Coast is now saying—and he even kicked up a big fuss about this in the newspapers—that they do not have 188 areas scattered all over Natal. Sir, we also have here in our possession consolidation proposals made by a body in Natal. This is proof that we did not only receive proposals from the department. Here we have a document entitled “Homeland Consolidation—the case of KwaZulu”. This is a document drawn up by a Mr. Allan C. C. Best and a Mr. Bruce S. Young, of the Boston University and the University of Natal, Durban, respectively.

How many Bantu are being moved according to that document?

I shall read out to you some very interesting data from this document. I want to quote what these people say—

In other words, a total of 205.

What is the date of that?

July, 1972. This is a very recent, scientific piece of work that was done in this regard.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

No, the hon. member has already put his question, I have already heard it. He wants to know how many people will be moved according to them.

Yes.

According to this document, 343 000 people would be moved if the plan of the department had been accepted.

Where does the figure 132 000 come from?

The hon. member should just exercise some patience. 343 132 is the number which would be moved if the plan of the department had been accepted, but the plan of the department was not accepted, and both the hon. member for Transkei and the hon. member for South Coast said here: “This plan that we have in front of us differs vastly from the plan that has been hawked by the hon. member for Langlaagte.” Sir, that is true. If we had accepted the plan of the department, we should have had to move 343 132 people, but this plan which we have before us today, differs radically from the plan of the department, and according to this plan, which is based on a scientific survey made of all these people, 132 000 people will be moved.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Does he know that the estimate of the same people that he is quoting is, for the new plan, about a quarter of a million?

Sir, I am not discussing what these people said. Were the hon. member to give this to us in black and white under the signature of these people, I would be prepared to accept this figure of a quarter million. But here we have a figure, namely 132 000, which has been worked out by the department and its officials; this is the number of Bantu who are going to be moved under this scheme. The hon. member for Zululand cannot just come along here and make the statement that these people say that a quarter million Bantu will have to be moved. Does he have it in black and white?

It was in the Press. I have not got the cutting here.

Which Press?

Your own Press.

Sir, here we have proof that the United Party has been spreading a lot of wild stories in connection with this whole situation. These proposals are also in line with the request made by the Natal Agricultural Union, namely that as few people as possible should be moved, and that is precisely what is happening here. The hon. member has also claimed—and I want to have this on record—that before this plan, which had been finally approved by the Cabinet …

To be laid before the Select Committee.

… was referred to the Select Committee, the Bantu Affairs Commission, acting on the instructions of the Minister, travelled to Durban, where we conferred with the Natal Agricultural Union and their affiliated body. They were given timely notice that we would confer with them in Natal on 2nd February. I then subsequently conferred with them on that date and submitted a plan to them indicating the broad lines of thought in this regard. Sir, I want to tell you that these people were properly informed, up to the last moment, in connection with this plan which is before the House today. This also goes for the Sugar Association of Natal. After we had shown the plan to the Sugar Association, the only comment, which we had from the chairman of that association, was the following: “Well, Mr. van Vuuren, I can tell you as chairman that you can tell the Minister that we are absolutely relieved to see the more or less final consolidation plans.” [Interjection.] Of course I accept that as a compliment, because those people had been put into such a panic by these people that they thought that this was judgment day closing in on them. But after we had discussed the plan with them, they thought otherwise. I must say that we had a great deal of co-operation from those people. They felt that it was a question of give and take if we wanted to do anything meaningful; and this we got from them. That is why I say today that it gives me great pleasure to support this proposal before the House, and I hope and trust that the day will arrive when these hon. members …

Will the hon. member answer the question I have put to the Minister?

Yes, I shall reply, but I just want to finish my sentence. I hope that those people who are now so violently opposed to this plan will have a change of heart, and that once these proposals have been passed in this House, we shall have co-operation in order that we may make a great success of this in Natal. Here we have a chance and an opportunity to eliminate for all time that uncertainty which exists among our people— and I am talking about Whites as well as non-Whites—in regard to where our native soil lies, and to give meaning to it so that those people may know exactly what is going on. Now everyone in Natal is going to know what the borders of these areas are which are to be set aside for the Bantu and for the Whites.

Then there is the question the hon. member asked in regard to the sugar industry and in regard to minerals. What the Minister said yesterday was that when the time arrived for those areas, in which there are highly productive sugar areas and highly productive forestry projects, to be taken over by the department, they would not become decayed areas and would not go out of production.

Who will do that?

Co-operative societies. This is a matter which is at present receiving the attention of the department, through Benbo and through the economic committee of the Bantu Affairs Commission. We had consultations with various interested bodies and persons to see what machinery could be put into operation in order to prevent these highly productive areas, which may be taken over, from falling into decay and experiencing a drop in production. That undertaking was given to the Sugar Association, too. I want to say that the most cordial co-operation prevails between the Sugar Association and the Department of Bantu Administration in regard to this matter—and the hon. member for Zululand will admit this—and at present consideration is being given to what machinery could be established for this purpose. Sir, I have great pleasure in supporting this motion.

Having listened to the hon. member for Langlaagte, I can only say with Alice that the more I hear about this it becomes curiouser and curiouser, because here we have the hon. member for Langlaagte taking exception to the statement by the hon. member for South Coast that this map was hawked about Natal. But this is precisely what happened. The hon. member and the Bantu Affairs Commission went about Natal with a map which bore no relation to what the final proposals were going to be, which was something merely tossed into the maelstrom to sweep up feelings in Natal, amongst Black and White, merely to find out what they think about certain areas and certain proposals. But I want to say here that when this map was first published I said to the Natal Agricultural Union that they must under no circumstances get upset or stirred up about the map because I was absolutely convinced that it bore no relation whatsoever to the final proposals that would come from the Select Committee. I simply cannot understand what else this whole trip of the Bantu Affairs Commission was other than a mere fishing expedition, to stir up the feelings of the people in Natal and to try to get some kind of a reaction. I say categorically to the Minister that this was nothing else but a ploy by the hon. the Minister to play the Natal Agricultural Union offside, because the Natal Agricultural Union has throughout the peace refused to become involved on a political basis with the consolidation of Natal, saying quite rightly that this was a political proposal by the Nationalist Party and that they as the Natal Agricultural Union wanted to have nothing whatever to do with it, and quite rightly so. What happened? The Bantu Affairs Commission came along and under the leadership of the hon. member for Langlaagte …

I am not the leader, but the chairman of the commission.

Yes, he was the chairman, but he should have been the leader. He should have taken the lead to explain the position. I quite understand that he abdicated the leadership and only took the junior position of chairman. However, he came with a proposal, a map, which set out what was going to happen. The proposal was to reduce the Zulu areas in Natal down to six. That was the proposal of the hon. member for Langlaagte. The Natal Agricultural Union was then jockeyed into a position where they put forward an alternative map which quite rightly, as hon. members said, was designed to move the least possible number of people, but the proposal of the Natal Agricultural Union was rejected out of hand. The Natal Agricultural Union went out of its way to gather the feelings, the suggestions, the proposals of all its affiliated unions to get a consensus of opinion and to be able to draw up a map which would move the least possible number of people, but its map was rejected out of hand by the party on the other side because the Natal Agricultural Union said that in terms of the 1936 legislation there was enough State-owned land in Natal to fulfil the total obligation of the province of Natal to the Bantu population. Its map was rejected completely and absolutely.

What happened then? A proposal came out of the Select Committee. I want to say that farmers in my constituency found to their absolute surprise, because it was the first time mentioned by anybody, that their farms were included in the Bantu area. This was a subject on which they had no opportunity whatever to have any kind of representation. They were not informed of this matter by anybody at all. The first news they had about it was when the names of their farms appeared on a list of farms which was sent by the department to the Natal Agricultural Union. If anybody thinks that that is the way in which people’s farms should be handled …

How many were there?

If that hon. member feels that there are people who can be treated in this way, that their farms are simply taken away without any kind of representation being possible, he should say so. When those people made representations to come to the Select Committee, that opportunity was refused them. Surely the whole purpose of a Select Committee is to allow the citizen, if he is offended or in any way prejudiced, to make representations to Parliament in order to have his wrongs righted. [Interjections.] What other purpose was there to have a Select Committee than to draft these proposals and to give people the chance of making representations? What happened? As soon as these people made representations to the Select Committee to be allowed to be heard, a motion to that effect was voted down by the Nationalist majority. The Select Committee then simply said that it would not hear representations from anybody except the officials of the department.

And then you walked out.

I see that the hon. member for Pietersburg is laughing about this.

Then you were annoyed and walked out like naughty little boys.

What else are you expected to do when you get an absolute refusal from the hon. members on the Government side to hear evidence from people who have been prejudiced? We had a direct blank refusal from the Government side to hear the evidence of people who have been prejudiced. To whom are they supposed to have recourse? [Interjections.] That is not even the worst of it, because here we have a Select Committee to which the whole matter is referred and then all of a sudden you find that the Natal Agricultural Union is making representations to the hon. the Prime Minister because that Select Committee refused to hear them.

That has been stated already.

That has been stated already, but what happened? The whole refusal of the Select Committee was overridden by the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. the Prime Minister ordered the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development to hear the Natal Agricultural Union. The hon. the Minister himself assured the Natal Agricultural Union that he had the right to change the map as and how he liked. What purposes does that service?

[Inaudible.]

That hon. member has verbal diarrhoea. I wish he would keep quiet and give me a chance to make my speech. I would appreciate it. He had the opportunity to speak and could just manage to squeeze out ten little minutes. Since then, I think, he has been talking more sitting down. Having got to the stage when the NAU came to see the hon. the Minister, we suddenly found a proposal which is the absolute key to the whole proposal of the NAU, namely the question of the Berg locations. It was suddenly withdrawn for further consideration. Then followed the statement that this matter was being withheld for a rethink. The Estcourt Gazette had a telephonic interview with the M.P. for “Drakensberg” as they said—I do not know about that “Drakensberg”—Mr. Tino Volker on Wednesday wherein he disclosed that the report of the Select Committee on the consolidation of KwaZulu has been tabled. They said that no mention was made in this report of the consolidation of locations one and two in Tugela. This means, they say, that this thorny problem has been referred back to the Minister for a rethink. They furthermore said that Mr. Volker said that this was brought about following strong representations by the farmers delegation “and by him to the Minister”. [Interjections.] Then they say that Mr. Volker will be addressing a meeting at Bergville at 7.30 to discuss the matter with his constituents. As a result of that very meeting which the hon. member addressed, we have had an outburst—we can call it nothing else but an outburst—by Mr. Barney Dladla, one of the Government members of KwaZulu wherein …

That is a lot of rubbish.

All right, call it a lot of rubbish.

You know it, or at least, you should know it.

I quote a newspaper report:

Can I ask the hon. member a question? I would like to know from the hon. member whether he thinks that Mr. Barney Dladla has made that statement by himself or whether he was approached by The Natal Mercury reporter to make that report. [Interjections.]

If the hon. member will make a categorical statement that Mr. Dladla was approached by The Natal Mercury to make that statement, I shall ascertain those facts and perhaps later on we can go in upon that.

He was.

As a result of the meeting held by the hon. member for Klip River, to give his correct designation—if there was a “Drakensberg” seat he would never have a hope of winning it—Mr. Dladla went on to say the following … In the course of what I shall say I will like to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister. Yesterday, when the hon. the Minister spoke, he recorded his gratitude to the Natal Agricultural Union for their cooperation. I have said already that I think he has jockeyed them into a position from which they did not co-operate with the Government in achieving consolidation. What they did was to take what action they could to make sure that the effect on the farming community of Natal was minimized to the greatest possible extent.

I have no bone to pick with them.

I am glad that that is the case, but I was not saying that the Minister has a bone to pick with them at all. What I am saying, and I am putting it on record, is that the attitude of the NAU was to take the action which would have the least harmful effect on the farming community of Natal arising out of the political decision of the Nationalist Party to achieve consolidation in Zululand for their own political purposes. I think that this hon. Minister owes it to the NAU, and the farming community, to make sure that the effect that this will have on the relationships between the Zulu people and the White farming community will not be disturbed. I want to say that the attitude of the NAU towards the Berg locations which this hon. the Minister has now reserved for a rethink is this: They have asked that those locations should be excised for the reason of conservation. There is absolutely no intention on the part of the farming community in Natal to try to grab land away from the Zulu community, none whatever. The attitude of the farming community in Natal is that the protection of the source of the Tugela River are so important that we simply cannot allow them to continue to be destroyed in the way in which they have been destroyed. It is interesting to find Mr. Dladla being reported as follows—

Oh, man …

But listen!

He is incapable of listening.

I read further—

By whom? By whom have the Zulu people of Mr. Dladla been allowed to get away with murder of the land? By that department which has refused to allow the Conservation Act of South Africa to apply to the Black areas of South Africa, by that department which has throughout been charged with conservation work in the Bantu areas. If that was allowed to happen, by whom was it allowed to happen?

By the Department of Bantu Administration.

“We never see conservation officers in the area,” according to Mr. Dladla. “What we need are extension officers who act with authority.” He says that if people abuse the land they should be taken off the land. What I want to say to the hon. the Minister is that whatever happens with the Berg locations, that wherever those people are moved, if they are going to be moved, that one of the conditions that must be insisted upon by the department is that wherever they may be moved conservation farming shall be applied. I am quite ready to concede right now that the Government of KwaZulu can do things with their own people that we might well not be able to do in insisting that people be turned off their land. They might well be able to get away with things among their own people that we will not be able to get away with. One of the conditions that this hon. Minister has to insist on, when he gets around to telling us what he has decided in connection with the Berg locations, is that wherever those people are moved to conservation shall be applied …

Naturally.

The hon. the Minister says “naturally”. It is a big word, a big talk and a big deal. It has not been done yet and it is about time that the hon. the Minister reached out and grasped the nettle and did something about it.

You are uninformed.

I am not uninformed; I know exactly what is happening. What I want to ask is: What is happening and why is all this being done? Why is all this agony being forced upon the province of Natal merely for a political purpose, in pursuit of a will-o’-the-wisp and nothing else, an intention of the Nationalist Party to create separate states, to create an independent state out of ten small areas of Zululand. It is a will-o’-the-wisp hovering over the bogs and the shallows of the Nationalist Party policy which can never be carried out. I want to remind the House of something that happened in history. There were countries in the old days which consisted of various small areas of ground. Take the state of Prussia in the year 1818, for example. This was a state where the prince held ground in certain areas. Later the state of Prussia was unified by Bismarck’s policy of blood and iron. What we have here being called into existence is a state with ten separate entities where the temptation is going to be towards a real consolidation. The hon. member for Pietersburg is laughing. He may be able to laugh in Pietersburg, but what does he think it is like for us in Natal which is being divided up and cut up into corridors and small separate areas?

What is it like now?

Now it is part of South Africa; everyone there is a South African. They are all happy the way they are. They have not asked to be made independent. They did not ask to be consolidated. They did not come to that member on their knees and say: “Please make us into an independent country.” What is happening is that this is being forced upon South Africa by the political policy of the Nationalist Party. That is one thing I regard as unforgiveable; that we in Natal and the farming community in particular, should be exposed to danger as a result of the policy of the Nationalist Party.

Mr. Speaker, Natal is a part of the Republic of South Africa. In 1910 a great consolidation took place here and the four different provinces were consolidated into one Union. Later that Union became a Republic. I want to tell the representatives of Natal that because Natal is a part of the Republic of South Africa, they must realize and accept the fact—the sooner the better—that the Republic of South Africa is being ruled by the National Party Government. Let me tell the hon. member for Mooi River that these consolidation proposals before the House of Assembly today are not due to a capricious whim of the Minister, his department or this party; these consolidation proposals, which we are discussing at present in this House, are an implementation of the instructions of the White voters of South Africa. That is why these proposals are before this House today.

Why do you not give the Free State to the Bantu?

For 25 years we have been doing the spade work, and today we are giving substance to the National Party’s policy, which we have advocated for so many years and which we presented to the electorate without going into details. When the National Party came into power in 1948 it gave South Africa two undertakings: One was that it would lead South Africa forward to its own, independent Republic; and this party has done so. Secondly the party stated that it would lead South Africa forward on the road to separate development, and here we are giving physical substance to this policy of separate development. Here we are implementing the wish of the late Gen. Hertzog who spoke about this Act in 1936 and said (translation): “At the root of this whole Act lies segregation, separation.” Go and read the debates of 1936. We want to give the voters and all the inhabitants of Natal the assurance that we want to set their minds at rest, that they need have no fear. As long as the National Party rules South Africa, Natal will remain a part of South Africa and we shall also guarantee their identity. We shall also ensure their identity; that of the Zulus as well as that of the Whites. They do not have to worry about that.

I want to come back to the attitude of members on the Opposition side who are members of the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs. Let me state that I take the strongest exception to the conduct and attitudes of the hon. members sitting there. They acted in that way under the guidance of an hon. member of this House, the hon. member for South Coast. It was contempt for a parliamentary institution. The Select Committee is an extension of this Parliament, and there the gentlemen had an opportunity to raise all their objections and ask all the questions on which they were not clear. They had the opportunity to publish a minority report. I think I know why they chose to walk out of that Select Committee; they were afraid they would land up in an even bigger mess than the one they landed up in because they served on the Select Committee on certain organizations under the chairmanship of Mr. Schlebusch. I am very glad that I can say here today that this report before Parliament is a unanimous report from the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs of this Parliament. It is the unanimous report and it will go down in history that these consolidation proposals were submitted to Parliament by the Select Committee which had the last say about that before it came to Parliament. The fact that the Opposition members ran away from the Committee will not go down in history, however. I do not think it is necessary for one to get excited, and neither do I think that one needs to take the speakers on the Opposition side very seriously. We are familiar with the way they act and we can state here today that this is nothing but a sham fight. Where they should really have been fighting, there they were conspicuous by their absence. And they also shattered the confidence of those people who appointed them to the Select Committee. We do not need to take this Opposition seriously. They do not really mean what they say. I now want to predict, as other hon. members have predicted, that those members of the Opposition who will still be in the Opposition in ten years’ time, will clutch these consolidation proposals and the policy of separate development to their breasts and take them for their own, just as they have done with all the other contentious legislation that has been passed in this House. Today they sail under the banner of South Africa first, while their spiritual allies kicked Gen. Hertzog out of the Cabinet for that reason. Today they stand for South Africa first. Likewise they will make these consolidation proposals their own within ten years’ time and accuse us of actually having stolen their policy. As avidly as they have opposed the flag and the national anthem and had Natal on the march about the Republic, as avidly do they accept the Republic today. However, we are grateful for that and we welcome it.

However, there are joint standpoints in respect of this matter which we would do well to consider for a moment. The attitude of the Opposition to these joint standpoints leaves one astounded. The Opposition is also in favour of the development of certain Bantu areas. Am I right in saying that?

We have always been.

They say “We have always been”. Where must those Bantu areas be, because they must be somewhere? I have here in my hand a map which the Opposition published during the 1966 election. According to this map there is not a single Bantu or non-White in South Africa. There is no Black spot or Black Bantu area on this map.

You do not understand it.

No one understands it, neither did the voters. The Opposition does not understand it either. It gives a representation of what the map of South Africa is supposed to be, and with that the United Party tried to mislead the voters in 1966. But I think we agree on the clearing up of Black spots. One of the members on the other side said this afternoon that they are also in favour of clearing up Black spots. I think we agree about the removal of poorly situated Bantu areas in Natal. But when we clear up Black spots and shift the poorly situated Bantu areas, we must shift the people somewhere and compensatory land must be obtained. What we are doing in these proposals is to have that land purchased in adjoining areas. We consolidate that compensatory land with existing Bantu areas. That is what we are doing and that is what the Bantu Affairs Commission investigated scientifically and thoroughly in order to obtain, in terms of the Act, land of equal agricultural value for the shifting of those areas. I think we agree about the purchase of land that must be added to the Bantu areas in terms of the 1936 Act. I take it we agree on that. That land must consequently be purchased. What are we doing in these proposals? We are purchasing that land in adjoining areas. We are removing Black spots. We are clearing up these poorly situated Bantu areas. We are adding these to the others and we are consolidating KwaZulu and the other areas.

Mr. Speaker, this is an historic day for South Africa, one of the biggest days we have ever witnessed in this Parliament. It is a day for which we can be very thankful. This does not only apply to the Whites in South Africa, but to every people in South Africa. Every people can be grateful as a result of these proposals being accepted in this Parliament in the year 1973, because these proposals embody the preservation of the identity of each people. What is more, Sir, here the National Party is revealing its absolute honesty, because in these consolidation proposals we are placing every people in South Africa on the road to self-determination.

Mr. Speaker, I wish the resolution was as simple as the hon. member for Wolmaransstad tries to make it out to be. This is not simply a resolution to acquire land, under the 1936 Act, which is adjacent to existing reserves or scheduled areas, and to add it to those areas in order to fulfil the obligations under that Act. If it were so, I would have had no hesitation whatsoever in voting for this resolution. In fact, I voted for a resolution of that kind last year. As I have always stated clearly and as my party has made clear, we stand for the complete fulfilment of the 1936 obligations, and it astonishes me that today, nearly 40 years after the 1936 Act was passed, there is still any land outstanding under the 1936 Act. This land should all have been acquired years and years ago. In fact, we are not today discussing simply the acquisition of land under the 1936 Act. What we are discussing is a hotchpotch of excisions and additions. Unfortunately, in terms of that, I am unable to support the proposals. If one examines the resolution and one examines the report …

Have you joined the United Party again?

No, not at all; there is no danger of that; nor would they have me, let me add that. If the hon. the Minister were simply setting out to acquire land in terms of the 1936 Act, I would have supported him, but he is not doing that. He is, in passing, acquiring some land under the 1936 Act. Whether it comes from State land or whether it comes by virtue of other areas, is not important. The fact is that that would be an acquisition under the 1936 Act. But far more relevant than that, although this is all wrapped up in one resolution, there are enormous movements of people. There are huge removal schemes involved. I cannot estimate the exact number of people being moved. The hon. member for Langlaagte denies that the figures which have been published are correct. I do not know whether it is going to involve the removal of the 320 000-odd Africans that have been mentioned, of whom I think about 123 000 are in Natal alone. I do not know; nobody seems to know the exact figure. But one thing is certain and that is that large numbers of people are going to be removed and, as usual, the vast majority of those people, of course, are going to be Black people. Some White people may have to be moved, but the majority of those people are going to be Black people. What interests me is that the people involved object strongly to these removals. I have cutting after cutting which shows that the various leaders who are involved here, are all dead against these moves. I have statements made by the leader of the Gazankulu people, a statement made by Chief Buthelezi and statements made by Chief Mangope. In this instance, of course, Chief Mangope is not involved because we still have to consider that resolution. But the people involved are against these removal schemes and they talk about it in very strong words. Prof. Ntsanwisi of the Gazankulu people said of the plan—

These are very strong words indeed. Chief Buthelezi refuses even to consider the plan. He says he will not co-operate.

Is that why you are opposing it?

It is one of the major reasons, certainly.

Why did you not oppose it last year then?

Because last year it was a 1936 scheme. The hon. member does not realize what is going on. He is still very young in this House, and he has yet to learn manners. Chief Buthelezi said that the KwaZulu Government could not possibly allow its name to be associated with the upheaval of 133 000 Zulus for the sake of a meaningless consolidation. Sir, land is a very important issue in the Government’s plans to provide the base for the so-called independent homelands. It is the sine qua non, indeed the cornerstone, of the Government’s policy, because unless enough land is available, then clearly the homelands are not ever going to become independent. The Prime Minister announced on a television programme only a couple of weeks ago that the land issue was the important thing and that it was the policy of his Government to lead the various Bantu nations to ultimate complete independence. However, you have to get the African leaders of the homelands to ask for this complete independence. Under this scheme which is being proposed, not one of them is prepared to do this—not one. Matanzima for example has long ago announced that he is not going to ask for independence until he acquires certain other land. The hon. the Minister has stated that he is not prepared to give one inch of land over and above the land provided for in the 1936 Act. I have stated before, and I state again, that as far as I am concerned, once the concept of Reserves, which were meant to be protected areas where Africans could acquire land, was changed into an independent homelands concept, far more land, over and above the 1936 land, would have to be made available for these areas to become remotely viable. That was obvious. Sir, when in 1936 the Cape Africans lost their common roll franchise in this House, compensation by way of further land was made available by White South Africa, by this Parliament. I maintain that when in 1959 the concept of Reserves was changed, into this concept of independent homelands and in the following year the Africans lost their separate roll representation in this House, further compensatory land should have been made available, for the very same reason. One reason was compensation for the deprivation of the franchise in this House and the other was in order to make the homelands scheme at least remotely feasible, which it cannot be under the existing concept because of (a) the amount of land and (b) the fact that the land lies in scattered areas. This resolution which the hon. the Minister is asking us to adopt will still, of course, not accomplish a consolidation; the land belonging to the two homelands concerned is still to be left as a scatter on the map of South Africa. Under this plan, which, if it is not the final plan, is approaching the final plan of the Government, it is clearly not going to be possible to consolidate these areas. The hon. the Minister has said that viability is not important; that there are many states in Africa which are not viable. That may well be true.

All of them.

No, not all of them. There are some of them that are viable; there are some that are very wealthy, like Nigeria, for instance; it is a very wealthy country; and there are others that are viable as well. But in any case, Sir, the point is that he also stated at one stage that you could, of course, have states made up of areas which are not contiguous areas. I want him to show me on the map of Africa one independent area which is divided into, say, ten peices, as KwaZr lu will be when these plans are adopted. There is not one of them.

But you can go to other continents for such examples.

Well, you can go to one other continent; you can go to Pakistan, of course; and look what happened there.

You can also go to Europe and Asia and America for such examples.

Scattered areas?

Yes.

Sir, I think you would have to look very far on the map of Europe to find such an example.

Where are they scattered?

The hon. member knows only his own constituency.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Would the hon. member tell the House what the attitude of the Progressive Party is towards the purchase of land?

Under the Progressive Party policy we would have one multiracial South Africa, and until Africans are able to move freely around the country and purchase land anywhere, the existing protected Reserves would remain and the 1936 land would be acquired.

Why?

Because that land was originally set aside in order to allow Africans to acquire land there. [Interjections.] These protected areas would remain until complete freedom of mobility and of acquisition of land could be introduced, and after that, if Africans in the Reserves wished to sell their land to the Whites, they could do so, but equally, Whites would be allowed to sell their land to Blacks.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Certainly.

I should like to know from the hon. member whether, under the policy of the Progressive Party, the Whites will have the right to purchase land freely in the present so-called Bantu homelands.

Sir, I have just answered that question, but I will answer it again. As soon as South Africa is recognized as one multi-racial country where every citizen is free to purchase land …

When will that be? As soon as you take over?

No, nothing can happen as soon as we take over, any more than any of the United Party policies can be implemented the day after they come into power. But that is the direction and we will work for it as fast as possible and repeal as many laws as possible to enable South Africa to function as one multiracial country, in which White farmers living in Zululand will be able to remain in Zululand, if they wish to do so; they will be able to live there under what will be a predominantly Black federal state within a federal country, which is our proposition, as everybody ought to know by now—a geographic federation, as opposed to a racial federation. White farmers or other Whites in Zululand may remain right where they are, and indeed, this is exactly what Chief Buthelezi has suggested. He has said that the state of Zululand, which, of course, he also envisages as a consolidated area, will be glad to accommodate both White and Black with equal rights.

Tell us more about your federal policy.

Our federal policy was laid down in 1960 when the party was formed, and I will send the hon. the Deputy Minister a copy of it. I have already supplied a copy of it to the hon. member for Waterkloof and the hon. member for Rissik. We have always had a geographic federal policy in the Progressive Party.

It was a race federation.

No, it was not a race federation, it was a geographic federation. Sir, I wonder if I could get back to the resolution before the House. Our policy is so much more simple than anything that is offered by the Government, with its completely unrealistic plan of splitting South Africa into Black areas and White areas, and maybe Coloured areas and maybe Indian areas, or certainly residential areas but not homelands, as far as we know; and it is so much simpler than the official Opposition’s policy of having a race federation. It is an ordinary geographic federation such as there is in Canada, Australia, America or any other country which is run on a geographic federation basis. The sense of it is that you have autonomy in the local areas to run matters of local concern, and then you have a multi-racial federal government, duly elected by everybody on a common roll, if he qualifies, running the country as a federal entity; it is as simple as that. But the hon. member thinks only in terms of colour, and this is what worries me. He cannot think of this country in terms of a country with a population of 22 million people, living together and sharing the responsibilities of this country, and also sharing the privileges and the many advantages that this country has to offer; it is as simple as that. As I say, Sir, it would have been a different matter if this resolution had simply meant the acquisition of land under the Land Acts, in terms of which those protected areas were set aside, firstly in 1913, because White people were busy acquiring the whole of South Africa; so certain areas were set aside as protected areas for Africans; and to that area was added the further 7¼ million morgen under the 1936 Act, both in order to increase the area, which had clearly not been enough from the beginning, but also as compensation to the Africans on the common roll in the Cape for the deprivation of this vote in this House. As I say, more land should still have been added, since this Government is still in power, under its policy, when it deprived the Black people of their separate representation in 1960. Here we have the hon. the Minister coming along with a hotch-potch plan, a removal plan which will take thousands of people from the area where they are already settled and move them in order to satisfy the Government’s obsession for tidying up the racial map of South Africa, and what is more moving all these thousands of people without any consideration for what this is going to mean in human terms. Page 8 of the memorandum gives some sort of undertaking. It is stated that the excisions would take place only after the necessary compensatory land had been obtained and after the necessary services had been supplied and the necessary approval obtained for the excision of the scheduled areas. Now, if this resolution number two is adopted, the Houst is in fact in terms of the law giving the State President the right and the power at any time to order the removals and the pious protestations that we find on page 8 of the memorandum will have no force in law at all. The hon. the Minister can remove people and does not have to provide compensatory land or the necessary services. It is interesting to note that in the Transvaal memorandum, which is supposed to affect even more people—the estimated figure is 231 000 Africans, although that may not be correct—there are no assurances whatsoever about the prior condition of necessary services being provided.

It is not necessary to put it in here. We know it will be provided.

That is the trouble. It is not provided. But why put it in the one and not in the other? Why put it in the memorandum on Natal but leave it out of the one regarding the Transvaal? My point is that I know the hon. the Minister does not provide. I have only to look at the example of Limehill where Black spot removals took place and Africans were dumped on the veld.

I was there myself; you are wrong.

I too was there. Months after the Africans had been removed I was there, and I have been to Stinkwater and to Dimbaza, and Dimbaza only now has a clinic and it only recently acquired schools, and when people were first removed there they had no such things. At Limehill they lived in tents for at least eight months. They were dumped on the veld.

They were not. I saw the place.

Well, I saw the people living there. [Interjections.] All I can say is that you must have seen the place before the people arrived. I saw the place after the people had arrived, and I saw the shacks in which the people were living at Stinkwater months after they had arrived, and I saw the one water-pump which was available and there were no schools and no shops and no clinics or anything else. So how the hon. the Minister can tell me that, when he knows that he had to give an instruction to his department to cease these removals until adequate services had been provided, I do not know. So by no means in the past could one rely on the Government’s promise of providing the necessary services before thousands of people are removed in terms of its separate development policy.

They are slow to learn.

No, they do not really care, which is worse. Now, as I say, the people on whose behalf these large-scale removals are to take place are solidly against these proposals and I must say that very little consultation appears to have taken place. The hon. the Minister’s concept of consultation and mine of course differ completely. The hon. the Minister thinks that if his officials go along and they put plans in front of people and tell them what he is going to do, that is consultation. My idea of consultation is that the hon. the Minister should listen to objections and take some cognizance of the objections which are raised.

And that I do, my dear.

I am glad to hear that, my dear!

Order!

This is just a little exchange of endearment, Mr. Speaker; it does not mean a thing. I believe that, in short, in human terms this whole plan is going to prove disastrous. In human terms it cannot possibly be worthwhile for the future development of South Africa. I believe that we have to get on with the task of developing underdeveloped areas. That has always been the policy of my party, that the underdeveloped areas must be developed, but not at the expense of keeping people in areas where in fact little development can take place, and where there is very little possibility of these areas being able to support their existing population, let alone an increased population, at any decent standard of living. I have always felt that the solution to South Africa’s poor Black problem—I think all of us will agree that there is a poor Black problem in South Africa—is industrialization plus the maximum development of the so-called Reserves, the homelands, or whatever one wants to call them, in terms of agriculture, which may very well mean moving people off the land rather than putting them on the land …

I have said that many times.

Yes, I agree with the hon. the Minister there. It means the development of industries as far as possible inside those areas, but I am afraid the possibilities are not great, except in certain limited fields. In this connection I should like to refer to Babalegi which is a monument to the hon. the Minister’s homeland industrialization policy. Large numbers of factories have grown up there. This particular homeland happens to be lucky in that it is within striking distance from the Pretoria-Witwatersrand area.

And what about Butterworth and Isethebe?

No, they do not have a vast industrial potentiality for the simple reason that they are far from the market, that the necessary infrastructure does not exist, that transport facilities are poor, and so on. Those are the factors that determine the location of industry, apart from the availability of labour. I am all for the development of these areas. I am all for the acquisition of the last remaining inch of land under the 1936 Act. I am also all for the acquisition of further land …

Further land?

Oh yes, more land. If the Government intends going ahead with the homelands, it has to make more land available. The 1936 Act is inadequate and it was never intended for that purpose. One has only to read the statements made by Gen. Hertzog in those days to realize that. When Dr. Verwoerd came with a new plan, a new vision of the homeland concept, then complete rethinking should have taken place concerning the amount of land to be acquired, and also, as I say, as a compensation for the deprivation of the separate roll representation of the Africans in the Cape in this House. For all these reasons and because I think that we have our priorities wrong in this instance, and since the people involved strongly object and because this is not merely the acquisition of land in terms of the 1936 Act, I shall oppose the proposal.

Mr. Speaker, now that the dust has settled somewhat over the Zululand battle, I want to say something in connection with the Swazi homeland in the Eastern Transvaal. I do not intend to follow up any further on what the hon. member for Houghton said. She has perhaps said something here and there that has some merit and which the hon. the Minister will reply to, but I do want to say initially that what she has again said here proves to me again that what she and her party advocate is no geographic federation, indeed no geographic federation, in fact no race federation; it means, in truth, merely the ploughing under, the replacement of the Whites in South Africa. She said in her own words that the only thing she and her party desire in this country is a total multi-racial state. As an intelligent person she must be aware that if that were a policy that could be implemented and is going to be implemented, it would unquestionably mean the downfall of the Whites in South Africa, something which apparently means nothing to her in this House and outside.

However, I want to come back to the subject of my speech, i.e. the idea of a Swazi homeland in the Eastern Transvaal. In respect of my constituency in that area I am also grateful to be able to take part in this debate. This debate is historically important and will go down in history as one of the historically memorable debates because of the facts we are now giving substance to in the country. I want to say that I have listened to the debate that has been conducted here. I have heard of the opposition that there has been on the part of Natal, with hon. members opposite as the spokesmen. However, I am very grateful to be able to say that in the creation of this Swazi homeland in the Eastern Transvaal there was not the least opposition. There was no opposition from the United Party side either.

What did Albert say?

It has nothing to do with Albert. I am not speaking about Albert; I am now speaking about the United Party men of the Eastern Transvaal. I want to tell hon. members that throughout the years there has been quite a good sprinkling of fine dyed-in-the-wool United Party men in the Eastern Transvaal. They were there in Albert’s day, and they are still there in my day.

They are increasing in number.

I accept the fact that they are slowly disappearing, but hon. members know that one cannot get rid of a dyed-in-the-wool United Party man unless one beats him to death or he dies of natural causes. [Interjections.] I want to say that some of these people are also sensible people and that there are farmers who have been farming there for generations. They have accepted this situation. The Bantu Affairs Commission can attest to the fact as a result of the evidence furnished at the meetings which they held. The Bantu Affairs Commission would be able to attest to the fact that there were intelligent questions, but they will also be able to attest to the fact that there was complete unanimity. I can also attest to the fact that there was a complete consensus of opinion at all the meetings I held there— there were many of them and they were well-attended. For that reason I can confidently tell this Government that in respect of the Swazi homeland they may continue as planned with the utmost confidence. I want to express my thanks for the way in which this has been done; I want to express my thanks for the fact that departmental bodies kept their doors open; I want to express my thanks for the opportunity that was created for my voters to argue this matter at all levels, to discuss it and to consult with all the bodies that are involved. It is therefore astounding for me to hear from hon. members opposite that the necessary opportunities were not created for them. I want to say that the creation of this homelands is an ideal conception, as the hon. the Minister has presented it here. In this case we have not only obtained ideal consolidation, we have also got an influential position. In reality there was no consolidation; what has taken place is that the Swazi people of the Transvaal are being settled and re-settled by this measure. The difference between this area and the other homelands is that no black areas or black spots exist in that area at all. Here we have a completely new idea, an idea in terms of which a land area, which has to date been occupied exclusively by Whites, will for the first time be taken possession of and used with a view to a homeland. In my opinion this is a great idea. It is a fine area with a high rainfall, an area which has intact natural grazing, covering thousands of hectares. This area has fine potential. There are fertile valleys with perennial rivers which are suitable for the cultivation and irrigation of wheat, maize and tobacco.

In addition this area has a sub-tropical climate. On this land the trek farmers of the Eastern Transvaal farmed with sheep for half a century or more. There are miles and miles of man-made plantations which are a jewel to the eye. Therefore I feel myself at liberty to say that the relinquishing of this land by people who have farmed on it for so many years is indeed an act of faith. It is an act of faith on the part of men and women who are willing to make the sacrifice to ensure the future of the Whites in South Africa. It is an act of faith in terms of the continuation and assured existence of the Whites, but it is also an act of faith in terms of the policy of the National Party. These people, Nationalists but also farmers who have farmed for many years in this area and for whom relinquishing this land it has also been a great thing to decide about and resign themselves to, are doing this in a modest and humble way, because they know that the cause, which they are prepared to make a sacrifice for, is thereby being served. I have here a cutting from a newspaper in which several of these people give their opinions. Some of these farmers have more than 6 000 or 7 000 morgen of land on which they have farmed for years. Here one of these young farmers states, for example (translation): “We know, after all, that this is the outcome of our policy”. That is the judgment he has as an interested party. Here another one states (translation): “Here are the full consequences of our policy that Dr. Verwoerd also told us in the past we would have to bear”. Those are the outspoken ideas and confidence of people who are being asked to make a sacrifice and who are prepared to do so. That community’s message was such, as the Bantu Affairs Commission will remember when it was sitting there, that they expressed the wish and the hope that the land would be made use of in such a way that a succeeding generation would be able to say that the price that was paid was worth it. At present there are about 500 000 Swazis living in the Transvaal. Comparing this with the position in Swaziland, one finds that in Swaziland there are, in fact, only 400 000. In other words, there are more Swazis in the Transvaal than there are in Swaziland. Except for about 20% of them, they are chiefly a rustic community. They come originally from Swaziland and also still have tribal ties with Swaziland. They also still regard Swaziland as the land of their fathers. They also still regard the present king, King Sobhuza, as their king. Geographically there will consequently be little separation indeed between this community and Swaziland as such. We must certainly expect that there could possibly be a degree of flux to and fro. We must certainly present ourselves with the possibility that on occasions there may even be political agitation, but we shall overcome all that in the course of time. There will also be essential differences between Swaziland as a foreign state on the one hand, and this homeland in the Transvaal on the other. Swaziland as such is a completely multi-racial state, multiracial in the hon. member for Houghton’s definition of the term. The difference, however, is that 45% of Swaziland’s land belongs to Whites, people within the Republic of South Africa, while this will not be the case at all in this area which we have now created as a Swazi homeland. May I just ask in conclusion that since this is also going to be a restricted area, we must conscientiously ensure that when people are shifted there only Swazis will be transferred. We know that people can be shifted from the north where there is a conglomeration of various peoples, for example the Shangaans, etc. We also know that here in the south there are many Zulus who can possibly be diverted and canalized in the direction of Zululand. May we then ask, viewing this ethnically, that we initially set to work in such a way that when this homeland is settled only Swazis will be settled there. I believe that this embodies realistic benefits for us in that area since we now have to try to clear up other areas. I believe and trust, too, that the creation of this homeland will not only be to the benefit of the Swazi people but also to the benefit of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is rather surprising to hear the hon. member for Ermelo make the claim that he was not aware of anyone in the Eastern Transvaal objecting to the proposals for the consolidation of the Swazi homeland. I am quite sure that if he were to talk to the hon. member for Langlaagte, the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, he would be told that representations by the Southern Lowveld Farmers’ Association were heard by the commission in January, representations in which they objected in the most strenuous terms to the take-over of the so-called corridor along the Swazi border. The Southern Lowveld Farmers’ Association …

They were not objecting to the principle.

There were unanimous objections while that hon. member said he did not know of any objections. What is more, they went so far as to object specifically in respect of the farms that the proposals sought to take over, namely all of the farms opposite Louw’s Creek. The hon. gentleman must know of that area. He must know very well of those proposals. If he does not, one can only come to the conclusion that he does not know his own area and that he does not do his job properly. The hon. member made another surprising statement. He said that as far as he knew no members of the United Party in the area had objected. That is not true.

It is true.

It is not true at all. I have here before me a letter from our divisional chairman in the area, in which he sets out his objections very clearly. If the Select Committee had been prepared to hear evidence, they would have heard this gentleman’s evidence and they would have heard his objections. You see, Sir, the hon. member is talking in the dark; he is making assertions he cannot substantiate.

I want to turn for a moment to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, if I can just get his attention. That hon. gentleman regretted the fact that the United Party members had walked out of the Select Committee.

I said that I take exception to it.

Yes, he took exception to it. Those were his exact words. He asked why they took this step and why they did not stay and ask the questions they wanted to ask. He said, too, that if necessary, they could have produced a minority report. Those were his questions. I am quite sure that the hon. the Minister, seeing that the hon. member is a senior member of the Bantu Affairs group on that side of the House, will also want to know why this was so. Unfortunately I cannot get the hon. Minister’s attention. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad—I am addressing the hon. the Minister now—wanted to know why the United Party members on the Select Committee did not stay in the Select. Committee and produce a minority report. I take it that the hon. the Minister wants to know the answer to that, too. Well, it surprises me that I, a backbencher of this House, have to tell the hon. member for Wolmaransstad who is a Whip on the Government side, that he does not even know the basic rules of procedure of this House. He should know that members of a Select Committee cannot produce a minority report. I refer him only to Standing Order No. 175 which reads—

That, I am afraid, is very much the measure of the hon. gentleman’s speech. It was a blustering and a bullying speech. He started off very arrogantly be telling the members of Parliament for Natal—and I take it that he included the members on his side of the House—that they had better tell their voters in Natal that Natal is a part of the Republic. He continued and said that the sooner they realized that Natal was governed by the Nationalist Party the better. He was talking in terms of these proposals. I want to tell him that Natal is the best governed province of this country. I want to tell him that the people of Natal, as the people of the United Party elsewhere in this country, will not stand for that sort of blustering and bullying. The sooner he knows it the better. And while we are dealing with Natal, I am sorry that the hon. member for Vryheid is not here. I am, however, glad that the other two Natal members are here. I want to refer to the hon. member for Vryheid who has perhaps said more than any other hon. member in this debate. Even though he only spoke for about ten of his 30 minutes, he certainly had a tremendous lot to say while he was sitting down. When it was mentioned by the hon. member for South Coast that there was no Natal member of the Government on the Select Committee, he said it was “not necessary”. He said it in a tone of voice that implied that as far as he was concerned it did not matter. I only hope that that hon. gentleman, especially when he goes back to Natal to explain the final proposals and the conduct of this Government that he will tell the people there of the contemptuous attitude that he had towards them.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, not at the moment. If I have the time, I shall reply later.

How many Transvaal members have you got on the Committee?

I shall give you that some time later. I heard the hon. member’s question. We do not take that contemptuous attitude that was taken by the hon. member for Vryheid. That is the difference. The hon. member for Vryheid, also from his seat, made another interesting remark while the hon. member for South Coast was speaking. The hon. member for South Coast said that these proposals were unacceptable to the majority of the people of Natal. He then said: “That is not so.” One asks again why he did not say this in his speech and why he saved this gem until he was sitting in his seat. I am quite sure that the people of Natal, Black and White, would be only too interested to hear from the senior Government member in this House from Natal, that they are all—to a man—happy with these proposals. So much for the attitude of the Natal members. I trust that we shall hear some more about their attitude and that we will perhaps have a few explanations from them.

I want to deal this evening with one particular aspect of these consolidation proposals, namely the portions in the two separate proposals in which the hon. the Minister is now asking Parliament to agree to give him final powers—if one can put it that way—to order the summary removal of tribes from the areas of land which are now being taken from them in terms of these proposals; in other words those areas that are being excised.

This power which the hon. the Minister is seeking in these proposals is being sought in terms of legislation which passed through this Chamber earlier this year— the Bantu Laws Amendment Act—which has already been promulgated. This Act amended the Bantu Administration Act, and had the effect of providing the hon. the Minister with certain powers in connection with the removal of tribes. What I am suggesting to the hon. the Minister— and I shall motivate this in due course— is that he need not, and should not, have used the additional powers that were granted him by the amending Act passed earlier this year. Instead I submit that in widespread proposals of this sort, proposals about which we in Parliament are largely in the dark even at this stage, he should have done his utmost, as Minister of Bantu Administration, to avoid forcing tribes and tribesmen from their land in any summary manner. After all, in his position as Minister, he should, I suppose in theory at least, be regarded as the protector of these people, and especially of the tribal Africans, and not as a despot who seeks the legal right to order people from their land and to enforce the mass removal of hundreds of thousands of people from land that has been theirs for a very long time indeed.

In some instances this is land which these people were told would be theirs in perpetuity, and which they have developed accordingly. The hon. the Minister knows of areas in which this has been the position and in which the tribesmen have done a considerable amount to develop those areas by way of the provision of schools, clinics and so on. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that he should not have used the additional powers that were granted him this year. I want to suggest that he should firstly have examined whether he should not perhaps have acted in the way he would have acted had this legislation not been passed in this respect. Let us look at the position that obtained before the passing of the Bantu Laws Amendment Act, and which still obtains today, because the Minister can still act either way, in the old way or the new way. There is nothing indeed in the Bantu Administration Act as it stands at the moment to preclude the Minister from acting exactly as he would have acted under the law as it stood before this year’s amendment was promulgated.

I want to submit that the proper course of conduct for the Minister should have been to follow the old method, which he can still do if he wants to, and if he is prepared to drop certain of the proposals before the House. Under the Bantu Administration Act as it stood until earlier this year a set procedure was laid down if tribes objected to being moved. What was required then was that, upon the refusal or neglect of tribe to move, the Minister had to come to both Houses of Parliament separately for a resolution sanctioning the enforcement of these removal orders. This is a thing that was debated earlier this year, but it is very material in the case of these proposals before the House this evening. As we stated at the time when we opposed the legislation earlier this year, this procedure then gave disaffected tribesmen the opportunity to state their objections before Parliament was called upon to agree to their enforced removal.

In other words, Parliament itself was able to judge the merits of each case and to make its decisions accordingly. That could still be done, but the hon. the Minister has chosen not to do it. Instead, Sir, he has opted to make use of the amended provisions of the Bantu Administration Act to ask Parliament now for powers to enforce what I referred to earlier this year as a package deal, in which he asked Parliament not only to agree to the proposals affecting the consolidation of the Bantu areas, but at the same time he seeks to obtain, in advance, parliamentary approval to enforce the removals, regardless of what objections might be raised, by the tribes when they are finally ordered to move. Sir, if these proposals before us now are agreed to—and here I refer to the proposal that the Minister be given carte blanche to enforce removals—gone will be the protection that the tribesmen should have been afforded by this Parliament; gone, Sir, will be their hopes, or their expectations, of receiving a fair hearing from Parliament on the merits of each case.

Let us remind ourselves that we in Parliament are those to whom these people should naturally turn for justice and fair play. Everything is now being left to the discretion of the Minister to decide, in his own time and according to his own lights, and what he decides has the full force of law. Sir, what is clear, especially in these cases, is that while he might have the legal power, if these proposals are approved, to enforce the removals summarily, I suggest that he certainly will not have the moral right to do so. I believe that in bringing forward the proposals in this manner, the Minister is not even honouring an assurance given to us in this House on 15th February, less than four months ago, by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, who, when this very question had been raised by, among others, the hon. member for Transkei and the hon. member for South Coast and myself, told Parliament the following, in dealing with this prospect of enforced removals—

And he was talking about this kind of plan that we have before us this evening—

Now, Sir, I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this undertaking by the Deputy Minister has been honoured in this case. I want to ask him whether this Parliament has had the opportunity properly of going into the matter, whether the tribes themselves have had the sort of notice to have enabled them to come to us, as Members of Parliament, to make representations. I think in every case the answer must be, no. In other words, the very words of the Deputy Minister on 15th February this year have already proved meaningless. I think I heard the hon. Minister ask in an interjection— he can correct me if I am wrong—why we did not continue to serve on the Select Committee.

You did not make use of the opportunity you had.

The hon. member for Newcastle says that we did not make use of the opportunity we had, but what opportunity did we have? The only opportunity afforded us—and we must remember that the Select Committee is part of Parliament—would have been the opportunity to examine members of the hon. the Minister’s department. How can that conceivably amount to giving the people affected a fair parliamentary hearing? I should like to hear that from the Minister.

Sit down and I will tell you.

You tell us.

The hon. member for Parow says he will tell us. I should be extremely grateful if he could explain it because if he comes up with the reason he can do none other than gainsay the attitude of the chairman of the Select Committee. I might add that even though the hon. member comes from Parow, which is a long distance from the Transvaal and from Natal, these proposals before us this evening affect the country as a whole and I think he should wipe that smile off his face. [Interjection.] If one then accepts at all what the Deputy Minister for Bantu Development said on 15th February one must then ask oneself: Are the actual affairs of the people who will in future have to move being discussed here today? And of course the answer is, no. Neither the hon. members on that side of the House nor we on this side of the House are in a position to guess what might happen at some future time when the hon. the Minister orders the tribesmen to move. And let us bear in mind that we are not dealing with a few people here. On the hon. the Minister’s own figures we are dealing with something over 350 000 people.

Nonsense. Where do you get that from?

Sir, I am surprised that the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission should ask that because the Transvaal proposals say: “The proposed excisions imply the removal of approximately 231 000 Bantu,” while the Natal proposals—let us get it on record—say “the proposed excisions imply the removal of approximately 132 000 Bantu”.

You said a quarter of a million.

I am glad to see that the hon. member now swallows his words and I hope that before he says “nonsense” again he will think twice. [Interjections.] Let us ask ourselves: Do these tribesmen themselves know anything about the real details of these consolidation proposals?

Naturally.

Naturally, he says. How can they? The memoranda submitted by the Bantu Affairs Commission cannot be regarded as proper notice to each tribe, or any of the earlier proposals that were put up, these technical maps that were produced. In any event, even at the late stage at which the memoranda were produced for our benefit by the Bantu Affairs Commission, they were not the final memoranda; they were altered before the final proposals, as we have them here tonight, were printed in the minutes.

Which is the report of the Commission?

I am sorry about the ignorance of that hon. gentleman. He should know what I refer to when I am talking about the memoranda. So we ask what consultation there has been, if any, with the tribesmen themselves. The hon. the Minister, when he introduced the debate, mentioned that there had been consultation with each of the various homeland governments about the plans, at various times and in different places, and he said that they could give satisfaction in certain ways while in other ways they could not give satisfaction. He was of course speaking from the point of view of the department. But I should be grateful if somebody on that side of the House would enlighten us as to just what detailed consultation has taken place. If one looks at the attitude taken by some of the homeland leaders, one must ask oneself whether consultation took place at all, or, if it did, whether the talks which the hon. the Minister and his department had were of such a fruitless nature that nothing whatever was achieved. However, what we can say is that we as a Parliament had no opportunity to consult with the people who are being affected. Here I refer specifically to the Bantu people and the Bantu governments. We as a Parliament had not been given any opportunity whatever to consult.

You ran away.

I take it amiss that the hon. member for Langlaagte should say we ran away.

You ran away from the Select Committee.

We did not run away; we walked out in protest because the very thing of which I have been complaining was not allowed in the Select Committee. If I may say so, I want to tell that hon. member that he has no sense of justice if he thinks that this is the proper way to run a Parliament or a proper way for a Parliament to deal with things.

He ran away from the evidence.

Yes, it might be said that that hon. gentleman ran away from the evidence. That is a true reflection of what happened.

I have all the evidence.

Yes, of course he was prepared to take the evidence of the department—the processed evidence— but he was not prepared to listen to the evidence of the people directly affected.

I listened to more evidence than you would ever hear.

As a parliamentarian—I am not talking in regard to his chairmanship of the Bantu Affairs Commission. I want to ask the hon. the Minister about his intentions in some other respects. The amendments passed earlier this year to the Bantu Administration Act provide that where tribes are to be moved, the Minister must first consult with the Minister of the Black Government concerned before ordering a tribe, a portion of a tribe, a Bantu community or Bantu to move. The conditions that he imposes for such removal must be determined by him after such consultation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, to begin with I want to reply to the allegation the hon. member for Kensington made when he said that it was not possible for a Select Committee to submit a minority report. I want to quote from Kilpin—

[Interjections.] To prove that the United Party members of the Select Committee, and the hon. member for Transkei in particular, were aware of this procedure, I want to point out that on 25th May, 1972, he submitted a report for discussion dealing with the findings of the Select Committee on Charges by Members. If that procedure is followed, the details may be taken up in the Minutes, but the U.P. members turned their back on that procedure. The hon. member for Transkei said: “We left the Select Committee because we did not want to speak in ignorance.” Is their ignorance a result of the lack of contact which hon. members on that side of the House have with their voters and the inhabitants of the various constituencies of South Africa? Is that the lack of contact they have, that if they cannot hear evidence from outside, they must necessarily speak in ignorance? That is the kind of lack of contact which exists in the United Party. No wonder, therefore, that they walked out because they would otherwise have been “ignorant”.

I think it was the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Mooi River who spoke about fragmentation and said that this was not a plan for consolidation, but one of fragmentation instead.

It was not I.

I agree that this is not the ideal solution. Yesterday the hon. the Minister also said that this was not the ideal solution, because we were unable to make one area out of these different areas. This does not apply to KwaZulu only, but to all the Bantu areas. Nevertheless it is an improvement on the state of affairs in the past. The fragmentation in Natal is not the work of this Government, nor of the United Party, but of their kindred spirits of the previous century. It was the British colonial government that fragmented Natal to such a degree and which fragmented Natal into more than 200 separate Bantu areas. This may perhaps have been a solution to the problems of the previous century, but this Government has to attempt to find new solutions for the present circumstances.

What about the Transvaal?

I am not quite happy with the final plan as submitted to this House. However, the position is quite simply that for practical considerations it is barely possible to obtain a single or even two consolidated areas in Natal. It was the hon. member for Transkei who said that it was we who were engaged in nation building and that in their plans they wanted to have nothing to do with nation building. He also referred to the 1936 legislation and said that it was not consistent with the principles of nation building. It is quite correct that that principle was not yet at issue in 1936. Nor was that principle the main object in 1948. In 1948 there were four independent states on the entire continent of Africa. It is only after nation building had become the fashion throughout the world that we too were confronted with it as an essential solution. Since the 1936 legislation had not yet been applied in full, it was an ideal opportunity for us, and it ought to have been an ideal opportunity for the Opposition as well, to combine the application of that Act with the idea of nation building.

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.05 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, before the House adjourned, I was discussing the idea of nation building. The hon. member for Transkei said that nation building does not form part of their plan. But the idea of national building is implicit in the entire development pattern of Africa and must therefore form part of the development pattern of Southern Africa and the various territories of South Africa as well. An important question arises now. After all, ours is not the only party that has admitted that it has a policy. Surely the United Party declares that it, too, has a policy. Their policy of race federation also makes provision for nation building, does it not? Now the question arises whether they endorse the principle of a single nation. If that is the case, how do they make provision for their race federation without giving attention to the consolidation aspect of the various Bantu areas? Would they make provision in their federation plan for more than 200 separate Bantu areas in Natal, and that in their federation plan? Unless they are able to give an answer in that regard, this answer will remain outstanding for all time.

Not in a twisted manner like you did at Klip River.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the hon. member for Durban North said that the hon. member for Klip River should not distort again as he did at a specific meeting.

I am not suggesting that he did it here under your surveillance, Sir.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw his imputation.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, earlier on one of the hon. gentlemen on that side of the House suggested in another context that there had been a “verdraaiing”.

… of the policy. The hon. member must withdraw.

Mr. Speaker, I will have great difficulty …

Order! I did not ask the hon. member to withdraw from the Chamber, but to withdraw what he had said.

I will have great difficulty in complying with your ruling, Sir.

I appeal to the hon. member to withdraw it; it is not such a serious matter.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, this question of twisting or “verdraaiing” always leads to trouble in the House as to when it can be used and when not. In the ordinary sense of the word I think “verdraaiing” should be admissible. I have argued this before, but this afternoon we heard the words “growwe verdraaiing” used here by the hon. member for Langlaagte.

Order! It was not meant to be personal. It was used in a general sense. He did not say “the hon. member …” [Interjections.] Order! He did not say that any hon. member twisted the facts.

The accusation was against an hon. member that he gave a ‘“growwe verdraaiing”.

No, he did not say “hy het verdraai”.

But that was the implication.

No. I appeal to the hon. member for Durban North to withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the hon. member for Langlaagte earlier today accused me personally of a “growwe verdraaiing”, those were his words, of facts before the Bantu Affairs Commission at Dundee. It was a personal reflection upon me and it was allowed. In those circumstances I do not see why the hon. member should be asked to leave or withdraw his statement.

Order! I shall look it up in Hansard and, if it is so, I shall ask the hon. member for Langlaagte to withdraw it. I shall do so tomorrow, but I think the hon. member for Durban North must withdraw his statement in the meantime.

Mr. Speaker, in view of your statement now, I withdraw it.

The hon. member may proceed.

It almost seemed as though the hon. member for Durban North felt like going home early tonight.

Order! The hon. member for Klip River may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To come to the proposals as they affect Natal, and my constituency in particular, I must express my appreciation to the Select Committee for having proposed that the plan in regard to the three Bantu areas in the Upper Tugela area, be referred back to the Minister. Although the proposals included plans to amend the Bantu area comprising the Drakensberg locations Nos. 1 and 2 and the Upper Tugela location in such a way as not to include the Tugela River or the Bushmen’s River, it is still important that all the tributaries flowing into the Tugela should be developed for conservation purposes in such a way that it will in fact be possible for large-scale conservation and water utilization plan to be devised. The Tugela is the river with the greatest flow of water in Southern Africa, and the additional water from the Upper Tugela region is in the vicinity of 818 million gallons per day.

What do you want to do about it?

That water is sufficient to supply three and a half times the domestic and industrial consumption of the 20 largest towns and cities in South Africa. The only possibility in accordance with which meaningful development of this area could take place, would be if the mass of the population which at present consists mostly of Zulus, is removed from the area.

Where to?

What is important, is that in principle it is not important whether they are Zulus, Whites, Coloureds or Indians. Whoever they may be, if the people there carry on subsistence farming practices, it will not be possible to develop that area for conservation and water utilization purposes. For that reason it is in my opinion imperative for a plan other than the previous plan to be made, as will in fact happen since the matter has been referred back for reconsideration.

Included in the whole plan for the consolidation of various areas, it goes without saying that a large-scale resettlement is going to take place. Resettlement as such is not a negative concept or, at least, it need not be a negative concept. In most cases where resettlement has taken place, the people who have had to be resettled, have been resettled under greatly improved circumstances. I would definitely not be in favour of the idea that the Bantu areas should be regarded as “dumping grounds”, and the hon. the Deputy Minister for Bantu Administration and Education has expressed the same view. I would not be in favour of the idea that they should simply be removed and placed in areas where they would be unable to make a living. But this plan of resettlement is nevertheless an essential requirement as far as the meaningful development of South Africa is concerned, seen in the light of political development in Africa. It makes it imperative for such a plan to be executed. I regard it as extremely irresponsible of the Opposition to simply wash their hands of this matter and say that they want nothing to do with any plan for large-scale resettlement. This is something which is essential for the effective economic, political and social development of Southern Africa and for the maintenance of good relations among all the various peoples of Southern Africa. There can therefore be one solution only, and that is to execute this plan.

May I ask the hon. member whether this is a socio-economic conservation problem or a problem of political consolidation for political purposes?

If those two aspects could be linked, both being a requirement, it would after all be so much better. We are in the process of linking both of those aspects into a single development plan. But the United Party flinches from this aspect. They say that they would be in favour of consolidation if it were necessary for economic purposes only. But they flinch from the political implications. That is the reason, and the only reason, why their members left the Select Committee. In my opinion it constitutes political irresponsibility to act in such a way. For this reason this action has to be rejected by the members of this House as well as by the voters of South Africa and particularly the voters of Natal, including those who formerly supported the United Party. I challenge the hon. member for South Coast to approach the farmers of this catchment area and ask them whether they would be in favour of these three large Bantu areas, which are estimated to contain in the region of 100 000 Bantu, being consolidated, and whether they would be in favour of the resettlement of those Bantu. If the United Party flinches from that idea, it is simply playing politics and is doing South Africa and its own supporters a disservice.

Mr. Speaker, in the course of my speech I shall be answering some of the remarks of the hon. member for Klip River. However, I want to start by mentioning the background, against which this resolution must be seen. This background was set by the hon. the Minister himself when he spoke during the discussion of his own Vote. He said that the clock was almost at midnight. He spoke in that vein and indicated how fatal a view, if he was a fatalist, might be taken in this regard. It is against this state of affairs that his actions and this motion should be viewed. Before I pass to discussing it, I want to say: What a commentary is this not upon this Nationalist Government that after 25 years, we are told by the man in charge of race relations in the field of the Bantu that we are almost at midnight! If ever there was a condemnation of where they had brought the country, you have it in those words of the hon. the Minister. Indeed, this is, unfortunately, all too true. What makes it worse, is that this proposal and the actions of the Government leading up to it have very much exacerbated the position and wasted the time and the goodwill we still have. So, Sir, against that background I say this motion must be considered. Naturally, it is especially in Natal that this proposal will diminish further the goodwill. But also in the Transvaal there will be much goodwill lost as a result of these proposals. Indeed, in the Transvaal over 200 000 Bantu, it is admitted on the papers, are to be moved. In Natal, on the papers before the Select Committee, over 100 000, and, to the sure knowledge of many people on this side, probably well over 200 000 people will be removed. This is a vast number of people to move. If it was being done with the approval of all concerned, it might have been acceptable. But in fact it is being done with the approval of no one concerned. It has been rejected first and foremost by the Zulu people whom it is designed to please. It has been rejected by the White people and it has been rejected by the Coloureds and the Indians.

That is an irresponsible statement.

All right. Let me just read to the hon. member for Newcastle one or two quotations from the mouth of Chief Buthelezi who, I take it he will agree, can speak for the Zulu people. As reported in September, 1972, Chief Buthelezi said, among other things—

Later, on the 28 th April, this year, we find the following—

This is, sad to relate, the reaction of the leader of the Zulu people, who are meant to be thanking heaven for what the Government are giving them. They see it as a joke. It is this sort of action which is taking place when the hon. the Minister says the clock is pointing close to midnight. Mr. Speaker, who in this House can really deny that these ten pieces do not constitute a territory upon which you can establish a state? There is no precedent for anything of this kind in history, and nobody in this House truly believes that you can establish a state upon it. These people, Mr. Speaker, regard themselves as South Africans and as people who are entitled to a share of the cake. The hon. member for Klip River underlined and supported the argument which Chief Buthelezi uses.

When?

He said in his speech here immediately before mine that in 1936, and even in 1948, the question of “nasiebou was nie ter sprake nie”. In other words, he is saying that at the time of the 1936 arrangement there was no consideration of the possibility of the establishment of a separate independent state.

It was implicit in the arrangement.

This is the very argument which he uses. Is the hon. member for Klip River now running away from his statement? He apparently stands by it, but the hon. the Chief Whip is in disagreement. The trouble is, Mr. Speaker, that it is quite plain, in view of the reaction of all concerned to this proposal, and in particular the reaction of the Zulu people, who call it a joke and who at other times say it is a fraud, that it is not going to advance to good race relations which are so essential.

What do you know about Zululand anyway?

I know very little about Zululand, and I will come back to that when I deal with the Select Committee, but what I do know is that the spokesman of those people, who is in that position in terms of Government policy, has said, and I believe it gives that hon. member as much concern as it does anybody in this House; or, if it does not, it should. It is quite plain, on the utterances that have been made, that the Zulu authority has no intention of taking the proffered independence. What, therefore, is achieved by this exercise? No good is achieved by it, and yet we are to have the movement of at least 200 000 people, against their will. Dr. J. H. Moolman, a specialist in the matter of land and what territory is suitable for a nation-state, says that it is only the Transkei that has sufficient territory to form a state. He therefore indicates that the Transvaal areas which are being set aside do not form a proper territory for a state. Sir, when one realizes this, one can see the true reaction of hon. members opposite to these proposals, not so much in what they say as in what they do. Sir, I think it is in Macbeth that we read that when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were contemplating the murder of Duncan, the King of Scotland, they used words to this effect: “If murder needs must be done, ’twere best ’twere done quickly.” This is shown very much in the actions of hon. members opposite. They know that this is a deed of dire consequences and they are rushing it through at every stage; they did so especially at the Select Committee stage. Sir, we saw in the actions of the Bantu Affairs Commission that there was no concerted attempt to get the whole problem sorted out. The Bantu Affairs Commission first placed one plan before the interested parties and then a vastly different plan. Indeed, the hon. member for Langlaagte said that in one plan it was proposed to move 350 000 people in Natal, and under a later plan only 120 000 people.

Where did I say that?

In his speech here this afternoon.

I said 132 000 people.

The interested people were given a very quick sight, but very little more, of these plans of an entirely different nature, and when we came to the Select Committee, even less opportunity was given to us to improve upon these plans.

And you walked out.

The hon. member for Newcastle said, and said quite correctly: “What do you know about Zululand?”. Indeed, I know very little about Zululand, but I served on the Select Committee. I obviously have a particular knowledge of the urban Bantu of whom there are millions in our midst, and I had a duty as a member of the Select Committee to bring my mind to bear upon these problems and help to come forward with a better plan. I want to remind this House, Sir, that it was no less a person than the Minister himself who said, after the plans for Natal and the Transvaal were first made known, that these were not the final plans, but that the final plans would be forthcoming from the Select Committee; that is what he said. He was therefore indicating the importance of the work of that Select Committee. Sir, let us examine that. When I went along to the Select Committee I, doubtless like other hon. members, did not know the areas affected. We had before us a request from a very important body to be allowed give evidence before us—and there were many others lining up to do the same—and they were very directly affected. I must say that in my innocence I certainly thought that we would take advantage of the opportunity to hear the people concerned. Imagine my surprise when this was completely forbidden.

By whom?

It was prevented by the action of Government members. It was completely forbidden.

What is more, there was not a single Natal member on their side on the Committee.

And not a single Transvaal member from your side.

Surely that is a reason for hearing evidence.

You see, Sir, by every interjection they make, they only indicate further how much they were in need of information. Here we have the situation that hundreds of thousands of people were to be moved and none were to be given an opportunity to come and put forward counter proposals or to make any suggestions whatsoever. I believe that that was a definite abuse of the procedure of a Select Committee, more particularly in the light of the importance which the hon. the Minister purported to attach to the Select Committee when he originally made the proposals known. I say therefore that it was indeed an abuse of the procedure of the Select Committee, and it was a case of Government members refusing to face the facts. That is why I say that they felt that if murder were to be done, ’twere best ’twere done quickly. [Interjections.]

May I put a question to the hon. member? I should like to hear from the hon. member, who is a member of the Select Committee, whether there was not a similar inquiry last year, too, on the question of the making of representations to the Select Committee on the Ciskei, and whether they then heard representations, and, if not, whether they then walked out or stayed on?

The position was fully explained by the hon. member for Transkei. I do not know whether the hon. member was in the Chamber when the hon. member for Transkei dealt with this whole aspect. I do not think he was in the Chamber.

It would have made no difference.

I believe there were several differences. I am doubtful whether they actually made the request at all to give evidence.

But you were a member.

Secondly, Sir, it was fully explained by the hon. member for Transkei that people who wished to bring their position to the attention of the Select Committee, in fact did come and have long discussions with the hon. member for Transkei and others who were on this Select Committee.

And with Government members.

Sir, it is an entirely different situation.

I want to move to a close and I merely want to say that it is actions of this kind which push the clock ever closer to midnight. An action is being taken here which has absolutely no advantage for race relations in South Africa. It is a completely futile exercise by the Government. They knew very well when they embarked upon this, or certainly when they had embarked halfway upon it, that it was a futile exercise and that it was entirely unacceptable to the Zulu people, as well as to the Whites and other groups in South Africa. They showed no concern for the whole province of Natal. Sir, if this is the sort of spirit which the Government is going to bring about in the minds of the Bantu people of South Africa, I want to ask them whether they remain serious about this notion of theirs that there should be a commonwealth of South Africa. Sir, we heard that it was Government policy to have a commonwealth of South Africa. One knows that the members of the British Commonwealth of old were originally all very good friends and that with the passage of time certain differences and a certain amount of ill-will crept in. But does the Government seriously want to tell this House that it still has in mind a commonwealth of the states of South Africa, when, before it has even embarked upon this policy, before it has done more than merely to announce it in the most sketchy terms, it is already setting up a degree of confrontation, of which we can see evidence already.

The hon. member for Pinelands built up his whole speech around what Buthelezi’s plans are with respect to independence. He also spoke about the Select Committee, and the only thing he complained about, in connection with the whole consolidation proposal here, was that so many people would be shifted. That is about all he said. He said: “It is rejected by all the people.” These are broad and wild statements. I just want to remind the hon. member for Pinelands about one thing, i.e. that one election after another has been fought about these consolidation proposals. Today we are sitting here with a majority of 70. That is the background, and not as he stated when he referred to the Minister’s speech in which he said that it was a minute to twelve. The Minister said so, but he said so as a warning. He asked the Whites to come together and reach a consensus. But I want to tell the hon. the Minister that he can really forget about that. We shall not arrive at any consensus with those people. The hon. member said here that the people should not be shifted. Now I want to know this: How on earth can one consolidate if one has a tremendous number of areas throughout a province—in Natal they apparently have more than 200—and how on earth can one consolidate and bring people together if one cannot shift them? But all those hon. members say there must be one area. The hon. member for Zululand is apparently quite satisfied provided there is one area. Then he is quite satisfied with the consolidation, but I am asking how one is going to bring those people together in one area if one does not shift them. Now I also want to tell the hon. member for Pinelands that he must at least obtain some perspective about the matter. He must realize that there are 10 Bantu peoples in this country. Zululand has only four million out of 14 million. There are many others that are also involved in the matter. Now there is an argument about separate areas, but if there are separate areas in a country, it does not make that country any less a fatherland. It does not make that country less productive and viable than it is. There are also separate areas in other parts of the world. Administration presents no problems. The Roman Empire proved to us how it could administer the whole world in the form of separate areas, and the British Empire also did so. Today, with modern communication aids, administration creates no problems. But I want to tell you that there is one problem; there is only one problem with the separate areas and that is the individual movement of people from the one area to the other. We are now engaged in creating this situation specifically to help those people. We specifically want to help those Black people. Are we now going to put a spoke in the wheel and make it impossible for them to administer their area by not allowing them to move? No, I do not think those are good arguments the hon. member has used. I want to say to the Opposition in general that they contradicted themselves a great deal, but in actual fact I think we have saved Natal. It is time it was consolidated, and I do not know what would have happened to Natal if this had not happened. But I want to come back and congratulate the hon. the Minister very heartily this evening on these proposals that are before the House.

What do the farmers of Pietersburg say?

I shall tell you what the farmers of Pietersburg say. For me and for the farmers of Pietersburg in general these proposals are the realization of a very great political ideal. I grew up there, and even when I was still a boy in short pants, throughout the years, we were of the fact that in our area we would eventually have to give up our land to the Black man. That uncertainty has always been with us, until this evening; this evening we see the great culmination of the National Party’s Colour policy. I want to teil you that I think it is so fitting that 90% of this consolidation should take place in the National Party’s 25th year of rule. We cannot continue with our sustained political march of triumph to the year 2000, because we are now laying the foundations for that. And then I want to add the following. This evening the hon. member for South Coast said that history will prove how wrong we are, but I want to tell him this evening that the success story of the National Party’s Colour policy will be recorded and it will be recorded in the future, and when that success story is written, it will go down in history in gold lettering, and on the horizon we shall read the name of Dr. Verwoerd, its architect, and we shall read the name of Mr. M. C. Botha, the one who built up this success story of the National Party. But the names of the Mitchells, the Cadmans and the Thompsons will be lost in history’s oblivion. No one will even refer to them. I think the children of the Cadmans will be grateful to the National Party for what we are doing this evening.

Sir, this evening we have had a great opportunity to speak in unison to the Black people of South Africa.

Who are you bluffing?

I am not bluffing anyone. I want to tell the hon. member that the National Party knows what the aspirations of the Black people are much better than those hon. members opposite do. [Interjections.]

You know this even better than the Black people themselves do.

Oh, let that hon. member rather keep quiet because every time he opens his mouth he lands himself in trouble. What I am saying is that I am really disappointed in the standpoint which the United Party has adopted here. I think that the apologetic attitude they have adopted here is absolutely disastrous to the White people, and one is amazed to think that those promises were made as far back as 1936, and now that we are keeping those promises they are opposing the issue. I do not know for what reason they are doing so.

I want to come a little closer to my own area. I have here a newspaper cutting. A new leader was elected in the Lebowa area on 8th May, and now I want to show you just how people from the English Press are trying to botch up the relations between Whites and Blacks. The person concerned is Mr. Phatudi, and I should just like to take this opportunity of congratulating him very sincerely on his election and wishing him everything of the best. Mr. Phatudi is an ex-inspector of education and has a B.A., B.Ed. qualification, a responsible person. The day after he was elected, the English Press came to him. The newspaper concerned was the Daily Mail, and the reporter, strangely enough, was a chap by the name of Philip van der Merwe. This person came along and interviewed him, and the next day when Mr. Phatudi read this newspaper, he almost fell on his back, for what was stated there? It was stated that he had said, inter alia—

He was also supposed to have said—

The heading was “Lebowa leader wants White towns”. In other words, he claims them. Immediately there was a commotion amongst the Whites. They did not know what was going on. Subsequently another interview was held with Mr. Phatudi and this is what he then said. He said that he fully supported the homelands policy of the Government.

Whom did he speak to?

He went further and explained what he had said. He had said that it did not in any way mean that he wanted to take the said towns. All he said was that he was worried about how he was going to rule Lebowa well if it was divided into five pieces. He then thought that if possible it would suit him if the White towns were included. I also want to state what Mr. Phatudi said further—it is interesting to hear this (translation)—

I want to tell that hon. member, who knows so much, that Mr. Phatudi also said that he trusted the Government, the National Party and the Afrikaner. He said he had a very great respect for the Afrikaner and for what the Afrikaner has done for himself. He continued by saying—

We understand this. Our self-determination policy proves it. But those hon. members, represented by the hon. member for Transkei, do not accept this, do not understand the Black man’s aspirations because this afternoon he said that in 1936 there was no idea of nation building, and he did not see why it is necessary either, the land must be used “for beneficial occupation”. He begrudges these people their aspirations for self-determination.

Mr. Speaker, just before he concluded, the hon. member for Pietersburg accused the hon. member for Transkei of having said that the 1936 Act was not intended for nation building. I want to ask the hon. member whether he agrees with the hon. member for Klip River who said in this House this evening that the 1936 Act never had nation building in South Africa in mind. He went as far as saying—this can be read in his Hansard —that in 1948 it was not the intention, either, for the 1936 Act to form part of a system of nation building. The hon. member speaks on behalf of the people of Pietersburg and his area, because he is the House of Assembly member for Pietersburg. I want to quote to him a letter, and he would be quite surprised if he knew from whom I had received this letter, because the hon. member comes from a very good United Party family—I do not know what has since happened to him.

He has come right. [Interjections.]

The letter from which I want to quote comes from a very important person in Pietersburg, but I shall not divulge his name. I shall quote from the letter (translation)—

That is the type of letter we have received from the hon. member’s voters in Pietersburg.

You have put words into their mouths. [Interjections.]

This evening the hon. member spoke of the confusion created by the Rand Daily Mail about statements made by the chief minister of Lebowa. The hon. the Leader of the House, the hon. the Minister of Transport, took part in a debate earlier this year to defend the Minister of Water Affairs in connection with a certain letter which the hon. the Minister had sent out. We had an argument about that. I just happened to be reading in Hansard again, and I was quite interested to see one of the motions which was to have been discussed at that conference. I should like to quote the motion, but before doing so I want to tell the hon. member for Pietersburg that this type of motion is specifically the kind of thing that creates confusion in that area amongst the electorate, the Whites and the non-Whites. I shall quote this motion as follows, as I discovered it in a speech of the hon. the Leader of the House. (Hansard, 1973, col. 6205)—

If I look at the map and draw a straight line from Pietersburg across Waterpoort to Messina, this includes the following towns: Louis Trichardt. Duiwelskloof, Tzaneen and Pietersburg. I now want to know from the hon. member whether he is aware of the conference which the Nationalist Party held. I also want to ask him whether he knows where these proposals of the Nationalist Party come from? It is this type of proposal which creates confusion amongst the people of South Africa. The Nationalist Party and the hon. the Minister would do well to give us more particulars in this connection.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Houghton is not present at the moment. I want to come back to her and refer to her attitude to these consolidation measures before the House. She is an hon. member of this House who is terribly fond of principles. She said again this evening that the Progressive Party stands by the purchase of land in terms of the 1936 Act. She, like many members who were previously with her in this House and who broke away from the United Party in 1959, feels very strongly about this matter. Last year, when a similar motion was submitted to this House, i.e. the consolidation proposals for the Ciskei, that hon. member crossed over and voted with the hon. members on that side of the House. What was contained in those Ciskei proposals? They contained, inter alia, the purchase of land, the exchange of land, the removal of black spots and the shifting of Whites and Bantu. The proposals before this House today are exactly the same. They make provision for the purchase of land in terms of the 1936 Act, for the exchange of land, the removal of Black spots and the shifting of Whites and Bantu in South Africa. I should like to quote what the hon. member said last year in this House when she voted with that side of the House. As a backbencher I had to express to myself my amazement at why the hon. member should have taken such a step. She said last year (col. 8084 of the 1972 Hansard)—

The hon. member went further and could just as well again have made the speech in this House today, and again voted with the Government. She went on to say (col. 8090)—

She concluded with the following words—

That was the hon. member for Houghton’s attitude at the time. I want to repeat that there is no difference in principle between this motion and the motion that was at issue last year. What is her attitude? In her speech today the hon. member said that she opposes this motion because it means the unnecessary shifting of people with a view to achieving a political object in South Africa. We agree with the hon. member. We have said throughout the years that the 1936 Act, as far as we are concerned, had as its intention …

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Let me first finish my speech; then I shall come to that. We stick to the fact that the 1936 Act is not necessarily there for the creation of nationstates in South Africa. In that respect we agree with the hon. member. In 1959, when that hon. member and her friends broke away from the United Party, one of the display reasons which they advanced for their step was that the United Party did not want to purchase land for political reasons, but only for economic reasons. Now this year, with this proposal, the hon. member completely agrees with us when we say that we are not interested in purchasing land merely for political reasons, but that we want to purchase land where it is in the interests of the economy and the people of South Africa. Now, after all these years, the hon. member comes and agrees with us Yesterday evening we had the celebration of this hon. member’s 21st year in the House of Assembly. This evening, when I made a remark to her, she said that I would still learn a great deal. I am sitting in the back benches, and I know that I shall still learn a great deal in this House, but what I cannot understand about this hon. member as a front-bencher, is her difference in approach. Our standpoint in the United Party remains exactly the same as it has been throughout the years. The hon. member for Transkei’s approach, in truth, was exactly the same in respect of this motion as in respect of the motion of last year. A full Press statement was issued, a statement which was also published in the United Party newspaper, while the other newspapers in South Africa also carried that report. From that it is very clear what the attitude of the United Party is. But the United Party made a mistake last year, did it not. Because the hon. member for Houghton voted with the Government, there were certain of our Press friends who said that if she was voting with the Nationalists, the United Party was probably wrong. We then had to do a lot of explaining in this respect. However, it seems to me as if the hon. member is now being very well influenced. I want to congratulate her on now having changed her standpoint. Perhaps it was Chief Buthelezi who influenced her to join this side of the House in voting.

This whole motion forms a part of the concept of separate nation-states in South Africa. I want to reiterate clearly that our standpoint on this side of the House is that in the implementation of our policy we do not see consolidation as a necessity. What is contained in these proposals is consolidation, and I specifically want to deal with a few areas in the Northern Transvaal that affect the Venda, the Shangaans, the North Sotho, the South Ndebele and the Swazis. The quote for Transvaal, according to the 1936 Act, was 4,306 million ha. The quota of land that has already been obtained is 3,764 million ha, i.e. a further 524 ha can still be obtained. Those pieces that are added and cut away imply that 355 000 ha will be used in respect of the 1936 Act quota. That alone ought to convince the hon. member for Houghton, according to her decision last year, to vote with the Nationalist Party again. These plans indicate that the Venda area in the far Northern Transvaal will be consolidated completely, that Gazankulu for the Shangaans will be consolidated in two main pieces and that Lebowa for the North Sotho will be consolidated in two main pieces. The Ndebele area is being completely consolidated, while the Swazis are having an area added to Swaziland. That is the so called full and final consolidation plan according to the hon. the Minister’s proposal. We on this side of the House want to know from the hon. the Minister whether we can now take it that after these proposals have been accepted, neither the Whites nor the Bantu need have any uncertainty about the future boundaries of the Bantustans in South Africa. We want to know whether it is upon this basis that this hon. Minister will negotiate with the Bantu leaders and the Bantu groups in South Africa in order to implement their policy of independent states. The Minister must reply to us in detail about this, because I want to reiterate that tremendous confusion exists amongst members of the population, both Whites and non-Whites, about this specific matters. If the Van Vuuren Commission, under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Langlaagte, has achieved any object at all, it has succeeded in creating confusion outside this House as far as everyone in South Africa is concerned.

I specifically want to deal with area No. 42, marked A on the map according to the memorandum, and area No. 67, marked Y on the map. Both these areas are areas that will be added to the Venda area in the Northern Transvaal. Here I specifically want to refer to a place marked XX, i.e. the five kilometre-wide strip of land which will be declared White between the Rhodesian border and the Venda area in the Northern Transvaal. The proposals contained in the memorandum, and at present contained in the motion of the hon. the Minister in respect of that area No. 42, marked A. differ vastly from what the Van Vuuren Commission told the farmers in Pietersburg. In respect of that area there are certain owners whose farms I want to mention here this evening. I want to quote from a document which I sent to the farmers in that district. They got together. There were, inter alia, the chairman of the regional agricultural union, the chairman of the local farmers’ association and also farmers involved with that area. On this photostat copy of the letter which I sent to my hon. friends, they indicated which farms they did not want to offer and which the hon. member for Langlaagte, when he sat with his commission in Pietersburg, said would not be included in these proposals.

Nonsense. I only heard evidence …

The hon. member says I am talking nonsense. Let the hon. member stand up and quote in this House the minutes of the meeting that he held there. For the purposes of the record I want to quote what is written here in the handwriting of those farmers themselves, one of whom was the chairman of the region’s agricultural union, a Nationalist Party supporter. I understand that he is after the hon. the Minister of Water Affair’s seat. They recorded here the following farms— Armistice, Magazand, Olympy, Cato Smuts, Fallers Hall, Pelham, Skirbeek, Frampton, Woodhall and parts of the farms Humie and Njeleledrift. That is an important difference, and I want to tell you that this is going to create problems. I said earlier that I specifically wanted charity from the hon. the Minister about the White strip that will be opened up between the Rhodesian border and the Vendaland area. That in itself is a problem as far as the defence and the security of South Africa are concerned. We have the obvious example of the Caprivi Strip up there in South-West Africa. Here they are creating a second Caprivi Strip for South Africa in the Northern Transvaal. What is more, not only are they going to clear a White strip there; they are going to extend it in the direction of Messina over quite a number of miles to create a continuous strip in the north. The farmers in that area are not unreasonable; they said: “Leave that piece of land and buy a piece of land in another area, in fact in the area No. 67 marked “Y”. They said that there are farms on which no such intensive and productive farming by Whites is taking place. They suggest that the Government take those farms and leave the others. I think that that is the type of work which the hon. member for Langlaagte should have done when he was there at Pietersburg. He came along there with a map and every time they caught him out with a question, he said: “No, go and ask the Government; we do not know what the exact arrangements are.” In the interests of the defence of South Africa, I believe that the hon. the Minister ought to look at these matters again very closely.

Then there is a piece of land which the farmers volunteered. There are quite a number of farms that were volunteered. There are farms, inter alia, which are at present the property of the hon. Administrator of the Transvaal, Mr. Van Niekerk, an M.E.C., Mr. B. J. Vorster, the M.P.C. for Zoutpansberg, and an hon. Senator, Senator Ferreira. The farms are being run by Bantu. In the A 42 area farmers are carrying out intensive farming; three-quarters of them live there. In the other area, the top area, there are only two active farmers. These farmers are not unreasonable. They only ask: “Leave that area and take the other one, because it lends itself more to that purpose”.

Why do you not also mention the United Party men there?

If the hon. member thinks there are no United Party men in Zoutpansberg he is making a mistake. I know that there are only 1 500 traditional United Party supporters, but they are there.

Then I just want to broach another matter with the Minister. I must honestly say that I could not trace this report on the radio, but we received a telegram from a farmer there which I want to quote (translation)—

That was 18th May, 1973—

What farms are these?

An area in the Messina district. That is a telegram that I received. I am not saying it is true, neither am I saying that it is untrue. I should just like to know from the hon. the Minister what the position is, because the farmers there feel particularly upset about the matter.

Then I just briefly want to deal with area No. 44, marked C on the map. Here I had a very interesting case. I wrote to people that I know there, and the letter I received back from my hon. friend, read as follows—

That is, in accordance with the proposals which the hon. member for Langlaagte made in Pietersburg to the farmers. He states further—

I do not want to mention my hon. friend’s name—

As soon as I walked out of this House I bumped into that Nationalist. He is a good friend of mine. I then asked him: “What brings you here to the Cape?” He replied: “Well, I have to come and speak to Fanie Botha”. The Minister of Water Affairs is his M.P. He said: “I have to come and speak to him, because they are taking my land.” I then said: “Well, I am glad that you do at least still acknowledge the United Party men when we can do you a little favour.” Those farmers did not know that their land was going to be included, and they were in Pietersburg with that hon. member for Langlaagte.

Who wrote that letter?

My hon. friend who wrote to me is a Mr. Harry Coxwell. He is a lawyer in Louis Trichardt, if the hon. member wants to know that.

A moment ago you were very quick to mention names, but now you are keeping silent about others.

I am asking the hon. member for Germiston to accept the fact that I have received the letter that I am quoting here. I am not prepared to mention names in this House …

A moment ago you mentioned names of people who cannot defend themselves.

In this area there are also farms that fall in the cathment area of the Albasini Dam, an irrigation scheme that supplies the Levubu farmers and, inter alia, the town of Louis Trichardt with water. At a later stage I want to come to another area in the Trichardtsdal region, which the Minister of Water Affairs requested should not be declared a Bantu area. It is situated just next to the area marked J. But in respect of the area at Trichardtsdal, the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs: “Do not take those farms, because they fall in a water catchment area.” Now I just want to ask the hon. the Minister: Is it not also a good thing to rather just leave out the farms in the catchment area of the Albasini Dam and the Levubu irrigation district? I also had a very interesting visit—hon. members can say what they want to about that—from a Nationalist Party supporter from the Letaba district. He came here to speak to the Minister. The Minister could not speak to him or did not want to speak to him—I do not know exactly which of the two— and then he landed up in my office. [Interjections.] I said to my hon. friend: It does not help to come to me. I cannot do anything. You must go and speak to the Minister, or your M.P.”. He then said to me (his M.P. is the hon. member for Lydenburg): “It does not help to go and speak to the hon. member for Lydenburg, because he just walked round there saying: Over my dead body, no more land is going to be purchased for the Bantu’.” That is the attitude of people in that area. I think that if the hon. the Minister wants to do South Africa a favour and clear up the confusion amongst the people at large, he should send the hon. member for Langlaagte and his Bantu Affairs Commission back on their tracks so that they can go and consult the farmers to determine which farms are available and which are not. Sir, these are not matters one can thrash out across the floor of this House; these are matters that actually belong with the Select Committee. When I was before the Committee, however, the hon. member for Langlaagte said they no longer wanted to hear any more evidence from the public. According to the information I have here, it is impossible for me to see how we on this side of the House can support such a motion here.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Turffontein posed a large number of questions in order to extricate himself from his ignorance, and I think that the hon. the Minister will reply to them. And yet, right at the end of his speech, the hon. member opposed this report, and did so, what is more, while asking for information about this whole matter. I do not want to dwell for very long on what he said, but there are one or two aspects which I just want to mention in passing. He attacked the hon. member for Houghton for not being here. But did the hon. member not read today that Mr. Colin Eglin told her that she should mind her P’s and Q’s, or he would send her to Rome as soon as he became Prime Minister? That is why she is not here tonight.

The hon. member said that he does not agree with the creation of nation states. I admit that the hon. member for Klip River also said earlier on that nationhood was not fundamental to this consolidation. But the hon. member for Klip River drew my attention to what Gen. Hertzog said in 1936. I should very much like to quote it. Gen. Hertzog said, inter alia, the following—

Sir, there you have the gist of the matter. What he said was that they should govern-themselves in their own way. In other words, nationhood and a nation state were held out to them.

Apparently the hon. member for Turffontein also forgot about a statement he made to Die Vaderland a year or two ago. In this report in Die Vaderland we see clearly that the reporter put the following question to him: “What is your Party going to do if the leaders of the Bantu states ask for independence?” Then the hon. member for Turffontein told the reporter: “If they ask for independence, then we shall give it to them.” Sir, this shows one how far ahead this hon. member is already seeing. The time will come When he will ask us to make more rapid progress with the independence of these states and when he will be fully in favour of this.

The hon. member also spoke about the Transvaal and the consolidation there. In fact, I think that he was the first one on the Opposition side to do so in this House tonight. What the hon. member said here, attests very clearly to the fact that he does not have practical experience of these homeland areas, that he does not live near them and that he has no experience of the Bantu side of this matter, nor that of the Whites.

I know them better than you do.

Sir, I can tell the hon. member this: My constituency, Potgietersrus, is totally surrounded by Bantu areas. To the north and to the east we have Lebowa. On the southern border we have the South Ndebele and on the western border we have the Tswana. I have had this consolidation from all sides and I shall discuss it a little later on.

The hon. member attacked the Bantu Affairs Commission, the Van Vuuren Commission, about what they said or did not say, but I want to ask the hon. member: Was he present at any of these meetings of the Van Vuuren Commission? Did he listen to what the chairman of that commission said to the meeting? If he was present at one, then he would have heard very clearly that Mr. Van Vuuren, the hon. member for Langlaagte, told the people that he had come to hear representations and that he would give each one of them an opportunity to speak, even if it took two or three days. At the meeting at which I was present, neither the chairman or any of the members of the commission expressed an opinion. At the end of the meeting, though, the chairman did mention that all the representations, every single word, would be considered and that they would eventually be compiled in report form and submitted to the hon. the Minister.

As far as the consolidation of homelands in South Africa is concerned, I want to say that virtually every year over the past decade or two, there have been points on the agenda at National Party congresses in which our people requested that consolidation of the homelands be expedited. And now, in our 25th year, we have it. This shows how carefully, how slowly and how judiciously the National Party has set about this important matter. Sir, this evening we truly have a monument for South Africa which serves as a pointer to the way in which relations among the various peoples will be improved in future, and how their lot is going to be decided in future when each one will have to take care of itself. That is why I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister, the commission, and also the department sincerely, on behalf of my constituency, for what they have done there. I want to admit straight away that there were representations from various quarters in my constituency against the consolidation proposals in regard to certain farms. In other words, it was requested that those farms should not be purchased. Strong representations were made in this regard, but in the case of each representation made by the people in this constituency, they stated at the outset that they fully supported the policy of the National Party, of this Government, and that even if the decision should go against them, they would accept it and would continue to support the National Party, because the basic idea, underlying this whole question of consolidation and of people who are satisfied and dissatisfied, is the following: The interests of the country precede the individual interests. All of us, each one of us, will have to make sacrifices for the future and for what lies ahead.

In the Transvaal, and in the far North Eastern Transvaal in particular, we reduced these homelands to five large areas. It is truly an achievement for all those small areas to have been reduced to five large areas. We are very grateful for that. We are particularly grateful for two aspects, and I can attest to that from our own experience. The first aspect is that we have cleared up the Black spots as far as possible. There are Black spots in my own constituency of which the hon. the Minister is aware, and which have been giving trouble for years. The result of this consolidation is that those Black spots are going to be eliminated. They caused friction and discord, and I do want to ask the Minister to expedite this clearing up of the Black spots.

In the second place we are grateful that the uncertainty which existed, has now been eliminated. From all over people came and said: “I offer my farm. Help me, so that we can sell my farm as well to the Bantu Trust—as they called it.” Sir, year in and year out this has been my experience, from the time I was elected six years ago. The first representations made to me were that I should take such offers of farms to the department. Now this uncertainty has been eliminated and we are very grateful for this. Now we can proceed with the development of the Bantu areas as well as the development of the White areas, according to a pattern which will enable the people to know where they can develop, how they can develop and how rapidly they can develop.

What is also of fundamental importance to me as far as this consolidation is concerned, is that we have so often had opinions from overseas from people who have been anticipating the way in which the National Party would act towards the homelands in South Africa. They want to know whether the National Party is going to be honest in its policy and whether it is going to give that land to the Bantu. We have often heard people say: “We are first waiting to see how far the National Party goes with this consolidation.” Sir, now that uncertainty, too, has been eliminated.

We have also had the case, which I want to mention in conclusion, of the South Ndebele near Groblersdal and Marble Hall. I want to make it clear this evening that the people of Groblersdal and Marble Hall hoped that there would not be a homeland for the South Ndebeles at that specific area. At the same time I want to stress that the people of Groblersdal and Marble Hall are staunch Nationalists, and although they hoped there would be no homeland there, this will not prevent them from supporting the National Party as effectively as they have done to date. They know where their salvation lies, and that is why I believe that we have made a great deal of progress with this consolidation and that it can only be beneficial for our future.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Potgietersrus has referred to what has taken place in Nationalist Party congresses over the last 25 years and he has explained how in these congresses motions have been put and resolutions have been discussed and passed, asking for the consolidation which, as he puts it, is now taking place in their 25th year of rule in South Africa. He uses this as an example of how slowly and carefully this Government has progressed and how circumspect they have been in implementing this ideology of theirs. Sir, if what the hon. member says is correct, why was there this unseemly haste which precluded the Select Committee from doing the job which it should have done? Because that is exactly what happened. Even after 25 years of Nationalist rule, the Select Committee was not allowed to call evidence, or even to receive the record of evidence presented to the Bantu Affairs Commission during its traipsing around the country with its various proposals.

Sir, the hon. member for Potgietersrus referred to the eradication of Black spots. I say to him that never has this side of the House opposed the eradication of Black spots when such has been well motivated. In fact, to my knowledge I believe that this side of the House has never opposed the eradication of a Black spot. We have always treated each case on its merits, and he knows as well as we do on this side of the House that it is the policy of this side that the Black spots should be eradicated and that as far as possible they should be consolidated with the main areas of the Bantu Reserves.

What about the Berg location?

The Berg locations have been dealt with. I do not believe that you want to hear any more on the Berg locations. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you have heard the attitude of this side of the House adequately expressed by the hon. member for Mooi River, as well as by other members on this side.

But, Sir, what I want to say is this: Here in the closing stages of this debate it is significant that we have not heard from a single member of the Select Committee, on the Nationalist Party side, except the three members of the Bantu Affairs Commission. The other five Nationalist members were the hon. member for Bloemfontein West, who is in his seat; the hon. member for Germiston, who has been in his seat throughout the debate; the hon. member for Marico, who has sat here for more than half the debate; the hon. member for Cradock, who has been here throughout most of the debate, although I do not see him here at the moment, and the hon. member for Stilfontein, whom I have not seen here at all. I want to say that I believe that those five members have been stricken by conscience and that is why they have not spoken this afternoon. Those five members have not spoken because they are in exactly the same position as the four of us on this side of the House …

Nonsense.

… who have had no evidence whatsoever presented to us. Those five members on that side have had no evidence presented to them, either oral or written, to enable them in any way to make up their minds whether to support the proposals put forward by the hon. the Minister to the Select Committee or not. I believe that those five hon. members were not in a position to support the resolution which has come before this House, and that is why they have not participated in this debate. I want to say here and now that I commend those five hon. members for having a conscience and for not participating in this debate and for not prostituting themselves to support what is no more than a Nationalist ideology.

What are the facts? I have here the minutes of the proceedings of the House of Assembly of Monday, the 5th February, 1973, and you find on page 16, item 21, that the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development moved: “That a Select Committee be appointed on Bantu Affairs, the committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers.” Why did the hon. the Minister waste his time and his breath in putting that rider in, and why did you, Mr. Speaker, accept such a motion, knowing full-well that this committee—I beg your pardon, Sir, not you knowing, but knowing shall we say that the committee would have the power to preclude us from calling this evidence or from calling for these papers to be presented to the committee? Because you have heard what happened in the Select Committee, Sir. We had an application from the Natal Agricultural Union and numerous others, too many to mention here tonight, to give evidence before the Select Committee on proposals which they had never seen. By a majority decision of the Select Committee they were precluded from giving that evidence and they were referred to the tender mercies of the hon. the Minister. Why? What is the function of this Select Committee? Why was this Select Committee given power to call for evidence and to receive papers if it was to be precluded from doing that? But it goes further. Having had the applications by these persons and bodies to be heard refused by a majority decision and when certain of us on this side of the House asked to be able to call interested parties, including the Bantu Governments concerned, we were told …

Are you not a democrat?

Of course I am a democrat. That is the whole point. That hon. member obviously supports a party which is not democratic because they would not allow people their democratic rights to appear before Parliament. When we talk of democracy, this is the only part of Parliament which allows the people of South Africa, the voters and others, to appear before a body of Parliament. This is where democracy works. The people of South Africa can appear before a select committee, a body of Parliament, but they were precluded by that side of the House from doing so. [Interjections.] The hon. member who is making so much noise, the hon. member for Germiston, was one of those who would not allow it so he had better keep quiet. He voted against it. But he went further. When I asked, as we were unable to hear oral evidence from any interested parties, that at least the evidence presented to the hon. member for Langlaagte and the Bantu Affairs Commission should be placed before us …

May I ask a question?

I have no time for questions. That hon. member also had the opportunity in the Select Committee and he also voted for what I am talking about now. But after we had been precluded from hearing oral evidence from interested parties, and when I asked that we should have the evidence which was presented to the Bantu Affairs Commission placed before the Select Committee, believe it or not, Sir, they even refused that. Sir, how can those five hon. members on that side of the House and the four hon. members on this side of the House decide on these proposals before the Select Committee? How could we be asked in all justice to apply our minds to do this? And I want to say that the whole thing rested with the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration. Because of his dictatorial attitude it was passed onto the hon. member for Langlaagte and the other members of the Select Committee to preclude us from doing our duty towards South Africa. Then we have such sentiments expressed here this afternoon, such as that our behaviour on the Select Committee was shocking, and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad expressing the strongest exception to the action of our members on the Select Committee imputing that we showed contempt of Parliament. If ever contempt of Parliament was shown, Sir, it was shown by those members of the Select Committee who refused this “hand of Parliament” the right to do the job which it was supposed to do in terms of Parliamentary procedure and the Western system of democracy.

I want to come back to some of the points which were made during this debate.

Are you replying to the debate now?

The hon. member for Langlaagte still asserts that only 132 000 Bantu were to be moved in Natal but the hon. member accepts the figures of Dr. Bruce Young of the Department of Geography of the Natal University when he gives the figure of 343 000 in terms of the original proposals. But why does he reject his figures in respect of the amended proposals?

No, I did not accept that. You are talking nonsense.

He says now that he did not have them, but when the hon. member for Zululand mentioned them he rejected them entirely. Because it is quite clear from this report that Dr. Young says that in terms of the 1970 Census figures, as yet unpublished, at least 206 000 Bantu are affected by these proposals, those which are now before this House, or at least those that were before the Select Committee. But he says that accepting a 3% annual population growth since 1970, when those figures were taken out, the figure today is probably closer to 225 000 in Natal alone, i.e. Blacks alone. So I believe that the myth of the figure of 132 000, which was the figure that was put before the Select Committee—and I was precluded from hearing evidence to the contrary—is now exploded once and for all.

I have heard praise for the memoranda which have been presented to the Select Committee and to this House in the nature of the resolution which we are now discussing, but these memoranda and these maps have been nothing but contradictory from beginning to end. As far as KwaZulu is concerned the so-called Pepler plan which was hawked around différend materially from the memorandum which was presented to the meetings by the Bantu Affairs Commission which in turn differed materially from the memorandum which was supplied by the Department of Bantu Administration and Development to the four of us on the Select Committee and the hon. members for Zululand and Mooi River, as interested parties. There we had three differing proposals. How were the people in Natal to know exactly what was implied?

The memorandum which was presented to the Select Committee and which the Select Committee considered on the 9th and 10th May differed from the plan which accompanied it. I want to ask hon. members on that side to have a look at their memorandum and at their plan and to see where in the Turton area there is any proposal for an excision from the Bantu areas. I do not see any denial; it appears that they agree with me that the memorandum and the plan did differ.

I want to go further by saying that the resolution which is before this House and which is contained in the Minutes of Proceedings of Tuesday, the 15th May, commencing at page 234, also contains an error. I hope that the hon. the Minister, when it comes to implementing this resolution, will take note of the error which exists in this resolution or else that he will ask the Select Committee to come with an amended resolution. We have the situation that in terms of the memorandum submitted to the Select Committee item (xxvii), area No. 91, refers to an area in the districts of Ingwavuma and Ubombo—

On page 7 of the minutes of the Select Committee we read—

The effect of that resolution was that the description in the memorandum should be altered. The resolution is too long to read now, but the hon. member for Langlaagte will agree with me that the essence of this amendment was to take out of that section the area included in the Umombo district, but to leave within the proposal the area in the Mahlabatini district. I now refer to page 239 of the Minutes of Proceedings where it does not appear. It is not reflected in the resolution presented to Parliament.

Why should it be reflected?

The hon. member asks: “Why should it be reflected?” Mr. Speaker, I ask you with tears in my eyes, to have a question like that put to me by the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission and of the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs! Are these minutes of the Select Committee at the moment under discussion or is this resolution as printed in the Minutes of Proceedings of this House under discussion? I believe that all hon. members with any sense in this House will know that it is the resolution as presented in the Minutes of Proceedings of this House which is now before us. I want to say that the question of the handing over of State-owned land in the Ingwavuma district north of the Pongola River in Northern Zululand, including the Ndumu Game Reserve, is not before this House for discussion.

But surely you are right.

All right, I am right. The hon. member for Langlaagte says I am right, but there is nothing in the minutes of the Select Committee to say that those were extracted from the memorandum which was put before the Select Committee. Therefore, what happened to it; where has it gone? what is to happen to it? The hon. the Minister must tell us what he hopes Parliament will do with it. Is it to be handed over to the KwaZulu Government or is it to remain as State-owned land?

If you had remained in the Select Committee, you would have understood this.

As I read these minutes it would appear that it was the intention of the Select Committee that that area of State-owned land in the Mahlabatini district including the Ndumu Game Reserve should be handed over to the KwaZulu Government and should become a Black area, but there is nothing in the resolution as it appears in the Minutes of Proceedings of this House which reflects what should be done. The hon. member for Langlaagte said earlier that we of the Select Committee were given the opportunity of asking questions. I deny that, and I am sure hon. members have had enough evidence to accept that I am quite correct in my denial.

You walked out.

We were correct in walking out because we were precluded from doing our duty. The hon. member for Langlaagte went further and said that we should have sat and deliberate with them over the resolution and have participated in these decisions. I want to say to him here and now and to the hon. the Minister and to the Nationalist Party opposite that we will not be party to what they are doing here tonight. We will not be party to what they are doing to the Black people of South Africa, particularly what they are doing to the Zulus. My hon. friend from South Coast made it quite plain that we have had no fight with the Zulus since 1906. In fact, relations between Black and White have nowhere in South Africa been better than they have been in Natal. We are not at this stage prepared, for the sake of Nationalist ideology, to prejudice and to jeopardize the understanding that there is and the good feeling that there is between Black and White in Natal. We are particularly not prepared to carry out the policy of the Nationalist Party Government. The hon. member for Potgietersrust spoke about criticism from overseas and about this Government being honest in what it is doing. I want to say that what they are doing tonight is dishonest. It is the most dishonest thing that has ever been perpetrated on the Black people of South Africa. Here we have a proposal to move nearly half a million Black people and they have not had the opportunity of agreeing.

We have come to the end of this debate. We have had seven or eight speakers from that side of the House, including the hon. the Minister, but we have not had one tittle of evidence of anybody who supports the proposal. From all those seven or eight speakers, including the hon. the Minister and the chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission, we have not had evidence of one body or one person who supports these proposals. However, we have heard from this side of the House of the opposition that has been expressed. Hon. members have had evidence of people who are opposed to this. I have a list as long as my arm of people who wished to give evidence before the Committee. These are opposed to this measure. This list excludes the people from the Bantu governments and the agricultural societies who wanted to give evidence. What about the KwaZulu Government? I want to ask the hon. the Minister this question: Have they accepted the proposals? The hon. the Minister does not reply. I assume that they refused them. As a matter of fact, I know for a fact that they rejected them. What about the Gazankulu Government? Has the Gazankulu Government accepted this? What did prof. Ntsanwisi and his Government say? What he said was that they reject the proposals completely. They went further and I quote from a newspaper report—

I wonder why he was so polite. The hon. member for Pietersburg spoke about the Lebowa Government which has other claims as well to certain White towns. I see that the Gazankulu Government has claims to White townships as well. I want the hon. the Minister in his reply to tell us who supports his proposals. I do not think there is anybody in this country besides the Nationalist Party and their sycophants who support these proposals. Nobody else supports these proposals. I can say that there are only three farmers’ associations in Natal who support them, but I see from the latest proposals from the hon. the Minister and the resolution that has come from the Select Committee that the only White land which is being taken is being taken from United Party-held seats. Why is the large area around Newcastle left as a Black spot? Why was it not consolidated? Why was the land of the Nationalist farmers in the Dundee and Newcastle districts not taken for that purpose? Let the hon. the Minister give an answer to those questions when he replies to this debate.

Are there no United Party supporters there?

Of course there are United Party supporters there, but National Party supporters are in the majority. What did they say to the hon. member for Langlaagte and his commission when they went to Dundee? We would like to hear that from him too.

I want to come to the hon. the Minister’s introduction of this debate, specifically to a point to which the hon. member for Transkei referred when he started the debate on our side. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give us clarity on what exactly he said last night and what he meant. We have his words here, but what exactly did he mean? The hon. member for Langlaagte has given us an explanation this afternoon which I am afraid we must reject, because unless words mean something different to him than it does to me that cannot be what he said. What the hon. the Minister when dealing with the question of mining in Transvaal said was the following:

This means that the prospectors, the owners of these mineral rights, those who are working the mines, will be able to stay on and if necessary the ownership of the land will be taken away from them a little later. He goes on:

What does he mean? Does he in fact mean what this says, that in fact what he is going to do is that he is going to hand the ownership of these timber and sugar farms over to the Bantu Governments but that he is going to leave the White occupiers on the land so that they will be able to continue to work them and to continue to occupy the land and to work them for their own benefit. If this is what the hon. the Minister says, this, coupled with other statements which he made last night, and in particular his concession that for practical reasons he is unable to carry out his policy now, because this is the concession he made last night, then I want to say that what we have here is the biggest lot of sheer geo-political bunkum that we have ever had, and it makes that of the whole Government policy. If he is going to leave this in the situation where the dominion of the land will be handed over to a Black Government or to the Bantu Trust, but that the White farmers will continue to farm them, then I say this makes a complete mockery of all and everything of the Government’s policy.

Then there is something else interesting that the hon. the Minister said last night. He was talking about the purchasing of the land and said the following:

Let us halt here for a moment. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that he must see that he gets his priorities right and that he works according to these and that he gives the people not only of Natal but also of the Transvaal as well some idea of what the priorities are. He went further:

I wonder if the hon. the Minister can tell us what he has in mind. There is only one way I know of in which they can get hold of this property, namely to buy it. That requires lots of money which the hon. the Minister has not got. I want to ask him, if he knows some other way of acquiring the ownership of this land, to tell us exactly what he has in mind.

In the few minutes left at my disposal I want to say, by way of a final summary, that what he is doing here is not removing the uncertainty of the people in Natal and in the eastern and northern Transvaal. All he is doing is declaring certain areas wherein the State President may take certain land which the hon. the Minister may require for the South African Bantu Trust. However, he does not say that this is the end; nor does he say that he will not change the plans again, which he is quite capable of doing. How many times has he not changed his mind already?

I want to end by giving him a little bit of advice. I want to ask him to accept certain suggestions which I now want to put to him. The first is that he must not proclaim released areas until he is sure he can deal with them. In respect of these areas which I assume the House by majority vote will decide he can handle, he must not proclaim released areas until he is certain that he can deal with them. Secondly I want to appeal to him, when he does come to proclaim these, to proclaim only small areas at a time, district by district and, having proclaimed those, he must first clear them up before he goes ahead to proclaim another area. Thirdly I want to appeal to him not to proclaim any disputed areas at this stage until he has had another look at them. He will know the disputed areas to which I refer. All the complaints and representations submitted to the Select Committee have been referred to him, so he will know the disputed areas to which I refer. Fourthly, I want to appeal to him not to proclaim any highly productive agricultural areas until he can ensure that their productivity will continue. If my interpretation of what he said is correct, considered economically, for the welfare of all the people of South Africa, this is right, but as I have said, it makes absolute nonsense of his policy if he thinks he can do this and still carry out and implement the idea of an independent Bantustan. My fifth suggestion to the hon. the Minister is not to proclaim any new released areas until all the existing movements have been peaceably accomplished and the people have been settled, whether those people are Bantu, Whites, Indians or Coloureds. Above all—and this is my biggest plea to the hon. the Minister—there are certain Coloureds and Indians who are going to lose their land in terms of these proposals. Unfortunately time precludes me from dealing with them in detail, but I refer particularly to the Indians in the Glendale area. I believe that the proposals, which the hon. the Minister has put before us, affect almost 15% of the total area owned by Indians in the Republic of South Africa. The hon. the Minister knows that when an Indian’s farm is expropriated—and the same applies to the Coloureds; I am glad to see that the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs is here—he cannot go off and buy a farm somewhere else as the White man can because there are no areas set aside for him. I hope that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, who is a senior member of the Cabinet, will use the influence he has with his colleagues in the Cabinet to see that suitable alternative land is made available for those Indian and Coloured farmers who are being displaced. My last bit of advice to the hon. the Minister—a suggestion which I really believe he should accept and is the best thing he can do— is to scrap this whole scheme and think again.

Mr. Speaker, while I was sitting here listening to this last speaker, to the rowdy way in which he presented his case, an old Dutch saying came to mind, viz. “een lege vat bommt het allermeest”, which translated means “Empty vessels make the most noise”. Since I am following directly on this speaker, I shall first react to certain of the points which he raised. Then I shall begin all over again to reply in the limited time of hardly 30 minutes.

I’ll watch …

If the hon. member would give me a chance now, I shall deal with everyone. Or else I could play a very dirty trick on him with the counting. I also know the procedures of the House. [Interjections.] We have all listened very attentively. I think hon. members must now listen to me. After all, I am not going to make things difficult for them now. They must listen now and take what I give them. Sir. I want to say that I find it absolutely deplorable that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District advanced such extremely superficial arguments by saying that the few members of the Select Committee on this side who did not participate in this debate were “members stricken by conscience”, and that that was the reason for their sitting here and not speaking. But surely the hon. member is not that stupid. He ought to know that those members agreed unanimously with the recommendations of the Select Committee, which we now want to accept and want to implement here. Oh please. Sir, the hon. member must not come here and say things like that. It is an objectionable manner of debating in this House. I could just as well say to the hon. member that the hon. members of certain constituencies on the opposite side are also “conscience-stricken” because they did not speak. Sir, let me assure you, I know them. There are several of those members opposite who understand far more about these matters than the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District, and they did not speak. I am not going to say that they were restrained by their conscience and therefore do not want to speak. No, Sir, it is an objectionable manner of debating. It belongs more appropriately to other places to which the hon. member was perhaps accustomed in the past. But this is not the appropriate place for it. The hon. members for Cradock, Germiston, Marico, Stilfontein and Bloemfontein West fully endorse these proposals, as the recommendations to which they were parties, also indicate. They were not afraid to deliberate on these matters in the Select Committee. They did not flee from the Select Committee. Nor would they have been afraid to speak here if there had been time to do so.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District kicked up a great cloud of dust here about the Select Committee, from which they walked away with great bravado; but, Sir, he was quick to run back to that same Select Committee when the photograph had to be taken. [Interjections.] That is his kind of behaviour.

His form of participation.

Not all people make equally successful photographs, but that hon. member does not seem to know it yet. The hon. member spoke about the land in the vicinity of the Ndumu Reserve. The hon. member must bear in mind that some sections of the land up to the Ndumu Reserve were declared here to be released areas a year or two ago. It is not necessary to do so now. It had already been done before. Further south is land which the Select Committee is requesting should stand over, together with the three reserves on the slopes of the Drakensberg mountains.

Why is it in the memorandum?

The hon. member wants to know whom we support. The hon. member should contain himself a little until the general election, then he will see whom we support in this matter. We negotiated with many bodies, and I dealt with this point yesterday when I introduced the debate. I said that we negotiated with the bodies, and that many of the bodies supported us on many points, and did not support us on others. This includes bodies such as the Natal Agricultural Union, district unions, development committees, local authorities, etc. Sir, I am not going to wage a vendetta here with the public bodies with whom we have co-operated well up to now and with whom we want to and will cooperate well in future. I do not know why I should mention them one by one by name and indicate to that hon. member which of them are or are not co-operating with us well. I am satisfied with all of them, as I said yesterday evening, and I thank them all for the degree of co-operation which there was and for the degree of co-operation which I also expect from them in future for the work which still has to be done. The hon. member implied that the land south-east of Dundee which we did not take, was not taken because it consists of the farms of Nationalists. Sir, it is not only Nationalists who have farms there. Does the hon. member want to tell me that there is not a single United Party supporter living in that area? Sir, on the recommendation of the Bantu Affairs Commission and the department that area was not taken by the Government and myself because that land was not considered suitable as compensatory land for other areas from which Bantu, in their opinion, had to be removed; that is the only reason.

Sir, the hon. member wanted to know what the attitude of two Governments, the KwaZulu and the Gazankulu Government, was. We know what the KwaZulu Government said in regard to consolidation. The Deputy Minister, the departmental officials, the Commissioner-General and I have negotiated with the KwaZulu Government several times. On the occasion they simply pointed to the entire northern half of Natal and said: “Give that to us.” Sir, we know what the attitude of the KwaZulu Government was. They want far more land than the 1936 Act makes provision for. Sir, the hon. member should leave the KwaZulu Government to the Deputy Minister, the department and myself, and should not try to make trouble for us on that score. We shall negotiate further with the KwaZulu Government in regard to these matters in future, and the same applies to the Gazankulu Government as well. The hon. member does not even know the Gazankulu Government. I know them. We have negotiated with them several times. Only last year, before their chief minister went overseas, they paid me a special visit so as to have him present; and the hon. member need not concern himself about this at all, I am quite capable of conducting this matter further with the Bantu Governments in peace and in harmony.

And Prof. Ntsanwisi of Gazankulu?

Prof. Ntsanwisi is the chief minister I am referring to; apparently the hon. member does not even know that. Sir, the hon. member asked me to furnish more particulars here in regard to the matter to which I referred here yesterday when I said that the Government was at present giving attention to the need to devise another detailed scheme for acquiring land which had been declared to be released area over a far shorter period than in the past. In addition to that I said that announcements in regard to it would be made at a specific and at the correct time, and between yesterday evening and now the specific time has not yet arrived. We shall give the hon. member the information; no, we shall not be so unfair as to give it to the hon. member only; we shall give it to the whole of South Africa as soon as the time to do so is ripe. I am not going to inform the hon. member now about all kinds of potential possibilities; that is simply not the way in which responsible people in a Government work; that is how irresponsible Opposition members would like a Government to work, but that is not the way we work.

Sir, the hon. member ended with a lot of suggestions which he made to me.

You need them.

No, Sir, I do not need those suggestions—not at all. I have a department with experience of land purchases extending over 37 years, and in those 37 years we have acquired more experience and knowledge of these matters than that hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District together with that celebrated member for Durban Central could produce for us if they put their heads together, for two heads, even if they are mutton-heads, are better than one. We have far more experience than those hon. members could offer us. Sir, the joke is that some of the suggestions which the hon. member ostensibly made to me just now were things which we are doing in any case; what he said here were things which we know in any case. I just want to inform the hon. member that to proceed to do what he suggested here, i.e. that we should not declare these areas before we can deal with them and that we should only declare small areas at a time, would not be welcomed at all by the farmers who have to sell land, for there are many people, and this will be the case to an even greater extent when we come forward with our new system, who will say: “We want these things to pass over us quickly and the changes which have to be made, to be made quickly.”

The hon. member, like the hon. member for Transkei, also tried to make something of what I had allegedly said yesterday evening in regard to the land which we are purchasing on which mines are being exploited and on which forestry operations and sugar cultivation are taking place. It is in this regard that The Cape Times, quite true to itself, gave an absolute misrepresentation of this matter again this morning. But we expect it of that type of journalism. But what did I say yesterday evening? The Cape Times said that I had said the farmers could remain. I never used the word “boere” or “farmers”—never. I shall read out what I said. The actual point at issue here is simply the sugar and the forestry; it is not the mines as such. I shall repeat the point in regard to the mines in a moment. I said—

I did not for one moment say what that hon. member has now, in his wild flights of the imagination, imputed to me and what his newspaper did this morning, i.e. to say that I had said that the farmers would remain living there. I said that we would not allow the sugar industry and the forestry operations in progress there to be destroyed. I think it was the hon. member for Langlaagte who said here this afternoon that it could be done by either the Bantu governments, or Bantu entrepreneurs or a corporation itself, i.e. that the industry would be maintained, but not that the farmers should carry on their operations there. There is no sense in that. In due course the farmers’ land will have to be taken over, and as far as the mining industry is concerned, there is nothing strange about this at all. Since time immemorial we have had mining activities in progress in Bantu areas, which are allocated to White entrepreneurs and White mining interests which exploit mines in the Bantu areas, and that same practice may continue in regard to land which is declared to be a released area. That is all I said. It must be understood very clearly that I did not in any way speak this kind of nonsense which The Cape Times is imputing to me.

What about the White mine exploitation?

The very last thing I said was that the White mine exploitation may continue in released areas as it has for years already been allowed to do in released areas and in the Bantu homelands. [Interjection.]

Order! If hon. members would listen more attentively and make fewer interjections, it would not be necessary for the hon. the Minister to make his speech twice.

With all due respect to you. Sir, it is not only twice; I have said this four times already.

I now want to deal with something here which, unfortunately, was done by various speakers opposite, and that was to refer derogatorily to my hon. friend, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, Mr. Raubenheimer, who is not present here. I bear the full responsibility for his absence. Because Mr. Raubenheimer received a very attractive invitation from America, which would have lapsed if he had not accepted it now, for it had already been postponed once, I told him that he should not miss that experience of a lifetime and that he should go. I shared in everything Mr. Raubenheimer did in regard to consolidation work. I did not shift the responsibility of consolidation onto the Deputy Minister. He did much of the spadework. He did much of the negotiating and he did work which was very difficult, and for that I give him all praise and thanks in his absence. He did it very well and very competently. But there was no aspect of this consolidation work on which he was engaged of which I was not fully informed. It is easy for me to do this work in this House in his absence, for I went through the whole process with him step by step, and I knew where we stood. Hon. members must therefore not think that because the Deputy Minister is not here they can attribute all kinds of things to him in an attempt to drive a wedge between him and me. I think that is a deplorable manner of debating. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon. member should not become so flustered. He should keep his nervous reactions in check.

The hon. member for Zululand, as well I as a few other members, referred several times to the various maps which appeared in regard to this matter. I do not know why they are trying to perform such egg-dances around words and maps, but I should imagine it was because hon. members opposite—I could mention names, but I am not going to rake open any further wounds—at various stages made all kinds of misrepresentations for their political ends, and now they have to explain away their misrepresentations. That first map which was published—it was in no way “hawked” through Natal—was a map which was drawn up by the department to make recommendations to the Ministry and to the Government. I have had to explain on several occasions that I am not a member of the department. There the head of the department is sitting, behind the green books. I am the head of the Ministry. There is an enormous difference between the department and the Ministry.

The department drew up certain recommendations which were submitted to me for consideration by the Government. I said that before I submitted those recommendations to the Government they had to be made known to the general public because we wanted the widest possible reaction from everyone concerned. In addition, the Bantu Affairs Commission had to go into the matter. What we wanted, in other words, was consultation par excellence —consultation on the largest possible scale. What previous Government had done this? Did the U.P. Government do this in 1936? No. It was the department’s plan, and in regard to this all the parties were heard by the Bantu Affairs Commission. The Bantu Affairs Commission then made certain proposals to me, which I considered and submitted to the Government. The map which was then submitted to Parliament, referred to by the Select Committee and is now an appendix to this report, was then drawn up.

May I ask a question?

No. These are the only two maps, and this map which forms an appendix to the report, is the one we now have to approve. This map is easily 90% the same as the first one. Perhaps I should state this in more moderate terms and say it is easily 80% the same as the first map, the one drawn up by the department. It differs only in respect of a few places. In this way there are three reserves on the slopes of the Drakensberg mountains to which land is being added without there having been adequate prior notice and consultation by the Bantu Affairs Commission. The same also applies to Sabie-Sand in the Transvaal. In respect of those places the Select Committee recommended that the matter be re-examined. I agree with this recommendation because I adopted the standpoint that the greatest possible opportunity should be afforded to all persons concerned to state their case. An unnecessary political issue was made of these maps.

When was that map which is now before the House made known to the public?

This map which is now before the House was handed over to the Press on the day on which it was tabled in the House of Assembly and, according to the minutes of the House of Assembly, referred to the Select Committee on Bantu Affairs, with the request that it be made known to the public. There is no obligation and no undertaking on the part of the Government that we should again go to the general public and the various committees or bodies with the final plan on which the Government has decided. There was consultation in accordance with the provisional basis, and we remained easily 80% within that basis, and where we exceeded that basis, we will go to the public again.

But not all the names of the farms involved in this matter appear on that map.

We gave the maps to the Press, and gave them the lists containing the names of the farms. [Interjections.] We gave the Press a list containing the names of all the farms. This is to be seen at any office of our department. Anyone interested in this matter, could have seen it there.

The hon. member for Zululand mentioned a few other matters here to which I want to furnish a quick reply. He said that according to reports which appeared in the publication of the Natal Agricultural Union, various lists of farms were mentioned which fell within the area one minute and outside the area the next. That was not the case. We had one list of farms with the original maps which came from the department and which was published on my authorization. Then there was a final list of farms as we now have it before us. It was not a case of the one farm now falling within and the next minute outside the area. There are all kinds of proposals like this from other bodies, yes, but not from the Department of Bantu Administration and Development.

Raubenheimer accepted it when I put it to him.

The hon. members must not hide behind Mr. Raubenheimer now, who is absent, and impute all kinds of things to him. [Interjections.] I also want to express my strong disapproval here of the hon. member for Zululand accusing our officials in such an ugly way by alleging that there were certain officials who made promises over the telephone to persons to whom they supposedly said that if they would become sellers of land to my department, they would receive preferential treatment as far as land is concerned which becomes available from the Bantu and may be purchased for use by Whites. My department does not even deal with the land which is made over to the Bantu; the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure deals with that. Our officials know far better than the hon. member seems to know than to make such promises to people. I am saying here now that it is simply not done.

Ask Raubenheimer about that.

The hon. member made a second remark as well. He said that it had been said that people who were sellers would be given preferential treatment if they co-operated.

That is what I said.

It is a charge of corruption which the hon. member is making by implication, I am now telling the hon. member that it is an infamous untruth …

Raubenheimer knows that as well.

I am now telling the hon. member for Zululand that it is an infamous untruth and that it is a petty-minded person who makes statements of this kind against officials in this House. [Interjections.]

Raubenheimer knows about it.

I am now telling the hon. member that for him to come and state here that our officials are guilty of such actions is an infamous untruth, and I want to tell him further that it is a petty-minded member who makes such statements about officials who cannot defend themselves in this House.

May I ask you a question?

No. [Interjections.]

Are you saying that what he said was “an infamous lie”.

I did not use the words “infamous lie”, and that hon. member had better wash out his ears. I said it was an infamous untruth the officials had done such things. I want to repeat this.

But you know nothing about it?

I have known these officials of our department for 13 years; we have been working together for 13 years …

Thirteen years too long.

… and I am telling the hon. members that I vouch for the integrity of each one of them.

Hear, hear!

The same as Agliotti?

Order!

The hon. member for South Coast made a speech in this House today which unfortunately could have only one effect, and that was to cause feelings to become even more heated.

Whose fault is that?

I can understand that hon. member becoming excited, but the hon. member must realize, in view of his age and his long years of experience, that he cannot speak to the public, the Bantu peoples and to individuals in such a manner. He must realize that he cannot cause feelings to become as heated as he did in fact try to make them become here.

Do not blame me because Piet van Vuuren has made a fool of you! [Interjections.]

He also referred to the absence of the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, and called it a “scandal”. I want to tell the hon. member it is a “scandal” to have spoken the way he did. The hon. the Deputy Minister spoke to the hon. member for South Coast on innumerable occasions, more times than I did, and I think the hon, member should be grateful that the door of the hon. the Deputy Minister was as open to him as it was. To refer to him in this manner is therefore objectionable. [Interjection.]

Order!

The hon. member must not get so wound up now. I have already explained very clearly where the hon. the Deputy Minister is, and I also said that it was my responsibility that he is where he is. [Interjections.] All the hon. member for South Coast accomplished, for he was the leader of that walk-out, was merely to make another so-called “Natal stand.” It was merely another old “Mitchell stand” as happened in 1961 when he said that he would stand on his head and wave his feet about in the air, but would not accept a Republic and would march instead. The only marching we saw being done was a marching to the coffee cups and back to the photographer. That is the only marching they did successfully.

Go and teach your grandmother to suck eggs. [Interjection.]

Order! I now want to make an appeal, to the hon. the Minister as well, that we return to the subject of the debate and refrain from being personal. That also applies to the hon. member for South Coast. It applies to everybody, also to the hon. member for Transkei.

I have already replied to the points raised by the hon. member for Mooi River in my discussion of what other hon. members said. Nor do I have very much to say to the hon. member for Houghton. She is at the North Pole and I am even further than the South Pole—so far removed are we from one another on this matter. However, the hon. member did say a very silly thing here, viz. to imply that when legislation was passed in 1959 removing the representatives of the Bantu from this House, more land should have been given in compensation for that. Where does the theory or practice come from that if someone or a group no longer has representation in this Council chamber they should be given more territory? How does the hon. member come by that, and where does such a precedent for that exist?

1936.

It seems to me the hon. member is still suffering a little from the after-effects of last night’s adulation.

The hon. member for Kensington … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. Whips here must please help me to maintain order. I am serious. The hon. Minister may proceed.

The hon. member for Kensington pursued one theme only, with only a minor variation in his speech, viz. that I should not force the tribes to move as is stated, according to him, in portion of this report. What is stated in the report is a notification to the Bantu peoples by Parliament that they will have to move, and the hon. member knows about the legislation, because he referred to it. He knows what it means. I want to tell the hon. member and this House what has been said here very frequently before, i.e. that we have in many cases in the past had Bantu groups who had to move to other areas which we purchased. In by far the most of these cases those removals occurred voluntarily. After negotiations with them had taken place and it had been explained to them what it entailed, and after they had received compensation and had seen that services would be available there, they moved voluntarily. What this hon. member sees as coercion in these powers, I could just point out, are powers in regard to those who want to be a last or a first obstructive element in such a process. We negotiate with the Bantu tribes and with the Governments of the Bantu peoples in question. The hon. members must not create the impression that we are forcing these people in a cruel way and carting them about as if they were bricks or stones, for to do so could cause misconceptions to arise in certain circles. That is not in any way our attitude towards them. The same hon. member asked, in a variation on this theme, what consultation there had been in regard to this matter with the homelands. I have dealt with this before. Must I repeat it again now?

Yes, please.

We have negotiated with each of the homeland governments on various levels, as I said yesterday. The first level on which we negotiated was on the level of officials. The departmental officials, Mr. Pepler and his people, who co-operated on the first map, went to explain that map, its meaning and its purpose, to each of the Bantu Governments.

[Inaudible.]

Does the hon. member not want to give me a chance to reply to his question? Subsequently either the Deputy Minister or I spoke on more than one occasion to those Bantu Governments, either in their areas or in Pretoria—it varies from one Bantu Government to another. The Commissioners-General and the officials also returned repeatedly and explained matters to them. For that reason I am saying that we negotiated on various levels—the level of the officials, the level of the Deputy Minister, and the level of the Minister, the level of the Commissioner-General—with the Bantu Governments on various occasions, and explained matters to them. What is more, we are.going to talk to them a good deal more in future. In fact, I made the first appointment this morning with one of the Bantu Governments for talks later this month.

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

Yes, but the time has almost expired.

In the light of the fact that he even this morning said that he was negotiating with these Black Governments, can he now tell us that these Black Governments are satisfied with the proposals that he has placed before Parliament today?

I dealt with that point just now.

You did not.

I did deal with the point. I have also dealt with it before under my Vote. I said that the Bantu Governments are to a large extent satisfied with this. We are negotiating with those of them who are dissatisfied. I have already dealt with that point adequately.

The hon. member for Turffontein asked me a whole series of minor questions. I must say that the hon. member seemed to be very superficial and frivolous. However, I do just want to reply to some of his questions. The hon. member wanted to know about the area which he called the “finger”, up there near the Limpopo in the area of the Venda. That area adjoining the existing Venda homeland is an area in which the Defence Force has for a long time been carrying on all kinds of activities, and I leave it at that. They need it in the future as well. It is with the consent of the Venda Government that that strip remains as it is, as well as the area above the addition which is being made on the Western side of the existing area. With that I have said enough about that matter.

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

No, I want to say nothing more about that matter.

Is your time limited?

That same hon. member, I think, discussed the water from the catchment areas to the Albasini Dam, and the vicinity of Ofcolaco. He referred in this connection to the Department of Water Affairs and to the Minister of Water Affairs. Let me inform hon. members that, in regard to water affairs, there was not only one discussion between the officers of the Department of Water Affairs, the Minister of Water Affairs, myself and the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, but innumerable discussions. The very last discussion which I personally had with a colleague, was with the Minister of Water Affairs. Unfortunately I see he is not here in the House at the moment. Oh, he is sitting here. The very last discussion was with him. Then the entire proposal went to the Cabinet. I can give hon. members the assurance that the Minister of Water Affairs is not sitting fast asleep in the Cabinet as some hon. members are sitting fast asleep in this House. There was the necessary consultation in regard to this question with all the Ministers and Departments concerned. For that reason this matter is before this House as a Government proposal. Sir, I should like to enable hon. members opposite to request a division on this matters. If the clock had given me a little more time, I could have discussed this matter in even greater detail.

Question put and the House divided:

Tellers: W. A. Cruywagen, S. F. Kotzé, G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question accordingly agreed to.