Mr. Speaker, I referred last night to certain remarks made by the hon. member for Mooi River in connection with leadership. I shall come back to that later. Then, Sir, I referred to the 25 years of Government of the National Party and mentioned certain political realities that we have to face up to, and particularly those which we have had to face up to during this session. I concluded by saying that at this stage the National Party has very little to learn from the United Party and it has nothing to fear from the United Party. Sir, this has been the position over the past few years and I should like to refer to the comments which we have had in the newspapers in this connection since 1971. The Friend of Bloemfontein says, for example, “U.P. is just being silly”. The Pretoria News has the following to say—

I can quote in the same way from the Sunday Times. [Interjections.]

You don’t say!

I want to ask the hon. member for North Rand whether he has any objection to my quoting from the Sunday Times.

No, you can quote your own newspaper if you want to.

I quote, Sir, from the Sunday Times, because I do so on good authority. The hon. member for Yeoville had on occasion the following to say about this same Sunday Times which is now causing those groans—

If this is the comment from the United Party benches to the effect that it is such a great institution, then I must accept the fact that we may indeed quote from that paper. It is strange that a little love has been lost between the United Party and this newspaper.

But, Sir, if we consider the political realities, and if we look at the National Party we cannot do otherwise than to look at the United Party as well. What have we seen over the past few years in regard to that side of the House? One dust cloud of turbulence; turbulence in respect of policy, turbulence in respect of leadership. This is not simply something that happened today or yesterday. It has become a tradition over the past few years. I return again to 1971. You will remember, Sir, that the newspapers pressed them at the time to accept the Bantu homeland policy of the National Party but that they dug in their heels. Then the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was pushed to the forefront as a man who could possibly be a leader, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was asked to stand down. I read a report on that congress of theirs of 1971 in which mention was made of a “Three-day fight”. They struggled for three days at that conference. They know that it was then that Harry Schwarz came to their aid. However, I shall put him in the right place just now; I shall come back to that again. We know of the hon. member for Yeoville who delivered his “Bombshell” speech, and also of the tug-of-war between him and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in regard to the question of whether it was new policy or not. And now I come to Harry Schwarz. With a finely calculated manoeuvre, he unseated the hon. member for Yeoville. A new star appeared in the firmament, but far away from the sphere of battle. From there he shouts instructions to his cohorts, instructions which go over the head of the Leader of the Opposition sitting here. And in 1972, at the end of last year, there was another meddling with policy. Race federation, the little mite whom they would never bring into the parlour, who had to play in the backyard, was suddenly buried with its name but not with its clothes. They then came to light with a federation policy. They took this federation policy and dressed it up in race federation clothes and then held it up as something new which had to jerk the United Party out of its petrified state. And then the hon. member for Durban North says it is no departure from policy; we simply have to understand very well that “it is what it is”. He said that very clearly at the start of this session. We know of the drubbing which those hon. gentlemen received during the no-confidence debate. When it reached that point, Sir, there was a renewed flutter in regard to policy and a large number of other things, and again in regard to leadership, and once again the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was pushed to the forefront as the possible saviour. Sir, we know of the hon. member for Wynberg who suddenly became dissatisfied and summarily left her shadow Cabinet post. The United Party was at loggerheads with its newspapers; the love had cooled and leaders were weighed one against the other. As far as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was concerned, 13 actions were mentioned against him. (They want to see whether our hon. leader’s figure of 13 may not also perhaps bring some luck to their side.) Sir, we know of the “White backlash” speech of the hon. member for Hillbrow which still weighs so heavily upon him; he can scarcely move himself into a leadership position. It is a pity that the hon. member for Yeoville has indicated that he is no longer available for the leadership post in the Transvaal. I am not a betting man but I would have wagered every cent I had on him because under the present circumstances he would unseat Harry Schwarz as easily as anybody could ever unseat anybody else. But it is interesting, Sir, that the wick of the lamp of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was turned up to such an extent that it started to smoke, and they had very quickly to turn that wick down because there are two groups of people who do not trust him. The people who are slightly leftist do not trust him because he is, after all, a man who accepts the concept of multi-nationalism and the homeland principle of the National Party. Those who are slightly rightist do not trust him completely either because even before they accepted this new policy, he was the great protagonist of the representation of Black people by their own colour group in this Parliament and also of the Indians by their own people in this Parliament. And so the light was trimmed because at both extremes there are people who do not trust him. But, Sir, mutual disputes on policy and on leadership are not the fundamental problem of the United Party. They will outlive these disputes. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition will remain Leader as long as he chooses and the United Party newspapers will simply have to accept this fact. Neither will they split because they have the ability to stretch, very far to different extremes, in order to accommodate every possible train of thought: to the left the semi-progressives must be included, and to the right the large mass of the supremacists and the in-between shades, including those with homeland tendencies, must be accommodated. But the fundamental problem lies in one place only; it is not in regard to leadership; the fundamental problem lies with policy. If there is an acceptable policy and there is a direction in regard to which people can see that possibilities exist, any party, including the United Party opposite, may possibly be able to gain momentum again, irrespective of who its leader is. But, Sir, a leader with the best attributes of heart and mind will get nowhere with a policy such as this; it lies like lead in his stomach. Because in South Africa, in the politics of today, the politics of relationships are probably the most important, and the political party which in its relationships policy does not take into account the right of nations to self-determination and the basic national composition in South Africa, will go the way that party is going.

Sir, let us make an analysis of their policy which, after he had got his breath back, the hon. member for Durban North explained thus (translation)—

Let us leave the better policy at that, but let us look for a moment, Sir, at the principles. What is the keystone of the principles? Here I want to refer again to this yellow booklet because I want to accept the fact that certain things contained in this booklet still hold good for today; I am sure that they have not thrown everything contained in this yellow booklet completely overboard. This booklet starts as follows (translation)—

If one turns this booklet over, one reads on the back (translation)—

I want to accept that this is still the cornerstone of their policy. There are also other documents here from which I could quote and from which this is clearly apparent. Sir, how did they want to confirm that White leadership? By 16 representatives for the colour groups in this Parliament and, on top of that, certain constitutional guarantees and referendums in regard to the increase of the non-White’s say in this Parliament. The non-White had to be satisfied with certain forms of communal government and a limited representation, and his representation would not be increased if the White man did not agree to it. We know what the objections were in this regard. We told them continuously that 16 representatives of the colour groups would upset the political balance in this House and that if they insisted upon an extension of political authority, one would eventually have to yield to the force of that insistence and give them that extension; or, if one had eventually to give them that extension because of their numerical proportions, what then would become of one’s White leadership? We said throughout that in the way in which they wanted to retain it, White leadership would simply not remain in South Africa. The United Party then began to realize that they were barking up the wrong tree and that they would not be able to maintain White leadership in this way. Election after election has proved this to them. The great disillusion came after Oudtshoom and then we had this federation policy last year. Here, Sir, we find precisely the same principle. It is not I who says this; the hon. member for Orange Grove had this to say (translation)—

Basically it is the same keystone, the same cornerstone, on which this policy stands. The hon. member for Yeoville had this to say during the Caledon election campaign (translation)—

White leadership, an undivided South Africa, and one nation. Sir, how will this be retained in this new system? By making the White Parliament supreme. The White Parliament will have the final say. And how will the federal elements be represented in this White Parliament—on what basis? They will be chosen on the contribution of each to the prosperity of the country and to the welfare of the State. A purely economic basis is now being introduced into politics as a qualification. Sir, riches and ability now become the yardstick for political participation, and in South Africa this is dangerous because there is a great difference as far as ability is concerned. The danger lies in the fact that if for example, the Bantu are unable to gain quickly the economic ability which will guarantee him participation in the Government, he will make a plan to try to obtain those riches because they can guarantee a political say for him. In other words, by introducing this qualification, one causes his aim to be directed at one’s possessions and alo at one’s power. We say, Sir, that with this new policy too, with everything that it entails, the United Party will not be able to maintain White leadership. This will be so because there will be more insistence on the part of the non-White for a greater say, and one will suddenly have built more tension into one’s new system. On what moral basis can the United Party deny this nation an eventual co-say in its undivided fatherland? And it does not appear as though they deny it because the hon. member for Mooi River said here only last night that they are dividing the authority. I pointed out to him that if one divides authority, one gives a part of that authority away and that as a result, one no longer retains the full authority. And if the United Party does not want to do it by that means, then we must accept the fact that the White Parliament, which must be supreme, will eventually, in the words of the hon. member for Orange Grove, commit suicide. However, the hon. member says that that is not their policy. As yet we have no clarity on this matter. Besides this, they now come to light with consultation as the magic word. This federal council, which is not a federal Parliament, has now to become a consultative forum.

Sir, it will not be a consultative forum; it will eventually only be a demand forum, and those hon. gentlemen have not yet told us how they are eventually going to be able to resist those demands. We on this side of the House are not hoodwinking anyone in that way because the White man knows where he stands with us. The non-White nations also know where they stand because the National Party’s policy of political freedoms will be implemented and it will lead to better mutual co-operation and more respect for one another, no matter what our striving is. A constant meddling with policy and continual dissension in regard to leadership only builds tension and engenders confidence on the part of nobody. If on the first occasion that a policy is explained it creates a great deal of confusion among its creators, that policy is made to look ridiculous. But in South Africa—and this is what we on this side of the House realize—the most important matter that we have to solve is the division of political authority because the division of political authority is the foundation upon which everything rests. After this has been done and political authority has been divided, on the basis which we favour, we believe that many other relationships and living patterns will follow a very much more natural course.

At this stage of this session all we can say to those hon. members is that White leadership as they want to maintain it will not survive. We on this side of the House have repeatedly proved this to the United Party. We want to make an appeal to them to make use of the instruments that we have formulated and to follow the same principles as these we are following because by this means they will be guaranteeing White identity. They will also be guaranteeing the national identity of the others in South Africa and in this way we shall be creating good grounds for cooperation, far peace and for prosperity in South Africa.

The hon. member for Germiston has just made a speech which I found very interesting and I should like to dwell for a moment or two on the two basis premises on which he based his arguments. The hon. member, criticizing the United Party policy, based his criticism on two main points. The one was that we would be unable to retain White leadership because the pressure from the non-Whites would be too great and we would be forced to give it up. That was his first point, and his second basic point was that you cannot live with a policy of that kind where you have a majority in numbers in your country who do not have the majority political power. You cannot live with that because it has no moral foundation. That was his second point. Now, I find this very interesting.

Let us first of all deal with the moral basis, because it requires very little argument to be disposed of. If that argument of the hon. member is correct then it goes to the very root of the National Party policy itself because the National Party, through the mouth of the Prime Minister, agrees that the Coloured man and the Indian will remain part of White South Africa, and every projection that one sees indicates that those two non-White groups, the Coloureds and the Indians, will become a majority in White South Africa by the turn of the century. Now, if those figures are correct, that the Coloureds and the Indians will forever remain part of White South Africa, and that they together will constitute a majority by the turn of the century, where is the moral basis for the Government’s policy which not only gives them not limited representation in the centre but stands for no representation of any kind at any time in the future. So, the moral basis can be disposed of immediately. It has no validity whatever, this argument advanced by the hon. member.

But let us get on to the question of pressure and the inability to resist it. The hon. member says the United Party’s policy will fail in the sense of failing to maintain White leadership because the pressure of the non-Whites will be so great that it will have to be conceded. Sir, the root, the hard core of that argument is not in any particular constitutional framework. That is not where it rests; that is not the basis of that argument. It is not the constitutional framework that is the difficulty; it is the physical presence in White South Africa of these people. That is the main difficulty, and whether you have a United Party administration or whether you have a National Party administration, you are going to have, firstly, if every Black man were removed, a majority of non-Whites in the Indians and the Coloureds.

But now we have had an acceptance by the National Party that for generations to come the urban Bantu will be permanently in the White areas. So, under Nationalist policy for today and for the foreseeable future, you will have a majority of non-Whites, Bantu, Indian and Coloured, permanently settled in the White areas of South Africa. Quite apart from any constitutional framework those pressures will be there. And what is the criterion? The criterion is no longer whether you prefer this type of constitutional framework to meet that problem or that kind; the question is whether in South Africa in 1973 you can use naked force to maintain your position. That is the question, and naked force means guns and bloodshed. Can you use that to maintain your position in South Africa in 1973? If the answer is “yes”, then one will agree with the sort of speech that the hon. the Minister of the Interior made yesterday.

There is a major flaw in your argument.

If the answer is “no”, and I believe that the recent industrial unrest in South Africa makes it loud and clear that the answer is “no”, unless you have the majority with you, then you are bound to formalize your relationship with the non-Whites in some way or another, to formalize it so that there is a constitutional framework within which these aspirations can be brought out and a consensus reached. That is the problem and I believe that everything we have seen over the last ten years in South Africa, certainly from Sharpeville onwards, and if one looks at South Africa’s position today, it forces one to the point of view that at least in respect of the Indians, the Coloureds and the urbanized Bantu in the White areas, you have to devise a formal framework within which the aspirations of these people can be channelled and can be regulated and within which there can be a sharing of responsibility. I prefer to put it on the basis of a sharing of responsibility rather than a sharing of power because in the ultimate analysis, if you stand for the maintenance of a regulatory Parliament, like this Parliament, as we do, then ultimate power rests there, while at national level there is no true sharing of power.

There is a sharing of power at the regional level. At that level there is both a sharing of power and a sharing of responsibility, but at the national level in the ultimate end where, as they say in America, the buck stops, there is a sharing of responsibility, but there is not a sharing of ultimate power. This is, as I see it, the only way in which one can approach the problems of South Africa. There is no other.

There is one final point I should like to put to bolster my viewpoint that we have passed the stage where one can simply say: This will be maintained and we shall do it by means of naked force. Not only if you look at South Africa’s position in the world is that an untenable proposition, but also if you realize that we are now a highly sophisticated industrial country where the question of confidence is paramount. Unless you maintain confidence, you cannot I maintain our industrial society; it collapses as an economic unit unless you can maintain confidence. You cannot use naked force and at the same time maintain confidence in a modern industrialized society unless, as I say, you are using that force to enforce something which has at least the consensus of the majority.

The United Party’s policy is designed to meet that situation. I would be very pleased if the hon. gentlemen opposite would come to me and say: We agree that that is the correct premise from which to start; we differ with your constitutional ideas; we think it is faulty here or faulty there. But it is extremely difficult to argue with gentlemen who will not accept what is there for all of us to see as the basic premise of South Africa: A majority of non-Whites in the White area for the foreseeable future bound up with a highly sophisticated industrialized society living in times and in an environment where you can no longer, except under certain conditions, rely on naked force to maintain your position. That is what we mean and that is why we place the emphasis on leadership, because leadership can happen without falling into that pitfall which I have outlined. I do not know what time is left for my prepared speech at this stage, because time has passed …

Is it just leadership or White leadership to which you are referring?

I refer to White leadership.

But your leadership is a dying premise.

Quiet, Pottie, you do not understand this.

Before I get on to what I have prepared, I must deal with two other speeches made yesterday by hon. gentlemen opposite. I come first to the speech made by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education. I really enjoyed that speech. It was a gem. It had all the qualities of a piece of good antique furniture. It was a masterpiece from a bygone age …

Victorian.

I am reminded that it was Victorian. Yes, it was Victorian.

It was thoroughly enjoyable, but it has as much relevance to our position in South Africa today as nice Victorian chaise longue has in a modern American kitchen.

You would be unable to understand his speech.

His speech has no relevance whatever to the problems of today.

The other speech was a speech by the hon. the Minister of the Interior. These days we hear a lot about crown princes. I suppose in the context of a crown prince being the heir to the throne, and in the context of the hon. the Prime Minister being the occupant of the throne, there are really two crown princes in this House and not one.

What position does Harry Schwarz occupy in your ranks?

No, I am talking about the crown princes who are present in this Chamber. There are two. Yesterday we had a very interesting comparison between the qualities of the two crown princes in two speeches that were delivered. Of course, one of the two crown princes is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the alternative Government. What better comparison did we have in the two speeches of these two hon. gentlemen yesterday? One, the Leader of the Opposition, accepted the facts as they are, analysed them carefully and presented a speech that would have been received favourably in any forum in the world before any audience. That was his speech. I regret to say that the other speech, the one by the hon. the Minister of the Interior, which was, as it were, the use-of-naked-force type of speech on the basis of the analysis which I have just delivered, would have had approbation in only one forum in the world, and that is at a branch meeting of the National Party at Pofadder—nowhere else! [Interjections.] Nowhere else would it have received any attention at all. I am sorry that that sort of speech came from a gentleman who as far as one can judge, is the heir apparent of the Nationalist throne. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, we are looking at the Republic today after 25 years of Nationalist Party rule. If one were to look at it through the spectacles of the Nationalist Party, one would say that we have achieved what we have set out to do. We have, for instance, achieved our republican form of government in the place of the monarchy and we have secured the dominance of the Afrikaans-speaking people in national government. One could say further, looking at it through Nationalist Party spectacles, that the constitutional separation of the various non-White races has been achieved and that the geographic basis, which is the essential concomitant of constitutional separation, has now been settled. So, Sir, one could say, if one were a Nationalist, that we have arrived, that everybody should be very thankful, that all our problems have been solved, and that we can now look forward to tranquility and security because we have had a Nationalist Party Government for 25 years, a government which has now done what it set out to do. I want to remind you, Sir, in respect of the Bantu the achievement of that ideal involved the channelling off of political, civic and most permanent economic rights to the homelands. Through Nationalist eyes, all pressures are relieved, all problems are solved and the White man in South Africa is safe forever.

But now, what are the realities when you take off your Nationalist Party spectacles? What is the position then? Firstly, in the immediate future, we have all the problems which will flow from consolidation. I do not want to go into those problems in detail other than to say that there is going to be a population shift which wise men elsewhere would avoid; there is going to be a reduction in food production; there are going to be vastly increased inflationary pressures, arising out of the increase in the price of land which this step will bring about; there is going to be a deterioration in race relations because of the resentments caused; and there is going to be an inflow of the Bantu to the towns as the job opportunities on the farms disappear. Those are the short-term results. What is the position in regard to long-term results? I think the question which arises, to illustrate the position, is: What are the key components of security in South Africa? I believe that, first of all, there is the labour force, which is the basis of our industrial and agricultural strength. Secondly, there is the element of adequate water supplies to our main centres of population and, thirdly, there is communication both internally and externally. Fourthly, there are our major ports on the eastern seaboard. Fifthly, and very important, there is the spirit of confidence which is essential to our economical survival and, finally, and most important of all, there is the retention of administrative control of these key elements which I have just named, in the hands of that authority which is responsible for the safety and security of South Africa, which means the Republican Government. Those are the keys to security in South Africa. What are the Government’s intentions in regard to these issues which will determine our security? Firstly, in respect of the labour force, it is proposed to hand over control of that force to eight Governments occupying more than 20 scattered pieces of territory throughout South Africa. These are Governments that have the power to direct that labour but no responsibility in respect of it in the places where it works. That is the first point. Secondly, there is the question of water. I wonder how many hon. gentlemen here realize that Durban at the present time consumes 100 million gallons of water per day. By the end of this century, within my lifetime, it will need 500 million gallons of water per day. That is in respect of one town, namely Durban. The only source of water to supply that need now rests in the Bantu areas of Natal. I wonder how many people realize that. Natal is now looked upon as the source of water for the Witwatersrand. Under present proposals that water-supply also will be in the hands of a foreign Government. Thirdly there is the question of communications to Durban, Richards Bay and to the north, which will be completely dominated if not controlled by the foreign Governments that are to be established. Then there is the question of ports. I have already mentioned the major ports which control the industrial life of the Witwatersrand. They are at the moment Durban and will include Richards Bay. That too, Sir, will be controlled both by means of labour and proximity by foreign Governments. And finally there is the question of the spirit of confidence. I can say from my own experience that there is already a danger, a dent in the question of confidence in those areas which are involved with the Government’s consolidation proposals, which have not even yet got off the ground.

Now, how is it that one can have a large body of intelligent men who in 1973 actively go out to endanger our security in this manner and that one cannot somehow get across to them the folly of their ways. Of what earthly use are the tens of millions that we spend on defence equipment if the keys to our industrial strength are handed over to the control of others? The hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Police have spoken truly that our danger in South Africa is not conventional warfare at this time. It is the question of terrorism and guerilla warfare. Now, what are the keys to successful terrorism and guerilla warfare? They are, firstly, a series of isolated and scattered bases secured from interference. Secondly, it is the ability to disrupt communications and, thirdly, it is the ability to terrorize the labour supply to the industries of the country. Fourthly, it is the ability to disrupt or cut off essential services such as water. Political independence on the basis of fragmented geographical areas and a largely expatriate population, lend themselves ideally to terrorist activities. The very policy which this Government is implementing lends itself ideally to terrorist activities. If the treatment of the majority by the Government which is sought to be undermined, breeds hostility and dissatisfaction, then the field of operations for the terrorist is complete. One has only to listen to the speeches of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition on more than one occasion in this House to realize the truth of that.

Everything which this Government proposes to do lends itself ideally to this situation. Nothing is designed to make control of possible terrorist disruption more difficult than the policies of this Government. The Black peoples of South Africa are not themselves disposed to terrorism, nor are their leaders. Anybody who knows them will realize that they are not themselves disposed to terrorism. And as I have said on many occasions in this House personal relationships are still very good. But Black people like White people can come under the influence of malignant forces, particularly when they are economically weak, socially incohesive and politically immature and are thrown out of a mature industrial and political society and told to fend for themselves. Communism today uses terrorism as its media, as its weapon. Communism finds no secure foothold in societies which are socially cohesive, politically mature and economically strong. There is no place for Communism there. That is what we on this side of the House are striving to achieve. The difficulty here is that the old tribal structure has broken down. One need not go into the reasons but it has. It is largely broken down. Black people have been drawn into an industrialized society. We have millions of people —and I am going to use the phrases again —who are socially incohesive because all the old disciplines have disappeared. They are politically immature in a modem society and are economically very weak and are becoming weaker by the day as inflation goes ahead. Such a society has no resistence to the malignancy of Communism at all. It also has no resistence to terrorism. It has to be protected against that malignancy by the White authority. That is our duty as people who are able to fight against this thing. It is to assist these people to fight against this malignancy.

The terrorists acquire support largely through intimidation. We have seen it in Rhodesia over and over again that Black society left to itself cannot defend itself against that sort of intimidation. Even with a White authority as you have in Rhodesia, Sir, it is difficult to persuade and encourage and to arrange things so that Black society can defend itself against terrorism. And I have no doubt at all that without the protection of the White authority these malignancies would have a free run, not because of the hostility of the Bantu themselves but because of the nature of the society in which they live and the conditions under which they find themselves at the present time. If that is a correct analysis of the situation—and I believe it is—it is the height of madness deliberately to abdicate responsibility for law and order and the peaceful guidance of the Bantu peoples in the Bantu areas. It is the height of madness to do that. And as I said earlier when I started my speech, if we have reached the stage in South Africa where you can no longer use the question of naked force to guide events in your country, then you are forced to adopt a formalized relationship of some kind or another. We have other reasons for adopting this point of view. Until I hear a better one I believe that the formalized relationship for the various races of South Africa which the United Party has devised and which it calls its federal principles or its federal plan, is the best thing that has been devised in this country so far. I do not want it to be thought that the United Party puts forward a formalized plan simply because it thinks that naked forces are old fashioned. We do it for that reason because we are realists and because we believe as a moral principle, that if you accent that the various non-White peoples are all part of the South African State, then they are all entitled to some representation in the bodies that are concerned with and deliberate upon their welfare. That is the second basis upon which we believe in a formalized relationship.

If one then looks at the position at which we have arrived after 25 years of Nationalist rule and authority, at a stage when they have almost completed their blueprint to ease the situation in South Africa, what have we to be thankful for? We do not face a period of relaxation and tranquility. We do not face that. We do not face economic prosperity without problems. On the contrary, we face a period of tension, immense tension.

There is tension all over the world.

Of course there is, but there is more here than there is in any other country. And, Sir, it is quite unnecessary.

Why is it midnight?

You are so blind that it is always midnight on your side.

Whether one looks at the short term or whether one looks at the long term, this Government, after 25 years of experimentation, has failed to produce a blueprint which can serve even as an acceptable idea of debate for the solution of our problems because it starts from a false premise. It starts from a false premise and that is that the non-White peoples of South Africa need not be considered. When I say “non-White people”, I mean the majority who live in the White areas, because so far as Government policy is concerned they are not there. But when it comes to the criticism of our policy they are put right in the forefront of things.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development said the other night that it was five to twelve. It is indeed five to twelve, but it is five to twelve not because of anything the United Party has done: it is five to twelve because we have had 25 years of Nationalist rule which is now seen to be a failure.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Zululand spoke about “naked force”. In the same breath he also spoke about “White leadership”. What does “White leadership” mean? “White leadership” means nothing other than “White supremacy”, in other words, White “baasskap”. If they stand for “White leadership” or “White supremacy”, they will have to use “naked force”, as he calls it, to maintain that “White supremacy” and “White leadership” in South Africa, because not one of the non-White races will be satisfied with “White leadership” since they interpret “White leadership” as White “baasskap”. When one comes along with White “baasskap”, they will take up arms and then they, the United Party, will cause bloodshed in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members on that side of the House also talk about consultation. Was there any consultation with the non-Whites in South Africa before they drew up their plan in October of last year, or was this a plan which was drawn up between four walls by certain members only? Did they ever consult any non-White in South Africa, whether Indian, Coloured or Bantu, when they drew up this plan?

Before I start my speech, I want to mention one other point touched on by the hon. member for Zululand. He says that Communism does not flourish in a country where there is economic stability. That is the biggest nonsense. Who were the Communists in South Africa? Were they people from poor parts? Were they people who lived in poverty? Or were they people like Bram Fischer, who had an extensive legal practice in South Africa? Did he come from a poor family? His father was Judge President of the Free State; his grandfather played a leading role—and yet he was a communist. Then there is Sam Kahn. He was an attorney who built up a large practice in this city and who nevertheless came to this House as a communist. Then too, there is Solly Sachs, secretary of the Garmentmakers’ Union, who received a large salary. He was a communist nevertheless. Did he come from a poor family? That argument does not hold water.

Today I want to discuss the federal plan in greater detail. It has already been dealt with here in general terms, but I want to do so in greater detail. This federal plan of the United Party consists of three parts, namely a political policy, and influx policy and a policy in regard to ownership rights. The hon. member for Germiston has already dealt very effectively with some of these aspects, but now I want to come to a further aspect. I want to refer to the various councils which the United Party proposes. There are councils for the Coloureds, the Indians, the Bantu in their Original areas and the Bantu in the urban areas, or, as they say, the Bantu who no longer have tribal links. But there is another group, too. They only talk about the urban Bantu. There is going to be a council for them. There is going to be a council for the Indians. There is going to be a council for the Coloureds. There is going to be a council for the Bantu in their tribal lands. But what about the Bantu in the rural areas? Nothing is ever said about him? Is he going to be a second-class citizen under this federal system of the United Party?

They clean forgot about him.

Yes, that is quite correct. As the hon. member has just said, the rural Bantu has been completely forgotten.

There are millions of them.

Yes, there are millions of them in the rural areas. To use the English expression, “They have been relegated to the limbo of obscurity.” No council is being advocated for them. I have the hon. member’s plan before me. I have gone through it very carefully. In that plan there is not one word about the rural Bantu. I shall come back to this when I discuss their policy in respect of influx control and ownership rights.

Sir, I now come to the Coloureds. According to this United Party plan, the Coloureds are to have one council for the Cape and another for the northern provinces. What about the Coloureds of Natal? This plan is only for the Coloureds in the Cape and those in the northern provinces. They say nothing about the Coloureds in Natal, and there is a heavy influx of Coloureds to Natal and to the Transvaal.

Is Natal not a northern province?

The northern provinces are the Free State and the Transvaal. Not a word is said about Natal. Like the rural Bantu, the Coloured in Natal is completely disregarded by the United Party.

But, Sir, what about the Indians? They say that they are going to establish one Indian council for the whole of South Africa, and through the hon. member for Zululand they have just said that by the end of this century, there would be just as many Coloureds and just as many Indians in South Africa as there are Whites. They are also the people who are always saying that one cannot govern a country where there is not one solid mass. That is their argument with regard to the consolidation of the homelands. They say that one cannot administer five or six pieces of land. But here they are proposing that the Coloureds, and the Indians in particular, who live in various provinces, will have to be governed by a central body. What becomes of their argument now?

But. Sir, what I find most interesting of all is that there will only be one Parliament and that is going to be a White Parliament. All the other races will only have legislative assemblies. The other race communities will have legislative assemblies, but not one of them will have a parliament, but the Whites in South Africa will have a legislative assembly and a White Parliament. Mr. Speaker, do you think that the non-White races are going to be satisfied with a situation of the Whites in South Africa having a legislative assembly and a White Parliament, which is sovereign, while they, the Indians, the Coloureds and the Bantu, only have legislative assemblies and no Parliament? Is that not discrimination? Is that not an immediate point of conflict? Will they not immediately say. “You Whites have a White Parliament, but we do not have our own Parliament”? But, Sir, the United Party goes further; they say that as far as the Whites are concerned they are going to divide the Cape into two—probably the Eastern Province and the Western Province. That is an old idea. As far back as 1865, Henry Murant wrote about “het afskeiding tussen het westelike en oostelike provinde” (the division between the western and eastern province). But they go even further. They say that the Transvaal, too, will have two legislative assemblies. How are you going to divide the Transvaal into two legislative assemblies, and why? The Cape is going to have two, and it does not help to argue about that. The words they use in their constitution are that the Carte and the Transvaal may be divided into two.

Where does it say that?

In the constitution of the United Party.

Show us where that appears. It does not appear there.

It appears in the same document as that which states that the Coloureds will have two councils. Does the hon. member deny it? I have the booklet here, and here it says clearly (translation)—

You have not even read that, Vause.

Then it goes further—

Sir, how is that policy going to give satisfaction, and how will these various assemblies be elected? The various assemblies are to be elected on the basis of proportional representation. The legislative assemblies of the Whites and those of the Coloured communities are to be elected on a proportional basis so as to render it possible for the small parties in every race to have representation as well. Sir, proportional representation is something which was rejected long ago. All those councils or legislative assemblies will also have to have executive committees, and that will mean that various parties will have to sit and that compromises will have to be reached. That is why France was in a mess from 1870 until the arrival on the scene of De Gaulle, because there used to be a change of government every now and then. It was Eric Stockenström who described it as “a kaleidoscope of changing ministries”, and this will happen again. Sir, does this not already constitute another point of conflict? The non-Whites cannot be satisfied with that. But now I come to the worst of all, and that is to the White Parliament, the only Parliament in the whole federal state. It is the White Parliament. It is the only Parliament in the whole federal state; the only Parliament in the whole White state, and according to their constitution that Parliament will be sovereign. Yes, it is stated here. That White Parliament will be so sovereign that even a federal council which is on top—they call it a federal assembly—will not even have the power which the White Parliament will have. It is on top. It is the umbrella body, but it will not have the power of the White Parliament. Will any of these non-White races be satisfied with a situation of those people sitting in the umbrella body, in the federal council, the highest council, being dominated by this White Parliament? How are they going to get out of that? They can do nothing. That is why I say that this plan will lead to friction, conflict and eventually to a bloodbath in South Africa. I say that this is the most diabolic plan one can have and that each of them who support it is an advocatus diabolus.

But I go further. This White Parliament —and here I quote from their constitution —is the regulator of the granting of powers to the legislative assemblies. This White Parliament will tell the legislative assemblies of the Coloureds, the Indians and the Bantu what powers they shall have. That is what it will have to do. And furthermore, as far as the federal council is concerned, they say that the key to security will not be given to this federal council, whatever that key might mean. And what does that security really mean? It comprises two things; the Police and the Defence Force. They say that this will not be given to the federal council, the umbrella body, unless a decision to the contrary is taken by means of a referendum to be held among the Whites voting for the White Parliament. Only the Whites will be able to say, by way of a referendum, whether these instruments of security, the Police and the Defence Force, may be handed over to the federal council. Now they hold a referendum, and the Whites voting in that referendum—because they are the only people who can vote— say, “No, we are not going to hand over that key to security, to that federal assembly.” Sir, can you see what would happen then? Would those members sitting in that federal council or federal assembly—I must say that in some places they call it a federal council and in others a federal assembly; nor is it a Parliament because it has no powers. Now I come to the position where they have held a referendum and the Whites say that they are not going to hand over that security to these people, because that federal assembly has the right to ask the White Parliament: “Let us have the key to security.” Now the Whites refuse. Then there is not only friction, then there is not only conflict; then they will demand to be given that key, and what weapon are they going to use to get it?

I go further. They say that the White Parliament will have the final say on what powers are to be transferred to the federal council. The powers to be transferred to the federal council, are to be decided on by this Parliament, because they say in their constitution that the White Parliament will have the final say. Will Buthelezi and Matanzima and the whole lot be satisfied with the situation of this White Parliament still having the final say? No, conflict once more! Every point in this, is a point of friction, of conflict.

Now we come to the composition of the federal council. In it there will be three members of each legislative assembly. There will also be additional members a matter to which the hon. member for Germiston has also referred. Those additional members will be designated on the basis of the contribution of each federal unit to the country in general and to the welfare of the population in particular. That is how the additional members of that federal council will be determined. Who will have the majority in that federal council? Of course it will be the Whites, because they are the people with the money. They are the people who are in a position to contribute towards the general welfare of the country. The Whites, therefore, will be in the majority there. [Interjections.] Do hon. members know what will happen then? Because there will be a majority of Whites as a result of these electoral qualifications, we shall find that the non-Whites will form cause there will be a majority of Whites majority in the federal council. Once again this amounts to conflict. The Whites, as the richest group, would decidedly be able to elect most of the additional members.

A bought majority.

The United Party say they regard South Africa as one state and that is why they have this federal policy.

What is South Africa today after 25 years of Nationalist Party rule?

If it is one state, what about ownership of land, what about freedom of movement? Then where does the policy of influx control come in? Would the Whites not allow the Xhosas to come here then? How could they not want to allow that; after all, it would be one state? Would they not allow the Zulu to come here? Surely they could not refuse this, because this would be one state.

They would not have the right to refuse.

As the hon. member for Tygervallei says, they would not have the right to refuse, because it would be one state. Surely they cannot refuse to allow people to move within that state as they want to.

That is what you are doing now, is it not?

No, I am talking about what will happen in terms of their policy; I am not dealing with out policy now. I see that the hon. member for Houghton has suddenly become a great champion of the United Party. [Interjections.] I am dwelling on this point because the United Party says that if they were to come into power there would be influx control. How could influx control be applied other than by refusing the Bantu to come here to work or to live? If they were to do that, surely those people would be dissatisfied.

As they are now.

Surely it could not happen.

It is a paradox.

Yes, what the hon. member says is true. It is a paradox. You say you have one state, but why should these people not be allowed to move and live within its borders as they choose? Would the federal council which has a say above the legislative assemblies, be satisfied with a situation of the people who form part of the electorate not being allowed to come and live and work here? Now they will be giving the right of land ownership. Hon. members have said that they would have the right to ownership of land on a family basis in the White area. But they also say—and now I come to the point— that the Whites will not be allowed to acquire land in those non-White areas. The non-White, the Zulu and the Xhosa, may, however, have the right to ownership of land in the White urban areas. But now I ask: Are they going to receive that right of ownership in the White rural areas as well? Are they going to receive the right to buy farms in the White area under the jurisdiction of this Parliament?

No.

Oh, they will not be allowed to do that. They say here specifically that they cannot allow the White to buy land in the Bantu homeland, because—and I quote (translation)—

That is what we always say—

Therefore, we, the White people, may not buy there, but the Zulu and the Xhosa may come and buy here.

The Whites own land there now.

I go further …

What have you quoted from?

It does not matter, I do not have any time to devote to the hon. member now. Now I come to what they say about social separation. They say —and I quote again (translation)—

Please note, “practices”.

These are merely practices. They are nothing more. They would be able to retain social practices. As we have always said, if these were only practices then they would be free to go and buy land in Sea Point and in any other place. After all, the separation would not be embodied in law. Then it would be based on nothing but a practice. Then they go on to say (translation)—

They say that there could be multi-racial schools at any place. But then they end very dramatically (translation)—

They talk about instant solutions (translation)—

Well, 1978 is just around the corner and they are not even in power yet, but this plan will offer an immediate solution to all their problems. Just to conclude, Sir, …

Tell me, what document is that?

Here it states (translation)—

I think that they should have another look at their plans, “Say not the struggle naught availeth”. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to deal in any way with the hon. member for Krugersdorp. His entire speech consisted of an analysis, part of which I agree with incidentally. He dealt with the shortcomings of the United Party’s race federation policy. I imagine that the United Party will deal with that themselves. I only want to say that the hon. member made his speech on the assumption that the separation of the states has already been achieved, that this country is already divided into several independent Black states and one White state, since he talks about the pass laws and say that you morally cannot allow the members of one state not to move around free from influx control within that state. I may say that that is a sentiment with which I thoroughly agree. But then I would like him to explain to me why the National Party is able to do this long before independent Bantustans have been declared and when the Africans who are still technically, anyway, citizens of South Africa are denied the right of movement in this one state. It has long been an argument of the Progressive Party that it is an elementary right of every individual to move freely around the country which is his fatherland. Up till now as far as I know, not one independent Black state has been created in the 25 years of Nationalist rule.

I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Zululand. As always he delivered a logical and very well-reasoned speech. [Interjection.] Wait a moment, the crunch is still to come. The objection I have to his speech is that he worked everything out on a very good logical premise and talked about the use of naked force no longer being acceptable in this day and age in order to maintain a political situation. I agree. Whether in fact that is going to be the case is another matter. Certainly under the National Party regime in the end it is going to come down to naked force. The African leaders are more and more disenchanted with the prospects of viable independent Bantustans. As the hon. member correctly pointed out, the Government has produced no solution whatsoever for the overwhelming millions of Black people who always will remain in the White areas. There I include Coloured and Indian people as well, in the terminology of “Black”. Equally however the hon. member has failed to tell us how it is that he imagines that his party is going to be able to avoid in the end the use of naked force, since to the best of my knowledge, no African leader has accepted the policy which his party propounds. That policy he put in very clear and logical terms today without attempting to disguise the fact that the United Party has no intention of sharing power with the Black races of this country. They will share regional responsibility but real power will remain presumably forever or in the foreseeable future in the hands of the Whites. This the hon. the Leader of the Opposition in the past has defined as far as one can see into the future and even further than that. So presumably the United Party is going to try and hang on for dear life to all power. I would have thought that the lessons of history have taught that that too is an impossibility, unless …

Power, not real power.

I do not know what the difference is between real power and power. As far as I am concerned if we are not prepared to share political power, in governing this country, with the vast masses of Black people, except down in regional areas, then that is hanging on to political power. In the end that will also have to be done by naked force. Otherwise it will have to be given up. Those are the lessons of history.

What about the federal assembly?

The federal assembly was referred to by the hon. member for Krugersdorp. I presume he was reading from the constitutional proposals framed by the committee under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Durban North. I recognize it because I too have a copy of this historic document. I presume most of those proposals have been accepted. If they have not, hon. members should tell us. According to those proposals the federal Parliament is going to have very little by way of African. Coloured and Indian participation. That participation is certainly going to be kept to the minimum. And we do not know what power that federal assembly is going to wield.

You are assuming …

I am not assuming anything. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition gave some examples during the session and said that the federal assembly would be dealing with things like pollution, tourism and things of that nature. That is not governing the country at all. There is only one solution, I believe, and that is to accept the fact as the hon. member for Zululand does accept, namely that South Africa is and always will remain a multiracial country with millions of Black people living in among the White people and indeed outnumbering them. We have to get agreement on the sharing of true political power, meaningful political power with those people, or the only way in which the situation can be held in the ultimate would be by this utterly unacceptable use of naked force. I think we just have to accept that.

That is United Party policy.

It is also National Party policy because the policy as practised —after all we have had a quarter of a century’s experience of this policy—has shown that it does not work. After 25 years there are still more Black people in White areas than there are in the Black areas. By the year 2000 according to the demographic experts, we are going to be outnumbered by millions and millions in the White areas themselves. So why not come to terms with the realities of the situation?

But, Sir. I want really to deal with another subject. Despite the fact that throughout this session this subject has attracted really the most attention of all it has not been mentioned, except in a passing reference by the hon. the Minister of the Interior yesterday, in this final windup debate of this session. I refer to the Schlebusch Commission. [Interjection.] Yes, we are right back to the Schlebusch Commission, that very interesting Commission.

There he is right beside you.

I have asked him to come in specially to be here. I do not like talking about people behind their backs. So far we have had three reports by the Schlebusch Commission. Now, on two of those reports the hon. the Prime Minister has taken instant action. But in respect of one of those reports, which after all also recommended urgent action to be necessary, the Prime Minister has been for him surprisingly dilatory. That is on the recommendation of the first interim report of the Schlebusch Commission, that a permanent internal security body be set up consisting of members of Parliament of both parties. There was no point in including me in this, since I have made my feelings very clear. The hon. the Prime Minister promised us when the interim report was tabled that the unanimous recommendation of the commission that … I wonder whether the hon. member for South Coast will be good enough to talk a little bit more quietly. The recommendation of the commission was that a permanent parliamentary commission be established by statute to deal with internal security. The hon. the Prime Minister promised us that that would be implemented this session. He gave us that assurance when the interim report was tabled. That was as far back as the 27th February this year. It is not like the hon. the Prime Minister to make promises or give assurances and then not carry them out. I think that this House and the country as a whole is entitled to a little more information as to why this matter has been shelved despite the fact that it is such a very important matter. Dramatically the hon. the Prime Minister announced at the witching hour of midnight just a few days ago, that it was his intention to shelve this important matter until next year. I have here a Press cutting dated the 30th May and the hon. the Prime Minister said—

I reckon several years yet. I hope the hon. gentleman will live that long—

Now, Sir, I wonder why that is so. Surely the hon. the Prime Minister knew in February that the Schlebusch Commission was not remotely likely to conclude its investigations by the end of this session. Why is he dragging his heels on this urgent recommendation? The Schlebusch Commission, after all, said “dat u kommissie vanmening is dat die saak dringende aandag behoort te kry”. These are very strong words indeed. I wonder why it is that this matter has been shelved. Indeed, only two weeks ago, when the hon. the Leader of the House told us about the legislative programme that we still had to complete before the session would end, he included the internal security legislation. Now he cannot tell me, nor can the Prime Minister, that two weeks ago they were unaware of the fact that the Schlebusch Commission would not finish its investigations. I want to know why less pressing legislation of the session should have taken precedence over this urgent matter of internal security. Or we could have sat here another week or two until the hon. the Prime Minister had his legislation ready. Why is this? I want to know why. I think the hon. the Prime Minister, in fact, wants to have more time for the United Party turmoil to reach some sort of climax. I wonder whether that has crossed the mind …

You do not have to worry about that.

I always worry about the dupes which the poor simple-minded United Party members have turned out to be. It is just possible that the hon. the Prime Minister, who is a wily tactician, a wily politician, knowing all about the turmoil that is going on in the United Party, more particularly outside than inside this Parliament, is delaying things until a little nearer the general election so that it will keep the United Party pot boiling and the differences of opinion still very much alive when the actual legislation comes before this House, presumably next session, which will be just one year nearer the next general election.

There was no such motive. I can assure you that.

The hon. the Chief Whip says that that was not the case. Since he is in the know, I wonder then whether the hon. the Chief Whip will tell me whether the delay is perhaps due to an undertaking given to the hon. the Prime Minister by the United Party leadership or the United Party Schlebusch Commission members that they would happily give him their unstinting co-operation if only he gives them enough time to knock their recalcitrant Young Turks into line at the next national congress of the United Party.

That is female curiosity.

That may well be female curiosity, but I wonder whether the hon. the Chief Whip will gratify my female curiosity, because I find it hard …

No, I won’t.

He won’t, but it is interesting that he does not deny this; he just says that he is not going to gratify my curiosity in this regard. That is very interesting. I think that this is a very likely interpretation because it is clear that the hon. the Prime Minister is very anxious to get a cosy consensus, or what is known as the “bipartisan approach”, to this question of the internal security commission. It is obvious that it will be an all-Nationalist body in the event of the United Party finally deciding that it will not serve on such a body. And an all-Nationalist body will have no credibility. Because it will simply be an extension of the Boss organization and that, of course, will defeat the hon. the Prime Minister’s intentions altogether. Now it seems to me that this can be the only real explanation for the amazing difference in the way in which the hon. the Prime Minister has treated the urgent recommendations of the first interim report of the Schlebusch Commission, and the urgent action recommendations of the second interim report of the Schlebusch Commission. After all, in the case of the second interim report, the Government acted with lightning speed in banning those eight dangerous Nusas and student leaders who were associated with Nusas and whose activities on the campus were such a serious threat to the safety of the State. The report was published, or rather it was signed, on the 23rd February, and four days later the Prime Minister announced in this House that the eight students would be banned in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act. This was swift action indeed, and very different from the dilatory action taken in regard to the recommendations in the first interim report.

I want to spend a few moments on these unfortunate banned students, since in South Africa it is very easy for banned people to go into limbo and be forgotten. Soon after the students were banned the hon. the Prime Minister made a statement to the university principals who were concerned with the students that there was nothing to stop the students from applying for variations in their banning orders, with a view to study facilities and so on. According to the information given to me in this House, five of the eight White students applied for permission to use certain facilities at the University of Cape Town, such as library facilities, to carry on with their studies. One of them applied for permission to act in a play. So far two applications have been refused completely and three are still receiving attention, and that, Sir, was on 1st May. To the best of my knowledge they are still receiving attention. Paula Ensor, one of the students, applied for permission to visit her mother in Durban to discuss her wedding plans. The answer was “no”. I might add that Miss Ensor has also applied to continue with her M.A. studies and to be allowed to use the university facilities. She is still waiting for a reply. Half of the academic year has gone already and yet the Government cannot give an answer to this dangerous student who wants to continue with her M.A. studies. So, Sir, she has lost her opportunity to continue with her studies and to apply for a grant. The hon. the Prime Minister said that the banning orders were not punitive but preventive. I say they are nothing but spiteful punitive action, judging by the way in which these applications have been treated. Philippe le Roux also applied for permission to continue with his studies at UCT; he has three subjects to complete in his degree. He waited and waited for a reply. Before the reply came, it was too late for him to get into Unisa. That application was refused when he finally made it. So, Sir, in desperation this young man tried to leave the country. He got caught at the border. He was sentenced for trying to break his banning order. He is now in gaol and, irony of ironies, he is now allowed to continue with his studies in gaol. I ask you, Sir; the whole situation is appalling.

There is another interesting person involved here, and that is Mrs. Lapinsky. Mrs. Lapinsky has applied for permission to continue to act as the secretary of the S.A. Medical Scholarship Trust and of the Students Education Trust. She still, of course, has not received any reply to that application. But, on the other hand, she was granted an exemption for which she did not apply. Mrs. Lapinsky, on 18th May, 1973, received a communication from the Chief Magistrate of Cape Town, reference No. 11/5/2/206, reading as follows—

Very kind indeed, except that Mrs. Esther Barsel does not happen to be Mrs. Lapinsky’s mother. It so happens that Mrs. Lapinsky was a Miss Barsel. So, of course, the Special Branch put two and two together. Since there is a Mrs. Esther Barsel (who is in fact the aunt of Mrs. Lapinsky), and since she was a dangerous member of the Communist Party, and Mrs. Lapinsky is a member of the dangerous Nusas organization, Q.E.D.—Mrs. Lapinsky must be Mrs. Esther Barsel’s daughter. And so, Sir, she was riven this permission to communicate with her mother, for which she requires no such permit.

Big deal! What is it all about?

I shall tell the hon. the Deputy Minister what the “big deal” is. This is a case of mistaken identity, and I want to know how many more such cases of careless mistaken identity are cluttering up the files of the Special Branch, on whose information that hon. Minister relies absolutely and without question. How many other such cases of mistaken identity are there? Does the hon. the Minister remember the remarks of the judge of the Supreme Court about the complete unreliability of State witnesses in the Special Branch during the Dean’s case? Sir, here we have just another example. This happened to work to the advantage of one of the banned people, but I wonder how much misinformation and how many cases of mistaken identity on the files of the Special Branch are curtailing the freedom of innocent people. That, Sir, is what the big deal is all about, as the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police does not appear to understand.

Now I come to another interesting difference in the manner in which the Government reacts to the recommendations of commissions. Let us take the third interim report of the Schlebusch Commission. This is the one that I call the “Sheer Bosch” Commission report, because that is exactly what it is. This is the one on Wilgerspruit and all those wild goings-on. That was signed on the 11th April, 1973. The wild goings-on, I might say, took place three years ago. Since then, as we all know, Nusas at any rate, in 1969 and finally in 1970, discontinued all these sensitivity training programmes. The commission’s attention was drawn to Wilgespruit originally, according to the hon. member for Orange Grove—no, I am sorry, according to the commission, not according to the hon. member for Orange Grove, but he was a signatory so I am including him because of the Nusas sensitivity training courses, and therefore they went a little further and delved into all its activities, and all these wild goings-on were revealed; and despite the fact that Nusas had cut its connections in this regard, despite the fact that there were only two really bad events, which I understand are two out of the 151 that were presented to the commission by the Wilgespruit people, and that the Council of Churches had in fact cut off all its financial aid to the UCM as a result of those goings-on, nevertheless immediate action was taken in this regard as well, as if these wild goings-on were still continuing. The Prime Minister sternly gave the Council of Churches three weeks in which to put its house in order, so they are very busy putting their house in order.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I have no time left now.

May I ask you a question?

I answered one silly question from you, and look what it led to.

Order!

Sir, contrast this with the Government’s action or lack of action on the Kotzé Commission. That commission was appointed to investigate Scientology. The hon. member for Rosettenville had a lot to do with that. It was headed by a judge of the Supreme Court and its members consisted of experts drawn from various occupations, and it made a thorough investigation, following tried and tested judicial methods and judicial procedures, unlike the Schlebusch Commission. It made certain positive recommendations and it asked for legislation to prevent the use of so-called psychiatric methods by people who are untrained to use such methods. The commission used some very strong words indeed about the Scientology people, rightly to my mind. The report was only published a few days ago, but it was signed a year ago to the day. It was signed on the 9th June, 1972, so one must assume that the Government certainly had access to the Kotzé Commission report many months ago. Sir, why the dilly-dallying? Why not instant action? Why did the Prime Minister not rush in and frame the legislation recommended by the Kotzé Commission? The whole of the session has gone by, but nothing has been done, but in the case of Wilgespruit immediate action was taken. In the case of the students, immediate action was taken. It is one thing when the hon. the Prime Minister is planning something politically tactical for internal security reasons and it is a very different thing when it has to do with something which the hon. the Prime Minister does not put on the same sort of basis as “dangerous” organization like Nusas or that decoy duck, as I believe it to be, the Institute of Race Relations and others. There were far more people taking part in the activities of the Church of Scientology than were ever involved at Wilgespruit and I think that we would like an explanation. Perhaps the chairman of the Schlebusch Commission is also in the secret, just like the Chief Whip of the National Party is, and no doubt one or two members of the United Party also. Sir, this talk of consensus really makes me laugh. I hope the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his members realize that what the Government wants is not consensus; what it wants is emasculation, and if they go on the way they do, that is exactly what is going to happen to them.

May I put a question? Does the hon. member admit that although a man’s opinion may be different from hers, he may still be right?

Yes, certainly; practically always. But so what? I mean I do not understand. This is a sort of general philosophical question and I would say “yes” if that pleases the hon. member but I do not know whether it is relevant at all.

It is to find common ground.

Well, I do not think that is what the Prime Minister is looking for. I think, as I say, that he is looking for emasculation. If the official Opposition goes on in that way it will be emasculated. [Interjections.] The hon. member says he has not got it. Then I can only say that the hon. member for Pinelands must be terribly unaware of what is going on outside this Chamber. He cosily sits in a caucus surrounded by his chums but has no idea of the ferment and the bewilderment—that is the only word I can use—that has been created amongst the supporters of the United Party by their actions in Parliament this year. [Interjections.] I will tell the hon. members why I am worried. Obviously I have long ago severed my bonds, whatever they were, with the United Party, but it is distressing for anybody who has the procedures of democracy at heart—as I happen to have, although hon. members think differently … [Interjections.] The hon. member is silly; he cannot understand what I am trying to say, but I will spell it out to him in very simple words, almost in words of one syllable. For a person who is interested in the maintenance of democratic procedures in South Africa the disappearance of an official Opposition party is extremely distressing because it gives the green light to the Government to go ahead with all its measures; and worst of all is when a party which is supposedly there in order to protect the most important thing that a democratic country has, and that is the civil rights of the individual, fades out at every important turn. Then it causes great distress to everybody.

Where?

Where? Do I have to tell hon. members the said history of not opposing measures which have interfered with civil rights? There was, for instance, the 90-day detention. [Interjections.] They laugh, but that was the great watershed. The first time when the United Party agreed in principle with the Government, was when it allowed detention without trial, in principle, and the hon. member knows that. Even this session, when it agreed with the Gatherings Bill, there was another erosion of civil rights. In every single session practically I can point out an example. There was the Terrorism Act which they supported because it was going to apply only to terrorists in the bush. I suppose the Dean was found behind the rose bush in his garden. So I can give one example after the other. [Interjection.] It is not only I who think this. Practically the entire English Press has censured this party up hill and down dale every session it has done these things. Why do hon. members think they do not have the support of the Press?

You are misrepresenting it.

The hon. member must think I have amazing powers of oratory or else the English-language Press is extremely stupid. [Interjection.] [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Houghton made it her job, in the first place, to take the official Opposition to task for their participation, inter alia, in this Schlebusch Commission’s work. While I am now speaking about the Schlebusch Commission, I just want to tell the hon. member for Houghton that if the hon. member continues to refer to this commission as the “Smeerbos-kommissie” we shall at some stage or other begin talking about the hon. member for Houghton as “mey, Siesman”. It comes to more or less the same thing. But the hon. member can indeed no longer help being what she is today. The hon. member for Houghton’s whole tirade boiled down to two things. Since the Whites, in the face of everything that we are being showered with from outside our borders, and in the face of everything that is being stirred up from within our borders, are prepared to furnish co-operation or a measure of co-operation— for the purposes of my argument the difference in degree is not important at this stage—and since the two big parties in South Africa—as far as I am concerned, this means the Whites in South Africa— have reached agreement to some degree or other, for example on the occasion of the passing of the Suppression of Communism Bill, or even with the passing of measures to combat terrorism or the 90 days measure, or on the occasion of the Schlebusch Commission reports, it is a tragic day for South Africa that the hon. member for Houghton is still the most worried person in this House. This hon. member has no interest in co-operation in South Africa in order to ensure that the spirit of the White people in South Africa is kept intact. I am mentioning this in the first instance, and secondly she is not interested in the machinery, which this Parliament wants to create to ensure our physical safety in South Africa, being of such a nature that there could be common grounds for a two-party policy in that respect. No, this hon. member is interested in only one thing, i.e. the establishment in full of the absolutely liberal viewpoint from which she regards South Africa.

The hon. member said it is a terrible mystery. I prefer to call it feminine curiosity rather than any form of intuition. I do not think it is anything more than mere curiosity. I think the hon. member would very much have liked to see the hon. the Prime Minister come forward with the envisaged legislation this year. The hon. the Prime Minister has mentioned the reasons why he does not regard it as being necessary to come forward with the legislation at this stage. I want to advise the hon. member to go and read the regulations applicable to the Schlebusch Commission. She will then see that if any urgency crops up with respect to the Commission’s task, that Commission can also investigate other organizations.

Yes, he gave those reasons the other day, but why did he not inform this House earlier?

The Commission’s first report was unanimously accepted by the Commission. In that unanimous report we said that we regarded it as being of importance …

No, the Commission did not say that. The Commission said “dringend”.

Very well then, of urgent importance, if the hon. member wants it that way. I am even prepared to change it to “extremely urgent” for the purposes of the argument. What did the Commission mean by that? We meant, plainly and simply, that work must now be done so that the machinery can be put into operation. I want to tell the hon. member that if I could have my way,

I would like to go and look at other countries of the world where similar commissions are in operation to see how those commissions work.

You will not find any.

I said that is what I should like to do if I had my way: I am not saying that is what will be done. If we come along with something like this, and the hon. the Prime Minister is going to submit legislation, the nature of which is known to us, we cannot expect him to go to work in a topsy-turvy fashion. I can give the hon. member the assurance that the hon. the Prime Minister will not place South Africa’s security at stake for the sake of a little political fun. I can assure the hon. member of that fact.

She can be perfectly certain of that.

This hon. Prime Minister is specifically known for the fact that he handles South Africa’s security in the best possible way one could expect from anyone in his position. The hon. member must not try to steal a march on us and make politics out of this matter. As far as these matters are concerned, the hon. member also just referred quite lightly to the findings of the Commission with respect to Wilgespruit and claimed that the Government supposedly clamped down on them suddenly and that everything is just aimed at the students. We supposedly take quick action only where students are affected.

Yes.

I want to invite the hon. member to go and make a private study of these people who have been restricted. It is general knowledge, and we can simply ask ourselves: “What did these students do the previous year?”

What did they do?

How many of these people were full-time, registered students at any university the previous year? What success has Chris Wood achieved with eight years of so-called campus attendance throughout the country.

Sweet blow all!

The hon. member is now very concerned at the fact that these people can suddenly not study any longer. Who of them had any particular need to do any studying at all before this work was done? Why would Mrs. Sheila Lapinsky now suddenly develop a need to study again after eight years? Today I want to tell this House, and particularly the hon. member for Houghton: She and the Rand Daily Mail tried to make martyrs of these students by implying that the Government has supposedly restricted them to such an extent that they cannot even study. This hon. member and the Rand Daily Mail want to pretend to the whole world that there is no academic freedom in South Africa, because these innocent little mites cannot even study further this year. That is surely not the position. If these people wanted to study, they could do so. There is no obstacle that prohibits them from continuing with their studies within the framework of the conditions laid down by the restriction orders. No, Sir, we can surely see what has happened, and it is very interesting.

The other day the hon. member came of age in politics. She celebrated her 21st year as an M.P.

And she has not got her wisdom teeth yet.

The chief of the Zulu people was her guest speaker, and at the same time Chief Buthelezi was also invited to give a lecture at the University of Cape Town. But at the same time it was absolutely essential for one of these “aggrieved” people to have to sell a record to the Chief Minister of KwaZulu.

Neither must we, on both sides of the House, simply fling around the question of consensus, or whatever we want to call it, as if it is something out of which we can simply make a little political capital. If we want to retain the spiritual property of the Whites in South Africa as well as our White identity, which I believe, as I have previously said in this House, are two essential policy characteristics with both major political parties represented in this House, we must not hesitate to seek common ground. Neither must we hesitate to seek those points in respect of which we are opposed to each other. But when we have found out what common ground we share, we must venture onto that common ground. But when we have found out, too, that there are certain matters that we cannot go along with, let us then be diametrically opposed to each other. However, if we are diametrically opposed to each other, we must conduct ourselves in such a way that those things, in respect of which we can progress on common grounds, are not endangered. If we do that, we are serving South Africa and the Whites in South Africa so that they can protect their White identity. We must then remember —this links up with what I have just said —that if the National Party speaks of multi-national development or of separate development, there is something that must be borne in mind, i.e. that we are not merely speaking of the Bantu, the Coloureds or the Indians when we are speaking of multinational development, but also of the Whites. In speaking of the Whites, we realize that there are Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking people in South Africa.

We also realize that in the development of Whites or non-Whites a course of development can never be blocked, that it is something that grows, that is for ever moving forward. It is not a delimited field of which one can say “schluss” and everything is finished. It is the field of the integrationists. Once they have adopted the integrationist course, they can never turn back or change. However, when one is dealing with multi-national development, one takes the course where there is separation between people in principle, not simply on the basis of the colour of their skin, etc., but we adopt that course on the basis of the recognition of the other people with its cultural treasures, its language, etc.

Once we have done this, we are moving ahead side by side along that road and not every which way, because if one begins moving every which way and one finds out that this ought not to be done, it is already too late. If people are moving along side by side, they can rub and chafe, but eventually still go on because there is no obstacle in the path. One is dealing with a development trend. On this road of multinationality, which we have chosen for South Africa, with its basically Christian norms, there are only two things constituting the foundations on which these Christian norms are built. In the first place there is the preservation of the Whites’ identity and, in the same breath, there is the preservation of the identities of the other peoples. In the second place, there is the principle that friction should be eliminated between these various entities. Those are the two basic things. I am saying that no Whites in South Africa may place themselves in such a position, in relation to those two basic things, that they do any damage to them.

In the same breath I also want to say that these same two principles also apply in respect of the Black man in South Africa. We must tell the Black people of South Africa that we do not, either, begrudge them the preservation of their identities and that we do not begrudge them the elimination of friction between Whites and Blacks either. However, we also want to tell the Black man of South Africa that in respect of these people who are today riding on the shoulders of the Black man, who want to uplift the Black man today merely as an economic unit, who have the liberal bent of integrationists, he must know that throughout the world it has been proved that liberalists, with their fine slogans of freedom, equality and brotherhood, have never in their lives implemented that standpoint in practice.

All that the liberalists want is to influence this Black man to such an extent with fine words that he will always be useful to them. I always explain it in this way: The liberalist in South Africa uses the Black man and the promise of integration, and everything that goes with that, very much as I would act if I were to come to a fairly wide stream. I would take a stone that was near at hand and would serve the purpose. I would throw that stone into the water. The stone would then no longer have the warm rays of the sun shining on it; it would cool down. However, what I do is to step on that stone in order to cross the stream. Afterwards I simply leave the stone lying there. The Black man of South Africa must know this. In fact, the Black man of South Africa has already, to a certain extent, gathered as much.

Having now said this, I want to point out that in the course of the debates we have had during this session, a very great deal has been said about the so-called urban Bantu, the Bantu within the White area. When we say that the National Party’s policy in respect of the Bantu within the White area is also based on these two foundations I have just mentioned, i.e. preservation of identity and elimination of friction, we must know that we cannot just speak of the development of the homelands in the sense that there will be factories. No, multi-national development does not only mean the physical development of homeland areas or the physical development of White areas; it also means the national development of each of the various national groups in South Africa. If it means the national development of each of the national groups in South Africa, this includes the Whites living in the cities as well as those living on the platteland. It also includes the Bantu in their homeland, the Bantu on the platteland in the White area and the Bantu in the White urban area.

We have seen that the urbanization process in South Africa, in respect of both the Bantu and the Whites, initially took place because the people moved from the platteland to the existing White urban areas. However, we also found that more and more Bantu moved to the White platteland areas. Thus, in 1970, we found the position to be such that 48% of the Bantu were in the homelands and 52% were on the farms and in the cities in the White area. In 1960 the percentages, however, were 38 and 62 respectively.

The boundaries at Umlazi were shifted.

The question of whether boundaries were shifted or not is not at issue for the simple reason that this party adopted the standpoint that 7¼ million morgen of land must be given to the Bantu in terms of the 1936 legislation. That hon. member says that we shifted boundaries, but the hon. members on that side of the House are prepared, after all, to make a homeland of Soweto. They have already asked why Soweto cannot be made a homeland.

Who said so?

You people did.

I am now dealing with that hon. member and I notice, in passing, that he is again growing his moustache. That hon. member always leaves us in doubt as to when he is growing his moustache and when he is not doing so. That is a big question, it is true, but I now want to tell the hon. member that he scored one political point this week, and that was when he told the hon. member for Houghton that she had made a complete volte-face in respect of the whole question of the Bantu homelands consolidation policy. I think I know why she did a volte-face. Her friends told her: We shall now have to handle this story in a different way. Her friends also told her: There is a wing of the United Party which you must bring a little closer to you. I believe it will happen. When she is no longer here, it will happen.

In respect of the urbanization of the Bantu I want to say that urbanization did not only take place in the White areas. The urbanization also took place in the Bantu homeland areas. I do not want to speak about this matter for very long, but I do want to say that it is important for that party and our party to note that the Bantu on the platteland in South Africa is becoming a factor that we must very clearly take into account. We cannot simply speak of the Bantu in the Bantu residential areas around our White areas. The increase in the number of Bantu in our urban areas was 4,3% per year in the period 1936 to 1946. In the period 1946 to 1951 it was 5% per year. In 1951 to 1960 it was 4% per year and in the period 1960 to 1970 it was 2,7% per year.

That is a tremendous decrease, and indicates to us the success that has been achieved in this connection. What is very important to me in this connection is that we should take note of where we are heading in regard to the question of the accommodation of the urbanized Bantu, the Bantu within the White area. To develop more or less 1 000 morgen of land in a Bantu area costs between R6 million and R10 million. Seventy-six thousand individuals can live in such a residential area. But it has also been experienced that only 30% of those people, in other words 22 800, are economically active. Then we also still have the alarming position that out of these 22 800 only 30%, i.e. 7 600, are labourers who are really working in private industry. The other people are there as domestic servants, messenger boys in offices, etc. They are not people who are actually working in the manufacturing industry. I am taking these figures to indicate that for every R6 million to R10 million that is spent to accommodate these people, one has, in actual fact, only 7 600 economically productive people.

Let us now look at the capital needed to get 7 600 really productive people in our economy. It is a tremendous amount of money. It can be said that all these large Bantu residential areas around our White residential areas are nothing more than monuments to the White people’s own inability to do their own manual labour. On the basis of that standpoint I want to state that in my opinion the time has come in South Africa for us, as Whites, to take another look at ourselves for the sake of the preservation of our White identity and the elimination of points of friction. We as Whites must again search our own hearts and concentrate on the question of self-activity. We must again see whether we cannot do with fewer domestic servants. We must see whether we cannot be less lazy in the way we live.

The hon. member for Houghton referred to Wilgespruit. Now Wilgespruit has also decided to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate matters there. I think the time is ripe for something to be done in connection with this commission appointed by the South African Council of Churches. That commission will now investigate matters affecting Wilgespruit and the so-called Prod-programmes. This commission is under the chairmanship of an advocate. I think this advocate—and I am speaking under correction—is an ex-judge of one of our neighbouring states. I take it that the version in Die Burger of this morning is correct, and I should like to show you what we are dealing with here. According to the report in Die Burger a few questions are being put by the chairman to the first witness. Hon. members must now listen to the questions that are being put. One of the chairman’s questions reads (translation)—

To this Dr. Holdstock answers as follows—

Anyone who knows anything about the law, knows that a judge or a person in that position does not ask leading questions. These people are now carrying out an investigation and they specifically wanted, a judge or a legal man. One does not put answers into the mouth of the person who has to reply. Let us listen to the second question. The chairman puts the question as follows—

To this Dr. Holdstock answers as follows—

Now, in the first place, with these two questions this person has displayed the same tendency as the hon. member for Houghton. She had that report in her possession for ten minutes and then expressed an opinion about it.

That is not so.

That is “prejudging”. That is nothing but “prejudging”. Even if the hon. member were King Solomon with all his wisdom, he could not have discovered what was written in that report in the space of ten minutes. I want to refer again to this inquiry that is being instituted at Wilgespruit. One thing is very clear. Merely from the two questions of the Chairman, we already know that that investigation is being carried out to justify those people and to place the Schlebusch Commission and the Government in a bad light. That is the only reason why this investigation is being carried out. Is that not strange? Here a commission is being appointed. Those are now the people who, under the cloak of the utmost righteousness, are going to investigate the Schlebusch Commission’s report. No fewer than four members of this commission, which must investigate Wilgespruit’s activities, serve on the control board of Wilgespruit itself. One really cannot exaggerate the farcicality of that. Those people are going to investigate themselves. Now those hon. members want to know why the Prime Minister is in a hurry. I think the hon. the Prime Minister has treated, the churches very well by giving them a further chance to institute an investigation, but if people want to institute an investigation in this way, merely to gain time, I wonder whether it is worthwhile granting those people any further extension if they should come and ask for it. Then I should just like to clear up all misunderstandings in connection with the Schlebusch Commission’s third report. This report in no way found that sensitivity training as such is wrong. This report deals with the content that is given to sensitivity training at Wilgespruit and with the methods that are implemented there. About the principle of what the theologists and pastoral psychologists call sensitivity training, this commission issued no findings. It was not condemned. Those hon. members who are now trying to belittle the account in the report about Wilgespruit, will again come up against South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, in the short time at my disposal I have to reply to three hostile speeches made here by members of two parties which co-operate and collaborate with the common purpose of disparaging the United Party and to try to destroy it. Sir, I may say that the Nationalist Party has been trying to do so since the inception of the United Party, but it has not succeeded yet; its ally has been trying to do it for the past 13 years and will find that it will not succeed either. Sir, the hon. member for Christiana referred to two basic principles. The one was the maintenance of identity and the second was the elimination of friction. These then are the two major principles the Nationalist Party is aiming to achieve. The new policy of the Nationalist Party, the policy of independent states, from separate development to independence, comprises only a short period of time in the history of South Africa—a few years in its existence of 300 years. But our identity has been maintained. Every racial group maintained its identity over 300 years, before a Nationalist Party Government existed and long before we had this new policy of the Nationalist Party of independent states. In other words, Sir, we do not need a Nationalist Party to maintain the identity of the various race groups in this country. Sir, let us consider the second principle. Where did the friction originate which has to be eliminated now? This friction originated from the very same party and on account of the policy of the same party which is referring to the elimination of friction now. This friction did not exist before. What are the points of friction? The points of friction, which the Nationalist Party Government now wants to eliminate by establishing separate independent states, were caused by the policy of the Government. Sir, this is a second reason why we do not need this Government, because these two aims had been achieved even before they came into power. South Africa now has to try to eliminate the friction caused by this Government and to restore the spirit of goodwill between the race groups. The hon. member for Christiana spoilt his own case. He did more than he realizes to prove that this Government has found no solutions after 25 years in power and is unable to offer South Africa any solutions.

Only friction.

Sir, the other Nationalist Party speaker, the hon. member for Krugersdorp, made a speech here which is much to be regretted. At one time that hon. member was able to make a contribution to debates in this House, but he is no longer able to do so. He rose in this House with a document he was not prepared to identify. He was not prepared to tell us what he was quoting from. He quoted a few sentences; he set up his own skittles and then bowled them over and said: “Look what a wonderful speech I am making.” Sir, that hon. member falls in a certain category and he will have to decide for himself in which of the categories I am going to deal with in the course of my speech he falls.

You can have the document if you want it.

Yes, I would like it. Mr. Speaker, I want to deal now with the speech by the other hostile speaker, or should I say “enemy speaker”, because the attitude of the Progressive Party is far deeper than mere hostility; it is an obsession; an obsession with the destruction of the United Party which is the only instrument which still preserves in South Africa the values and the standards which matter to those who oppose this Government. How did the hon. member try to mislead the anti-Government electorate of South Africa? She dealt at length in her speech with the third report of the Schlebusch Commission, the so-called “Wilgespruit Report”, and said: “Look at this waste of time.” She has created an atmosphere where we get blamed for it all; one would think it was our commission and our report. She calls this is “a waste of time on stupid activities of the UCM which happened three years ago and from which Nusas dissociated itself.” Sir, when this report was published the hon. member spoke a few minutes afterwards and said she had studied the report. We had not even got it then, but she had flicked through it and “studied” it. Well, I have come to the conclusion that that is the only study she made of it and that she never went back and read it properly, because out of the 200odd pages of that report only 19 deal with the UCM. The rest deals with the practice and techniques of sensitivity training, and the recommendations which the report makes is that the churches should put their house in order. Does she disagree with that? Now there is silence. She would like to have the courage to say: “Yes, I disagree; I have no objection to the sort of thing that went on at Wilgespruit.” She did not reply to an interjection by me when she spoke originally. I asked whether she condemned, whether she disagreed with what went on, and the hon. member for Houghton refused to answer.

That is nonsense.

And she refuses now to say that she disagrees with the finding of the commission that the church should investigate and put its house in order.

Because it is a lot of nonsense.

Yes, she thinks it is a lot of nonsense to ask the churches to clean up the mess. In other words, she has no objection to the mess.

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

That is what she does if she objects to a request to clean it up. The second recommendation was that only trained people should indulge in sensitivity training. She herself agrees with that. The third was that there should be legislation to control it. I do not think the hon. member would agree with that.

But I think the time has come that we did a little straight talking on the question of human rights and liberties. If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, then equally is the price of liberty self-discipline. We have three approaches to human rights and to the freedom of people and to the rule of law in South Africa. We have the approach of the Nationalist Party, with which we largely disagree. Then we have the approach of the Progressive Party, and then our approach. The United Party’s attitude to freedom and to the rule of law is that freedom only remains freedom as long as it does not interfere with the freedom of other people. Then it ceases to be freedom and becomes licence. It becomes licence when one’s freedom to act prevents another person from acting as he wishes to act. We believe that there must be self-discipline in a nation if it is to preserve its own freedom, and I will give some examples.

We accept that the Communist Party should be an illegal organization and banned. That hon. member believes that the Communist Party should be free to continue its activities in South Africa.

But you opposed that Bill.

We opposed that Bill but the hon. member has said publicly that she believes the Communist Party should be free to operate in South Africa.

Even the United Party.

Yes, even the United Party. She confirms that she believes that the Communist Party should be free to operate in South Africa.

As it was, yes.

Yes, as it was, it must be left free to operate. We believe that the Communist Party aims at revolution, at the destruction of law and order and at the creation of anarchy and eventually dictatorship. We are not prepared to allow a party to operate which is aimed and designed towards that end, whose sole objective is to create revolution and anarchy and to destroy the standards of South Africa. We are not prepared to stand back and say that that party should be free to do its work as it wishes. This is the difference between us when we talk of freedom: We do not believe that freedom includes the right to undermine, to sabotage and to create revolution. That is not included in our definition of freedom.

We believe in influx control in the interests of the Black people themselves, but that hon. member does not believe in it. We believe there must be discipline and that the national life of a country must be regulated. She does not accept the need for self-discipline, or for controlling the movement of people where they themselves are unable to understand economic laws—controls which would be unnecessary in the case of people who themselves understand economic laws. That hon. member would allow slums, the old slums we had like Cato Manor and the Johannesburg slums, which were created in our time and of which we are rightly ashamed. These slums grew until influx control was introduced. She would like to see those conditions continue because she does not care if, in the name of liberty and freedom, we create slums and promote disease, poverty and crime.

Are you not ashamed to make such a fool of yourself?

We believe that freedom does not include the right to demand the removal of restrictions which are aimed at preventing the creation of greater evil.

You are really making a fool of yourself.

We believe and supported the fact that the act of training by a terrorist overseas should be a crime and that that person should be treated as a Criminal. That hon. member does not accept that; she does not accept the onus of proof on him and she does not accept that it should be made retrospective. We believe that a man who is trained to further the cause of revolution, sabotage and murder, is a criminal who should be dealt with. If we are to preserve freedom, our freedom cannot include the freedom to train as a saboteur and murderer, a saboteur against your country, a murderer of your own people. We believe that that should be a crime.

Am I also in favour of rape and murder? I wonder if you could tell me?

We were prepared to accept that there should be a crime known as terrorism in South Africa, a crime which should include sabotage and actions designed to destroy law and order, the stability and the security of the people of South Africa.

And solitary confinement without trial.

That hon. member was not prepared to accept that there should be a crime called “terrorism”. We were prepared to protect the youth of South Africa by supporting anti-drug legislation, but that hon. member says it is part of the modern scene. Therefore when we in the United Party talk of freedom and liberty, we do not talk of licence. We talk of a freedom which has inherent in it …

You tell a lot of lies too.

Order! What did the hon. member for Houghton say?

Sir, the hon. member said “The United Party, when it talks …” and I completed the sentence by saying “it tells a lot of lies”.

The hon. member must withdraw that.

You said “you”.

All right, “you” tell lies, “you” being the United Party.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

The United Party tells a lot of untruths; I withdraw it.

The hon. member may proceed.

I say again, our concept of freedom includes self-discipline and I am getting a little sick of and the United. Party is getting a little sick of the Progressive Party and its mouthpieces trying to hold up the United Party as a party that does not believe in the rule of law. We are not ashamed of our attitude towards law and order.

You should be.

We accept, with law and order, the need for self-discipline for the security of all our people.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, before the House adjourned I had dealt with the attitude of the United Party, the official Opposition, towards freedom and the rule of law. I do not want to take that further, other than to relate it to what my hon. Leader said at the opening of the debate yesterday. Against this background of our attitude to freedom, the rights of people and the rule of law, and flowing from it, to the security of the State and all the inhabitants of that State, my Leader’s charge was that this Government was a security risk. He based that charge on eight threats to South Africa, four external and four internal. We are now on the last lap of this debate. After a day and a half of debate we have not had one single word from the Government to refute the charge that the present Government is a security risk. There has not been one single indication that on any one of the eight points with which South Africa is threatened, this Government has a single substantive or realistic answer of any sort. Therefore we must accept, Mr. Speaker, that the Government in fact has no answer to the charge that it, the Nationalist Party Government, after 25 years in power, is a security risk. We believe that South Africa and the people of South Africa are entitled to security above all else. And if people are entitled to security they are entitled to demand that their Government give them that security. Therefore they are entitled to demand of the Government that it has policies and plans which can cope with and which can overcome the dangers and the threats which face our country. Once again it is this side of the House which has to provide the only possible answer which can give security to South Africa. The Government can vote R500 million for defence, with which we agree; the Government can strengthen its Polic Force; it can Dass more laws; the Government can use the weapons of power in order to maintain stability and law and order, but I am talking about something more than stability achieved by the powers and the forces of government. I am talking of the security which is inherent in a happy, a contented and above all, a prosperous State. It is again this side of the House that has to give the recipe according to which that security can be achieved.

My Leader said yesterday that there were certain prerequisites to the successful application of any constitutional changes or constitutional plans for South Africa. What we are doing in this House is talking past each other. Members are making words mean what they want those words to mean.

I want to try, in the few minutes at my disposal, to put clearly into the three compartments of politics the issues which I believe we have to face. Firstly, there are the issues on which we are agreed, the issues on which there is a consensus. Secondly, there are the issues which we can debate because we differ on one or other point. The third is the field which I believe is the most tragic aspect of politics in South Africa today, and that is the field in which people play politics rather than try to debate issues, the field in which they give meanings to words according to their interpretation in order to score debating points, rather than face up to the problems which confront us. I ask that we in this House deal in the first two fields of politics, namely the field in which there are issues on which we agree, where there is a consensus, and the field in which we can debate on the facts. Let us leave aside this point-scoring, petty politicking, the twisting and distortion of policies, the extractions of words out of context, the sort of putting up of ninepins such as we had today from the hon. member for Krugersdorp, the sort of speech we had from the Minister of the Interior. South Africa’s future is too important to play this sort of cheap political game with it.

Within the scope of these two fields which I believe matter, the field of agreement and the field of disagreement which we can debate, we in the United Party believe that there are four prerequisites to the successful application of constitutional change. The first is that there should be jobs for every man or woman in South Africa willing and able to work. Now, surely there is no dispute on that? Surely there is no dispute as to the need to have available to every man willing and able to work a job from which he can earn a living and feed himself and his family and clothe them. That is the consensus, Sir: the need for the job. The debate is on the opportunity which those people should have to improve that job, improve their standard of living and improve their status in life. So let us debate not the need for jobs, but rather the opportunities which should be available to our people. It is a prerequisite for constitutional stability that we have economic stability of employment.

The second area in which we need stability is the area of housing. Again there is no difference on the need for homes. Both sides agree that every person should have a home. Where we disagree is where that home should be. We believe that a man with his wife and children should, within reason and as far as it is possible and practical, live where his job is, where his life keeps him. The Government believes that he should have some mystical home in some mystical homeland, irrespective of where he in fact lives and where he works.

Thirdly, we believe that another prerequisite is respect for the dignity of every person. Both sides agree upon that. The field for debate is that we believe that respect for dignity should be shown everywhere. It should apply always and wherever people are. The Government believes that you may respect a man’s dignity—you can respect him and treat him with respect and dignity—provided it does not happen here, provided it does not interfere with our comfort. Be nice to people in a foreign homeland, an independent homeland, but there is a different standard, a different rule, when you get into a lift in a building in Cape Town. There is a different rule and different attitude to dignity when they are amongst us and when we are affected.

May I ask a question?

I have no time to answer questions. Let us debate that issue; let us debate where the respect for dignity should be found, everywhere, as we believe, or only in some mythical homeland.

We believe finally that, for constitutional stability to exist, every South African must have a stake in South Africa. That is common to both sides. The field for debate is that we believe that that stake should be in South Africa as a whole, whereas that side believes that that stake should again be in some mystical and mythical independent homeland—anywhere else as long as it is not here where we can see it and feel it. We believe that every citizen of South Africa, Black, White, Brown or any other colour, should have a stake in South Africa as a whole. It is on this basis that we have put forward a federal plan for South Africa, a plan based on simple facts, a plan based on the existing bodies which we have. We have local governments for each race, we have provincial councils for the Whites; we have a Coloured Council, an Indian Council and we have Bantu Homeland councils. We say: Take the existing councils, adjust them, provide for the urban Bantu and with what you have, with what exists today, you have the basis on which you can create a federal structure. [Interjections.] They shout at us, “but what about the geographic content”? There is a geographic content. The homelands have a geographic content. The Coloured areas are defined under the Group Areas Act, and so are the Indian and the White group areas. Again we have agreement on the method, but a difference on the direction. The Government is totally obsessed with the need to have consolidated blocks, round which you can draw pretty lines on a map. We say that you do not have to have that consolidation in a federation of peoples. The Government can mock as long as it likes. They can try and take bits and pieces out of context. But the fact is that the people of South Africa know, and this Government knows, that the only real solution lies in a form of federation between the different peoples of South Africa. We, on this side of the House, accept as part of the tradition of South Africa the pattern of separate residential areas and separate social life within the structure of the State. That is our policy. Therefore, on the basis of separate residential areas, you have the geographic content necessary for a federal political structure.

Is that not petty apartheid?

Now we say: “You have these bodies. Give them powers such as this Government is giving to the Bantu homelands, and more, for instance the powers of the provinces with regard to education, roads, hospitals, local government and affairs affecting the community. Share power where it affects the people by devolving powers to them.” Who does it? Sir, this Parliament as the sovereign power. Therefore, this Parliament is the creator …

Permanently White.

… the devolver and the regulator of this policy. Then we are asked the question: “Are you going to phase out Parliament, or will it remain the permanent authority?” The answer is that the policy of the United Party is to create the federal structure and to make it work. It is not the policy of the United Party either to “phase out” Parliament nor to keep it for ever. It is the policy to create a federal structure and to devolve powers and authority to it. Implicit in our guarantee that the keys to the security of the State will not be transferred without the authority of the White voters, is acceptance that if this Parliament wishes it could hand over all its powers. But equally implicit is the acceptance that this Parliament will remain the regulator and the controller, as long as it is necessary, for reasons of stability, progress and security for the people. We are not prepared to be led off onto side-tracks by phrases such as “phasing out” or “White power for ever”. We believe that you must create a structure. Then, by negotiation, consultation and working together, you give it the flesh and you make it work. Unless South Africa can create a way of living and working together, there is no future for Black or White. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I am unable, in terms of time, to react to the hon. member for Durban Point. However, I just want to begin by commenting on one of the introductory remarks he made at the beginning of his speech. He asked who had created the friction, i.e. the conflict situation, in South Africa. In replying to this question he said that the National Party Government had created this friction.

Yes.

His remarks in this specific connection prove his total lack of understanding of the structure of South African society as it exists in actual fact. Wherein lies the essence and what is the heart of the political problems of South Africa? Is it not situated in our having to find an acceptable, workable and satisfactory formula to accommodate the various conflicting aims and interests? Is it not situated in our having to find a formula with which we can in a harmonious way and through co-operation find answers so that these aims may be accommodated and channelized constructively? Is the problem not rooted in South Africa’s extremely heterogeneous population structure? Is it not also true that this in fact causes the divisive factors and consequently, too, the conflict potential in our society? Did the National Party Government create the different nations which exist here? Did the National Party Government create the divisive factors which result from the aims of these people? I want to say to hon. members that the history of various societies in various countries—but unfortunately hon. members do not want to learn this lesson—has proved that the presence of these divisive factors, of peoples and cultures, languages and ethnic groups, under an overall umbrella of a unitary state, led to disorder and chaos. In the search for a formula for accommodating the situation, as it already existed and was not created by this Government, it is essential that we take into consideration the status quo, the present set of circumstances. This means that we will have to take into consideration the fact that different population groups in South Africa, each with its own tradition, its own culture and its own institutions, represent an extremely complex pattern, also of mutual interdependence on one another. Secondly, it is equally important that we should learn and remember that these different sectors of the population have to be taken into consideration. Although an intermingling has, because of historic considerations, occurred in certain spheres—economically, politically and also socially—the different segments of these populations have, in spite of that, chosen apartheid as a modus vivendi in South Africa. For that reason any formula in politics, and it is on this point that the hon. member and I differ fundamentally from one another, has to take this into consideration. In terms of the speech made by the hon. member for Durban Point the United Party is prepared to concede that the lessons which it had been taught by the National Party Government are indeed gaining acceptance now, and that we are, in respect of basic assumptions at least, agreeing with one another And what are these basic suppositions? The first is that after all these years the United Party is now prepared to face up to the basic facts of the diversity of the heterogeneous structure of the South African population. The last observation I want to make in this specific connection is the following: On the basis of these factual circumstances the United Party is now accepting that the solution lies in a unitary political approach which has to be divided in South Africa in spite of the fact that it can be nothing but a government through crises from time to time.

The National Party’s underlying motive also takes into consideration the same factual hypothesis and circumstances. Its motivation of its policy objectives, as set out over the years, is that it accepts that no tenable, greater South African nation can be constructed from these components which differ fundamentally from one another in terms of traditions, culture and aims. For that reason the National Party declared that the challenge of dealing with this problem, which is a tangible one in South Africa, has to be met in some other way. In addition it is even trying to eliminate the mistakes of the past; it is trying, in the future development, to find a manageable, acceptable and feasible solution in accordance with the group basis of our population structure. For that reason it is of no avail the hon. member for Durban Point saying that the National Party Government was responsible for creating the friction. History proves him wrong. I think that the handling of relations problems in the country is one of the top priorities if we want to ensure internal stability. If we ever want to find a formula on the basis of the South African society, as it exists, it is situated not in seeking a unitary political approach in which power has to be divided, as hon. members opposite allege, but it is situated in the fact, that in accordance with the grouping in South African society, a multiplicity of state and political structures will have to develop and exist in South Africa.

I want to reply and react briefly to two specific aspects mentioned by the hon. member for Parktown. In replying to him I not only want to deal specifically with what he said, but I also want, for the sake of the record, to make certain statements which I think are necessary. It is true that since the hon. the Minister of Finance announced the Government’s policy of gradually acquiring domestic control over South African banks, there has been criticism of this announcement from various quarters, and various opinions have been aired in regard to this specific subject. I want to say at once that some of this criticism, which I think is unfounded, is perhaps based in the first place on a lack of factual knowledge of the situation. It is perhaps based on misunderstanding. I cannot help saying that there is a degree of wilfulness because I think there was a distortion —not by the hon. member—of the actual position. When one deals with this subject I think one should in the first place take into consideration the Government’s motivation for this specific formulation of policy, and the announcement which followed. I think one would have to ask oneself why banking institutions were singled out by the Government for special treatment. I want to emphasize that banking institutions have been singled out for special treatment in respect of local shareholders. Why are these institutions, when it comes to the economic policy of our country, so important that they should in the first place require special treatment? I think that we should try to identify these institutions and the role which they have to play, in order to find the answer to this question. I think the very first answer which suggests itself and which occurs to us is the fact that banking institutions, as deposit-accepting companies, receive the savings of the public, in this case the South African public, in the form of deposits and hold these in trust to lend out in turn to others, while the banks in general retain full control over these specific funds and the utilization thereof within the framework of the South African Government policy and its legislation in this respect. Secondly, banks are identifiable among all other companies because the ratio of their own capital and reserves to deposits is as low as six to 94. They therefore have a tremendous lever in their hands in that they are able with few funds of their own to exercise control over more than 15 times their own funds.

Thirdly, these institutions are identifiable because there is such a disproportionate ratio in this particular industry of local shareholders to foreign shareholders. No-one will deny this. In regard to some of the most important institutions as little as a seventh of their shareholding is held internally by South Africans on a scattered basis. Hon. members will agree that the special position in which banking institutions find themselves in any country, and in South Africa as well, makes it necessary for any Government to rectify the position without disruption—I want to emphasize this—over a period of time when such disequilibrium exists. In the first place this has to be done to ensure that such institutions comply, not only to the letter, but also in the spirit with the South African policy.

Fourthly, these institutions are identifiable because the bank is the main instrument of the Government and the Central Bank to implement its monetary policy in the private sector as well. They undoubtedly find themselves in a position of trust vis-à-vis the Government therefore. I want to emphasize that after fiscal policy, monetary policy in this country and elsewhere is the most important short-term regulator of the economic welfare of a country. It is therefore not surprising that most other Governments have already taken steps to cause the control to be vested locally.

The fifth identifiable factor is that all financial transactions of the private sector with foreign countries are handled by the banking institutions. They are responsible for the application of the foreign exchange control of the Central Bank and of the Government, and are therefore in this respect an equally important instrument in the application of foreign monetary action.

I am mentioning these five identifiable factors or factors for identification as the first motivation as to why bank institutions were singled out by the Government for special treatment. I want to mention in addition that South Africa not only wants a greater distribution ratio, it also wants to ensure greater effective participation in the management of these institutions in South Africa by South Africans. In comparison with most other Western countries South Africa finds itself in the unique position that not less than 23% of the deposits of all commercial banks and 56% of the deposits of all banks are controlled by foreign shareholders. Hon. members may therefore ask why we do not want to allow foreigners to acquire more than a 10% interest in South African banking institutions, while we allow citizens of this country to own 30% of a bank’s shares in a bloc. In view of what I have said the reason for this is obvious. Just like South Africans, foreigners may, with a 10% bloc shareholding, theoretically exercise control over such a banking institution’s shareholding when the remaining 90% is widely distributed in the hands of thousands of small investors. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and it is felt that if the line is drawn at 10%, the chances are slender of our experiencing such an eventuality as the one I have just referred to. Nor does the Government feel concern if one of the financial institutions in South Africa should become a shareholder of up to 30% of the bank’s shares or maintain such shareholding, since it will in the first place be done by South African citizens, and in the second place because the shares of the financial institution are widely-distributed in any case. The 30% more is simply to prevent non-financial and other companies from acquiring such a hold on the local banking industry that it can utilize the industry to its own advantage and to the detriment of the general public and even of its other clients.

Sir, as a third point of motivation for the Government’s policy I think I should mention that South Africa is not the first country—on the contrary it is quite probably one of the last Western countries— which has taken steps to acquire greater control over its banks. British commercial banks, for example, may relinquish no share interest whatsoever to a foreign bank. Only banks other than commercial banks are allowed a limited shareholding. In the U.S.A., until recently, branches and subsidiaries of foreign banks were refused permission even to accept deposits in the U.S.A.; I concede that this ruling was recently changed and relaxed. Sir, in Canada legislation was passed in 1967 in terms of which the joint shareholding by foreigners in any Canadian bank was not allowed to exceed 25%, while the maximum voting shareholding of any person in a Canadian bank was limited to 10%. In Australia legislation was passed two years ago limiting the maximum voting shareholding in a bank of a person and his associates to less than 10%.

Sir, as a fourth point of motivation for this policy I want to make it clear that banking institutions, as an economic entity, are just as strategic in our country, and elsewhere, as defence equipment and potential is in respect of physical defensibility. It would in my opinion be illogical to protect the physical defensibility side as we are doing by investing hundreds of millions in defence, while we leave the other flank in the economic sphere so widely exposed and unprotected. It is as strategic and as essential to protect and build up our defence equipment, and the economy on the economic side, as it is to remain prepared on the physical defensibility side and to keep our country in such a state of preparedness. For that reason I want to make it very clear that it is not the policy of the Government to use this increased South African control over banking institutions as a preliminary to greater control over industry, the possibility of which has been raised, and to which the hon. member also referred. As far as the banking industry is concerned, we are particularly interested in the two facets which I have mentioned, viz. the distribution of the shareholding and, secondly, the control over the management. As far as the distribution is concerned, I think that sufficient safety precautions have now been built into the policy to ensure that this part of our economic life in any case will cause us fewer and fewer problems in the future.

Sir, may I refer briefly to the criticism which was raised. The first point of criticism which was raised was that this was simply a first step in the process of further nationalization of the industry and other private sector establishments. Sir, there is no point of criticism which is more unfounded than this specific one, for the simple reason that the Government has repeatedly pointed out that it is not interested in nationalization and that it is therefore not considering taking over these banks or industries as State enterprises. Increased South African shareholding does not mean nationalization, and I want to proceed at once to give the assurance that it is the Government’s intention to introduce compulsory increased shareholding and control by South Africans in regard to the normal economic activities in the private sector. You will recall that the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs recently spelt out the Government’s policy in this specific case very clearly in Durban. The hon. member referred to that. He said that it would be necessary for foreigners who wish to invest here to include, in their own and in South Africa’s interests, to include South African partners in their local businesses and enterprises. He did not say, and I want to emphasize this—not only for the sake of internal consumption, but also for the sake of overseas consumption—that we are going to compel industries by means of legislation to introduce a minimum percentage of South African shareholding. For that reason I think that it is important that the measures which have now been adopted in respect of banks should be seen in their correct perspective of the Government’s general policy that South Africans should become partners in the establishments in our economic activities. I want to add at once that the Government is aware of and grateful for the role which foreign capital, and also the foreign banks, have played over the decades in the economic development of South Africa. In the one case I know of this has been done for more than a 100 years. I want to say at once that if it had not been for their contribution to the economic development of our country we would quite probably not have been where we are today in this specific sphere. But I think the foreign investor will concede at once that South Africa, with its greater maturity which it has now achieved in the economic sphere as well, is not being unreasonable if it wants a greater say in the enterprises within its borders.

I want to go further by giving a very definite reply to another point of criticism which was raised. It is that this policy determination indicates that the Government thinks that further foreign investment in South Africa is undesirable and that the proposed statutory amendment may harm South Africa’s overseas investment image and may in general have a prejudicial effect on the inflow of foreign funds in general. Some critics regard this step as being in the direction of financial isolation, but that is not at all what the Government’s intention is. On the contrary. We believe that if South Africa’s economy is to remain sound, it is important that we should also receive supplementation of our investment capital from abroad. But it is important that these strategic establishments, banking institutions, should be treated differently from other enterprises. I believe that the level of our growth capacity depends largely on the continued influx of foreign capital. For that reason I maintain that this point of criticism does not tally with the intention of the Government, nor with its statement of policy.

A further point of criticism which was raised and which I have to deal with is the fear which arises that the proposed restriction on the size of the shareholding will entail that a larger number of shares will have to change hands, and that this will force down and prejudicially affect the prices of shares. I want to reject this hypothesis, too, as being unfounded. The mere fact that the Government is allowing a period of ten years for the adjustment of a 50% control position ought to be sufficient indication that this will not have a prejudicial effect on banking shares. Through rights issues and the gradual transfer of blocks of shares, from buyer to buyer, the effect, particularly over such a long period, will be minimal.

Another point of criticism which was mentioned, was that the Government should apply South African capital in exchange reserves to reduce the foreign shareholding, and that these funds ought to be applied far more effectively and efficiently in the form of new and fixed investments instead of purchasing existing assets from foreigners with these funds. In this connection a figure of R400 million was mentioned. It is totally unrealistic and far too high. Estimates which were made indicate that it will be unlikely, on the most pessimistic acceptance or presumption, if there are no local issues, that the total amount which could be involved here could amount to approximately R150 million. But to be more realistic, and we must accept that these banks will expand their capital and reserves, it is more realistic to think in terms of an amount of R50 million. I do not think this is too great a price to pay for increased control by South Africans over their economic and strategic institutions. I should like to bring it to the attention of the hon. members today that the proposed legislation will not be introduced before next year. Between now and then there is more than adequate opportunity for interested parties and bodies to state their standpoint in this regard to the Government.

As far as the reduction of foreign control to a limit of 50% over a period of ten years is concerned, we have to accept that this represents the Government’s policy and standpoint. However, the Government is prepared to hold discussions and accept proposals in regard to the methods which may be applied to enable this arrangement to be made in a realistic manner.

As far as the reduction in shares after the period of ten years is concerned, I must make it clear that the proposal which applies at present, forms part of the Government’s intention and policy in respect of increased local control. It will be of no use South Africans taking over 50% of the shareholding, if this is still controlled from abroad.

The second essential step which we have to take in this connection is to ensure that the shareholding also means effective joint control. However, I want to say at once that we will during the next few years have to learn from experience what the best way is of ensuring that the objects which I have just set out may be achieved. As we see it at present, the reduction of 50% to 10% is essential in order to be able to achieve this aim. However, this is perhaps only one of the methods, and there are possibly other methods which could be applied in order to achieve the same object. I want to suggest that the people involved give some thought to the matter and discuss it with the department and the Minister so that a generally acceptable solution may be found.

The hon. member also referred to the provisions of the Stock Exchanges Control Act, and particularly to section 13 of that Act. I want to concede at once that with the amendment of the Act in 1971 and with the insertion of section 13 into the Act, it is quite correct that this provision requires that the buyers of stocks or shares pay the purchase price upon delivery of the stocks or shares, or if they do not pay it then, that payment should in fact be made within seven business days after the date of purchase. The full purchase price must therefore be paid to the stock-brokers within that period of seven days. The hon. member’s point of criticism in this regard is that the purchaser then pays for assets which he does not have, and that the purchase money is in the hands of the stockbroker.

I want to say at once that the indications in respect of the last slump on the Stock Exchange concerning the various cases which are known, are that the provisions of section 13 and the obligations which it imposes on buyers to pay for the stocks or shares, were not the cause of losses suffered in that connection.

I know that.

I appreciate the fact that the hon. member knows that. I should like to state the following point. I know the hon. member adopts the standpoint that a joint and separate responsibility should rest on every broker to carry the losses of people who do business on the Stock Exchange. I cannot endorse that standpoint. I want to say at once that if there is one thing which has been proved to us since the commencement of the Act, it is that there was no deficiency in the legislation. I also want to point out that the Act makes provision for all possible eventualities. It could be done (a) by means of regulations which the Registrar and the Minister are authorized to make in terms of the Act and (b) in terms of the rules of the Stock Exchange. The hon. member is aware of the fact that there is a general provision that the Registrar may even alter the rules. But, Sir, I want to raise a second point in this regard. One cannot, by means of legislation, prohibit people from committing fraud. What you can do, is to protect other people against the harmful effects of such conduct. I therefore maintain that the measures adopted by means of the existing legislation in respect of the augmentation of the fund, without the acceptance of the principle of collective responsibility of members of the Stock Exchange for the losses suffered by all, are adequate to cover these circumstances. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister has spent a large part of the latter section of his speech dealing with the question of control over financial institutions, notably banks, and the question of control of the Stock Exchange. Sir, the prospect of conducting a debate on these subjects is a very attractive one particularly as some of the arguments he has used strike me as being extremely inadequate. I think there are two major issues which need to be dealt with here. Since this is not an instant policy which can be applied in full and immediately, I hope there will be other opportunities to debate this matter. But the major issue, certainly on the one hand, is the attractiveness of South Africa as a field for investment. There is no question that these new measures for the control of investment in South Africa will make South Africa less attractive as a field for foreign investment. This is the first point. The second point, which has been largely disregarded, is that foreign investors who have massive investments in South Africa, become ipso facto guardians of South Africa wherever they are. No better example can be found of it than in the actions of banks such as the Standard Bank and the Barclays Bank in London, banks that are in the first rank of the defenders of South Africa on every occasion. This is something which might be thrown away. However, I wish to return to another subject. Perhaps we may continue debating these points on another, more suitable occasion.

I would like to return to the first part of the hon. the Deputy Minister’s argument, where he dealt with certain constitutional matters. I want to say to him, and to other hon. members, that I believe that the Nationalist Party’s approach to these problems is conceptually 25 years out of date. They have been flourishing for 25 years as a party in power, and they have flourished on the basis of certain policies which they brought with them when they came to power. These policies, by and large, have undergone a certain measure of adaptation and evolution, but basically they remain the same policies they always were. When one sits in this House, listening to speaker after speaker on that side of the House defending the policy and repeating the old arguments and philosophies, it is exactly as though one were watching one of those old-fashioned films—you will know what I mean. Sir—where everybody jerks across the screen, where it seems to be raining all the time, where everything is in a dull shade of grey without any contrasts. This is the impact and the impression made upon one. I believe that when they discuss federal policy, they are just as much conceptually out of date. They discuss federal policy in terms and with criticisms which relate to the first quarter of the century. Are they not aware that in the world today there are modern federal constitutions, the Federal Republic of Germany for example, which have methods, techniques and applications entirely different from the concepts they speak of. These are the things we have in mind, and we are studying these matters. We believe that many features of the modern systems of federalism can be applied to South Africa with great advantage. South Africa is a galloping horse. It is not as though South Africa is static and that one can take a retrospective or a Rip van Winkel view of the situation here. South Africa is a galloping horse and the Nationalist Government claims credit for the pace at which we have moved. South Africa has moved in spite of them, because it is the South African economy and the vitality of the South African people which are the galloping horse. That Nationalist Government has been the jockey, but the jockey is sitting on top of this galloping horse with his feet out of the stirrups, with his cap lost and facing the tail of the horse. We believe it is time to take a look at South Africa as it really is and as it is really going to be.

We know that in 1970 the population of South Africa was found by census to be 22 million people. We still hear that figure, but at the rate of growth which overall is nearly 3%, it must be realized that we are already 24 million people and that the figure is increasing all the time. We know that within 25 years we will be very nearly 50 million people. This is not a policy; it is a hard fact which we have to accept. There are going to be 50 million people in this country, 35 million of whom will be Black and 44 million of whom will be non-White. This is a fact which we have to deal with, and it does no good to think in terms of what South Africa looked like 25 years ago. We have to look at what it is becoming now and what it is going to be in our lifetimes and in the lifetimes of our children. This surely is what politics should be about, and this is what our constitutional plan should be about.

Economically, in order to house and clothe and feed these people and in order to satisfy their growing expectations, we are going to have to quadruple our output in South Africa. That means that we have to multiply our present output four times in 25 years. It sounds impossible, but it has to be done. This is not only my theory. The Economic Development Plan now requires a growth rate of 5¾%. If you apply compound interest to this, you will find that at that rate you double in 13 years and re-double in the next 13 years, which means that our economy has to be quadrupled. This is the near miracle which has to be achieved. It can only be achieved because South Africa has enormous natural riches which can be put to that purpose. It has enormous reserves of human talent which can be put to that purpose. Only if these two are combined in the most rational way, is there any hope of achieving this great design. But we dare not interfere with it for ideological motives, because it is going to be hard enough in all conscience to achieve. If we have 50 million people in this country, 20 million of them are going to have to be economically active. According to the European and American models for developed countries, if 20 million are economically active, some 10 million of those will be in the higher categories of economic activity. They will be in the managerial class, in the professional classes, in the entrepreneurial classes, in the technological classes and in the higher artisan classes. The White population is estimated then to be six million, of whom roughly two million will be in those classes. Who is going to supply the other eight million? There will be eight million non-Whites doing those sort of jobs, top economic jobs in this country. If this happens, where are these people going to live, where are they going to work, how are they going to be accommodated? Are we going to keep them in a homeland where many of the natural resources lie undiscovered? Are they going to be peasant farmers who do a little bit of skilled work at night by candlelight? No, they will be living in our industrial areas and they have to be accommodated. How can we accommodate them if we are not prepared to face also the social, the economic and, yes, Sir, the political changes which are involved? This is the great difference between our federal policy and that Government’s independent homelands policy. Our policy can accommodate these changes while their policy cannot accommodate these changes.

There has been the accusation from time to time from that side of the House that we are reluctant to put our federal policy. Well, we put it at the beginning of this session. That part of the speech by the hon. Leader of the Opposition occupied 24 columns of Hansard. We have proclaimed it also on other occasions; we have proclaimed it across the length and breadth of this country, and we shall go on doing so. The hon. the Minister of the Interior says he wants us to give him more details. Well, the hon. the Minister of the Interior in his speech, which I must say was a disappointing one, coming from him, because it was full of trivialities, asked us to give him more details. He admitted in the same speech that the Nationalist Government and its policy “is nog nie deur die bos nie”. He said: “Ons het baie foute gemaak, ons sal nog baie foute maak en ons is nog nie deur die bos nie.”

*We know you are lost in the woods. We know that, after you have been struggling for the past 25 years, you are still lost in the woods.

You have not even reached the woods.

If your policy had any content, such content mainly consists of contradictions, anomalies. You are finding it difficult now to explain many things which are really basic points, basic problems in your policy you have not been able to solve after 25 years. But after a few months, say, 25 months, we are expected to elucidate our policy in great detail. We accept the compliment. We know we think and respond more quickly than that party does, but, surely, it cannot be expected from us to do in a few months what that Government has not been able to achieve in 25 years. We have already made a great deal of progress, particularly as far as the logic of our policy is concerned.

In theory, yes; but in practice nothing.

Let us test and compare their policy of independent homelands with our policy of federalism and let us use the yardsticks provided by the hon. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development himself the other day. He gave us four points on which he said we should try to achieve consensus. Let us look at these four points, but let us look at them against the background of South Africa, the future starting now, and not against the background of South Africa as it used to be. We do not want to deal with the fossils of history, but with the living image of the future.

Let us compare these two policies in terms of these four criteria. His first criterion was the question of identity. He said: “Elke volk het sy eie identiteit en die reg om as ’n volk aanvaar te word.” We have no quarrel with that. Of course it is true. This is the old-fashioned concept of self-determination. It has always been known as “selfbeskikking”. Of course we accept it, but what we want to ask that side of the House is whether only the Nationalist Government has the right of self-determination. It is they who are saying what they want, what the Xhosas want, what the Zulu want, what the Sotho want, what the Tswana want, what the Coloureds want and what the Indians want. It is they who know best, but have they asked these other people? Let us suppose that these people say: “Sure, we like to be known as Zulus and Xhosas just as you like to be known as Afrikaners, English and Jews, or whatever you are, but we want also to be South Africans; so far as our nationality is concerned, we are South Africans, we are citizens of a broader South Africa.” What do they say then? Is that Government going to say “no”, if they believe in self-determination? Are they going to self-determine on behalf of these people? That is what they are saying now. They are saying they will self-determine for them. They will tell them what they need and what is best for them. If a Xhosa or a Zulu says: “I want to be a South African; I want to share your nation with you and your loyalties”, they say “Aikôna, you cannot have that. You should know better. You will be happier in Zululand.” That is absolute nonsense. In our White community we have Afrikaans people, English people, Jews, Portuguese, Greeks, Germans, Dutch—in fact, an enormous assembly of people—and it is right for these people to create one South African nationhood. This is nation building, not so?

They are of the same race.

What do you mean by “race”?

Does the hon. the Chief Whip think of “race” in terms of colour? These people come from different continents …

There is a mongolic race, a negro race and a Caucasian race.

Yes, we understand. The hon. the Chief Whip digs back into the primeval origins of the human race to establish classes.

Yes.

That may be so, but in the exercising of self-determination, some of the White people of South Africa, wherever they may come from, from different stock …

But from the same race.

… not necessarily Aryan, come together and are quite happy to form one race. It is nevertheless possible for people within that White race, to use that gentleman’s word, to preserve their own identity as the Jewish people have proudly preserved their identity while enjoying South African nationhood. Is this not possible for other people? Suppose all the Black people, the Xhosas, the Zulus, the Sotho’s, the Tswana, the Coloureds and the Indians decide that they want to form a Black race? Will he allow it? He says no, you must have your own race, your own “volke” or “eie nasies”; you must live separately. There is one law for the Whites and a law for the Blacks. This is totally wrong. No, you cannot self-determine on behalf of other people. I predict that in South Africa, everybody, White or Black, will say that they want to share a common destiny, that they, in fact “have a common destiny, that they want to share a common nationhood and a common loyalty, and that they want to defend a common land because they work and live in a common land. But the Government is going to say to them: “No, self-determination prevents you from doing that.” Self-determination by whom? That is my answer to the first criterion which was laid down by the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. Federation accommodates this. It allows people to be themselves, it protects them in their own community and also provides a place where they can co-operate, where they can collaborate, where they can work together and where they can share a common nationhood, a common purpose, a common destiny. This is what federation does. It is not a new concept. Most nations in the world have already used it. All the modem states in the world are either using it or are moving towards it. Even Britain is reconsidering its unitary state in order to re-introduce federation so that it can give more local satisfaction to the various groups living in Britain. It will not carve up the country, for one can do this inside one country.

The next criterion, and I must say that I am not taking the same order as the hon. the Minister, is that majorities must not dominate minorities. That is acceptable. It is in fact inevitable in a unitary state that the majority should eventually, either now or later, be dominating the minority. This is exactly why we have got to have a federal system. We know that in the long run, in a unitary state, the majority will rule. If you are going to run a rational state, you will have to organize things in such a way that if power is shared or if responsibilities are shared, they will be shared on a basis which will not allow the majority population groups to assume control and domination over the minority groups. This is what federation is designed to achieve. Many people on that side of the House will not believe it, but I invite them to study some modem federal systems. They will see that this is exactly what it does achieve and that that is exactly what it is designed to achieve. If it does not achieve that, nobody will believe in federation anyway. This is what federation is all about. I do invite some of the constitutional lawyers on that side to stand up …

May I ask the hon. member a question?

I am sorry, but I do not have time; we can discuss that later.

†I invite some of the constitutional lawyers who are so knowledgeable on that side of the House, to study some modem federal constitutions and I will tell them where to find them. They exist in Europe today. They ought to see the adaptation of the Swiss federal constitution. They will be astonished to see what is happening there. You can do these things without destroying the territorial integrity of the country. You can do it without corroding the national boundaries of the country. You can do this without undermining the economic cohesion of the country. You can do it without cutting the arteries of interdependence between the resources of the country and the regions of the country. These things can be achieved rationally and logically inside a federal system. It is not necessary to fragment the country in order that minorities should be safe in South Africa. This is the great fundamental doctrinal error which that Government has made.

A third criterion was that each group should have full rights in its own areas and lesser rights in others. This, of course, will not run. We are in fact one large economic community in South Africa. We are already a common market. People emigrate and immigrate. The history of this country is one of immigration and of emigration. We think of the Great Trek, the Gold Rush and the Diamond Rush. In modem times we have had or will have the rush to Sishen, the rush to Saldanha, the rush to Richard’s Bay, the rush to Welkom, the rush to Prieska. All these things are happening in our time. Are only the Whites to be mobile? Are the Blacks to be pinned down in their own areas? And if they are allowed to move, will they move only on a temporary basis, or a temporary permanent basis? What happens when they have been there for two or three generations, when they have been born there and lived there and they have lost their tribal contacts, and they have established new homes just as we do when we move to another country or a new area? Are they to remain temporary? Are only the Whites to retain mobility? No, Sir, the Blacks are trekking too. They, Sir, are on a Great Trek. The Blacks are having their Great Trek in South African history now. We can turn them back just as little as one could have turned back the Voortrekkers in the 1830s. These are facts; let us abandon all these fallacies. The homelands cannot solve this problem. You cannot accommodate all these people, these growing populations, this surging economy, these urgent needs in this way. You cannot do this by compartmentalizing people. South Africa has got to be set free. It has already shaken off its shackles. You cannot reshackle people. These are the hard facts of life.

Already we have a majority of Black people in the White areas. We are going to have 35 million Black people within 25 years, in our lifetime. What are we going to do with these people? Are they all going to be penned into 14% of the land? It is certainly fertile land, but it is mainly agricultural land. Its mineral resources, the great resources of coal, water and so on, remain undiscovered. There are some natural resources but there is no real prospect of accommodating all these people. How can we predict now, how can we insist now in advance that 35 million people in this country will occupy 14% of the land? And what will we do about our production?

I come now to the last of the four criteria, and this is the one of interdependence. The Minister of the Interior raised an interesting point, which has helped me to illustrate one of the difficulties. We will certainly be interdependent in this country. The Minister of the Interior said in the course of his speech that the retention of a permanent identity depends on one’s inner spirit. The inner spirit of a “volk” helps it to retain its separate identity. This is true, of course. He then went on to say that for this reason he had been particularly severe in laws relating to drugs, pornography and so forth. This is a rough translation of what he said. Let us assume that this is in fact so and that we have got to do these things in order to preserve the identity of the various groups. How are we going to preserve this in a country which is split up into something like 30 or 40 separate fragments, each a sovereign area, each with its own boundaries, each with its border posts, and therefore, each with its controls, with hundreds of roads and railways running to and from and through these areas? You have only to look at Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, as a precursor of this situation. We have three independent fragments in Southern Africa now. They have border posts. Just go and see what is happening at those border posts every weekend. Go and see how the people of South Africa queue up by the hundreds all day to get through the border posts to go and enjoy the prohibited delights on the other side. What is the hon. the Minister going to do, if he is so concerned about the situation, when there are in fact 40 independent fragments and hundreds of border posts and therefore tens of thousands of motor-cars with ready access to all of these prohibited “delights”, which we are trying to keep away from the people? I use the word “delights” in inverted commas. Sir, how are we going to maintain the essential identity of the yolk if anyone, anywhere in South Africa, has access to a fragment, within a few miles, which he can go and visit and which might well have laws and prohibitions entirely different from those of South Africa? Sir, how do you administer a thing like this? I mention these examples which I think are relatively trivial, but we are going to have to deal with things like water; we are going to have to deal with things like our great natural resources which will be partially within the many borders and partially outside. The administrative problem of dealing with this on a basis of separate sovereignties—an international basis—staggers the imagination. Within a federal system, Sir, the thing ties together. Obviously they would have their own right to preserve their own identity and to protect themselves as separate communities; but federation also provides the machinery for constant collaboration, constant co-operation and constant cohesion, and this is what the country needs. Let us be serious about this, Sir; let us not deal in wild theories. We are going to have this kind of country with demands of this kind and we have to meet these demands. Federation can meet them, Sir, but it cannot be done under a multinational or international policy; it is not workable on this scale.

Does it work in Western Europe?

They are trying, in fact, to get over the difficulties. I do not want, nor have I the time, to take the hon. the Minister through the history of Western Europe. He will remember that there were the principalities of Germany who had to come together; they could not live together as independent sovereign states. Then there was the unification of Italy. The independent kingdom of Naplespand the independent dukedom of Milan and others came together and they formed Italy, first on a roughly federal basis and eventually as a unity. If the people had been of entirely different races, they would have stopped at the federal stage, but because they were all people of Latin-Italian origin they were able to form a unitary Government. The trend in the world today is to go back, to devolve, to decentralize, to work back towards federalism because of the complexities of the modem state, but you cannot decentralize back to sovereign kingdoms or principalities; the international complications are too great. You have got to have an “oorkoepeling”; you have got to have machinery to make the economy work, and we have not heard one single word from that Government, in all these 25 years of dreary talk about independent Bantu homelands, about how this “oorkoepeling” is going to work. I remember, Sir, having a discussion with a former Prime Minister of France on one occasion, trying to explain to him in the best terms possible how the policies of that Government would work, and he said to me: “Look, surely there has to be some kind of connection, some kind of collaboration, some kind of machinery; you have to pull the thing together.” To this I replied, “Something like the Swiss system?”, and he said, “Yes, that kind of thing.” Sir, I wrote a report and this report was shown to Dr. Verwoerd. His notes on the report which came back to me read: “Moet asseblief nie oor federale aangeleenthede praat nie; dit is te gevaarlik.” Why is it too dangerous? We have heard vague talk about a “gemenebes”; we have heard about “ ’n oorkoepeling, ’n sambreel”. What do these things mean? How are you going to make this thing work in practice? Sir, let us be serious and let us have some real answers from that side. We are going to have to make South Africa work; we are going to have to accommodate its peoples.

Sir, in the last minute I want to come to the real issue, the thing that really affects every person in this country, and that is the question of security, not just the security of this country against external aggression, though heaven knows that that is also a possibility that we may have to face, but infernal security as well. On the external front there is no question that South Africa’s foreign relations have never in its history been at a lower ebb than they are now. The situation is grimly serious, and one only has to go around the world and talk to people who are involved in the ministries of foreign affairs, who know what is happening, who know what kind of pressures are being applied—and I think hon. members opposite on the front benches know something about these pressures —to realize how very grave the situation is. Sir, so much for the external threat; I would like to deal with that on another occasion. But the internal threat is also a grave one. The internal threat is one caused by frustration, by deep privation and, above all, by rejection. One cannot exaggerate the effects of moral rejection on the minds and hearts of the people, and this whole concept of independent homelands means rejection to many Black men, particularly those Black men—50% of the Black population—who live in our urban areas. They see it as none other than contemptuous rejection. I am sorry to say this, but it is so, and if you go and ask them they will tell you this. Sir, it is 12 o’clock, says the hon. the Minister … [Time expired.]

Sir, the hon. member for Von Brandis made a very interesting speech here this afternoon. We thought he would also speak about finance again, but he did not do so. Today he ventured into the sphere of constitutional development and the development of peoples, etc. I listened to him very seriously. I think that if one ventures into that sphere, one usually reveals one’s inner feelings; one then reveals one’s ideology in life. I want to tell the hon. member that I think he does better in the sphere of finance than in this sphere. He tried to explain the United Party’s federal policy to us here. Sir, I do not want to present myself as being someone with a great knowledge of politics, but I understand one thing, which the average man also understands, and that is: Whether one has a federation or any other system, somewhere one must have a central, overlapping authority, drawn from all the federal elements. Everyone cannot have the same authority at the same time.

Only on certain matters.

No, Sir, I say that there must be central control. Hon. members oh the other side have not yet explained to us exactly where the central power in their federation will be vested. If I remember correctly, the hon. the Prime Minister told the Opposition at the time: “Show me where in the world one has a federation in which the Central Parliament or the overlapping authority, whatever it may be, assumes certain powers, delegates those powers and then again reserves them for itself?” That is what the party on that side is proposing. As far as we understand their policy, and as far as the people outside understand it, what it amounts to is that the White Parliament will continue to be the master here today, if I may use those words. All power will be vested in it. It may perhaps delegate small honorary powers. As far as this aspect is concerned, we have no clarity about the policy of that side of the House. The Opposition must tell us how their federation is going to work. Sir, that hon. member asks me how our policy is going to work. It is very simple, and I shall come back to that at a later stage. The hon. member, as I have said, revealed his ideology here this afternoon. After having listened to him, it became clear to me that that party and its leaders definitely have problems, because the hon. member for Von Brandis made a speech here today which the hon. member for Houghton would have been proud of. It was nothing but an exposition of the Progressive Party’s policy.

Absolute nonsense!

I shall come back to that in a moment. I believe it to be that hon. member’s ideology, and if that is so, I want to tell him that he is sitting in the wrong party. I want to predict here that he will eventually be sitting with the hon. member for Houghton in the Progressive Party, and I do not think I shall be wrong. Sir, the hon. member said that South Africa is like a galloping horse and that the National Party is the jockey. He said that our feet are never in the stirrups, but, Sir, the National Party has been riding that horse for 25 years and it has proved that it is a very good jockey. Not only will the National Party ride that horse for the next 25 years; we shall remain in the saddle right into the year 2000, the year which that hon. member is so concerned about in respect of the population we shall then have.

But, Sir, I want to come to another point which the hon. member made. He said very clearly here that in terms of their economic policy the United Party regards South-Africa Africa as a unit state. They do call it a federation, but it remains a unit state. He also said that the homelands are entitled to their own identity, but in terms of their policy the Whites apparently do not have the same right in the homelands as the people in the homelands will have in the White area. Their policy in that connection is very indistinct, but the National Party’s policy is very clear. The central theme of the National Party policy is, and has always been since 1948 and prior to that, the preservation of White identity. That is the basic principle. It will not allow its identity to be threatened by anyone, and that is its right. Secondly, it does not share political power. It does not share political authority with anyone else.

That is the second point. But although it retains that political power for itself over its own area, it does not begrudge it to the other peoples. It does not begrudge the other peoples exactly what it has for itself. [Interjection.] Yes, there are various peoples and all are in various stages of development. The hon. the Minister of the Interior said very clearly that we are not finished with everything yet; we have not solved everything yet, but at present we are busy with the constitutional development of the Black people. The fact of the matter is that in South Africa today we have ten Black peoples. We accept this as a fact and we do not accept a unit state with 20 million people and a single overall economy. At the present stage this is still the position. Since 1948 many things have happened and there have been many developments. But in that process we have allocated and identified the peoples and have helped them with the establishment of their own areas, and we are busy with consolidation and with rounding things off. Here comes the basis of the difference between this party and that party, i.e. that we do not see South Africa as a country with one economy and 20 million people. We see South Africa as a country with a fundamental economy incorporating Whites, Coloureds and Indians, at present together.

In addition we do not begrudge any homeland the right to have its own fundamental economy, and to develop it, particularly now that consolidation has been finalized and the boundaries properly drawn. Every homeland can develop for itself, like every other state in Africa. And we are helping them to form capital, and the development, which you also advocate, will take place. As soon as one has constitutional development, with a government with its own budget, its own taxes and its own capital formation, this forms an economy of its own. But now I also want to refer to another basic difference between ourselves and the United Party. The hon. member for Parktown also referred to that. This concerns the labour policy, the view of labour. Our view is that every homeland is fully entitled to the labour of its own people, in the first place, and within that homeland there is no restriction on the development of the Black man, whether vertically or horizontally speaking. But the White man is entitled to protection against all other people within his own area.

I know the hon. member for Yeoville has said it I do not know how many number of times, but the other hon. members opposite do not say so. The United Party says it also advocates control over the influx. Yesterday they said again that they advocated free influx, but it is not quite free. We do not know to what degree that side wants to apply control; in what degree are the people free to enter the White area and offer their services? The United Party’s policy is so vague that as far as I am concerned it is exactly the same as that of the Progressive Party. They keep saying we must make better use of Bantu labour, free, where we can.

In other words, the Black man must be prepared, and he must be entitled, to go and sell his labour wherever he can, on the best market without any restriction. But you cannot tell me where you place that restriction. And if you cannot tell me that, I am telling you that your policy is exactly the same as that of the Progressive Party. This is where the difference comes, in. Either you have different economies in the Republic, i.e. domestic and political economies, or you do not. What you are advocating is a single economy, and the result is going to be that if they can stream in —and you cannot stop that—and they want to stay here, you will have to give the Black people political rights outside the homelands. And if you give those rights you will eventually be compelled to give them representation in this House. You will have to give them representation, and that policy will eventually lead to the United Party ending up exactly where the Progressive Party is …

Our policy is completely different. It is also very clear. We do not need to say how it is going to work, because the hon. the Prime Minister has stated it very clearly. Every Bantu homeland is entitled to take independence if it wants to. If it wants to, it takes it, and it is independent. It is then beyond our sphere of influence. That is exactly the course events have taken in Africa with its 48 countries. That is also exactly how it happened with Botswana and Lesotho. All the Bantu labourers in the White area are guest labourers. They are here and the surplus, over and above what those countries need, come here. I believe that the development in every homeland—we shall help them with that—will take place in such a way that less and less Bantu labour will become available for the Republic of South Africa.

In respect of these two questions I would be very glad if an hon. member of the Opposition would explain to us how their overlapping federation will work and how they wish to implement that labour control system which they made mention of. I say again that they will eventually end up where the Progressive Party is today.

I am glad that the hon. member for Von Brandis made his speech today in the vein in which he did and not in the vein of the speeches of the other members of the U.P., which were about inflation. Sir, their speeches made me think of the antics of a certain kind of bee that one encounters in stables. In my childhood days we called them “crazy bees”. In saying this I do not want to draw any comparison and say that the hon. members opposite are crazy. The point I want to make is that a “crazy bee” flies round and round a hole in a wall. In doing so it flies at a tremendous speed and makes a tremendous noise, but do not believe for one moment that it will go into that hole. That is how the “crazy bee” carries on for hours. With all these inflation stories we have had an incessant fuss but we have never had a reply.

Before my time is up I should like to point out that in his lifetime a painter can never know what his work is really worth. Some people would perhaps think he is merely a middling painter while others could think that he is, in fact, worth something. However, when some painters die their works become worth millions overnight and they are accepted as masters.

Today we have the situation that no one knows exactly what will happen with the gold price. The gold price can virtually be compared with the value of a painter’s work. I do want to say that there is one man who can be regarded as a master in his lifetime. And we also regard him as a master. I am referring to the hon. the Minister of Finance. [Interjections.] If there is anyone who has correctly judged international problems over the years, it is the hon. the Minister of Finance. If I say today that he is in truth more valuable to us than gold, I am not exaggerating. If I may sum up the hon. the Minister’s view in a few words, I would say that any international currency is only as strong as that country’s economy. That country’s economy, in turn, is only as strong or as good as its administration by its leaders and the ingenuity which they display.

But we have had devaluation.

The hon. the Minister has always said that gold is not bound to people. He said that gold is neutral, while any foreign exchange is a currency that is bound to people. I believe that for that reason the hon. the Minister has always had faith in gold. We must not forget though, either, that when the hon. the Minister was adopting the standpoint quite a few years ago now, quite a bit of criticism came from the opposite side. I think that everyone is grateful today for the work he did for us, for the standpoint he adopted. I believe that hon. members opposite, if they are sincere, are just as grateful to the hon. the Minister for what he did. I believe that South Africa’s economy will always have to be linked up to one of the two key international currencies. At the moment we are linked up to the dollar, but in time we shall have to move from the one to the other. That is very clear. We are a small country. We shall have to decide what is in South Africa’s interests and to what side we must move. That we shall have to decide in the light of circumstances.

I believe that devaluation or revaluation, which is the only remedy for a small people like ourselves today, and in fact for any other country in the world as well, in order to make exchange rate adjustments, is something which we shall be very much involved with in the future and which will perhaps occur very frequently. I now want to express my gratitude for the fact that from the Opposition, and in particular from the hon. member for Parktown, we have not again had the statement thåt the present inflation is attributable to mismanagement by this side of the House. I think there was a clear acknowledgment on his part that inflation is in reality an international problem and something we are experiencing a great deal of difficulty with. But the Opposition does always want to brag a little. They always say before the time that we should do this or that and they make all kinds of proposals, and when we eventually do so they say it is too little or too much.

And quite rightly so.

Yes, they do always have to criticize, after all. The most important factor we must keep an eye on is the level of our reserves and the position of our balance of payments. In the light of that we shall have to decide. I just want to point something out to hon. members with reference to a little reading I have done very recently. One of the foremost economists in the world today, Prof. Samuelson, said the following—he is one of the people who believe in it—

I can tell hon. members that in a previous edition of one of his books he spoke about 3% in that connection. After that, he no longer spoke about percentages, but he did speak about the increasing price index. Many other economists also endorse this statement and principle that today there can no longer be any growth without inflation. If we accept the fact that about 3% to 4% is really an international average which can be accepted as such, and we analyse our present situation in the light of the high inflation rate that we are encountering—we agree with the hon. member for Parktown and other hon. members that inflation is a big danger and can hit people very hard, but we cannot do a great deal about it—I want to state that the Government cannot be blamed for much of it. If we were to analyse the components of the inflation rate at the present stage, we would find that about 3% is ascribable to import inflation and that 2½% to 3% is cost inflation owing to the increase in food prices. The shortage of food and higher prices can again be ascribed to climatic conditions and consequent scarcities. Those are causes beyond the control of the Government. In other words, if we regard that portion which can be ascribed to normal local conditions, either income or demand inflation, there is really little for which the Government can be blamed. So it has really done its duty in that connection. We hope of course, that matters will stabilize. I just want to say that the standpoint which some members still adopt, i.e. that inflation is ascribable to mismanagement, is unfair criticism of this Government; because we cannot very well help it. We hope it will be possible to stabilize the situation. Now we have revalued, and we know that revaluation can result in a reduction in costs. It can make one’s imports cheaper, but we must realize that this is not the complete answer. By revaluing we are again worse off as far as our exports are concerned. Our reserves are high at this stage and our balance of payments is favourable, but when this decreases and weakens, we shall again be in the position of having to strengthen our reserves and we shall again have to devalue. That is the kind of situation we are dealing with.

Then I want to mention one other matter. Hon. members opposite have said that we must decrease taxes and subsidize food prices. Another hon. member on this side of the House asked where the money must come from. I think hon. members opposite are not viewing the whole thing correctly. Inflation is basically caused by the flow of money on the one hand, the imbalance between the flow of money and the demand flow of goods and services on the other hand. By now subsidizing food, one is pumping more money into the currency stream. If one reduces taxes, where is one going to get the money with which to do so? It is surely a basic fact that one must get it from somewhere. If one reduces taxes, one leaves more money in peoples’ pockets, but one does not save the situation. I do not believe that this is, even to the slightest degree, a solution for the situation. If the food position can be corrected and the scarcities disappear as a result of better climatic conditions, and the economy is stimulated as the hon. the Minister has said—the hon. member for Parktown himself acknowledged that there is an “upward movement”—then we hope that the vacant portion of 20% in our manufacturing industry will be filled. Greater production will take place and the flow of goods will increase. We then hope that the present high inflation rate will decrease and stabilize. South Africa deserves improved conditions in the future, and I am optimistic that if we do not experience more international monetary problems, the position in respect of inflation will improve.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pietersburg is a member to whom I always listen with pleasure, because he usually makes a valuable contribution to the debate. Today, too, I listened to him attentively, and I wish I could react to his speech in detail. Unfortunately I cannot do so, for reasons which will become apparent. I want to react immediately, however, to two statements which he made and on which I think clarity is needed.

The first one is that he suggests that the United Party is not in favour of influx control of Bantu coming into our cities. I think the time has come for that misunderstanding, if I may call it that, and I could put it more strongly, to end. Influx control was established in South Africa in 1946 by the United Party Government of the day. It was established for various reasons which are still applicable today. The one is to prevent the creation of chaos, poverty and hardship in our urban areas by the excessive influx of work-seekers for whom the facilities, the housing and other necessities of life do not exist. The second reason was to bring your employer and your employee together in an orderly manner, and to make it easier to bring people who need each other together. It is interesting that the signs are there that the Government realizes how necessary this second aspect of our policy is, because it also announced recently that it was going to come with methods to help tribal Bantu who were moving into the White cities to become sophisticated quickly and to work more productively by training them before they go into service in the urban areas. This is something about which there should really be no more argument. This is something about which the misrepresentations of my hon. friends on the opposite side should end, because they should know better. It is not I who say so, it is the official policy of the United Party. The other matter is …

May I ask the hon. member a question? Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying that the Bantu is not allowed to go and offer his services where he wants?

He may go where he wants, provided there is work for him and provided he is not going to be a nuisance to the community there. That is very clear. The other matter I want to mention is that my hon. friend said that inflation was something unavoidable if one wanted growth in the economy of a state. I agree with him, but what he did not warn against, and which in some respects has already started to take place in South Africa, is that the inflation rate should not be higher than the growth rate. If your inflation rate is higher than your growth rate, your real income decreases, and your people become poorer. This is a position which is threatening to arise and which has indeed for the past few months prevailed in South Africa. This is something which very urgently needs the attention of the authorities, and I am sure that they will do their best to prevent it. But one can never afford to be indifferent to the dangers of inflation. It is a thief who comes in the night and steals the wealth of your people from under your very eyes.

†Mr. Speaker, in the light of the discussions we have had over the past two days, I would like to exchange a few views on the very delicate question of consensus between the political parties on matters of public import, matters that affect the well-being of our nation. I want to say at once that it is interesting how current discussion concerns the need for consensus on major issues in South Africa today. We get it from the public by way of articles in the Press, letters in the Press and communications one receives, that there should be consensus between the great parties on certain matters of overriding public importance. We find it arising from our own discussions as politicians. On 21st September, for example, we had it from the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development when he laid down his four conditions and virtually demanded that there should be consensus in South Africa on these points so that something could be done about implementing a policy for the non-Whites which would avert the imminent dangers, arising because the time in South Africa had reached five minutes to midnight. Then there is a demand for consensus based on a third factor which I have mentioned in this House before, namely the realities of the South African situation. I do believe that this factor will be playing a greater part, an ever-increasing part, in the confrontation between the two political parties in this House. We have already experienced during this session that the Government has had to come with an interesting and important measure to facilitate communication between White employers and Black workers and even to afford Black workers the right to strike under certain circumstances. We have agreed in a previous discussion that that would have been impossible a year ago, but the facts of the situation, the realities, have forced the Government to accept this and, let me add in fairness, have forced the Opposition to support the Government in this almost inconceivable step in terms of our thinking a year ago.

I think that where we have all these forces—public opinion, political discussion and the realities of life—forcing us to consider consensus, then it is our duty as practical politicians desiring the good of South Africa irrespective of the party to which we belong, to look at the possibilities for consensus and to consider what the possible fruits could be of consensus in certain limited fields. In many fields, in more fields than many people realize, there is already a significant consensus among the political parties of South Africa, and without wanting to score a point I exclude the Progressive Party because they seek no consensus with other people in this country.

Yes do that.

They want to return to the 19th century’s obsolete concepts, like a qualified franchise and the like.

Very obsolete!

So let us leave them to themselves because evolution has passed them by. However, there are things about which there is a consensus in South Africa and I would like to mention a few. I think there is a consensus in South Africa which is much more important than it would seem at the first glance, in our attempts to make South Africa economically and strategically strong. That is why I say we are united in supporting all efforts to see whether oil can be discovered in South Africa. That is why we are agreed that we have to take draconian measures to conserve the water supplies of South Africa and to distribute those supplies more intelligently because water may be one of the few limiting factors upon the development of South Africa. There is a large degree of consensus on matters of defence. I wish there could be a greater degree of consensus in that regard, but nevertheless there is already a very large degree of consensus. There is a large degree of consensus on foreign policy. I think that this Parliament sometimes acquits itself in its finest tradition when we have discussions on foreign affairs. Then too there is a growing consensus, which I would like to see developed much more, on the need for national unity in South Africa between the English-1973-06-8 and Afrikaans-speaking communities. One can only hope that this consensus will become so strong that any tendency for people when others differ from them, to speak of that difference in terms of “Boerehaat” will never happen again in South Africa. The converse is, and I say this with equal emphasis, that there is a tendency for people of other groups when they do not agree with my friends opposite to speak of them in derogatory terms, calling them “hairy-backs” and other ugly expressions which I do not think add to the dignity of South Africa’s politics and certainly make it more difficult for us to find one another and to achieve a national unity in South Africa. I have not the slightest doubt that there is a need for consensus on many matters and that there is a demand for consensus on many matters. I think the most interesting thing about which there is a new consensus now growing is the consensus that change must come to South Africa and that change is inevitable, especially in the field of race relations. This consensus is taking place in the midst of change. I think some of the most dramatic changes that one can imagine in any country are taking place in South Africa today under the policy of the Nationalist Party Government. Whether these are changes for the good or changes for the bad is a subject for argument, a subject for debate. But nobody can accuse the Nationalist Government of being static in the face of the problems of South Africa. We have seen the consolidation of the Bantustans, we have seen the political development of institutions in the Bantustans and concurrently with that we have seen an incipient change of attitude towards the urban Bantu and the problems of the Coloureds and the Indians. Certainly, anybody who died in 1948 and had to be revived today would have difficulty in recognizing the South Africa of 1973. Let me say at once that if the United Party had remained in power there would have been revolutionary changes in South Africa as well.

I believe these changes would have been better than the changes we have seen in the last 25 years, because the federal policy of the United Party is in many ways a policy of innovation, a policy of drastic reform and above all, a policy that will embody in the institutions of South Africa new attitudes, more mature attitudes, wiser attitudes, more humane and compassionate attitudes. Let us face it, Sir, changes in South Africa are necessary and inevitable. They have come and they will continue to come. But because all responsible people today, irrespective of their politics, accept that changes must come, there is also a growing demand in South Africa for consensus on two other points.

The first is for consensus on internal security, because there is not a South African worth his salt who would like to see changes come about in South Africa, the outcome of which one cannot foresee, which may be chaotic and which may be revolutionary in the sense of being utterly destructive of what is good in the life of South Africa. You cannot, in a society of change like South Africa, permit a situation to develop where your internal security is destroyed and where law and order cease to exist. Law and order, in our thinking and I hope in the thinking of our friends opposite as well, goes hand in hand with another concept, and that is the maintenance of the rule of law. I can only hope that the consensus which is developing on the need to maintain order in South Africa, the need for internal security in South Africa, which acknowledges the right of every man, woman and child in South Africa to sleep peacefully at night, will also be accompanied by a consensus that any man in South Africa who transgresses the law even in this respect shall, at one time or another and as soon as possible, have the right to defend himself against the charges made against him before an impartial tribunal. I believe that that consensus will grow, because I am not one of those who think that the reproaches which we on our side slung at the Nationalist Party during the war and in 1948, are relevant today. One should know that the Afrikaans-speaking members of the United Party are in the United Party because they joined Botha and Smuts in their desire to bind the wounds of the Boer War and start a new life in South Africa. How can we then logically try to continue with the reproaches of the World War and not try to bind those wounds as well, and seek a new future and a new unity in South Africa? I am not one of those, and I think we on this side are not those, who want to impute Nazistic motives and heaven knows what to the Government opposite. But it must be made clear that we differ, and that we differ strongly on this question of the rule of law, of the right of the citizen to have his freedom defended before an impartial tribunal. We believe, however, that with patience and with the mutual acceptance of each other’s good faith, it should be possible also to find a consensus which will re-establish the rule of law in South Africa.

It is not only the rule of law to which this applies. There is something which I now want to emphasize, if I may be personal for a moment, because it lies very close to my heart. That is that any change in South Africa depends for its success on the maintenance of our parliamentary institution. Our Parliament may have limitations. Our Parliament may not represent a democracy in the full sense of the word as it is used in many other countries. Our Parliament may be the embodiment of an oligarchy. But it is still a great and a fine institution. It is still the only guarantee we have in South Africa for peaceful progress and peaceful change. Therefore I am glad that the party to which I belong could have been associated recently with a measure which was brought before the House to protect the dignity and the security of Parliament. I am sorry that there was an overreaction on the part of some people to this measure, that there was an attempt to make it out as a tremendous inroad upon freedom, and that there was artificial agitation against it, which was not successful. Parliament is situated in a city of a million people, a city which supports a university with 7 000 students. Some of those students tried to agitate and to organize demonstrations. Seven thousand students were supposed to be involved, although actually it was only a small group. Of the million people in Cape Town they could muster only 40 people on the steps of the Cathedral. That does not seem to indicate that members of the public were up in arms because Parliament wanted to protect its own dignity and its own security. I want to suggest to these young people that if they want to learn about demonstrations, they must come to the Leader of the Opposition and to me. You may recall, Sir, that as the result of certain steps that he and I took at meetings we addressed on the Parade in Cape Town, we had 100 000 people marching on Parliament in a torchlight procession. Sir, that was demonstration!

Was that the Torch Commando?

That was demonstration, because it reflected something that was truly agitating the minds of the people. This other agitation that we had recently was not real because it did not touch something over which the people felt genuine concern. That is by the way. I want to go on and say that we need consensus on matters of internal security, on democracy, on the maintenance of the rule of law and other things because we do not want to see change in South Africa, necessary as it is, accompanied by chaos. We know that orderly change—what my leader has described as ordered advance in South Africa—can only be possible if South Africa is secure externally, and that is why we should not fight unnecessarily over defence or foreign policy. It will not come about in an orderly fashion, Sir, unless South Africa is secure internally. And that is why as far as I am concerned—and I think I speak for my three colleagues—we shall stay on the Schlebusch Commission, patiently, in the hope that out of the deliberations of the Schlebusch Commission perhaps a new approach may arise to this problem of internal security in South Africa.

This change can only be orderly if we join forces in South Africa, not only as politicians but as entrepreneurs, as workers and producers in order to harness the tremendous resources available to us to improve the standard of living of all our peoples and to give everyone a reason for wanting to survive in South Africa as a South African. Perhaps the most urgent need to find a consensus is in the field of race relations. Therefore I was so very much interested in the statement made by my respected, ebullient friend, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, on the 31st May, when he laid down four basic conditions for a consensus and virtually demanded, as a matter of great urgency, that everybody should accept those fundamentals. Very briefly, Sir, may I remind the House what he wanted. And I shall be glad if the hon. the Minister will tell me if I have misinterpreted his statement. He wanted us to accept that there were different peoples or nations in South Africa. He wanted us to accept that each one should be able to go its own way and have self-determination with the help of others on the basis of interdependence. He wanted a situation where no people would be able to govern another people as a tyrant. And he wanted each nation, as he called it, to be No. 1 in its own territory. Is that more or less correct?

Full marks.

Thank you, ex-teacher. Sir, may I deal with those conditions. My friend, the hon. member for Transkei, indicated that we could not accept them, and I think we cannot, because they are based upon assumptions that are not necessarily true or realistic; and yet it is surprising how close those basic conditions of the hon. the Minister are to something which could be acceptable to us all. If, for example, instead of speaking, as he does in his first condition, about the different “nations” in South Africa, he spoke about the different peoples in South Africa, we would find one another—not different nations in the sense that there is a different South African nation and a different Zambian nation, but different peoples in the sense that the Germans and the Italians and the French are different peoples, but belong to a common Swiss nation in Switzerland.

When he stresses that each should be able to go his own way with the help of one another on the basis of interdependence, I would say to him that if he would think of that concept of interdependence and put more emphasis on it, we would again get very close to one another. And if he will agree, as I suggest is vitally necessary, that that interdependence should be institutionalized in the functions of government, in the institutions of government in South Africa through a federal organization, we are getting closer to each other. And when he says that no Government and no people should govern another as a tyrant, we agree. That is the one thing that is avoided under the federal constitution because there is a sharing and not a domination. And, with respect, under his policy, will there not be domination by a minority of a majority, on the very basis of his fourth point? The one will be number one in his own area but what happens in the White area where the Blacks will be in the majority forever? Will they not be dominated by the Whites? [Interjections.! You see. Sir, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration is doing very well. He is developing very well. He is on his way; he is close, and I would suggest that he reconsiders his four basic points and realizing how close he has come to us, consider whether it is not possible to take the final step. Who knows, Sir, we may be able to take small steps also and it would be possible to find fundamental consensus. But I am afraid that as far as this party is concerned, when consensus demands something which is not true, which is not real, like the acceptance that we can be separate nations developing to full nationhood when we cannot be separated, then we can never find consensus. [Interjections.] You see. Sir, there is something so fundamental to South Africa and this my hon. friend knows as well as I do, something which we can never deny and that is that whether we like it or not, as a matter of fact, as a matter of inescapable historical truth, the peoples who dwell in South Africa, in this Republic of South Africa, have been given a common destiny by fate. You cannot run away from it and somehow or other we have got to formalize and institutionalize the common destiny of the peoples whom God has put together here.

Now, let us accept that neither the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration nor any man on this side of the House can today determine the ultimate future of South Africa. There are decisions which will have to be taken next year or in 10 years time or by future generations before we reach finality in South Africa. Let us look for consensus on this basis, that it is our duty to do what is right and necessary in our time, in such a manner that our children can take our work further, and then I believe we will be on the threshold of one of the most important agreements that the people, the White people of South Africa, can find for their own survival.

Sir, there are things we can have consensus about. I think we must agree that whatever our difference may be, we should no longer hurt and humiliate people only because they are of a different race from ours. We should look to the University of Stellenbosch where thousands of students are signing a petition and where the SRC last night by eight votes to five passed a resolution that petty apartheid in the Nico Malan Theatre should end. That is a sign of the times. We cannot in the name of any policy afford to hurt and humiliate people when that hurt and that humiliation are not necessary for the good government and the peaceful development of South Africa. Secondly, and most importantly, we have one challenge to face in South Africa, a challenge which faces you whether you are a Nationalist or belong to the United Party or whatever you may be, and that is the challenge of poverty in our midst. We do not have to have ideological agreements in order to appreciate that it is a shame on the good name of South Africa that there is so much poverty among so many millions of people in South Africa. It is a shame on the good name of South Africa that in our Reserves we have areas which count under the depressed areas of the world. I felt ashamed when I was in Ladismith in the Karoo last weekend to find that there were women on the farms making a living out of subsidies to the extent of R20 per month per child for being foster mothers in terms of the Children’s Act to children by the dozen who do not know who their fathers or mothers are. These are things which challenge us, which call upon us as Christians, as compassionate human beings to do something in order to get together and find a consensus that would be meaningful.

May I remind the House of a precedent from the year 1933. After a long battle and struggle the two major parties came together shortly after South Africa had departed from the gold standard. There was then a considerable increase in the price of gold which caused a tremendous windfall for South Africa. What did that Government do with that windfall? Mr. Havenga announced the building of a national roads system for South Africa. Does my hon. friend the Minister of Transport remember? The other aspect which was tackled was when we said that we would put an end to the poor-White problem in South Africa by the rehabilitation of 300 000 White people who were living like the dregs of society. We did succeed. I do not say that the Government of the time should get any credit. I say it was a windfall that caused it to succeed. We used that windfall to do these things. Can we not use this tremendous windfall which is coming our way because of the gold price of 120 dollars? Can we not say that we shall fight poverty? Having fought poverty, it will be easier for us to avoid polarization between Black and White in this country and to find a truly common solution for the problems of South Africa. The future will decide whether that just solution will be on the basis of separate development or, as I believe, on the basis of federation.

Mr. Speaker it was with great interest that I listened to the hon. member for Yeoville. One can accept many of the things which the hon. member said this afternoon—they were well said—but there are also many things which were said and with which I cannot agree. In my humble opinion many of the things said this afernoon were slanted a little in order that they might suit the moment.

The word “change” is a popular word in our times. Throughout this debate I heard about “change”. For instance, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition pleaded for “change”. I myself have undertaken several journeys abroad, and wherever I came this question was put to me: “What about change? How fast can change take place?” At this stage of the session, where we are on the point of rising and going back to the people outside, I want to state frankly that it is very necessary for us to take a look at the word “change”. We must find out what it means to us, to every party, for it is very easy to use a word and to make it a cliché. It is possible for “change” to be requested day and night without one’s knowing what is really meant by it, without knowing to what one should change, what one should change, how fast one should change and where one would land if one did change.

I want to say this about the National Party, namely that in my humble opinion and in spite of the examples mentioned in the course of this debate, it is unchangeable as far as its principles are concerned. Those principles cannot be changed because they are basic principles which give freedom to everybody, which can give Lebensraum to everybody in South Africa, which can give a higher standard of living to everybody in South Africa and which will provide everybody in South Africa with individual freedom. In that respect the National Party will not change its basic principles. When mention is made of consensus, I want to make it very clear that in the light of the fundamental gulf between the Opposition parties—i.e. the United Party, the Progressive Party and the National Party—any coalition as such is out of the question. When we talk about consensus, we ask the Opposition parties to agree with us in a reasonable and rational manner in respect of certain standards and policies which will be beneficial to South Africa. This is what we ask of the United Party.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member should not be so quick to get up on his hind legs again. He should not think that I am asking them to cross over to our side. The hon. member for Yeoville was correct in saying that in the interests of South Africa we had to face up squarely to certain matters, for there are certain fundamental matters which affect all South Africans, irrespective of the party in which they may find themselves. It is those points which we must seek out, which are of importance to South Africa and in respect of which we can agree with one another. But it is not a case of crossing over to the United Party or to the National Party. All that is being asked here is that we should take this basic matter out of the mêlée of politics and that we should say to one another in a realistic manner. “But, surely, we are all agreed on this. All South Africans ought to be agreed on this.” That is what we are looking for. We are definitely not looking for any coalition. In the light of the fundamental differences with which I shall deal in a moment, I personally do not see any chance of anything of that nature ever being possible between the National Party and United Party. But I can assure the hon. gentlemen that, as I see the matter, the National Party’s principles have not changed. Its principles extend from its earliest days up to the present and can be projected again in their final and full consequences. But the National Party is youthful in itself. It can change in order to adapt in regard to the solution of the problems of its times. What is being criticized by the United Party as a fundamental change, is in effect an adaptation in order to seek in 1973 solutions for the problems of 1973. The Government is youthful enough in itself to effect changes of that nature all the time. I can assure countries abroad in particular that the National Party has the dynamics, the flexibility and the youthfulness to master the problems of our country in the idiom of our times. I want to venture the statement—and I say this with humility—that only the National Party has that flexibility, dynamic force and strength to effect those changes. Only the National Party has the courage, the vigour and the thinkers to perform in South Africa what has to be performed.

Where are they?

I shall prove this to you. To the Black people and Brown people of Southern Africa I can say that it is only the National Party which really has the knowledge and understanding of their struggle, because this party consists for the most part of Afrikaners who are familiar with the struggle for rights. For that reason this party will have a better understanding of the nature of the Black man’s ideals and a better understanding of the nature of the Brown man’s aspirations than will any other party.

In this regard the Coloured Commission is thinking for you.

Just listen to the kind of silly criticism one gets, Sir. When the National Party shows that it is prepared to appoint a commission, the United Party says “but you do not know where to go”. But we do of course appoint a commission because we are in the process of thinking, planning, attuning ourselves and going ahead, and because we are prepared to look at our mistakes and to admit that we are human and have not fallen from Heaven. We are in the process of looking for solutions for South Africa. What the hon. member has just asked me simply confirms what I have said, namely that only the National Party has the moral courage to do things in order to find solutions for South Africa. But let us consider the “change” of the United Party. When the United Party talks about change, what change is it? I am sorry to say that the change I notice in the United Party is the kind of change which only goes backwards. It is the kind of change one finds when a dog starts looking for a place to lie down. It keeps going round in circles and does not settle down. I shall prove this to them, too. I differ with them and their own people are laughing at their change. They come forward with a change in policy, and now I want to tell the United Party that the most pathetic thing about that party is the fact that after being in opposition for 25 years, they have now come forward with a new policy on race relations in the year 1973. Now we have a federation, they say. They have had 25 years to put heads together and to put forward some alternative as a policy which would be acceptable to South Africa. They still have not found an alternative. They have asked us what we did in 25 years’ time, but after 25 years the United Party does not even have a policy yet. I am going to prove this to them now.

Mention is made here of a federation day after day. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout shouted this out: “Are there no federations in other parts of the world which have been a success?” But, surely, the federation to which the United Party is referring is not the same federation as the one we find in Switzerland. Surely it is not the same federation as the one we find in Canada. The federation of the United Party is, after all, a constitutional absurdity. It is an absurdity, and I shall say why. The United Party talks about a federation, but the federal meeting place is at the top. A federation is something which has states at its base, and from those states one sends one’s representatives to the final meeting place, the federal parliament. The federal parliament is the big national parliament, the mother of all. But what does one find with the United Party? This is the concept of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but it is not the concept of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. When the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was challenged—and he is still being challenged at the moment by the Young Turks of the Rand—to carry through the federal policy to its full consequences, he did not have the moral courage to do so. Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition jumped about and said, “No, but the White parliament will decide”. The White parliament, which is one of the subordinate bodies of the federal body, now has to decide what course the federal body is to take. I say this is a constitutional absurdity, and no amount of talking will be of any avail. The United Party will first have to settle that absurdity in its own ranks. They have no option; they cannot go to the people with it. But there are also other problems which are facing the United Party.

May I put a question to the hon. the Deputy Minister? Does he understand the policy of the United Party to mean that this White parliament would be subordinate to the federal council?

I do not understand it, and he does not understand it either. I am trying to obtain clarity from the United Party on this matter. Surely one’s White parliament would have to be one of the subordinate parliaments. How can one give seats in the federal parliament to a lot of representatives from the White parliament, to a few from all the provinces and from Soweto and a few from all over the country? What is it there for? What is this big federal assembly there for? [Interjection.] If the United Party could carry through this federal policy of theirs, it would be the constitutional miracle of the world, an upside down constitution governing from the bottom up. Let met tell the United Party this afternoon that it will be of no avail to them to run away. Oh, Sir, see how friendly my friend the hon. member for Durban Point is: He has just given me this thing. This scrap of paper which I have here in my hand is all the United Party has as a policy. Now it has to go to the people with this picture. At the top it has the “federal assembly”. This is exactly what I said. Here the Whites are, right at the bottom. [Interjections.]

You cannot read.

“Whites Administrative Council, Coloureds, Indians, Bantu, Bantu Territories”: See what the lines look like. They have also given Soweto a few representatives. They will have to give some to Guguletu too. A few more Bantu residential areas will spring up; they will have to give them representatives too. Just take a look at this constitutional absurdity! At the top they have the federal assembly. This should actually be the mother parliament, but now the Leader of the Opposition says it may not be the mother parliament; now they are simply bringing the empowering parliament to the side. It is not over the others; it is being brought to the side. I challenge the United Party—and I hope I may keep this scrap of paper—to go to the people with that federal plan. [Interjections.] The United Party is faced with their moment of truth when they go to their congresses. There are Young Turks in the Transvaal who are not prepared to put up with this White supremacy federation having to remain in existence. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout has always had a confederation in mind. He cannot deny that. In other words, after 25 years we have a small United Party, and it is still divided. One has always thought that if a party is small it may have unity, but it is small and still divided.

They are harbouring a conflict of policies.

Now the United Party tells us that there is no such thing as a people; there is only such a thing as a language. Here in South Africa one finds people who speak French and people who speak some German. Then we have the various ethnic groups in South Africa. You will never change it. I shall tell the United Party where its fundamental error of reasoning lies. Its fundamental error of reasoning is that it is against the spirit of the times. Let us suppose for a moment that this federation of theirs should be implemented. What do they think a small country such as Zululand is going to say? It is going to say that Lesotho, which is independent, is a member of the U.N. What does the United Party think the Zulu are going to say if they have to sit in the federation as a subordinate body? What does the United Party think the Tswana are going to say if their brothers living next to them, the Swazi, have independent representation at the U.N., whereas all they are getting here in South Africa is a thin line going up to the federal assembly? That is where the fundamental error of reasoning of the United Party lies. It is not the National Party which is against its times; it is the United Party which is swimming against the current. The United Party says we are Balkanizing Southern Africa. We have not done this. The “winds of change” have done this. It has already been Balkanized. I say that only the National Party has the moral courage and power of thought to see the realities of Africa in its nakedness and to make the necessary adjustments within the framework of its lines of principle so as to accommodate the Black people, the White people and the Brown people. This is the position.

Why does the hon. the Minister say that it is five minutes to twelve?

Before finishing with the hon. friends opposite, I just want to refer to the Progressive Party. Three parties are being represented in this House, and all three of them must give account to their voters. I find it a pity that the hon. member for Houghton is not here. She only comes into this House when she wants to deliver a tirade against the National Party or on some matter or other dealing with colour, but whenever we are conducting constructive debates and issuing challenges to one another, she is conspicuous by her absence. I say that the time has arrived for the Progressive Party to face the full consequences of their policy. I want to make the statement that if the Progressive Party’s policy, as set out in their booklet, were implemented, it could only mean that the Progressive Party would play in South Africa the role of a transition party, i.e. from a White hierarchy to a Black hierarchy. It will not be of any avail to the Progressive Party to go to the University of Stellenbosch and to tell the Afrikaans students there that it is a party of enlightenment; it will be of no avail to the Progressive Party to say at dances held in Cape Town that they are there as the enlightened ones of South Africa. They should be honest with the people of South Africa and tell the people of South Africa that they are the transition party which will stand between a White hierarchy and a Black hierarchy in South Africa. That is the role being played by the Progressive Party. I have no doubt that the hon. member realizes this, for she is intelligent enough to realize it. I think she accepts the fact that in her party the idea of “change” will mean a change from a White to a Black majority government.

The hon. member for Yeoville had a great deal to say about the rule of law. He said he did not agree with the National Party and its standpoints in respect of the rule of law. The hon. member was kind and honest enough to say—and I accept this as one of the points of consensus— that the United Party was just as concerned as I was about law and order in South Africa and about the maintenance of our social order. I concede this to my hon. friends. What is the rule of law of which we have been hearing so much? I do not think that the hon. friends have really considered the rule of law fully

Do you know all three of Dicey’s definitions?

My dear man, I learnt that in my first year in political science and constitutional law. Subsequent to that I have had to deal with them time and again. I shall give those definitions to the hon. member now if he wants them. I have them here with me. When one comes to the Parliament of South Africa, one does not start with Dicey’s fundamental definitions. Let us see what Mr. Judge Hiemstra says.

I suspect that you do not know what they are.

Oh, for Pete’s sake! Listen now to what Mr. Judge Hiemstra had to say about the rule of law. After all, the hon. members on the other side of the House have been telling us that the Hiemstras are people who are prepared to differ, and therefore I am not referring now to a person who echoes the views of others. Mr. Justice Hiemstra said—

That is all it is, a political ideal. What does Prof. Elison Kahn say, one of the great scholars? He says—

He says there has to be a balance. I have changed Prof. Kahn’s definition slightly so as to get an ideal definition for myself, such as the following—

I want to make it very clear today that when I talk about a balance between the freedom of the individual and the needs of the community, we should never forget that that balance can change. When times are grave, in times of threats, the freedoms of the individual are curtailed more and more and the State is given greater freedom to do as it pleases, because it is a time of crisis, a time of gravity. The more peace there is, the more freedoms there are for the individual to speak, stage demonstrations, and so forth. At such times the freedom of the State is curtailed; it allows its people more freedom. But a good government should always seek that balance. Now, who are, in the final analysis, the people who have to decide on the gravity of the times? This may only be done by the political rulers of the country. It is not for the courts to decide. In respect of those political questions it is not for the courts of a country to say whether or not a crisis prevails. It is the full responsibility of the politician to do so. It is for the State to say, “The freedom of the individual must be curtailed now; the freedom of the individual may be increased now.” This is the full responsibility which we in this government accept. It was for that reason that the Romans, who were always the clever ones and who were the great rulers of the world, said that the supreme law remained a political law: Saulus populi suprema lex —the voice of the people, the good of the people, is the supreme law. Parliament is the supreme law, Mr. Speaker.

Sir, I have now told you how the National Party, the United Party and the Progressive Party feel about change, and in these times, where we are talking about change, the question now is: What is the state of our times? I want to tell hon. members now that the controversial question of our times is whether there will be in South Africa a White Government in the Republic, whether that White Government is going to be magnanimous enough to cede part of its Republic to Black governments —in other words, to cede parts of its country so that we may live together in piece •—or whether we shall have a Black majority government in Southern Africa. This is the question of these times. I make bold to say that in the next decade that question will have to be settled, finally. I address myself today to the United Party in this regard. They must stop indulging in this practice of vacillating, this talk about federation, this absurd search for policies, this feeble criticism of the consequences of the National Party’s policy. Times are too grave for nonsense. This Parliament is too serious for child’s play. Times are becoming grave, The controversial question of our times must be settled, and the United Party must ask itself: “Am I prepared to give Southern Africa into the hands of a Black majority government, yes or no?” I know, Sir, that our hon. friends are telling us that our solutions are either White or Black; they are never Brown. That is not true, Sir. I have travelled all over the Western world, and now I must disillusion hon. members a little. The communists are determinedly seeking this change to a Black majority government. We have seen this; they are doing so openly. They are taking decisions aimed at force. They are trying to utilize the money of the Christian churches so as to force South Africa to its knees. In respect of their arms for Vietnam, they are gradually beginning to say: “They may as well go to Southern Africa. We want to force the White Government in South Africa to its knees.” But, Sir, that is not all. Just consider the words of our Western friends, honest people who do not want to see a violent confrontation in Africa. These are friends of ours who are telling us openly, “We do not want an inflammable situation there.” But, Sir, then those people are objectively sceptical towards our country, and then they say in the next breath, “Yes, but if trouble does arise, you should change quickly.” I put this frank question to Americans; I put this frank question to people in England; I put this frank question to Germans, and wherever I came I asked these people, “When you confront me with the word ‘change’, what do you mean; to what extent do I have to change?”

Sir, it behoves the United Party, too, to ask itself this question, for this was the answer given to me by these people: “You should allow the Black man to govern with you.” Whenever I pointed out that the Black people were by far and away in the majority and wanted to know what I had to do, they said, “Then you should simply ensure that you are helping them to run their administration; in due course you will have to allow the government to pass into their hands.” Mr. Speaker, it is with all the seriousness of my heart as a South African that I say today that I am not prepared to allow the government in the White Republic to be taken out of White hands, but we are prepared to grant the people what they are entiled to in order that they may live as completely independent peoples; and if the Black man should then be hostile to me, I would at least be able to say to my descendants, “The Black man is hostile, but he was treated justly.” But, Sir, there is no need for him to be hostile. I want to tell the Black leaders today that this is not necessary. We mean well by them. Our problems are legion, and hon. members opposite are correct in pointing out that this homeland or that homeland consists of three or four pieces. They are correct; we concede that, but, Sir, it is best to remain in touch with the feeling and trends of one’s times and to give those people their due. We have always been agreeable to that kind of change, namely that we give those people their due. Sir, we are living in grave times in South Africa, and the time has arrived for us to draw these lines finally. This is the thing to which South Africans must give thought, because the outside world—the communist world are others—is using the so-called agents of change inside our country in an attempt to effect a change of spirit; to have the kind of spirit here which the Progressive Party members are seeking, and this is that one should change to a majority Black government. Sir, that we can never do. We believe that we have to guide the Black people, and we are prepared to create facilities for them. I want to express this thought here today as my belief, namely that I do not think that we shall get all the Black people out of our Republic. [Laughter.] Yes, the hon. member may laugh, but a Black man who lives in the White Republic should know that he is living here on the conditions of the White man, and when I enter a Black republic, I shall do so with open eyes and know that I am entering that republic on the conditions of the Black man. If he says to me in that republic, “You must use that door because this one is for me,” then I shall say, “Very well, I understand”, for I shall be in his republic, but when he is in my republic, he should live here on my conditions. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Police has certainly become most dramatic since he has become a Deputy Minister. This is perhaps a very apt gentleman to wind up the debate on that side before the Minister’s reply because of his arrogance. Sir, I have never seen such arrogance from an hon. member as we have just witnessed on the part of that hon. gentleman. [Interjection.] I will tell the hon. the Deputy Minister why he is arrogant and why that side is arrogant. What that hon. gentleman said was this: Only the Nationalist Party have practical knowledge of the Brown and the Black man, and only they know what is good for them. Sir, what happened? What did the Coloured people want? His Government said that they wanted a Coloured Representative Council, so they gave them one, and they held an election and what happened? The Labour Party won the election; it was a landslide victory. That is what the Coloureds wanted, but what did this Government who knows so well do? It nominated as members of the Council not just people from other parties, but it actually nominated the defeated candidates so that they could have a council that the Government wanted and not a council that the Coloureds wanted. [Interjections.] That hon. gentleman and all those hon. gentlemen over there must learn one thing, that you have got to have, and have it as quickly as possible, a place where you can talk with all the peoples of the country. Sir, the time is running out and it is five to twelve. Unless you find a place where this can happen, where you can talk to them, there is going to be no future for anyone in this country; and not just talk to their leaders, not just a conversation between Governments, between this Government and the Governments or the leaders of the other peoples; we need a place where you can talk and listen to and have dialogue not just with the Matanzimas but also the Knowledge Guzanas, and we have made provision for that. But it was an arrogance on the part of the hon. member, and the hon. the Minister of the Interior did the same, although not in such arrogant terms, but he had the same sort of paternal attitude assuming that they, the Nationalists, know what is good for everyone; they will tell them what to do and they wont consult or deal with them. The hon. the Minister of the Interior is like a Boy Scout who helps an old lady over the road as his good deed for the day, because it is good for her. The only thing is that the old lady did not want to cross the road. [Interjections.] Then the hon. gentleman went further and started talking about the attacks on the country from the outside. He is quite right. That is something to be extremely concerned about. That is the Deputy Minister of Police who is talking. But what is happening on our borders? On our borders there are not just White people defending White South Africa; on our borders are White people together with Black people, Coloured people and Indians. They are prepared to go up there and they are prepared, if necessary, as has already happened, to lose their lives. Black and White have been killed there, defending what? Defending the chance of being fragmented, or were they defending the intregrity of South Africa as it is? If we do not accept that we will have no right to ask them to volunteer to go up there, nor do I believe that they would go up there. But let me pose this question to that hon. gentleman: If in fact his policy became a reality, what happens if one of these territories takes independence? How are you going to defend the integrity of South Africa then?

With them.

Yes, but say they do not want your help? Say they become independent, and a lot of these areas are border areas, where is your security then? Where is the White man then? Where is there any way of co-ordination then? It is not there; it is a dream and there is an hon. gentleman whose very portfolio this is but he does not seem to appreciate this.

In the course of my speech I want to come back to the other things that hon. gentleman said, but in the short time available to me I also want to deal with his “bondgenoot”, the hon. member for Houghton. [Interjections.] One does not mind being attacked but we are sick and tired now of the sort of attack that comes from that hon. lady and from various other elements, as to what our record is, the story that we supported the 90-day detention provision and have a bad record in this regard. I would like to put it on record and to put it straight now once and for all that the facts of the matter are that in 1962 there was a General Laws Amendment Bill dealing with house arrest. We opposed it at the Second Reading, and we obviously also opposed the relevant clauses. In 1963 there was another General Laws Amendment Bill, which contained the 90-day detention clause, but it also contained the Poqo clauses. I must remind the House of what happened. As the result of the Paarl riots, and as the result of an appeal by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the Government set up a commission of inquiry. [Interjections.] You be quiet. I am making my speech. I am now dealing with an attack on us by your “bondgenoot”, Helen Suzman.

And she voted with you on that Bill.

That commission of inquiry under Mr. Justice Snyman brought out an urgent interim report in which he said in effect that if we do not deal with the situation which has arisen and we do not deal with this Poqo organization—which is like a Hydra; you can chop off its head and it will grow another one—then we will lose control of the Bantu population in the urban areas and elsewhere to this terrorist organization, and he recommended that we must urgently do something about it. So the Bill was produced in this House and those provisions were in it. What did we do? We supported the Second Reading of the Bill, obviously because to have opposed it would have meant refusing to enact the recommendations of the judge, which would have been irresponsible. But that is what the Progressive Party did. They refused to enact those provisions. To say that we voted for the 90-day provision, is in fact a lie. What is more, during the Second Reading debate my hon. Leader said about the 90-day clause that it was abhorrent to this side of the House, that we on this side of the House could not support such a clause and that the clause would be opposed by this side of the House in Committee. He said that we could not give the hon. the Minister support for it. Could words be clearer?

You are defending the fact that the United Party is a ….

Will you be quiet!

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind that hon. gentleman that I am not talking about an attack he has made upon us.

We also had other Bills in 1963. As the hon. member for Durban Point pointed out, there was a Bill in which provision was made for it to be an offence if one went out of the country to be trained for purposes of unlawful organization, such as sabotage and so on. We supported that and indeed we were prepared to make it retrospective because at that time the Government had caught a number of these people. The Progressive Party was opposed to that. They were opposed to the persons who were caught being dealt with. Apparently they wanted their release.

In 1965 we had the Criminal Law Amendment Bill providing for a 180 days’ detention. That we opposed as well. In 1966 we again had a General Law Amendment Bill. That Bill contained a provision which dealt with detention for the purposes of interrogation. We supported that provision because it was necessary to detain persons for that purpose and because the provision contained a proviso that such a detained person’s case had to come before a judge after he had been detained for 14 days. The judge then had to decide whether such a detainee should be further detained and under which conditions.

Next I come to the provisions of the Terrorism Act. The relevant Bill was introduced in 1967. We supported the Second Reading of that Bill because it was necessary, in view of the situation on our borders and elsewhere, to deal with this and to make it a statutory offence. It was widely defined, but since it was in our opinion necessary, we supported it. The hon. member for Houghton did not support it; she opposed it. Clause 6 of the Bill provided for the detention of persons for the purposes of interrogation, but without any limitations and without provision for interference by the courts. We opposed that. Thereafter we dealt with what later became known as the “Boss” Act.

And then you blew hot and cold.

The provisions which became known as the “Boss” provisions were contained in clauses of the General Law Amendment Bill of 1969. Those clauses related to State privilege, to what Ministers could do, and to State security. We opposed clauses 10 and 29. I may say that the Potgieter Commission of Mr. Justice Potgieter found that we were absolutely right and, in fact, recommended changes in accordance with our proposals.

You are talking nonsense.

Of course it is not nonsense. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows it. But I just want to point out that this knight—or whatever a female knight is—in shining armour, as she is presented, did not take part in the debate on clause 29 in the Committee Stage. She was not even here.

That, Sir, is the record of the United Party in this matter, and it has always been consistent; that is to say, where powers were necessary for the maintenance of law and order and the security of the State, we have given such powers to the Government on all occasions. But we have always, by the same token, insisted that the courts should be the final arbiter of the liberties and rights of every citizen. We say so for the very good reason that if you subvert the rights and freedom of the individual, as well as free access to the courts, you subvert the very State itself and the very society upon which it is based.

At the end of this debate we still have had no answers to the main charge of my hon. Leader, namely that there are pressures outside and inside, that there are threats with which this Government apparently will not and cannot deal, to the extent that this Government has itself become a security threat to the Republic of South Africa.

Nonsense.

Of course this is so. There has not been an answer to any of the points that have been made by my leader and emphasized by other hon. members. This will remain so, unless the Government can be flexible in their approach to South Africa’s problems, and unless they can have some malleability, some outlets for the pressures that exist. Otherwise, you become like a pressure-cooker with the outlets blocked up, and then you are a security risk. That is where we are now. But, Sir, the deliberate incomprehension of the hon. gentlemen on that side in respect of our policy! I am surprised at the hon. the Deputy Minister of the Interior as well. He said that he believed that the White people should be in control of their own affairs, and that they should be the only ones to take part in it. Quite right! Such is also our belief. That is why we propose a federal system; because without a federal system in terms of which the Whites deal with their own affairs and the various non-White peoples deal with their own affairs, you have no protection for those rights. That is one of the main reasons. We, the White people, are a minority group in this country, and we will remain a minority group. We are a minority group in our own so-called White areas, and we will remain so. The only way in which we will ensure security, is with a federal system which recognizes your separate rights, but which also recognizes that you will not survive or exist, that you will have no security and no future, unless there is a modus vivendi for living within one State with the other different peoples, each with the right to deal with their own affairs. That is precisely why we propose a federation such as we do, namely comprised of members of the various race groups. That is why you cannot have one like the Progs have. That is why you cannot have one of the so-called classic ones. Because what you are protecting and dealing with and giving effect to, are the aspirations and rights of identifiable groups of people who are scattered all through the land and will remain so. What is more, there is a fear which permeates the whole scene in respect of Black people. Everyone fears that some day they are going to rise up and swamp and crush us. Again, a federal system is the only one that will ensure that that will not happen, that it will not happen to any group. What you do in a federal system such as we propose, is to identify the different Black interests; and the different Black interests are there as participating units. They have a real interest in the continued well-being of all the other groups. They will have an identifiable interest then. You will find that they will support this system. Far from wanting to swamp us, they live off the same economy and they will want, in their interest, to see all the other groups survive and the integrity of the country survive as well.

Now we get all this “jazz” about federations that do not work. The hon. the Minister of the Interior and the hon. member for Houghton have the same strange idea about classic federation. We cannot have a classic federation, because we do not have a classic situation. We have a unique situation which requires a unique remedy and unique solutions. We are a country that produces there. The old Orange Free State Republic had what I believe to be the best constitution a unitary state has ever had in this world. They married all the best aspects of the federal system of the U.S.A. and drew up, in a unitary state, what I believe to be the model constitution of this world. I believe that by the same token we have here the framework for a unique constitutional solution to the aspirations and workings of our people in the future. What do we find here? My hon. Leader pointed out that you get these Black strident voices. What do they say? They have a meaning, because they are in the context of the Government’s policy. I want to say that they have no real meaning. They have no meaning that is not inimical to the security of South Africa unless those voices and those opinions and those aspirations are within the framework of one country, the one of which we are part. They deal with the demarcation of land, and everything has to be demarcated, the Progs as well, and within that you have the solution. How the Progs can ever say this I do not know, because within each of the federal units you are going to have the same non-racial situation that they proposed at the last election and the one before and the one before that. You are going to have a proliferation of non-racial states in which no one is going to be happy and in each of which there is going to be a Black majority, except possibly under their scheme for the Free State. Now you have the situation that this Government—and we have been talking about this now for two days; we have had debates on this question throughout the whole of the session —knows that the only way in which the Black people will accept their proposals is on the basis that they get more land, because they are being abandoned to themselves in a feudal world in which they live, which is still all they have and which can only operate with more land and then still more land. But there is no more land, and so they are frustrated. You have to develop them, and not leave them as an agrarian society. You have to go in and develop them and how can you develop them? One Government cannot do it. It has to be done with White skill and capital, and so on, as we have always said, but who is going to go in and do that when there is no security, no guarantee that they are not going to do a Zambia on them, that they are not going to do what Zambia did to the O.K. Bazaars?

Even worse than that is the situation of the urban African, who forms the majority in every single magisterial district in South Africa. The Government will simply not make provision for their permanency. They hint now that they are going to stay there, but they do not put them on any basis which can give anyone any confidence that anyone living around those people is going to have any security in the future whatsoever. The reason for this is simple. Unless you give them a stake in the country and in the society in which they live, something to look forward to, some hope for their children, they will grow more and more as the most suitable patients for communism, which thrives on the very situation this Government is deliberately bringing about. It is not doing it mala fide but just because it is blind to the facts, just like that hon. Deputy Minister who has just sat down is blind to the facts. He also wants to talk about the ideals, but he cannot relate them to the facts. He can only produce things like Bantustans which may become independent.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 87.

Mr. Speaker, after all the things we have heard in this debate today, I think we should show some mercy to the Opposition by not replying to those things today. I therefore move—

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Mr. Chairman, we on this side of the House have no objection to the amendment moved by the hon. the Deputy Minister. However, we do seek further clarity in regard to this clause in that it makes provision for certain deductions to be made from a pension that is being paid by the State in certain cases. In cases where there has been a divorce or where a marriage has been dissolved, provision is made in subsection (1)(b) at the top of page 6 of the Bill that the Minister or the Secretary may authorize certain deductions if they are satisfied that—

This then makes provision for a deduction to be made from the pension which will then be payable to the spouse. I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he is satisfied that this can also cover the situation where such an order has been made and the spouse dies and where there are minor children. There are cases where pensioners who marry late in life or who might have gone on pension at a fairly early stage, still have minor children. It would appear that where there are minor dependant children, it will not be possible, as the clause now stands, for contributions that are due in terms of a court order to be paid in respect of those dependants, the minor children. When one looks at other provisions in this clause one sees that this clause again states that, where there is a shortfall in regard to contributions paid to a medical aid fund or to a medical aid society, these contributions may be deducted. Again in line 16 on page 6 the clause states that such contributions shall be paid to such a fund “or such spouse”, which relates to the case where a person has a maintenance order instituted against him and he is not meeting those payments. I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister can give us some indication as to whether he is satisfied that provision is adequate in cases where the spouse, who is receiving such orders, dies and there are dependant minor children.

Mr. Chairman, I am quite satisfied that the position as set out by the hon. member, is correct. The position is that where a spouse gets the money and she dies, the money goes to the estate which in turn will pay the children. As the hon. member knows, in divorce cases an amount is paid to the spouse for maintenance of the children. In other words, the money for the children is actually included in an order in favour of the spouse. In other words, where it says “spouse”, it includes the whole maintenance order for the spouse and the children. If she should die they can go to the estate and the estate will be able to pay out to the children.

And if the estate is not finalized?

This money will actually be utilized for the correct purpose in terms of this Bill. I am quite certain of that. I do not think that there will be sequestration in a case of a sequestrated estate. That is protected under this clause. In any case, it is protected under other Acts as well. Maintenance money does not go into a sequestration.

It is a case of taking up powers …

The whole idea is that it would be possible to deduct this from the pension money for the particular purpose for which the court granted it.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, this clause deals with the cases where you have increases in pensions and payments of certain allowances and bonuses and is similar to a clause which was passed in 1970 which amended the Act that was passed in 1969. In the Second Pension Laws Amendment Act of 1970, Act No. 86 of 1970, section 14 sets out that where overpayments have occurred they may be refunded to the State and it also gives the powers that can be taken to refund these overpayments. That particular section, subsection 14 of the Second Pension Laws Amendment Act of 1970, is to be repealed by clause 6. Therefore we have this clause which is now before us which has similar provisions although the wording has been altered in certain instances. I would particularly like to refer to subsections (4), (6) and also the definition of “authorized officer” in subsection (8). Subsection (4) deals with cases where a person has received amounts which are afterwards found to have been incorrectly and erroneously paid to him. If the hon. the Minister or an authorized officer is satisfied that that pensioner received that amount without knowing it to be incorrect, they may not make the necessary deductions. The position is that the Minister or the authorized officer must come to a decision and must be satisfied that that person has received that amount without knowing that he was not entitled thereto. When this amending legislation was passed in 1970 when it came before this House, I expressed our concern about this particular clause in the debate that took place at the Second Reading stage. I also indicated during the second reading of this Bill that this was a clause in regard to which we had a certain degree of concern in that the powers of the authorized officer were such that he could call upon the person to refund such amount. This could be a substantial amount. In subsection (7) the Minister or an authorized officer also takes the power to cancel or reduce the pension. Consequently these are extremely wide powers and we would rather see that the hon. the Minister be the only one to exercise this discretion and not an authorized officer as well. I would like to move the following amendment:

This amendment will delete “or an authorized officer” in the two subsections where it appears as well as the definition of an “authorized officer” which is included in this clause. The reason for moving such an amendment is that it is found that from time to time these overpayments do occur. It often comes as a tremendous shock to the pensioners when they are advised that an overpayment has occurred. If it is decided that the pensioner is required to refund this amount this can often cause a great deal of financial embarrassment and indeed in some cases financial hardship. If one looks at the Social Pensions Bill which has recently been passed by this House, one will see that these funds are being paid out of Consolidated Revenue. This clause also provides for the payment out of Consolidated Revenue, but the discretion as far as overpayments are concerned, rests only with the hon. the Minister. Clause 7 of the Social Pensions Bill, which passed through this House earlier this session, states clearly that it is only the Minister who must be satisfied in this respect. In addition there is a further provision in the Social Pensions Bill which allows an appeal to be made to the Minister after a decision has been taken by the Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions. These provisions do therefore exist in the Social Pensions Bill which has passed through this House. I believe that in terms of this Bill which is now before us, a similar position could result as far as overpayments are concerned. Furthermore, as I have pointed out, the periods during which overpayments may be made, may be considerable. When the 1970 legislation was passed, the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions in his reply to the debate indicated that such a period would be limited to a maximum of three years. This is the limit applicable in the case of social pensions. I should like the hon. the Deputy Minister to give the Committee today an indication as to whether that will in fact continue to be the position. In other words, where over-payments have occurred for a considerable time, will the limit of three years still be applicable? Some of the older pensioners receiving bonuses and allowances, particularly those who retired many years ago, receive substantial bonuses and allowances and where incorrect amounts have been paid to such persons, a substantial sum of money could be involved, and this could obviously cause severe financial hardship to those persons if they are required to refund such over-payments.

I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will accept the amendments I have moved. If accepted, they will have the effect of giving the Minister alone the power to act in this respect; this power to decide that a person’s pension should be drastically reduced or cancelled or, in the case of an over-payment, that the over-payment must be refunded, will not then be extended to an “authorized officer”. I should like to point out that these amendments will be in the interests of the administration as well. If these matters are dealt with by the Minister the pensioner will know exactly what his rights are, and at what level of government such a decision was made. Furthermore, the pensioner will know that the Minister himself must have been satisfied that such an over-payment was not received by the pensioner without knowing that he was not entitled thereto.

Mr. Chairman, although the amendment has been extremely well motivated by the hon. member for Umbilo and although the hon. member has mentioned all the pros and cons of the matter, all the dangers and difficulties which may result and the suffering which may be caused, I nevertheless feel that this is an amendment which cannot pass without being supported by others who have unfortunately had the experience of having to deal with some of these cases. I have had such experiences and I have come across cases where considerable hardship has resulted from these unfortunate occurrences. We know that the average pensioner, particularly if he is getting on in years, is not particularly quick when it comes to reporting the fact that a slight over-payment may have occurred. Very often these people are old and they seem to think that they have possibly received a little extra. They try to persuade themselves that the department has come across an error and is paying them money which they should have received in the past. It is not a very good excuse, of course, for receiving an over-payment, but it is human nature. We are dealing with people who are in their sixties and older, and more particularly with elderly ladies of whom there are a considerable number. There are a considerable number of widows who suffer under these difficulties.

The possibility of cancellation worries me, because this is a very serious step which can have very serious consequences, because it means that the unfortunate pensioner is for all time deprived of any sort of income at all. It means that he will definitely become a burden on the State. I know that the hon. the Deputy Minister would not like that sort of thing to take place because his objective is to help wherever possible. Nevertheless the Treasury has to have certain rules and these rules must be complied with. It is quite correct that the Treasury should watch the position as regards these payments, because these payments to assist those who are in dire need, and who are very often in circumstances of distress, amount to a number of millions of rand. Without reflecting on the “authorized officer” mentioned in the Bill. I do feel that the fact that no provision has been made in the Bill for an appeal to the hon. the Minister deprives the individual of an opportunity to have his case reconsidered. Very often an official finds that he has to comply with the law and as a result finds himself in an embarrassing position whereas, when an anneal is made, there may be further motivation and further information which can be placed before the Minister. A petition supported by others testifying to the good character and integrity of the individual concerned, and describing the hardship that individual might suffer, may for example be placed before the Minister. Furthermore, this procedure would comply with the general legal structure of our country, where all decisions, particularly those which are to the detriment of a person, are subject to some form of appeal. It would give the individual the opportunity for that additional step, to make further representations in case, unwittingly, some injustice may be done, or in case, unwittingly, a hardship is created which it is not intended should be created.

I do not think it is necessary to go into detail in this connection, except to say that a number of these cases have come to the attention of those of us who are interested in these matters. Cases of hardship resulting from the repayment of such over-payments have come to our attention. I have, for example, had two cases where widows in their eighties have found that they have had to repay amounts ranging from R100 to R150. To a person over eighty with no other means of income at all, this is almost like a death blow from the point of view of the future sustenance of that poor soul. On those grounds I would like to support strongly the appeal of the hon. member for Umbilo. I trust that the hon. the Deputy Minister will see his way clear to accepting these amendments. Alternatively, I hope that he will be able to make the necessary provision in the Other Place in order to ensure that the requests of the hon. member for Umbilo do not fall on deaf ears.

Mr. Chairman, I want to reply in the first place to the point raised by the hon. member for Jeppes. I just want to point out to the hon. member that we are of course concerned with civil pensions here; this has nothing to do with the social pensions. The example just mentioned by the hon. member referred to a case where the person concerned was receiving a social pension. This legislation concerns civil pensions and has nothing to do with social pensions. I quite agree that there is no provision for an appeal to the Minister in the Bill as it reads at the moment, but the hon. member will know that where an administrative action is taken by a secretary, the Minister remains responsible and the action is always automatically subject to an appeal directly to the Minister. This is so because the officials always act under the Minister’s delegation. In the final instance he bears the responsibility. So even if this is not provided for in the Bill, I want to give the hon. member the assurance that it is automatically possible to appeal to the Minister. Such an appeal can be made in any case where a person is under the impression that he has been wronged.

As far as the hon. member for Umbilo is concerned, I promised him on a previous occasion that I would go into the merits of his amendment. I regret to tell him that I am unable to accept that amendment. It seems to me that the underlying reason for the hon. member’s amendment is the fact that he thinks that the authorized officers would be less willing than the Minister to write off over-payments. Sir, he loses sight of the fact that the Minister has the power in terms of the Act to delegate powers to his officials and that he has in fact delegated powers to them. I just want to mention to him as an example sections 12 and 18 of the Aged Persons Act, 1967. I know of only one case in which the Minister himself has written off an over-payment in the past five years. In that case it concerned an over-payment to one of the department’s own officials, and for that reason the officials preferred to refer it to the Minister. But this is the only case in the past five years that I know of.

Sir, hundreds of thousands of rands are written off by the delegates. It is just not practicable for the Minister personally to consider all over-payments and the writing off of all over-payments; this is a comprehensive task, and he would have to examine a vast number of documents, which would be physically impossible for him to do. The hon. member asked for refunds to be limited to over-payments over a period of three years. It is usually discovered within three years that an overpayment has taken place. We prefer to lay down a policy rather than a period, and I want to explain to the hon. member the policy we have formulated. The policy is to write off over-payments unless we are satisfied that the pensioner has practised deceit by holding back information. When the over-payments took place as a result of an error committed by the departments and officials, they are invariably written off. This is the attitude we adopt in principle. Then it is clear from the provisions of clause 5(4) of the Bill that once the authorized officer is satisfied that the person concerned received the over-payment without knowing that he was not entitled thereto, the person concerned is not liable to repay the over-payment. What is more, in terms of clause 5(6) the over-payment is even written off, too, if the person concerned knew that he was not entitled thereto, but if the recovery thereof would cause undue hardship. That is the effect of clause 5(6).

I also want to tell the hon. member that there is of course nothing to prevent a person from appealing directly to the Minister. He can appeal directly to the Minister if he feels that he has been wronged in any way. Then I just want to tell the hon. member for Jeppes that where an over-payment has to be refunded, the financial position of the person concerned is investigated. I want to agree with the hon. member that these cases are very difficult. If a person receives over-payments, it is only human to say: “It is a mistake made by the department and I am willing to benefit from it.” As I said, when we ask for repayments, the financial position of the people is investigated, and when it is quite clear that the principle I mentioned is not applicable and when a repayment has to be made, we shall show the persons every consideration, even if they have to pay back only R1 or R2 a month. I am sorry, but I am unfortunately unable to accept that amendment.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has indicated that he cannot accept this amendment, one of the reasons being that a decision made in this regard is subject to an automatic appeal to the hon. the Minister. Sir, to make the position quite clear, perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister would consider the question of introducing an amendment, in the Other Place, more or less in line with the provisions of the Social Pensions Act, which read as follows—

These provisions were specifically incorporated in that Act to make it quite clear that there is a right of appeal to the Minister. Surely there should be no great difficulty in framing a suitable amendment to this clause so as to make it quite clear that any decision by an authorized officer in terms of this section will be subject to an appeal to the Minister. I feel that it is important that the rights of a person who has been overpaid should be clearly stated, particularly in view of the wide powers given to an authorized official to decide whether a person accepted an over-payment knowing full well that he was being overpaid. In addition to that, the authorized officer has the power to cancel or to reduce the pension. Sir, these are very wide powers indeed, and I believe that this right of appeal should be incorporated in the law itself. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that these cases are automatically reviewed, but I believe that it is a matter of such importance that the hon. the Deputy Minister should reconsider the matter on that basis.

I am not inclined to write something into an Act which is not necessary. The provision which grants the power to the authorized officer grants the same power to the Minister as well. It is provided that it may be either the Minister or the officer. Surely it is unnecessary in those circumstances for the right of appeal to the Minister to be given as well, if the Bill provides that it will be done by the Minister or by an officer. It is as clear as daylight that the Minister has that power to do so.

†It would be as non sequitur and silly if I put in an appeal to the Minister when you tell the Minister to do something in the Bill. In the Bill we have it that this will be done by the Minister or an officer. What therefore is the sense, after empowering the Minister to do something, to add another clause saving that there will be an appeal to the Minister?

It is done by the authorized officer.

It is automatic.

It says so in the other Bill.

I do not know what is in the other Bill but I do not see the necessity for putting it in this Bill. It would just make it inelegant.

Amendments negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Report Stage taken without debate.

Bill read a Third Time.

I have here a few telegrams received at the last moment objecting to the amendment being effected by clause 1 of the General Law Amendment Bill. I think that to some extent they arise from a misunderstanding, but also, to a certain extent, from the fact that one tries to get as much as one can. When it comes to financial obligations, one tries to get off as lightly as possible. What it amounts to, is this: About two years ago, when the Government was considering the reports of the Borckenhagen and the Schumann Commission, an incorrect interpretation was given to paragraph 5 of the Borckenhagen report on the financial relations between the Government, the Provinces and the Local Authorities. Consequently, whereas in terms of section 50(1)(d) of Act No. 36 of 1919 in regard to tuberculosis and in terms of section 66 of that Act in regard to venereal diseases, seven-eights of the expenditure incurred by local authorities used to be repaid to them, the Department of Health, as it understood the fifth paragraph of the Borckenhagen report, proceeded on the assumption that the Central Government would henceforth have to repay 100% of the expenditure incurred by local authorities in respect of in-patient as well as out-patient services for tuberculosis or venereal diseases. If the report had been interpreted more carefully, it would have been apparent that the Central Government had only bound itself to a 100% repayment of the expenditure incurred in respect of in-patient services for tuberculosis and venereal diseases …

Was that Albert’s fault?

No, I cannot deal with that question now …

* … and to the repayment of seven-eighths of the out-patient services in regard to those two types of disease. I must point out that that particular paragraph was phrased in vague terms. Out-patient services are rendered in the sense that doctors sometimes do immunizations in a part-time capacity or that immunizations are sometimes done by district nurse services. Inpatient services are of course rendered in the form of hospitalization. This incorrect interpretation was embodied in Act No. 42 of 1971 in that provision was made in that Act for the Government to repay 100% of the expenditure incurred in respect of both in-patients and out-patients. Now it has become apparent that for two years—In other words, for 1971 and 1972—the Government repaid to these local authorities 100% of the expenditure incurred by them in respect of both their in-patient and out-patient services. The Treasury then drew the attention of the Department of Health to this incorrect interpretation which had given rise to faulty legislation. This matter is now being rectified by means of this clause. Now the Government will repay 100% of the expenditure incurred in respect of in-patient services and seven-eighths of the expenditure incurred in respect of out-patient services. It was also decided, in view of the fact that it was not the fault of the local authorities that they received that one-eighth too much in 1971 as well as in 1972 and in view of the fact that they received it according to law, even though it was a faulty law, that the local authorities need not repay that one-eighth which has been overpaid. The repayment of seven-eighths by the department will apply as from 1973. According to my information these details were brought to the attention of the local authorities as far back as last year.

I also want to point out that this legislation should be regarded purely as an interim measure since we are engaged at present in revising the existing health legislation. The intention is to introduce a comprehensive Health Bill in Parliament next year. However, the Treasury has requested that this question of the repayment be rectified and brought into line with the decision of the Government on the Borckenhagen report. There can, therefore, be no objection to this clause. I thought it necessary to give this explanation because at this late hour I have received large numbers of the telegrams in which I have been requested to ensure that this clause be amended. However, I can find no justification for effecting such an amendment.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides for a preference in the case of insolvency for the amount of any customs, excise or sales duty or interest, fine or penalty which in terms of the Customs and Excise Act was, immediately prior to the sequestration of the estate, due by the insolvent. There is a number of these State preferences which exist. It is at preference in the case of insolvency even over a claim by a workman for wages. It seems to us that there is no justification for this and I hope the hon. the Minister will indicate to us why this is regarded as being necessary in addition to all the other State preferences.

Mr. Chairman, as I explained in my Second Reading speech, it is the intention that manufactures should be accommodated so as to make it unnecessary for them to pay directly enormous sums by way of excise and sales duty or to give guarantees for such payments. It is very difficult to obtain guarantees in this regard since the amounts are so large. In any event, the manufacturers must make provision in one way or another for the payment of these duties in the case of insolvency. The debt which has to be paid in the form of these duties arises at the moment when the article is removed from the warehouse. The debt is reflected in the return for the month concerned but becomes payable only the following month. There is, therefore, a certain period during which the debt is not paid and this measure is regarded as being necessary so that provision may be made for that period as well as for the possibility of that period being exceeded.

In such cases the State cannot be an ordinary creditor. Consequently preference must be granted to the State. I may point out that section 99 of the Insolvency Act already provides for such preferences for the State in such cases as paying over of deductions in respect of workmen’s compensation contributions and income tax under the PAYE system. In the case of income tax deductions, which is also something accruing to the State, the deductions are retained by the employer and paid over to the Receiver of Revenue. The case we are dealing with in this clause, falls into the same category. There are also other cases for which provision is made in section 99 of the Insolvency Act and in terms of which the State enjoys a preference in the case of insolvency. I refer to the deductions in regard to pneumoconiosis compensation and unemployment insurance. In all these cases the State enjoys a preference and the intention is that the State should also enjoy a preference in the case of customs, excise and sales duty.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. the Minister for the explanation he has given, but I do not think that the amount now sought to be preferent fits in in the same category as the other items to which the hon. the Minister has referred. The amounts which have been deducted by an employer in respect of the PAYE system are trust moneys of the State which is in the hands of the employer until it is paid over to the Receiver of Revenue. In other words, the employer has made deductions which have not been paid over. The employer is therefore holding the money in trust for the State. I can quite see why there should be provision to ensure that such money should be paid over. However, when it comes to amounts which are payable in terms of customs, excise and sales duty, the goods are released in a normal business transaction out of bond with or without payment, with or without security. It is a trade transaction. Since the State does it on credit, the State now wants to have a preferent right in the case of insolvency and I cannot equate that with the tax which is being deducted and which was never the employer’s money at all. The employer merely has that amount in his hands as trust money. In the case of these duties we are concerned with a trade risk by the State. The State takes a risk because it allows the goods to be taken out before the duties have been paid or fully guaranteed. If a claim arises in the case of insolvency because the duties have not been paid, I think it is totally unjust that that claim should be a preferent claim over the claims in respect of wages which have not been paid to the workers in the service of that particular employer. I think it is totally unjust. There is no justification for it at all. After all, the very money which the State is now going to claim by way of a preference, is money which was earned by the sweat of the brow of those labourers, and salaried people who have not been paid their salaries. So we cannot support this amendment. We believe it is wrong. It is an injustice and it certainly does not accord with the category of claims which are preferent at the present time.

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause 15:

Mr. Chairman, I do not know what happened to the draftsmen of this clause, because in both the English and the Afrikaans text there are so many “or’s”. … [Interjection.] Yes, as my hon. friend says, there is no boat. The only “or” that there should be is the last “or” in line 23, namely “or otherwise alter the sentence”. Now the clause reads:

It really is a monumental example of bad drafting. I just mention it for the hon. the Minister’s attention in the Other Place.

Mr. Chairman, I shall just explain what the position is in regard to this particular clause. At present this provision in the Act reads as follows—

The subsection provides further that he may also confirm or set aside the conviction, but he may not alter it. He may in fact, reduce or increase it, but he may not alter it. The idea behind this clause is that he will in fact be allowed to alter it now. He may perhaps impose a far lighter sentence or merely give a warning. In terms of the present section, however, the Commissioner may not alter the sentence. He may not impose a different kind of sentence.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. That is not my problem. My problem is the appalling draftsmanship manifested by the use of all the “or’s”.

Oh, well …

It is no good the hon. the Minister saying “Oh, well”. All those “or’s” should not be in. I have never seen anything like this. The clause should in fact read:

I have never seen anything like this in my life. I mention it, so that the hon. the Minister can perhaps tidy it up when it goes to the Other Place.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 16:

Mr. Chairman, this is one of the clauses I mentioned during the Second Reading debate, so the hon. the Minister has had notice of our query. At the moment, section 77 of the Act reads:

Now, Sir, the clause seems to go further than the existing section of the Act. It provides that now the prisoner can be trained or treated for any other purpose. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister can tell us why it has been changed in this way.

Mr. Chairman, in this regard we experienced difficulty in two cases. The best example to quote to you is the case we had at the Victor Verster Prison. At that prison there was a large team of strong, strapping, robust people. They cultivated vegetables. Then there was a weaker team, comprising sickly people, and they had to lift the vegetables. That was their task. On a rainy day we felt that if we were to send out these sickly people or people who easily fell ill, it would not be in their best interests. The stronger team were then informed that since they had no other work to do that day, they should go and lift the vegetables. They replied: “No fear, we are not trained for that. We are only trained for the cultivation of vegetables. We may not lift vegetables.” Their case was heard in Paarl and the magistrate agreed with them. He was quite right, because this corresponded to the finding in a case which had been heard in the Free State, namely the State v. Pule, 1970. In that case a Bantu was told to shine copper objects. He had to use ash for that. When he was told to pick up the ash he said that he had not been assigned to do so, that that was not the rehabilitation which he had to undergo. The judge agreed with him. The case was heard in the magistrate’s court and was referred to the Supreme Court on appeal. The Supreme Court concurred. It is to provide for such cases that this clause is being introduced.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 17:

Mr. Chairman, this clause deals with—

in terms of the Prisons Act,

This section provides for regulations to be made relating to the abovementioned matters. Then the clause continues:

We do not quite appreciate the nature of this provision, because the manner in which you determine the purposes is to decide what the purposes are, to which end one uses one’s brains, eyes and hands. Now, what exactly does the hon. the Minister have in mind here?

Mr. Chairman, in this clause provision is being made for a Prisons Service Benefit Fund, for which the Department of Prisons has already made provision in their regulations and which has already been established. However, it has now been found that the Prisons legislation does not contain the necessary authorization for the establishement of such a fund. The only thing that is being done here, is that we are amending the Act so as to legalize the regulation and the fund which already exists.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that that is the object of it. But now, with regard to the regulations, he may make regulations as to the purposes for which the money may be used. He also has the power to make regulations relating to the manner in which the purposes may be determined. But he is going to say in the regulation what the purpose is. How can he then make regulations relating to the manner in which such purposes may be determined? I really do not understand it because he has to make regulations relating to the purposes for which the money is to be used.

Mr. Chairman, allow me to read the new proposed subsection (1)(b)ter—

When one starts the fund, one must, of course, establish its purposes, and this is the only thing that is meant here. The fund is started for the following purpose: It may receive the moneys and it may use such moneys in this way or that. I really do not see the difficulty the hon. member sees.

Mr. Chairman, we have no trouble with that at all. We agree that the regulation should be there and that it should be made retrospective to 1966, because it was not there then; we agree to all that, but what we want to know is how you make regulations to determine the manner in which the purposes may be determined? In the regulations the State President determines for what purpose the money is to be used. Now he is to make regulations as to the manner in which the purposes may be determined. This is really a non sequitur. In fact, it postulates a situation …

I’ll take it to the law advisers to satisfy you.

No, you must satisfy yourself.

Yes, my goodness, what a thing to say!

I have no other information here.

Well, let the hon. the Minister be warned that he will be asked the same question in the Other Place.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 22:

Mr. Chairman, with regard to this clause, the law at the moment states that, if you are on a board, a council, a committee or any similar body established under any law and you are a member of Parliament or an MPC, you do not hold an office of profit in the Republic and therefore you are not disqualified from being a member of Parliament if, in fact, you are paid as an allowance for sitting on that board only R11 per day or less. It is now proposed in this amendment that the amount should not be R11 any more— with which we are not in disagreement; we agree that R11 is not realistic now, in 1973 —but no amount is being substituted. It is being left entirely to the Minister of Finance to determine what that amount ought to be. In other words, the Minister of Finance, by notice in the Gazette, is going to determine at what figure you will not be regarded as holding an office of profit under the Republic and thus not become disqualified as a member of Parliament for sitting on that board and being paid whatever it is you are paid. What is more, as we read the amendment as it stands, he also has the power to distinguish between the payments of one board and those of another so that he can make some members more equal than other members and disqualify some members more than others. This is an undesirable state of affairs. If one gets the situation that one can in fact disqualify members because they hold offices of profit under the State, and if one wishes to include money which they get, only as allowances, for sitting on boards, then one should state the amount here. Whether, in fact, allowances which are merely subsistence and travel allowances that are paid to them for sitting on a board, is a proper matter for disqualification of members of Parliament or provincial councillors, is another matter altogether. I do not want to raise that, but I would say that one can certainly debate that. In this case it is going to be done entirely by the hon. the Minister of Finance. This has been amended so often that I want to ask whether we cannot put another figure in. According to the law the amount stipulated was an amount “not exceeding R11”. Can’t we put a figure in and then, when inflation catches up with that figure, we can put another figure in? As this is an amendment to the Constitution, it should be there for everybody to see; it should be in the Act.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the hon. member’s point of view. The whole idea is, of course, that we do not want to stipulate an amount in the Constitution, in view of the fact that the value of money as well as the cost structure changes from time to time This, of course, is meant to be purely an allowance. Now, the only question is this: If we determine an amount this year which proves to be too little next year, must we come back and amend the Constitution again, and the year after perhaps yet again, or what? Or do you want us to determine the amount at a figure which is so high that one shall be able to leave it at that figure for some time? In any event, I believe that in respect of things of this nature, we should be led by the Minister of Finance. The Government of the day will be led by the Minister of Finance. This is the effect this has. It seems unnecessary to us that Parliament should find itself in the position of having to deal with such a small amount just to see whether it is sufficient to compensate someone for his usual expenses when he sits on one of the boards. The position has arisen that there are autonomous boards which pay their members a considerably larger amount than the R11 which a Provincial Councillor or a Member of Parliament may receive. If he receives more than R11, he is committing an offence in terms of this section of the Constitution. This is the underlying idea. It is also true that some of these boards sometimes have their sittings in a smaller place, while others have it in a larger and more expensive place. Consequently it may easily happen that the amount may be higher for the one than for the other place. According to my information, this is the underlying idea here.

Mr. Chairman, we accept the hon. the Minister’s explanation and I shall not pursue the matter further.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 26:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Clause 26 has provisions which are similar to those contained in clauses 27 and 28 dealing with amendments to the entertainments and Publications Act, and in that sequence deal, firstly, with decisions in regard to submitted publications, that is, publications submitted to the board by a third party or interested parties, for determination as to whether they are desirable or undesirable publications. The second one, clause 27, deals with cinematograph films and the third, clause 28, deals with public entertainments. I do not propose to address you on each of the clauses. I will just mention what I have to say in regard to clause 26, which will really also apply to clauses 27 and 28.

I think it is necessary that the position be cleared, because there were some misconceptions in the Press when this Bill was first published. Clause 26 deals with publications submitted for approval and it does not, nor do the other clauses, in any way do away with the right of appeal by an aggrieved person under the Act as it stands today, an appeal to the court. The proposed amendments, as I see them, do not in any way deprive an aggrieved person of the right of appeal on the revised order of the board. All we are doing here is, as was indicated by the hon. the Minister in his Second Reading speech, making certain that revision by the board itself of its own decisions, is legal and effective. That being so, one appreciates the necessity for this provision and we will therefore support the amendment. One finds that it has happened that the board has reviewed its decisions on films which some years ago were found objectionable, and has now permitted them to be shown or has changed the restrictions on those films. The problem which now arises in terms of the proposed amendments of the principal Act is that these amendments give the right to the board, at the request of the hon. the Minister of the Interior, to review an approval. In other words, an approval can now become a banning. That may have financial consequences because on approval an importer or a publisher may bring into the country a vast number of books or other publications and incur considerable expense. If a stage or a theatre production is approved in terms of section 12 of the principal Act, considerable expenditure is incurred in preparation for the presentation of such a production The Bill as it stands now raises the possibility that the persons with a direct interest in the review “may” be notified. My amendment aims at making it compulsory for persons with a direct financial interest to be notified of the review and for them to have an opportunity of making their submissions.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to tell the hon. member for Green Point that I am satisfied with his amendment and that I am prepared to accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 27:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 28:

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 33:

Mr. Chairman, I do not propose to raise any objection to this clause, but we would be indebted to the hon. the Minister if he would give us an explanation. The position at the moment is that nuclear material may not be acquired nor, in fact, be disposed of in any way without the permission of the Atomic Energy Board. The question now arises, which is not covered in the original Act, whether the uranium may be converted into uranium hexafluoride. This is something which is already being done by private enterprise, by the mining industry. The hon. the Minister is now taking power to prohibit the mining industry from doing this although I think such power was already inherent in the original Act. However, the hon. the Minister is now taking specific power to prohibit the production of UF₆. What I want to ask the hon. the Minister is whether it is his intention to use this clause to stop the production of UF₆ by private enterprise and to divert that production to the Atomic Energy Board, or is it merely a covering provision to ensure that should the need arise, he may have the right to do so? The hon. the Minister will know that there is an understanding at the moment whereby the private enterprise concerned, the uranium producer of South Africa, is in fact running a pilot plant with a view to producing UF₆ either for export or for the use of the Atomic Energy Board. In view of the work that is being done on this pilot project, and in view of the expectations and in view of the amount of time and money that is being spent on developing a plant for the production of UF₆ by private enterprise, will the hon. the Minister give me an assurance as to his intention in taking power to remove this right from private enterprise? Is it his intention to take it away from private enterprise and to vest it in the Atomic Energy Board alone?

Mr.Chairman, in this regard the position is as follows: The intention is not to prohibit private enterprise forthwith from doing it. The fact of the matter is that at the moment there is no private concern that does it and if there should at any stage be a private concern which would be interested in manufacturing UF₆ in South Africa, it would have to obtain the necessary permission from the Atomic Energy Board. This is the factual position with regard to this matter.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister will know that the private concern which is involved in this matter, is already producing UF₆ and that they are also engaged in experiments in connection with the production of UF₆. In co-operation with other countries, they have already made considerable progress in the development of a cheap process for this. In view of the fact that they have already given attention to, taken trouble with and spend money on this matter, my question is in point of fact whether it is his intention to prohibit them from continuing with this project or whether it is the intention to take the powers in the event of it becoming necessary to implement or use them against some other concern? It is not quite clear why he needs the powers just now, seeing that earlier on the Atomic Energy Board encouraged this process amongst private concerns.

Mr. Chairman, the position is that if there is a private concern that wants to continue with the production of UF₆ it will have to obtain the necessary permission. I would prefer the hon. member to accept my reply. There are sound reasons for my not wanting to pursue the matter any further. I hope the hon. member will accept my explanation. If he wants to know anything more in this regard, I am prepared to inform him about it in private.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 38:

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this amendment which is proposed to the University of the Western Cape Act. I wish to draw attention to the very interesting fact that the amendment in this particular form was moved by this side of the House on the 14th April, 1969. At that stage it was rejected by the same Government which is now introducing it today. Therefore I can only assume that change is always for the good because the Minister in charge of Coloured Affairs at that time is the present Minister of Labour. I want to remind him why he was not then prepared to accept the amendment which was to bring about a mixed council of the university. He was asked by Mr. P. A. Moore—

The reply of the hon. Minister of Coloured Affairs, Mr. Marais Viljoen, at the time, was—

I am very pleased to say that with the change of Minister that integration aspect is now accepted only four years after we originally suggested that there should be a mixed council for the University of the Western Cape. [Interjections.]

Clause agreed to.

Clause 44:

Mr. Chairman, I have not drafted an amendment but should have done so.

I shall move it on behalf of the hon. member.

Can you do it without writing it down as required by the Standing Rules and Orders?

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.