When the debate was adjourned last night I said that the behaviour of the hon. member for Benoni (Mr Ross) was inexplicable to me. Last year the hon. member, together with other hon. members of his party in this House, pleaded that certain salary increases should be granted to railway workers. The hon. the Minister of Transport pointed out that if that were done there would definitely have to be an increase in tariffs. But now that salaries have been increased, and tariffs consequently also had to be increased, the hon. member for Benoni does not act consistently in his constituency and on the East Rand, and he does not tell the people there the truth. He does not tell them why tariffs were increased, but says that tariffs were increased because the Government and the Minister of Transport have no consideration at all for the White people living on the East Rand. He tells them that the Government does not want to help the Whites on the East Rand, and he says further that everything that has been built up on the East Rand will disappear, because the Government is in favour of the development of Bantustans and factories must be removed to the borders.

The hon. member for Benoni has now become the successor of the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson). He wants to hang over his shoulders the Jeremiah’s mantle of the hon. member for Constantia. If one listens to him talking about the East Rand, one would imagine that the vultures are already flying over that area. He does not realize the tremendous harm he is doing the East Rand when he continually complains that nothing is being done for the East Rand and that the people there are on the brink of insolvency. The hon. member for Benoni wants to bury the East Rand before it is dead. But what has he contributed towards the building up and development of the East Rand? He is in any case an outsider as far as we are concerned. He does not live in our midst and visits his constituency only once in a while. I want to advise him to leave the East Rand alone, because Benoni will very soon bury and forget him.

Yesterday was one of the saddest days in the history of the United Party in this House. Yesterday we witnessed a certain course of action by a party which was once a great party, but one which now stands on the brink of political insolvency. [Interjections.] Yesterday we witnessed the behaviour of a party which has repeatedly been rejected by the White people of South Africa. Yesterday we saw a party which has no right to exist in South Africa, and yesterday we saw a party here which is not even accepted by the non-Whites of South Africa any more, because they are misleading those people. Yesterday we witnessed the behaviour of a party which is politically bankrupt, and the tragedy of it all is that they want to make a political football of two matters, viz. the pensions of the less privileged people in our country and the closing down of marginal mines. They want to kick those two matters across the floor of the House like a political football. We also witnessed yesterday the most unjustifiable and unreasonable attacks made both by the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) and the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher), when they launched an attack on the Minister of Health which was uncalled for, unfortunate, and one can almost say uncouth. I want to ask the United Party this: When has more been done for the health of the Whites, as well as the non-Whites, in this country, than during the regime of this Government? In what other country is so much done by a small handful of Whites for so many non-Whites? I want to ask the United Party this: When we look at the health services established for both Whites and non-Whites, when we look at what the municipalities have done, and that there is a clinic in every location, we find that everything has been done for them by this Government. The Government has uplifted them from being nothing to being something and is responsible for the health services of the country being on such a level to-day that they are comparable with those of any other country in the world. But these hon. members plead for bigger pensions and improved health services, but they think that the money required for all that will fall from heaven like manna and that the Minister of Finance can go and pick it up every morning and grandiloquently distribute it. They do not realize that the money must be obtained from the taxpayers of the country. We all agree about pensions, as the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark has said. We do not want to quarrel about pensions. We, as well as the Minister, would like to grant the best pensions possible to the less privileged people. [Interjections.]

Order! Will hon. members give the hon. member an opportunity to make his speech?

May I ask you a question?

You have had your turn. I want to come back to the hon. member for Benoni and to the second leg of the motion moved by the United Party. The United Party professes to be concerned to-day about the closing down of the mines on the Rand and they grasp at that and want to frighten the people by saying that the mines will close down and that ghost towns will develop there. But who really contributed to the actual development of the Rand? Was it the United Party or the National Party which since 1948 did more to develop the Rand? What was the position on the Rand before 1948? Who created peace and order out of chaos on the Rand? Was it the United Party or the National Party?

Let us take education on the Rand. What was the position in regard to education? Take a city like Johannesburg. For 20 years the Helpmekaar School was the only school where Afrikaans children could be educated. If we go to the East Rand we find that cities like Brakpan and Springs had to send their children to Benoni to be educated. The children were taught in tents at that time. There was no technical education available to our children. It is the National Party which realized the necessity for education and tackled the shortcomings and established the necessary facilities for our children to receive education. It is the National Party which established educational facilities in every town on the East Rand. They went so far that to-day one finds that there is at least a high school in every town and a primary school in every suburb, and in every town there is a technical school and a commercial school. But what did the United Party do for technical education on the Rand? Absolutely nothing. They were not concerned about the future of our children. to-day they pretend to be concerned about the mines which are closing down, but were the mine bosses concerned about the education of our children? Where did their children go to school? In private schools. They have never been concerned about the actual state of affairs on the Rand.

What were the housing conditions on the Rand for both Whites and non-Whites before 1948? When we consider the housing of the Whites, we find that families were living in garages. There was no housing available for them. It was the National Party which provided proper housing for the Whites on the Rand, for supporters of the United Party as well as for Nationalists. And what was the position of the non-Whites on the Rand? Do you remember the chaotic conditions in regard to non-White housing? Just remember the enormous squatters’ camps which sprang up whilst the United Party was in power. When we think of the chaos which existed and the order which was brought about by the National Party there by providing proper housing for everybody, we can say with pride to-day that the National Party provided housing for both Whites and non-Whites, and therefore we can boast to-day of having industrial peace there, because both Whites and non-Whites are satisfied with what the Government has done. It is this Government which built Government buildings there. What did our magistrates’ courts and police stations look like before 1948? In 1948 the United Party hurriedly carted soil and building material to Brakpan in order to bluff us that they were going to build a police station, but it is the Nationalist Government which had to build it and the voters were not misled, and Minister Trollip knows what I am talking about now. [Interjection.]

Let us take the health services established on the Rand by the National Party. Take our lines of communication, our water and electricity supplies. It is the National Party which ensured proper development there. Now the United Party comes along and tells the voters of the East Rand that they want to break down what was achieved by the National Party. The people are now told that this Government is a “Kafferboetie” Government, because they just want to promote the interests of the Bantu. The United Party tells the people on the East Rand that we are going to allow industrialists to establish their factories only on the borders of the reserves. They malign the Minister of Transport by saying that he wants to kill the marginal mines by his increased tariffs, and that he appointed a special Tariffs Commission. [Interjections.] Those hon. members now say that we are no longer interested in the future of the Whites on the East Rand, but what are the actual facts? What is the Government actually doing for the mines which have to close and for the East Rand? Firstly we find that a commission was appointed to investigate all the areas on the East Rand and the marginal mines there, under the chairmanship of Professor Richard of the Witwatersrand University. They are making a very thorough survey and Professor Richard says the following, as reported in the Rand Daily Mail of 29 June 1962. He says that after having instituted a very thorough investigation which will last about three years and after having had consultations with all the town councils and having negotiated with the mining companies, he has come to the conclusion that the mines will go but the Rand has a bright future. It is not the National Party which says this, but Professor Richard, the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Government. Now they ask what the Government is doing for the East Rand. We find the closest co-operation between the various Government Departments and local authorities. As soon as a mine stops producing, the Departments try to see in which way they can assist the local authorities. We find that at the moment no mine buildings are standing empty on the East Rand. The Department of Justice has occupied certain of them, and the Department of Health others, and that is where I blame the hon. member for Benoni. All the other Members of Parliament from the East Rand do everything in their power to co-operate with the Departments in order to establish factories there, but that hon. member has no interest in the matter. [Interjections.] I want to put this question to the hon. members for Springs, Benoni and Germiston (District). Can they tell this House: Is there any industrialist who wanted to settle in Brakpan, Springs, Benoni, Boksburg or Germiston and who did not do so but went elsewhere due to the policy of the Government?

Yes.

Mention him.

Do you want me to get him into trouble?

The hon. member for Benoni said in the House last night that he had met an industrialist and had asked him why he had gone to Rosslyn and he replied that he had gone there because there he could employ more Natives. The industrialist will erect his factory where he can obtain cheap land, electricity, water and labour. Why did this man go to Rosslyn? Not because of the Government’s policy, but because he wanted to employ more Natives. He is an intelligent man because he takes his factory to the place where he can find labour; he does not bring the labour to the factory. [Interjections.] Brakpan is one of the towns which can boast that it has reduced the number of Bantu in its area. Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members should not make so many interjections.

But if that hon. member had been there he would have liked to see the Bantu flowing into our urban areas. The allegation made here and the story being told on the East Rand, that the policy followed by the National Party is one which will allow the East Rand to bleed to death by establishing factories in the border areas, is an untruth. Any man who wants to settle on the East Rand can do so if it is in his own interest. He will go there because it suits him, and not because it is the Government’s policy.

I do not propose to deal with the paeans of praise of the Nationalist Government delivered by the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout), but there is one statement that interested me when he said that the Government had brought order out of chaos on the Rand. That may or may not be true, but perhaps I may be able to show the hon. member that they are now bringing chaos out of order in the rest of the country.

Mr. Speaker, if any proof were needed that the Government had no policy in regard to its border industries, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Labour gave us adequate proof in his address to this House last night. At the beginning of his speech he told the House that he proposed to deal with the question of border industries, but what did we get from him? Firstly an attack on my Leader and the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn), and secondly a tirade about Veka and an accusation against this side of the House that we only raised that question because the company was Afrikaans-controlled. Then there was a long discourse about the Good Hope Textile Works, where he forgot to tell us that that organization had not made a profit, or in any case had not paid a dividend, for 14 years after its inception. Then he told us how the White man of this country would benefit by the establishment of border industries. He said that the money earned by the Bantu in the border areas would be spent on production emanating from what he called the metropolitan area. There was not a single word in his entire speech to show this House how the Bantu would benefit. I was sorry for the Deputy Minister last night because he really set himself an impossible task. This Government has spoken with so many voices about Bantu industries that it is quite clear that their policy is no policy at all.

Explain that.

Because we can get no clarity from the Government on what this policy of border industries really means, we therefore have to look for the reasons ourselves. That is what I propose to do. So if the hon. member will listen, he may perhaps learn something about it.

There is no gainsaying that under normal circumstances the dispersal of industries can be a normal and natural process. Often it has much to commend it, especially when you find a country which is handicapped by a lack of water or power facilities, or has special products such as mineral or coal the development of which will be beneficial to the entire economy. Secondly, dispersal can be economically sound when secondary industry can make the gap between a growing population chiefly dependent on primary industries much less, or where there has been a decline in the old-established industries as we have had in England, in the cotton, coal, shipbuilding and marine industries. It can also be used to alleviate the hardships of the so-called depressed areas which were once prosperous but have become economically retarded for a variety of reasons. If one investigates the matter, and one looks at the investigations which have been done in England, one finds one cardinal factor in this whole concept of industrial dispersal. This is what was said in a Board of Trade report of the distribution of industry in 1948—

The fundamental and cardinal reasons for dispersal, apart from the ones I mentioned a few minutes ago, are unemployment, or lack of work in a particular area. But none of these things applies in the Republic. There have been no special finds on the periphery of the reserves or Bantustans which justify industries being directed there, nor have we any White areas which are so depressed that a dispersal of industry has become advisable. In fact, one of the main points made by the Government throughout this debate is how prosperous this country is. We are having a time of full prosperity and employment and the Deputy Minister of Labour told us last night that there was an excess of jobs and no unemployment. In times like that it is not economically sound to disperse industries.

There are perhaps two possible additional reasons for dispersal peculiar to South Africa. The first is the economic uplift of the Bantu. But the dispersals proposed are not to the Bantu areas. It is proposed that we should move our industries to the borders of the Bantu areas, inside the White areas. The White worker of this country does not want to be moved. We are told that there is economic buoyancy. The White man is perfectly happy in his present industrial complex. But there is a second possible reason, that the removal of the Bantu from the White areas is purely a matter of political policy and has nothing to do with economics at all. [Interjection.] Hon. members opposite can wriggle as much as they like, but it is quite clear that the sole reason for the establishment of industries on the borders of the reserves is purely to get the Bantu out of the White areas. The Minister of Bantu Administration made a speech in Johannesburg a few years ago before the Federated Chamber of Industries and said this—

The rapid expansion of private enterprise owes a great deal to the generous support of the Government, but the stage has now been reached when further centralized industrial development of the type requiring a large force of Bantu labour spells danger for the survival of Western culture in South Africa, which only the wilfully short-sighted can ignore. It is the duty of the State to protect South Africa against such disaster and the Government dare not hesitate to take the necessary steps to prevent such a possibility.

There we have the so-called policy in a nutshell. He says that a further concentration of industries requiring much Bantu labour is a disaster, and therefore what we have to do is to halt the natural expansion of our industries in the urban areas and route the future development to the borders of the Bantustans. And if there is any doubt that this policy is out of date, I would like to refer to a speech made by the Minister of Economic Affairs at the opening of the new industrial township of Rosslyn near Pretoria, where he said—

In other words, they will make every effort possible to implement this policy of the removal of the non-Whites from the White areas.

Now, how is this policy to be implemented? In two ways, by coercion and by inducement. The hon. member for Brakpan attacked the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) for saying that there was an industrialist who wanted to open a factory and he could not do so because of the ratio of Black to White. The position in the Transvaal to-day is this, that if you want to apply for the re-zoning of a piece of ground for industrial purposes, one of the things that the authorities want to know is what is the ratio of Black to White, and if your ratio is out of proportion you have very little chance of getting a re-zoning. What is the effect of job reservation? If you cannot find enough Whites to do the job, because of job reservation, you must go to the border areas. That is coercion. In Commercial Opinion of December last year there appeared an article headed “Assistance to Border Industry”, and it summarized the statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister in regard to the advantages that there would be, and they can be summarized as follows: Assistance in the provision of better services; assistance for housing Whites; increased depreciation allowances. including the cost of moving a factory to the border areas; reimbursement in special cases of the cost of building a factory; erection and lease of factory buildings and, wherever necessary, the provision of extra funds by the I.D.C., and railway concessions. This is inducement. The hon. the Prime Minister went on to say—

Sir, those of us who know the policies of the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government find it very easy to interpret the meaning of " to guide”, We know exactly what that means. Now let us examine some of the possible effects of this dispersal. It is the avowed policy of the Government to remove all the Bantu from the Western Cape area. This means that the force of vacuous aggregate—I use that term for want of a better one—must operate not only because of the uncertainties and the disruptions which must inevitably follow, but because the Western Province particularly is profoundly affected by growth ratio vis-à-vis the Transvaal, Johannesburg and Durban in regard to secondary industries to meet its normal requirements. As time goes on and apartheid is enforced in the other industrial areas, the same operation will take place with the inevitable result of the weakening and perforation of the whole structure of South African industries. But, Sir, there are greater dangers affecting our economy, particularly now with the uncertainties of our export market, despite the fact that Great Britain has for the moment not been accepted into the E.E.C. and the possibilities conjured up by a hostile Black Africa sitting together to find out how best they can frustrate and harass us. The effect of the dying mines on the Witwatersrand must be taken into account because, if remedial steps are not taken in good time, we will have, despite what the hon. member for Brakpan says, depressed areas all around the Witwatersrand. To me it is criminal folly to divert our talents, our energies, our capital and our know-how to the Bantu areas and allow a slow death in the established industrial areas with its existing infra-structure of roads, railways, power and a full service of technical skill. One would have thought that, taking all these factors into account, the Government would exercise caution and concentrate its efforts in building up our existing potential industrial machine instead of embarking on this policy of experimentation with the aid of the I.D.C. It appears that one might almost say that a deliberate policy of wholesale subsidization is being embarked upon because it seems quite clear that endless subsidization for border industries is going to take place through the medium of the I.D.C., and I am not at all sure that the intention of the legislators in this House when they formed the I.D.C. was to turn it into a sort of a Government subsidy agent instead of serving its real purpose which I have always thought was to take potentially healthy institutions and help them find their feet under the normal laws of supply and demand to which I hope we all subscribe. Sir, here again the vacuous aggregate of the unknown factor which apartheid is enforcing on industry and which no other competitive industry anywhere in the wide world has to contend with, must operate. Members on the other side of the House are always telling us that we must make sacrifices. They say we are too concerned merely with the material things of life and that we have to make sacrifices. I want to ask hon. members: Who is to make the sacrifice? Is it the agricultural community or is it the industrial community? Sir, when one studies the reports of so-called experts on this subject one can become quite confused with the bland assumptions of these experts who take for granted certain developments on which I am quite sure many accountants and many economists hold opposite views, and they get quite self-righteous in the advice that they give to the Government and to the country as a whole. In this document of 20 December, Commercial Opinion, there is a report of an interview by Dr. Rautenbach, in which the worthy doctor assures everybody that everything is going to plan. Of course, it depends what the plan is. We have been waiting for a very long while to find out what this plan is, but whatever the plan may be, everything is going according to plan. I wonder how correct that is, Sir. I wonder if the real implication of the effect of this Bantustan policy has really been taken into account by these planners, because apartheid sticks out like a sore thumb in everything that is being done, and one is forced to ask whether those planners really know what is at the end of the road. Have they clearly thought through the policies in the light of the facts which are gradually coming to light? Sir, I could deal at length with the statistical side of this picture, with the fact that if we are to maintain the progress over the next 20 years that we maintained over the past 20 years, we are going to need 850,000 more workers, of whom only 150,000 can possibly be Europeans; of the fact that to set up one man in industry is going to cost us over R2,000; of the fact that since 1960 only 14 industries have been given aid in the Bantu areas and that some 2,700 Bantu are employed. These facts and these problems are secondary. The main fact is that this Government is denying the normal rules of economic development, and history has shown that where man or a nation defies these rules, it is done at its own peril.

Finally I charge the Government with complete insincerity in their Bantu industrial policy, and I will prove that charge very easily. Firstly, if the Government really want to uplift the Bantu industrially, the first thing they should do is to abolish job reservation. Where do they expect the Bantu to learn the arts of production—in the reserves or in the urban areas? And to have job reservation on the one side, and development of Bantu industries in the reservations on the other, is a contradiction in terms. Secondly, if the Government really wants to develop the reserves, why do they not take industry into the reserves? What they are doing is merely to create new White industry on the borders of the reserves. What is there in that for the Bantu? Is he to remain for ever the hewer of wood and the drawer of water? Because the areas which are now being industrialized by the border industries will be White in White areas, will remain White, will have White skill and White capital, and if that is the economic uplift of the Bantu, then I can only say I don’t know. Sir, the whole concept of development of the Bantu homelands is a concept that is in the mind only of the hon. the Prime Minister. He is breaking every known economic law to achieve not the industrial development of the Bantu, but to establish subsidized industries on their borders with White capital, White skill, White labour and in a White area. Sir, if ever there was a policy that is no policy it is the policy of border industries.

If I have correctly followed the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin), then his simple point—and it is simple—is that the various factors necessary for establishing industries in the border areas are lacking, and therefore no industries ought to go there. He also says that it will cost too much because the infra-structure is not present, and apart from that he says it is a bad policy. I think I should just ignore this last remark because it is a matter of opinion. Let me say this: If anybody had said in 1652 that South Africa would become a great country and that we would require thousands of millions to develop it. the Hollanders would have said: Let us rather not send van Riebeeck there because we will bleed to death. All beginnings are difficult. Just look at the difficulties the people had who went to colonize the present United States. They were proud of the fact that after eight years they were able to have enough food for 371 souls, and they announced that fact with a great fanfare. Now the Opposition says that we should have done everything in two years that it should have been possible to do after having been given an opportunity to make this experiment. I think that is ridiculous.

But let me take them at their word and let us ask the question whether the factors necessary for establishing industries are really absent. If a person thinks he has a case I like to discuss it with him. In this particular case, what is our inventory? In the first place, we are compelled to decentralize our industries on a basis quite different from that needed for building a state and caring for the people. This is just one of the big risks we took when we allowed everything to be concentrated on the Rand, or at least the major portion of it. At the moment the industrial heart of the Transvaal and of the whole of the Republic is mainly dependent on one river, the Vaal River. That is the main artery in South Africa. If one bomb is dropped on the wall of Vaai Dam. the whole of South Africa or three-quarters of it will come to a standstill, and that would have a cumulative effect.

Do not tell the whole world that.

Hon. members do not admit it but it is a simple fact. I know the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) thinks that Durban is the axis around which South Africa turns, but he will yet be disillusioned. Durban simply is not the axis. Therefore we are compelled, even had all the people in this country been either White or Black, to decentralize our industries. That is an obvious fact and no one can deny it. It is a fact we will have to bear in mind if we want to be realistic.

That being so, what are we to do? We must then concentrate on a place where we are not dependent on the water of the Vaal River. If we add to that the other problems with which we are faced, namely at the same time to look after these less privileged people—I am referring to the Natives, or the Bantu, as they are called nowadays—then it is surely the logical thing to decentralize industries in such a way that they are located in places where they will not constitute an additional risk for the whole of the population. What are we doing? We are trying to place them in such a way that they will not be dependent on the water from one source only. What is wrong with that? And when I am told that the infrastructure, viz. the water, the power, the houses and the labour force are not there, I agree; they are not there, but were they there when van Riebeeck landed here? Were they present in Port Elizabeth when the 1820 Settlers landed there? Were they present when the British chased the Boers out of Durban? All these things were developed slowly. And when we now sit down and think and say that we want industries here or there, there is no reason for saying now already that it will be a failure. Then we still get such a nonsensical suggestion as the one made by the hon. member for Parktown, who says that the panacea, the great solution to South Africa’s problems, is the abolition of job reservation. Mr. Speaker, do you think that that is the sum total of South Africa’s problem?

It is only part of it

That is my objection to the hon. member for Parktown. He now says it is only part of the problem. Of course it is part of it. That is my objection to the whole of the Opposition, that they see the problems of South Africa through a slit, like someone who surveys life outside through a slit in a curtain, and sees only the little bit visible to him. We on this side try to see the thing as a whole, and then we start with an industry outside Pretoria because Natives live near by, and also Whites. Hon. members may now tell me that that river which is at the moment the main artery of South Africa will eventually also have to provide the water at Rosslyn. That is a defect—I admit it—in the planning there, but it does not mean that that is the only source from which we can get water. We know now that by the judicious use and re-use of water we can again use the water there which we took from the Vaal Dam; but we may also get supplies elsewhere. But that is only one place in South Africa.

Let us take another area which is now developing and where this problem with which we are faced on the Rand, in Pretoria and on the goldfields of the Transvaal does not exist, viz. the area around Newcastle. There we have quite a different catchment area and quite different factors for establishing industries. There are coal and minerals and water. What is wrong with creating the infra-structure for an industry at Newcastle? It would be wrong not to do it. It would be madness simply to allow that water to flow into the sea and literally to let God’s water flow over God’s acre. That is what the Opposition wants us to do; they want us to do nothing so that a chaotic position can develop and so that the White people will leave this country. [Interjections.] I am now paying the Opposition back in their own coin.

Take another area, at Hammersdale, outside the Transvaal, the area near Pinetown in Natal. That is again quite a different area; that is decentralization. We have not yet solved all the problems. We know that there is a railway tariff policy which is not in line with the policy of the decentralization of industries, but if we know that there is such a tariff policy and we know that it hampers the establishment and the decentralization of industries, surely we can amend it, and we certainly will amend it. We heard last night from the hon. member for Kroonstad (Mr. A. L. Schlebusch) that such an amendment is part of his programme. Why should we not do it? Do hon. members opposite think that if a thing has once been done it must remain like that for ever? I have never before in my life heard of such an approach, but now I have to hear it from people who hope to form the Government of the country, namely that that which is must always remain unchanged.

I just want to give the Opposition the data in regard to what has been achieved in two years. They must remember that the establishment of industries is not something which can just happen overnight. When we want to erect a large building, the work on the plans takes longer than the actual erection of the building. Therefore we cannot in two years record all the successes we hope to achieve one day. According to statistics, if a business man’s failures do not amount to 45 per cent or more, he has not made proper use of his energy and his brain. We must therefore expect failures.

45 per cent.

No, I will not say 45 per cent. The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) is trying to put words into my mouth. I say that a wide-awake business man is always like a hunter. He is always trying, to find new markets. He tries to apply new methods; he tries out new inventions and a new organization. He cannot be successful in everything; if we could have complete success we would all be supermen. He must expect some of his projects, some of his plans and some of his hunting expeditions to result in failure, in the same way as a hunter sometimes misses his mark. If he misses by less than 45 per cent he has not tried hard enough. That is the yardstick applied by the efficiency engineers. But the hon. member for Orange Grove sits there with a grin on his face because he has never heard of this before. He should rather confine himself to politics and not economics.

Mr. Speaker, just see what has now happened in Pretoria. There they have received more than 250 applications for the establishment of industries at Rosslyn. They received 100 applications for assistance in establishing industries. One cannot say how many there will be, because the matter is still under consideration. Now the Opposition already says that this will be a failure. Between 6,000 and 7,000 Bantu will be given work there.

Now the hon. member for Parktown has raised another point in this regard, namely: How do we know that the money earned by the Bantu will not be for the benefit of the White people also? That is another of the peculiar conceptions of some hon. members opposite—I will not say all of them, because here and there we do find an hon. member opposite who knows something about economics—that the economy is divisible and that the money which goes to the one section will never get to the other section, or that the contribution of the one is not also a contribution for the other? I cannot understand some hon. members opposite having such an idea. That is what the hon. member for Parktown thinks; that is the premise on which he based his whole speech, namely that when the one economic hand washes the other economic hand they either both remain dirty or only one ends up clean. That is not the case in practice. Let us consider the Rosslyn area. There we have an instance where within a comparatively short time no fewer than five factories were established. When we go further to the Hammersdale area we find that within two years already five factories have been established. I am not talking now about King William’s Town and East London; there it is still in the initial stages. The central areas of Natal are also in the initial stages. There is no reason for thinking that it would be a failure. The largest of all is the area in the Northern Transvaal. There we have all the factors necessary for establishing industry. The hon. member just does not know about it. At Phalaborwa we have mineral deposits and water and electricity will come, and whether we build a power station there or elsewhere makes not the slightest difference; the question is just whether it can be used. If they can generate electricity in Tsumeb in order to develop those mines, why not in the Northern Transvaal also? If they can build a large power station at Ermelo …

If all of that is correct, why do we need intervention by the Government? Private initiative will take care of it.

I should like to reply to that question. I am glad the hon. member asked it. It just shows me what a stranger he is in the economic Jerusalem. Can I put this rhetorical question to him: Why did private initiative not start Iscor? Why did private initiative not see fit to carry on with Sasol? Why was private initiative not allowed to develop the S.A. Railways and to invest all those millions in it? Surely in the end it became an economic proposition. Mr. Speaker, hon. members opposite are shaking their heads. I will have to answer that question myself because I am afraid they will not give the reply. The reply is that there are certain key industries in any economy in regard to which private initiative is hesitant and where the State says: I must do it; I must interest myself in it. All we are doing here is this: The State is encouraging people. It is essential for the State to encourage people in this case. It is not everybody who is inspired by the faith with which this side of the House is inspired. When we come to the industrialist and the business man, it is not their own money they use. They must ensure dividends to their shareholders, and if they cannot do so in one place they would rather do so in another where they have more security.

In this particular case there are two considerations. In the first place it is a key industry where the State must intervene, and, secondly, unless the State intervenes it may lead to the doom of our civilization in South Africa or, at any rate, to a change in that civilization. Then we might possibly get the civilization of Ghana and of Uganda, the civilization which our Black fellow-citizens brought to this country. We prefer not to have that, and for those two reasons the State intervenes.

Mr. Speaker, there is not the least confidence in South Africa and its potential on the part of the Opposition, neither in its people nor in the capabilities of those people. That is what is wrong with the Opposition. However, I want to tell them one thing and that is that fate tends to favour those who have faith; there are people who are driven by destiny, but those who have faith shape their own destiny.

I think I have now dealt with the hon. member for Parktown and his allegations that the factors necessary to establish industries are lacking and that it will cost too much. I just want to say that at the moment that is no consideration. What is in fact a consideration is the possibility of success. No undertaking has ever been embarked upon without the people concerned having to take a risk at one stage or another. If their anticipation is correct, and they take a risk, the profits are so much greater, if the risk does not kill them. In this particular case we believe—we know— that the risk is not so great as to lead to eventual failure.

Mr. Speaker, you will forgive me if I revert to yesterday’s debate. The hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) introduced this debate. It is a great pity that he did not say more because I would have liked to analyse some of his controversial statements which he did not really develop. If I am wrong in my inference, he must forgive me. I gained the impression that yesterday he set out from the standpoint that our foreign reserves were too high at the moment. Am I right or am I wrong? I also understood him to say that for that reason he insisted that the Minister should at some stage say what he and we on this side regard as a sound balance.

When that question is decided, one should not think that we are living in a static world. Of all social activities economics is certainly the least static. In replying to this question we must have regard to various matters. The first is the ratio between our foreign expenditure and our inland expenditure. At the moment one-quarter to one-third of South Africa’s total national income is being spent abroad and the other three-quarters or two-thirds is being spent in South Africa. If we compare our imports with our national income, then cur imports, i.e. what we have to pay abroad, amount to approximately R 1,000,000,000; our net national income is approximately R4,000,000,000. That means that the ratio is between a quarter and a third. Knowing that, there is another matter which we must take into consideration, namely that we must pay for our imports. We must earn the money to pay for those imports. Therefore the State must at least have credits in respect of half its current imports or otherwise the currency hyenas will grasp at our currency and speculate in it to our greatest detriment. That particularly applies when we have large amounts of flight capital in our banks, as we have now. Therefore when the hon. the Minister takes that decision he must consider all these factors. If he, therefore, gives a figure it will have to be a figure subject to variation. Therefore I think that it was absolutely wrong of the hon. member even to ask that question.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the debate on pensions and I have come to the conclusion that those speeches were not made because the Opposition is concerned about the pensioners. That is an accusation I make against them. This is really the first time that they revealed such great love for the poor people.

Nonsense!

You hear what the reaction is, Sir. They are the people who interest themselves on behalf of the upper ten. What did the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) say yesterday in his speech about taxation? He delivered a plea for certain people whose taxation is too high. Which people are those?

Where do you get that from?

They are the “upper ten”, the people who received the dividends. They are the people who enjoy the so-called income. It is for them he pleaded. The Opposition should not tell me that they are so interested in the poor people.

Where did I say that?

Then the hon. member no longer remembers what he read out to us yesterday. I would advise the hon. member again to go and read his speech, only not so loudly.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about State expenditure the problem is to reach a sound ratio between social expenditure and what I regard as financial or economic expenditure. The one comprises social welfare, medical services, the aged, the ill and the blind. It is absolutely essential for a State to spend money on that. It is also essential that it should spend sufficient because from that expenditure comes the manpower and the womanpower which must carry the economy, industries and finances. If we spend too much on the one we create a great problem in regard to the other. If hon. members were really concerned with the welfare of the country, they should not, as the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Oldfield) did, have based their attack on that section of people who are now said to find things so very difficult, but they should have said that viewed from the broad aspect the expenditure of this State is just as inefficient as it is in many of the African States where they spend too much in the financial and industrial spheres and too little on the training and education and care of the people who need it. But they choose one item only from this last category and debate it. They must therefore forgive me if I gain the impression that they are not sincere and if I go and tell the people in my constituency that the tears spent here on pensions were only crocodile tears.

I have made three points. The one is that the Opposition views the development of border industries in a perspective which is not worthy of them. The second is that the same parochial outlook which the Opposition has in regard to border industries was also revealed by the hon. member for Constantia when he wanted an assurance from the Minister in regard to our foreign reserves; and thirdly that they are insincere in their pleas for the poor man and for the pensioners.

The hon. member who has just sat down made the submission that private enterprise was not prepared to tackle any big undertaking, and therefore it was necessary for the State to come forward and give the necessary financial assistance. He went back many, many years in an attempt to prove his point. I would like to put a pertinent question to him in connection with something which is taking place at this very moment in our economic policy. Why has the Government not allowed private enterprise to build the petrol pipe-line from Durban to Johannesburg?

For the same reason as in the case of Sasol.

Unlike the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) I am not interested in what took place in 1652. I am also not interested in what took place in 1820! Let him tell us why it is not his Government’s policy to assist private enterprise to build that petrol pipe-line from Durban to the Reef? That is further proof of the Government’s whole attitude as far as encouragement to private enterprise is concerned. If the hon. member for Standerton wants to set himself up as an economist and to ridicule hon. members on this side of the House from that point of view, I want to fling ridicule at his head. And that ridicule is brought about by nobody else than some of the finest economists in this country. Under the chairmanship of Dr. S. P. du Toit Viljoen, eight economists were appointed by the hon. member’s Government to go into, and to report on, the policy relating to the protection of industries. Amongst these eight people we have some of the most distinguished economists in this country. What was the conclusion of this commission of inquiry? They came to a totally different conclusion to that of the hon. member for Standerton! I may add that this refers to the same point that the hon. member for Standerton made, namely the location of industries on the borders of the Native reserves. This was their conclusion—

That, Sir, was the conclusion of the Viljoen Commission on the location of industries. I maintain that the Government has now gone directly contrary to the conclusions of this Commission. They go on to say—

Do hon. members opposite really believe that these four points are so potent and important as to justify the establishment of factories, and the investment of a terrific amount of capital, on the borders of the reserves? That, Sir, I think adequately answers the hon. member for Standerton.

When I listened to the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) I felt sure that for the first time in this House we were going to be told what the Government was doing in order to assist the East Rand as far as the declining mines there are concerned. I felt satisfied that we were going to get something positive as to what steps were now being taken by the Government. What do we find. Sir? I know the hon. member is very concerned about what is taking place in his constituency, or rather about what is not taking place in his constituency, as far as industrial development is concerned. We found that he concluded without telling us a single thing as to what the Government plans were to assist this area. I want to remind the hon. member for Brakpan that nearly five to eight years ago he convened a meeting of East Rand public representatives, chambers of commerce and town councils, because he saw the danger that lay ahead for the East Rand. In opening that meeting of which he was chairman, and which he capably conducted, he said: “We are not here to act as the undertakers for the East Rand; we are here to see that the East Rand gets a square deal and that something is done.” He is still acting the role of undertaker, and the cremation is still going on. May I just remind the hon. member of the support that he got from one other hon. member in this House. In 1958 he appealed to the Minister of Mines and said: “The Government must assist towns on the East Rand to establish secondary industries, so that these towns can make use of all the amenities existing there. When these mines close down, has that population to be moved once again to the new goldfields?” That was the appeal of the hon. member for Geduld (Dr. Jurgens) in this House in 1958. We have listened to the hon. member for Mayfair (Dr. Luttig), to the hon. member for Brakpan, to the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg), to the hon. member for Alberton (Mr. Viljoen) and not a single one of them, all of whom represent constituencies which are so vitally affected by the amendment of my party, has been able to tell us about a single thing that the Government is going to do in the near future in order to assist the East Rand. On the contrary, Sir, what do we find? We find that the whole of the Witwatersrand is in direct competition with the Government for industry. Here I would like to remind the House of the words of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs last year, when this matter was debated. When questioned by the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) the Minister of Economic Affairs and Mines admitted that if his Department were consulted by industrialists as far as the establishment of industries in this country was concerned, he would use his influence to see to it that those industrialists established their industries on the borders of the reserves. He said quite honestly that he would not approach them to go to the borders of the reserves, but that he, and his Department, would use their influence and encourage industrialists to establish themselves in those areas. That is the competition we are up against, Sir. How can any local authority achieve any results when it has the Government as its competitor? Let me also remind the hon. House how the hon. the Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Native Affairs, made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to establish further industrial townships on the Witwatersrand. He wrote a letter to the Boksburg Town Council some seven or eight years ago telling them that it was not Government policy to allow the establishment of further industrial townships on the Witwatersrand. To prove my point: I ask the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs and the hon. the Prime Minister, which large industrial townships have been established on the Witwatersrand in the last eight years? Have any large industrial townships been established there?

Yes; Wadeville in Germiston.

That hon. member also lives in 1652 like the hon. member for Standerton. Wadeville was established about ten years ago. That is the problem with which we are faced as far as the industrialization on the Witwatersrand is concerned. What are the actual facts that this Government should face up to, Sir? By 1972, that is only nine years from now, 27 out of the 35 mines on the Witwatersrand will have closed down. With the closing of those 27 mines there is a distinct possibility that there will be five towns on the Witwatersrand which will be badly affected. They have on various occasions been referred to as “dying towns”: I do not accept this, but they will be affected. What does that mean from the point of view of employment? It means roughly that 12,000 Europeans will be out of work— they will have to seek employment elsewhere —and over 102,000 Bantu will be seeking employment elsewhere. It will mean approximately R35,000,000 in wages which will be lost to that area, and the loss of a spending power of approximately R18,000,000 on mine stores, etc. To answer back, as some hon. members have, that these people will find employment in other parts of the country is not a sufficiently valid argument. We know that the rate of extraction of ore on the mines in the Free State and on the Western Rand areas is double that of what is taking place on the Witwatersrand. In 11 years Sir, the Free State mines have extracted far more tons of ore than the Witwatersrand during the first 22 years of its existence. These hundreds of thousands of tons will be doubled, in half the time that these mines have already been operating. One must not sit back therefore and feel secure in the false belief that the replacement of the Witwatersrand, by mines in the Free State and in the Western areas is going to be the answer to what is likely to take place on the Witwatersrand in the next nine or ten years. If the Witwatersrand is to retain its vitality, it must find other sources of activity and employment for roughly 2,000.000 inhabitants. The problem is urgent. I am prepared to accept that the answer is not simple; but if the Government were to-day to indicate the positive steps that it is taking, then we would be a happier and more contented community on the Witwatersrand. I know, Sir— and I think the hon. member for Brakpan said so in his speech—that we must not try to create panic in the minds of the public as to what is likely to take place; that should not be the role of members representing an affected constituency. I would not disagree with him, if I knew that the Government was taking concrete and positive steps to-day. Not that they may take those steps in three or five years’ time; but to-day! I would be happy if I knew that, and I would not then see the necessity to express these views. But just as I now have the responsibility to draw the attention of the House, and the Government, to what is happening in my constituency, so approximately seven years ago Mr. Harry Oppenheimer, then representing a Kimberley constituency, drew the attention of the House to this matter. I think it was the first time that it had forcibly been brought to the attention of the House, and the same accusation was then levelled against him— “you are trying to create panic in the public’s mind; that should not be the role of a public representative”. But he went on pressing the point, and I think he was quite correct in doing so. He said “it was no good the Government going ahead with ideological legislation and leaving the economic position of the Witwatersrand to look after itself”. Do you want the people of the Witwatersrand to put their homes on their backs and move to the Free State and other parts of the country? It cannot be done, Sir; they are not prepared to do it! They have put all their savings into their homes, and they cannot move. That is the answer to the hon. member for Mayfair, when he asked why there has not been a greater outflow of population from the Witwatersrand. The answer is simple, Sir: These people cannot leave their homes; those homes are bonded: those people have their roots there; their children are working in other occupations in these towns. There is nothing else that they can do, but stay on and hope that we will be able to force the Government into doing something positive in this direction.

Sir, I would like to put this question to the hon. member for Standerton. He referred to the fact that 250 inquiries were received by the “Committee on the location of industries” in Pretoria. Of those 250 inquiries 14 cases have been assisted. I understand that another 37 are receiving attention. That totals 51. I want to ask the hon. Minister of Economic Affairs whether he has taken the trouble of re-directing any of those remaining inquiries to the Witwatersrand, or any local authority on the East or West Rand? Has he done that, Sir? As far as I know—I am speaking for my own constituency—I do not think that policy has been followed. I think his Department has been badly amiss in not attending to a matter of this nature.

We now find that instead of positive steps being taken to assist the Witwatersrand, the Government is instead prepared to consider concessions for the Western Cape for the removal of the Bantu from that area to the Bantustans, similar to those inducements which are being held out to industrialists to establish themselves on the borders of the reserves. The statement by the hon. the Prime Minister reads—

Sir, would it not be practical politics, will it not be sound business, to first come along and offer these same inducements to Witwatersrand factories that will employ mostly European labour? Will it not be correct from a business point of view first to embark upon a policy like this, and only afterwards to consider giving those inducements to the Western Cape? I think it is still possible, at this stage, for these suggestions to be seriously considered, and that, before inducements are given to the Western Cape, they should be made available to the Witwatersrand. If I need any further proof in that regard, I call as my witness a town council on the Witwatersrand—which is Nationalist controlled—a town council which adjoins the constituency of the hon. the Prime Minister, the constituency which is represented in this House by the Minister of Justice. I refer to the Nigel Town Council. What happened there on 1 June last year, Sir? The Nigel Town Council took a decision, “as a matter of urgency”, to send a deputation to see the Prime Minister, and three other Cabinet Ministers, to discuss the following decisions taken in Council—

As late as June last year the Nigel Town Council drew the attention of the Prime Minister and three Cabinet Ministers to what was happening in their area!

Reference has been made in this House to certain investigations which are being carried out by a Marginal Mine Research Unit of the Witwatersrand University. It was said that here was positive proof of what the Government was doing, and that the Government was aware of what was taking place on the Witwatersrand. If ever there was proof of how little the Government was doing in this matter, it was the fact that this Marginal Mine Research Unit was established by the University of the Witwatersrand. The Government had nothing to do with the original establishment of this unit. It was established at the initiative of Professor C. F. Richard, Dr. Robert Farquharson and Dr. Waasdyk. They were the men who started that research unit. They were in need of money, and they approached the Natural Resources Board and an amount of approximately R 1,400 was made available to this unit, spread over a period of three years. Fourteen hundred rand spread over three years for investigation as to what is taking place on the marginal mines on the Witwatersrand! I think it is a scandalously low amount to be made available to such an important organization! I emphasize that even at this stage the Government should come along with more financial and material help to this unit. They are short of staff. As the hon. member for Brakpan intimated, it may be three years before this unit reports. Then it may already be three years too late. But the aim of this research unit is not to take decisions; it is purely to investigate facts, and explore possibilities. A research worker, Sir, does not decide policy. That policy has to be decided by the Government. We are hoping that in this debate the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs or his Deputy will indicate some positive steps along these lines. This matter deserves absolute priority. We are at this stage doubtful as to what is really in the minds of the Government in this regard.

The hon. member for Alberton, the Deputy Minister of Labour, said he was going to deal with the second leg of our motion, namely the lack of planning on the part of the Government as far as industrialization on the Witwatersrand is concerned. But that was the last we heard from the hon. the Deputy Minister of Labour in that regard. He never again referred to it in his speech. He never again referred to it after that opening remark! He went on to tell us about immigration, pensions, job reservation and everything else, but the important thing on which he started his speech he never referred to again. I will tell you why the hon. member for Alberton, why the hon. member for Brakpan, the member for Boks-burg (Mr. G. L. H. van Niekerk), Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn) and the members from other constituencies from the Witwatersrand. are not definitely referring to this matter in their speeches. They are not referring to it because they know that they cannot go back and face their constituents, and say: “We pleaded and we spoke for intensive industrialization on the borders of the Bantu reserves before the establishment of factories in your own areas, and thereby keep you in employment.” They cannot face it, Sir! I challenge any member on the opposite side to come on a platform with me on the East Rand and debate this one aspect only, namely: “Where is the policy of the Government leading you people on the East and West Rand, as far as the development of industries in the Bantu border areas is concerned?”

Big boy!

Well, let the hon. member come along and tell them what wonderful things the Government has done. It is in line with what the hon. member for Brakpan tried to indicate that the development of the goldfields is due to the Nationalist Party. That impression one also gets from the hon. member for Cradock.

Yes, you know what you have done.

I want to tell the hon. member what allegedly happened to the late Mr. Havenga. The story goes that when the late Mr. Havenga went to America to try and raise a loan on behalf of this country, when we were down in the doldrums financially, and he was pleading with the Under-Secretary for Finance in America for a huge loan, the Undersecretary for Finance of America asked him: “What guarantees, what surety, can you give us for this money?” He said: “Well, you know, in South Africa we have got gold, we have got diamonds, we have copper, we have uranium, we have got all these many valuable minerals. That is our security.” So the UnderSecretary for Finance said: “Yes, but you see all these things are underground. Is there not something else that you can give us as security for this loan?” So Mr. Havenga said: “Well, you know we have got a first-class Cabinet; we have got men like Dr. Malan, we have got men like Mr. Louw, men like Dr. Donges, men like Mr. Paul Sauer, they are a wonderful team; they are also securities as far as South Africa is concerned.” Then the Under-Secretary for Finance turned round and said: “Yes, you see, if you can get the things that you have got underground above ground, and the things you have got above ground underground, we can fix you up with a loan.” That is my answer to the hon. member for Cradock when he says “Look what we have got ”.

As I have indicated, we on this side of the House are prepared to realistically look the facts in the face. They may be unpalatable, they may be unpleasant to state, but we are nevertheless prepared to state them. We are forced to plead our case with the Government in this manner because we do not believe that this Government is tackling this problem as intensively, as forcibly and as positively as we believe it should. Sir, the responsibility for what lies ahead is on the shoulders of this Government, and this Government alone.

The hon. member who has just sat down will not hold it against me if I do not react immediately to everything he has said. He seriously and sometimes in a dignified manner brought matters to the notice of the House which he considered to be important and he also put pertinent questions to the hon. the member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) and the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, and I do not think it is expected of me to reply to those questions.

I want to say in advance that I have not made a study of the few matters which I want to raise. In normal circumstances that would be a crime and an injustice towards hon. members of the House and to the people outside. What I am about to say is purely a spontaneous reaction, a reaction to the emptiness and weightlessness of the United Party’s arguments in every debate which we have had since the beginning of the Session. I hope that, in view of the latitude which this opportunity affords, I shall be allowed to discuss the pattern which our discussions have followed to-day and which was followed during the no-confidence motion as well, a pattern set by the hon. gentlemen of the Opposition. There has been no action on the part of the Opposition to which you can react forcefully and emphatically. You got the impression, Sir, that hon. members were like paralysed spiders who have been so paralysed by the stings in the arguments from this side of the House, now and in the distant past, that it is even difficult, as is the case now, to give colour and tone to the debate from this side.

The hon. the Prime Minister already said in the no-confidence debate that he had no option but to do what he did not want to do and that was to quote facts which were more than well known in order to prove that which no longer required to be proved and to refute that which came from the other side of the House and which was no longer necessary to be refuted. Yes, even then he wondered whether it would be worth his while taking part in the debate; but that, because it might possibly be wrongly construed, he nevertheless did so. That spirit typified by the Prime Minister as being the spirit revealed by the other side of the House is still prevailing in this House. The hon. the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions said the same thing, namely, that he must once again get up and advance well-known arguments to prove what is being done at the present moment and what was neglected in the past, but that he was once again obliged to do so.

It was comical to hear the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw), red in the face and excited, bellow like the cow of Basan at the hon. Deputy Minister of Labour simply because the two of them differ as to the unemployment figures in Canada. That was sufficient reason for the hon. member to oppose the Part Appropriation Bill and he did so with dramatic waving of the arms: with a voice as loud as thunder he inflated his own balloon-like arguments until they eventually burst with a large bang and disappeared. But that is what happens when your arguments lack vigour and strength.

You are inclined to agree with the hon. member for Constantia, Sir, that no Government can stay in power for ever but the Opposition is well on the way of gaining the reputation that they will remain in the Opposition benches unless they undergo a real spiritual change, because in its present form we have an Opposition which is like the crop failure which the farmer had when he planted macaroni and only the holes came up. Thus far a vague monotony has characterized the debates from the beginning of this Session. Since the opening of Parliament till to-day a lost and stunned Opposition, an Opposition which lacks arguments, has turned this into a sham Parliament conducted by a secondary school debating society.

At the moment, yes.

The motion of no-confidence as well as the amendment of the hon. member for Constantia yesterday should never have been moved. Why does a man build a drying-oven when he has never planted any tobacco? Why do you hire a team of shearers when you do not possess a single sheep? Why do you mobilize an army to defend you when no attack is threatened? And why do you mobilize an army to launch an attack when nothing is threatening you from outside? Do you know, Sir, that since the opening of Parliament the action of our friends opposite in the Opposition has been as purposeless as that of a person walking in his sleep. The difficulty is that the machinery of the Opposition which has to manufacture policies which are adapted to the winds of change is out of action and has fallen behind. There was a Senate plan. We know of a race federation plan which is getting eroded before it has been put into operation. As far as the next plan is concerned, that production machine is at the moment producing nothing else but proofs and since the beginning of this Session it has only been ringing “nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless ”. The aged are to-day being better cared for than in the past, but nevertheless. The workers enjoy better conditions of employment and higher wages, but nevertheless; education is being placed on a much sounder basis, but nevertheless; the non-Whites are in a better position than the average Russian in Russia, but nevertheless; there has been a phenomenal increase in the national income— nevertheless; the balance of payments position is as favourable as never before; there has been staggering industrial development; and the Government is giving sympathetic attention to the modernization of agriculture; the number of assistance schemes to farmers exceeds all previous records, and we know of another scheme that is being planned; defence has been smartened up so as to cope with every possible situation; immigrants are flowing into the country in their thousands; health services are unsurpassed; our air and road transport systems are of the best in the world; our system of administration of justice is above all suspicion; and the safety of the State and that of the individual and his property is guaranteed; subversive activities are being strangled; our gold production amounts to 70 per cent of the world production. That and many other good things! But the hon. member for Constantia still moans and says “nevertheless ”. Nevertheless! Because, he says with tears in his eyes: In these circumstances where would a paradise country like South Africa have been if only a sensible United Party Government had been in power! For his sake I wish to add this: Just think of the Senate plan of the United Party which was born dead; of the dying federation plan which would have handed the whole of South Africa to Black domination. It is only a pity, says the hon. member, that we do not have the opportunity of doing so.

On a point of order, Sir, may I ask whether the hon. member is entitled to read his speech?

If the hon. member thinks I am reading it he should be grateful that I am not bellowing it forth. Mr. Speaker, where the United Party army worm has invaded a field the grazing potential of that field is something of the past. But how much longer must we carry on with the Opposition? The Government sees to it …

Turn the page over!

If the hon. member for Durban (Point) thinks he is important, I want to assure him that I think his importance is accompanied by unpleasant notoriety, not only in this House but outside as well. The Government creates working facilities and the Government is waiting on the Opposition to exercise its right as Opposition and to do its duty. The Government introduces constructive and positive legislation in this House and it waits for the Opposition to do its duty, its right and its duty which consist of this that it can assist in the building of a happy community, all sections of society, and to make it possible for us to continue to live happily in this country of ours under this matchless Government and to build upon everything that is wonderful and dear to us and which has carried us from the past to the present and which throws the light on the road which lies ahead. It is the right and the duty of the Opposition to assist in this regard, and we ask them to assist. They can make positive suggestions and they can level constructive criticism. We are susceptible to conviction. It is human that what we offer will definitely contain defects which can be improved upon. The Opposition is not as useless, therefore, as they think. Why do we not settle down to work in all seriousness with the assistance of the Government, please?

I think the hon. member who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not follow up what he said. It is difficult to reply to what he said or did not say. The thought that flashed through my mind while I was thinking of Waterberg was, “How the heroes have fallen!” However, I am pleased that the hon. member has steered us onto calmer waters, because what I propose to deal with now is something that I want to keep outside party politics, and that is to say a few things to the hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science in connection with his Advisory Education Board.

Have you not given notice of a motion?

That question proves that the hon. member never looks at the Order Paper.

I want to examine and deal very briefly with this Advisory Board, particularly in so far as its composition is concerned. This Board was called into being allegedly to place our education on a sound and a national basis so that this country can have the benefit in the future of the advice of a body which is above suspicion. The hon. the Minister will recall that when this Bill was introduced last year, I and others on this side, as well as the teachers’ associations who appeared before the Select Committee, pointed out certain possible defects and weaknesses in the Bill; we pointed out to the hon. the Minister the dangers which might arise if he persisted with and insisted on certain clauses in the Bill and the principles embodied in them. In this connection I also want to call as a witness the South African Teachers’ Association which shortly after the passing of this Bill testified as follows—

So too, for example, I pointed out that if the hon. the Minister was going to appoint all the members of the Board, without considering or consulting the educational bodies concerned, he would be exposing himself to the accusation that he was creating jobs for pals and that as the result of that his Board would not be above suspicion, however careful or however sincere the hon. the Minister might be in appointing his members. That was the basis of my whole attitude, but the hon. the Minister refused to accept it. It was also pointed out that if his Board did not enjoy the confidence of the public, if his Board did not enjoy the confidence of the teaching profession in particular, then it carried within it the most deadly and the most dangerous germs for its own destruction. The words I used were that it would be stillborn.

Mr. Speaker, before I deal with the composition of the Board I should like to refer to another matter just in passing, but before doing so I should like to point out that what I suspected and what the teaching profession and the public suspected and what I think quite a number of members on the other side also suspected has been confirmed and that “the political reputation”, to use his own words, of my hon. friend has suffered and must suffer because of it.

But before I come to the composition of the Board I should like to refer to what the hon. the Minister told me the other day in reply to my questions in connection with the qualifications of the members. Here I want to say at once that I do not want to mention the names of individuals. This is not a personal matter at all. I just want to refer to the qualifications which the hon. the Minister set out in the list given to me, that is to say, their academic qualifications. The hon. the Minister will also recall that when he found me outside in the lobby he said to me, “My dear friend, you will be surprised; you will envy these people when you hear what their qualifications are.” I say that just in passing, but there are certain members who, however good they may be, are not and never have been qualified teachers. They might be very much better teachers than qualified people, but I am dealing now with the question of qualifications, in view of what the hon. the Minister told me. With all due respect the hon. the Minister will agree with me that academically it is wrong, that it is not the convention in the academic world to indicate the qualifications of, say, Mr. X as follows (and I quote these examples from his reply): “B.A., M.A., S.O.D., B.Ed., M.Ed., D.Ed.” Surely the correct academic use would be: M.A., D.Ed.? It may look very impressive to set out all the degrees, but that is not done, and it certainly does not impress people who know better!

Then I want to deal with the composition of the Board itself. Amongst the members there are seven professors, six directors or deputy-directors, four inspectors, eight principals of secondary schools, two principals of primary schools, one organizer of adult education, one representative of a correspondence college and no practising teachers. More than half, 17 members, more than 59 per cent of his appointees to the Board as a whole, are practically unconnected with the teaching profession as far as practical instruction in our secondary and primary schools is concerned. For the rest there are ten principals of secondary and of primary schools and, as the hon. Minister knows, our principals to-day, having regard to the extensive scope of our education and the size of our secondary and primary schools, have become practically nothing but administrative officers, and in certain cases merely the secretaries of the Department.

Is it not in fact the best teachers who have become principals?

I come now to his executive committee, on which there are the following members: Four out of the five, 80 per cent of the representatives on the executive committee, come from the Transvaal; 20 per cent are from Natal, none from the Orange Free State and none from the Cape Province.

As far as the Board itself is concerned the Transvaal has 13 members, the Orange Free State four members, the Cape Province seven, Natal four and South West Africa one. The Transvaal therefore has 45 per cent of the representation whereas the Cape Province only has 24 per cent. Surely my hon. friend will admit that that is quite out of proportion. It is out of proportion even if only because of the fact that after all the Cape Province— with apologies to the Transvaal and its teachers—has a very much older tradition of education behind it than we in the Transvaal. The Cape Province members represent only 24 per cent of the entire membership. Are hon. members on the other side prepared to admit that there is not adequate representation on the Board for the province that we can regard in South Africa as the cradle of our civilization? [Interjections.]

Then there is something else which I find significant and which should also be significant to hon. members on the other side. I refer to the fact that the southern universities, Cape Town and Stellenbosch, are represented by only two members—one for Stellenbosch which has produced five out of the six Prime Ministers that we have had since the establishment of Union!

When we look at these appointments and the numbers of members who attended the various universities in our country, then the position becomes even more amusing. There are some members who received their training either at one university or at two or more, but nine of them received their training at the Pretoria University, seven at the Potchefstroom University, seven at Stellenbosch University, four at Cape Town, two in Natal, three in the Free State, three at Rhodes, six at the University of South Africa and three at the Witwatersrand University. That means that nearly 69 per cent of these people received their training at the northern universities.

What does that prove?

That the people of the Cape are worthless.

Only seven out of the 29 members were recommended by teachers’ associations. Only 24 per cent of the members on the Minister’s Board therefore have the confidence of our teachers’ associations in South Africa. If therefore we expect this Board to have the confidence of this country and of the Republic, or of the teachers’ profession, we are expecting too much. I am afraid that as far as this matter is concerned the Minister has exceeded the bounds of reasonableness and common sense and that he has slapped the profession in the face. I warned him last year that we would be courting trouble if we ignored the profession, and there is not a single member on that side who was formerly a member of the profession who will deny that.

Let us have a look now at the principals who were appointed to this Board, The Transvaal has 50 per cent, the Cape Province 30 per cent, the Orange Free State 10 per cent and Natal 10 per cent, But there is something else that is peculiar as far as this matter is concerned—and I trust that the Minister will give me his reply on this view—and that is the fact that Professor Dr. Rautenbach has only been appointed temporarily, that he is only there in a temporary capacity as chairman. I should like the Minister to tell the House how much truth there is in the rumour that that has been done because he is going to retire at the end of the year and that Professor Bingle is going to take his place.

Now that the Minister has appointed the members of his Board and made their names public, we have had an unfavourable reaction not only from the public, but also from the teaching profession. The S.A. Onderwysersunie (Teachers’ Union), the S.A.O.U., in particular has reacted. The Onderwysersunie wrote to the Minister expressing their dissatisfaction with the composition of the Board. At this stage, of course, I cannot talk about the Board’s activities, because it has only just started and it would be unfair to do so, but we shall do so when the time is ripe. At this stage I confine myself to the appointment of the Board, to its composition. The Minister replied to that letter from the S.A.O.U. and in the Unie, the official journal of the S.A.O.U., there appears a leading article, which represents their reply to the Minister’s letter. Amongst other things this journal says—

These are phrases which they quote from the Minister’s letter. Then they go on to say—

These are hard words but they do not come from me; they come from the S.A.O.U.—

The S.A.O.U. then goes on to ask whether domination by one province will bring about greater inter-provincial peace and reacts to the Minister’s argument that “if representation is granted on a provincial basis it will immediately unleash a struggle between the provinces”, and the S.A.O.U.’s sarcastic reply to that—not mine—is this—

After further criticism of the Minister’s Board and his explanation to the S.A.O.U., the journal ends on the following note—

Mr. Speaker, this is sharp criticism, but in my opinion it is justified criticism of defects which, as I frequently pointed out last year during the second and third reading debates, may result in the Minister’s Board being stillborn. I must say that personally I am extremely disappointed that my hon. friend the Minister, who is an educationist of repute, constituted this Board in such an unbalanced way and that he proceeded, as I said at the beginning, to slap the various teachers’ associations in the face and that he did not make use of the golden opportunity that he had to call in these people and to say to them: “Whom do you want me to appoint?” He would then have had a more balanced Board and he would have had the support not only of all the teachers’ associations but also of the S.A.O.U. which, as he knows, is after all the oldest and most well-known teachers’ association consisting of fellow-Afrikaners. The people who belong to it are Afrikaans speaking; they are not people who take part in politics. [Interjections.] I said at the beginning that I was not talking about individuals as such; I am talking about the Board and its composition. Who they are does not concern me, but I believe, together with the S.A.O.U., that people with the same qualifications and capabilities could have been appointed from a wider circle. Mr. Speaker, I fear for the survival of this body, but we can only await future developments to see what happens. I think we will find out in the near future whether the Minister was correct and whether the Board is going to act in such a way that it will be able to remove the suspicion which is harboured against it at the moment or whether its conduct will be such that it will redound to the benefit of our teaching profession.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commence immediately by telling the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) that I think he made a very great mistake in the few allegations he made right in the beginning of his speech. He says he warned me that if I did not consult the teachers’ association I could justifiably be accused of granting jobs to pals. He says that if this Council does not enjoy the confidence of the Public it has the deadliest germs inherent in it.

The teaching profession.

I did not interrupt the hon. member and he should now give me a chance, except if he wants to ask a reasonable question.

May I just ask then whether the Minister did not hear me saying “and the teaching profession”?

Yes. Then as far as my political reputation is concerned, which I myself risked when we dealt with this legislation, he says that it has suffered and will suffer as a result of these appointments. I first want to deal with these few matters. If the hon. member said that I would be creating jobs for pals if I did not consult the teachers’ associations, then I want to ask whether he now by implication tries to allege that jobs have been created for pals, and then I just want to correct the hon. member by saying that in so far as the Executive Committee members are concerned it has throughout and without any exception been my task to persuade these five persons to accept these appointments, and that they did grasp at it with greedy hands because they are still in the profession and busy doing important work. All the other members to whom this offer was made accepted it without exception. English or Afrikaans speaking, and I am very happy about it because I am sure that there are also supporters of the United Party amongst them, and they did not have any doubt at all in spite of all the suspicion certain people have tried to sow in regard to this Council right from the beginning in order to make it unpopular.

As far as my political reputation is concerned, I want to tell the hon. member that in so far as the teachers’ associations he mentioned are concerned, including the S.A.O.U., my political reputation has never yet been as high as it is now. I want to tell the hon. member that my political reputation in this regard certainly does not depend on his approval or disapproval. The hon. member simply cannot approach the matter objectively; he will always be prejudiced. Now the hon. member says that the qualifications, as I indicated them, are ridiculous. He says one does not say that a person has the B.A. and the M.A. degrees, but he himself put the question like this: What qualifications have the members of this Council and at what universities did they obtain them? Now the one person obtained his B.A. degree at the University of Cape Town and his B.Ed. degree at another university and his M.Ed. at still another university, and that is not as ridiculous as the hon. member wanted to pretend it was.

But now I really come to the crux of the matter, the composition of the Council. Does the hon. member now allege what he implied when he waved his arms and analysed the present positions of the persons appointed to the Council, namely that there are no practising teachers; that there are principals of schools, professors, S.G.E.s. deputy-S.G.E.s. director of education, deputy-directors. inspectors of schools, etc., but that there are no practising teachers? Surely that is not true? In not a single case is that true, except for the officials provided for by the Act. In the case of all the S.G.E.s and their deputies it is provided in the Act that the Administrator makes his recommendation, and they are accordingly appointed. The inspectors of education who have been appointed are amongst the greatest teachers there are in the country. They are the people who must give guidance to other teachers. Surely it is not true that the head of a school cannot teach and is now described as an administrative official. Surely it is a totally false impression which is created here. My analysis gives quite a different picture. I also systematically analysed the matter and according to my analysis we have ten teachers and vice-principals in the Transvaal, five inspectors and chief inspectors of schools, one tor the private schools, nine lecturers and three professors. For the Cape Province there are ten teachers and vice-principals and six principals. That is the work they did all these years. There are ten persons who for years were principals and vice-principals in the Cape Province. There are six who were principals and three who were inspectors and chief inspectors of schools, and so I can continue. But I have now said enough about this matter. I do not think it is a valid argument to say that it must be a teacher who taught Class A or Class B. All the principals and vice-principals and all the inspectors and S.G.E.S taught at one time. All the people nominated to this Council, with the possible exception of Mr. Gracie, who is now president of the Association of Correspondence Colleges—all 28 of them—all 28 of them are people whose fingers are still full of chalk. Does the hon. member for Hillbrow, who was a teacher himself, now want to say that he has forgotten all the teaching experience he has had? And then he acts here as the main critic of the United Party. He has certainly not forgotten it, and I shall regard him as a teacher who ought to know what he is talking about.

I come now to the Executive Committee. Perhaps I should deal with its composition a little later, when it will be clearer to hon. members. I want to start with the matter in regard to which the greatest objection was raised and which the hon. member tried to exploit this afternoon, namely the fuss made in the Press and in the official organ of the S.A.O.U. which raised the great objection that they did not have a single member on the Executive Committee. I want to tell the hon. member that he has now reminded me of the old vulture policy of the United Party. That vulture hovered around. He thought there was a carcass somewhere on which he could descend and gorge himself and satisfy his lust as the result of this alleged dissatisfaction. The hon. member to-day made a great fuss of quoting from the Burger and from the official organ of the S.A.O.U. I now want to challenge him again to get up in the Budget debate and again to quote the report which the S.A.O.U. will publish in the Unie. something in regard to which I agreed with them not to say anything beforehand, and about which I will say nothing now. But I now want to issue the challenge to the hon. member to get up again in the Budget debate and then to read out what the S.A.O.U. says about the whole matter after we had consultations. [Interjections.] I am not saying that there was anything wrong in what the hon. member read out here, because all those things were said, but I now challenge him to do what I ask him to do. After we had consultations, they understood the position better, but I can predict now already that the hon. member will not read it out because he will derive no benefit from it. The position is simply that those people, and I also, want to render a great service to education, and do not try to make cheap political capital out of something which has happened and which I will not analyse further for the benefit of the hon. member.

Will the Minister also at the same time divulge the letter written to him by the S.A.O.U.?

But that is known. It was published in the official organ of the S.A.O.U. It was dealt with in a leading article and “Dawie” reacted to it. It is generally known. The point is simply this, that I did not want to add fuel to the flames, but I just want to tell the House what happened. The hon. member asked whether there were no other efficient people in the other provinces as well. Of course they have efficient people. When we discussed the Act here I said that there would be so many efficient people that one would not know whom to select. I want to ask the hon. member whether he is satisfied, every time a Springbok team is picked for any sport, that the best team has been selected? I just mention this to show that when a selection has to be made from many efficient people it is quite possible that there may be a great difference of opinion, but that still does not mean that efficient people have not been appointed. The hon. member had much to say about the composition of the Council, but I want to ask him what he contributed towards advising the Minister as to which people to appoint to the Council? In this House and in the Other Place I repeatedly issued the invitation, when representations were made to me that I should classify these people in categories and in groups, that hon. members should please send in the names of people whom they think are good educationists.

That was done.

No, it was done by only one member of the Other Place. Only one Senator mentioned one name, and he added that is was a red-hot Nationalist. But the Opposition grievously neglected their duty. If they had done their duty we would have been able to say to-day that the hon. member for Hillbrow at least took the trouble to write me a letter, but I never received such a letter. [Interjections.] The hon. member will of course find it difficult to take his medicine now, and the only way he can absorb it is by getting rid of it. I say that it is quite possible to appoint the whole Council of 29 people from the Cape Province with several good ones still over to choose from, but the greatest problem in regard to the composition of the Council, and particularly of the Executive Committee, was to choose persons who would really give the Council a high standing, and to select persons who could be missed elsewhere, even though it was not temporarily, as the hon. member stated, but part-time.

In the first place I said to myself: If I can get a man at the head of affairs as chairman who has already made his name and who has the confidence of both Afrikaans-and English-speaking people, a man of high status, I will consider myself fortunate; and I think the whole country can consider itself fortunate in having a man like Professor Dr. C. H. Rautenbach as chairman of that Council. I am glad the hon. member did not put this matter on a personal basis, but he should not blame me if I mention by name the persons I appointed, because I am not ashamed of mentioning them. I am proud of them and I need not defend them. They can defend their own past careers, and that is sufficient. I say that the country as a whole ought to be happy to have Professor Rautenbach acting on the Council in a part-time capacity. He could unfortunately not relinquish his rectorship immediately. The fact that he serves on the Board part-time is a great asset to the Board. Where the hon. member got hold of the stories he told here, and in what street or in what public place he heard them I do not know, nor do I want to know, namely that Dr. Rautenbach is supposed to stay on only until the end of the year and that Dr. Bingle will then auptomatically become the chairman of the Council. The sting in this story is that Professor Bingle comes from the Potchefstroom University. I am Chancellor of the Potchefstroom University. It so happens that Professor Bingle is a “Dopper” and that I am a “Dopper ”. The whole idea is to sow the suspicion that doubtful methods have been applied here and that Professor Bingle was appointed with the object of becoming the permanent chairman of the Council.

That is absolute nonsense.

The hon. member does not know what he is talking about. Only the other day another hon. member threw out a hint by asking whether Professor Bingle was English speaking. I want to tell the House that the position is just the opposite. I fear that we are going to lose Professor Bingle in a year’s time. I say I fear it because he is such a very efficient person. The present Rector of the Potchefstroom University is retiring at the end of this year and Professor Bingle is the next man who may be appointed as Rector. But I may succeed in keeping him on the Council longer even if he is appointed Rector.

In so far as Professor Rautenbach is concerned, I publicly want to express my thanks to the Council of the University which told Professor Rautenbach: This work is so important that you can go and do it in your own time and you can devote your leisure to us; we are satisfied with your leisure as long as you can render this service to the country and its people. The hon. member for Hillbrow can now see where stories can lead one to. Not only do they mislead one, but they push one over the precipice, if one listens to such cheap stories. If the hon. member had asked me, I would have given him all the information, but of course there must be some politicking in regard to this Education Council and educational matters which should be far above politics. The hon. member kept his information secret and he thought: Now I have got the Minister; he does this sort of thing and he wants to mislead us. The other member, Mr. Stanley Osler, who is there part-time also, told me when I offered him the appointment that the board of his school has a tremendously great project in hand which must be implemented in the year 1963. They collected large sums of money for it. He said that he would work twice as hard as was necessary, but that he would not be able to accept the appointment if he had to resign immediately. I was not looking for people who had already retired; I was looking for people who were still active, and when Stanley Osler told me this I felt that he was the type of man we wanted. He even makes use of a dictaphone to cope with his work. As matters stand now, we will have his part-time services for 1963.

Now I come to the provincial composition. I have admitted—and that applies to the Free State and to all the other provinces—that there are good people. Secondly, I want to admit that I did not do so deliberately and, thirdly, I want to state that from the very nature of the matter I know these people will have to fill these tremendously important posts much better than I know some of the others. But then I want to add also that, although it happened this way, and although it was not done deliberately, it is rather a good thing to foster a spirit which opposes provincialism instead of encouraging it. [Interjection.] Of course that is so.

You promote it.

When the National Party came into power in 1948, a party which is a federal party, and when Dr. Malan constituted his first Cabinet, he appointed seven Cape Ministers and only two from the Transvaal although the Transvaal had more members than the Cape Province. But Dr. Malan did not thereby intimate that the people in the Transvaal were incapable. But just supposing that I was a petty little man who said to myself: “Here I now have an opportunity to favour the Transvaal and the Transvalers”, then I should like to ask the hon. member what service he has rendered the country to-day; what he has obtained? Has he scored a point against the National Party? Does he think the people in the Cape Province will now say: “Yes, the people in the Transvaal consider the north only and we in the south are being neglected ”? The hon. member himself went to the trouble of ascertaining what percentage of degrees were obtained in the northern universities as compared with the southern universities. The whole trend of his speech was to see whether he could not drive in a wedge between the north and the south. I repeat that the hon. member will still have to swallow much from the S.A.O.U….

But in the meantime you are swallowing.

I am not swallowing anything. I issued a challenge to the hon. member.

The hon. member made an analysis of the number of members on the council representing the various provinces, but his addition was not correct. He gave the Transvaal 13 members. He should have given the Transvaal ten. The other three are people from the Department of Education, Arts and Science, which is a central Department dealing with all four of the provinces. One of them, Dr. W. K. H. du Plessis, is an inspector living in Pretoria, but whose sphere of activities comprises the whole of the Republic. [Interjections.] No, I am referring to the grand total. There are 29 members. The hon. member said there were 13 in the Transvaal, seven in the Cape Province, four in Natal, four in the Free State and one in South West Africa. I say the hon. member counted wrongly. He should have said that there were ten in the Transvaal, seven in the Cape Province, four in Natal, four in the Free State and one in South West Africa, and for the whole of the Republic, because the Department of Education, Arts and Science is a Department which serves the whole of the Republic, there are three.

And who live in the Transvaal.

No, that is the wrong picture. It is completely wrong. The one is Dr. Robbertze, the Director of the Research Bureau.

Where does he live?

That makes no difference. All officials live in Pretoria, but the hon. member now wants to give the Transvaal 13 members. We will not allow him to be elected in Hillbrow again; he is a very bad Transvaler. He now wants to give the Transvaal 13 when it has only ten members.

But the Transvaal gave him a seat.

Why give this distorted picture? I accept that the hon. member did not do it deliberately. Perhaps he just did not realize that three out of the 13 persons are really public servants.

May I just point out to the hon. the Minister that the following appears behind the name of Dr. Robbertze: The Transvaal Department of Education, Arts and Science.

He lives in the Transvaal; all the inspectors live there, but he is not a member of the Transvaal Education Department. That is the point I wish to make. He is a member of the staff of the Central Department. The hon. member says that I told him in reply to his question that there were nine persons who had been recommended by teachers’ associations.

Seven.

Seven. They were appointed. But the hon. member forgets that of the 29 there are 19 who were members of the teachers’ associations. Why does the hon. member want me to implement United Party policy? Why does he want me to allow the teachers’ associations, provincial borders and all such things to dictate to me as to whom I should appoint? Seeing that I opposed all their amendments, why does the hon. member now say that I should have done so? Surely it is not the National Party which wanted it. I gave the undertaking that I would see to it that justice was done to both language groups and to the various groups of interested persons. But the hon. member does not say a word about these groups of interested persons. If we look at these groups of interested persons and see what the background of those people is, what subjects they took and what their experience and qualifications are, then they must admit that we acted reasonably. But where did we say that we would give the right to make nominations, as those hon. members wanted us to do, to employers’ associations, trade unions and all those various bodies? This side of the House opposed it and set off from the standpoint that sound people should be appointed, and I now challenge that hon. member to get up in this House and to take those people one by one and then to tell me: “This man is a good man, but that man is a better one.” I stated the case on behalf of the Government, and said that this Council would be composed of experts in the various spheres. Why now reproach me and say that I am compelled to accept the recommendations of the teachers’ associations, and that I should really have called in the teachers’ associations and asked them whom I should appoint? Now the hon. member reproaches me for having acted wrongly, but why does he not have the courage of his convictions and say: “Why did you appoint Bingle, and why not X, Y or Z? Why did you appoint Rautenbach instead of A, B or C?” I say that the hon. member cannot discuss these persons.

I do not want to.

And the weakness of his whole argument is that he thereby admits that I appointed suitable people. If the hon. member hears that A, B or C is inefficient, I will immediately go into the matter, because I want to have the best possible people, and I will tell such a person: “After having been informed by the hon. member for Hillbrow that you are a very weak representative, I have gone into the matter, and will you be so kind as to resign.”

That is a weak argument.

It is not a weak argument. Mr. Speaker, I am supposed to have exceeded the bounds of reasonableness and of intelligence, because the profession has been ignored. That is what the hon. member said.

I think I have said enough about what was said by the hon. member for Hillbrow in the form of so-called criticism, but I want to make a positive contribution, and I want to say that this Council is already in operation in the sense that the Executive Committee is busy sorting out many problems which have already been referred to it. The official inauguration of this Council will be performed by me on 7 May, but in the meantime the members of the Council are receiving documents and preliminary plans which have been submitted to them, and now I also want to state what I said in the Other Place, namely that the focal point in education as a whole is not a question of systems or the modification of systems or the introduction of subjects or the curtailment of curricula, but the focal point is the teacher. One cannot start a battle if the officers are not ready. Everybody admits that. All the teachers’ associations admit it, and they all have plans that education should receive attention with the teacher as the crucial point in it. Whatever is being done now is patchwork. We are always trying to make salaries and conditions of service attractive, but it is pathetic in some cases to see the deterioration in the type of teacher, and in that regard I am sure that one of the ad hoc committees will be appointed, because the Act mentions only two as the minimum number to be appointed, with a member of the Council as the chairman. The Council has already informed me that it intends appointing at least four sub-committees, because there are so many aspects, thoroughly to investigate this whole matter, i.e. conditions of service, salary, the status of the teacher, training, etc. What the hon. member for Hillbrow wants to be represented will now be represented: you will now have your experts, and you will have your teachers’ associations serving as members of these sub-committees, with the special qualities those people possess. There are people who excel in one sphere or another, and when they serve on these subcommittees they will be able thoroughly to investigate the whole of the teaching profession in all its details; and when we have done those things we will get what the hon. member for Hillbrow would like to have.

Let me now make an appeal to hon. members. Let us stop sticking out our tongues. I am also a human being, and if I have made mistakes in constituting the Council, and hon. members consider that good people have been overlooked, they should not keep silent. Vacancies may occur, and they should approach me and give me the names of such people. Let us then work together, if we are serious about the matter. We are all parents; we have children and grandchildren and relatives, and we are all interested in the matter. Let us keep this matter out of politics. We have now stopped fighting about an Advisory Council, and I want to warn the people who go out of their way to ridicule this Council that they will gain nothing by that. Whatever opposition there may be, we will continue, and the tree will be judged by its fruit, and not by what other people have to say about it.

The hon. the Minister will forgive me if I do not join in the private skirmish which has been taking place in the last half an hour. It is just as well that we deal with matters other than those raised by the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) and in respect of which the Minister took such great pains to reply to. I want to deal with matters which affect the Coloured people, and I want to say that hon. members on this side of the House have dealt at some length and, I believe, very effectively with the question of pensions payable to Europeans. I want to say further that a very important question which has been discussed for some time is the question of pensions payable to Coloured people, and I want to tell the hon. the Minister of Pensions that in my opinion and in the opinion of every right-thinking person the time has arrived, particularly in the light of the surplus which we are fortunate to have in this country, to do away with the discrimination between Whites and non-Whites in regard to old-age pensions, war-veterans’ pensions, disability allowances, etc. I say that the hon. the Minister of Finance—and this is one of the reasons why I am speaking in this debate at this stage— should not ignore the opportunity to give extra money to the Department of Coloured Affairs in order that the present ratio of pensions payable to Coloureds, which is half the amount payable to Whites, can be completely bridged. There should be no differentiation at all in the matter of pensions. Sir, the aged Coloured person receives half the old-age pension that is paid to the European and there is no moral justification for that differentiation, which is on the basis of colour. I have pointed out before and I want to emphasize the fact that in many mixed areas there have been old-age Coloured pensioners living almost side by side with European old-age pensioners. Their rental is the same; their living requirements are the same and yet, we. the White people of South Africa, are determined that because a man has not got a white skin he shall not be allowed an opportunity to live on the same scale as the White man. I say it is to the everlasting disgrace of the White man that we have forced the Coloured man to live at a certain economic standard merely because of the colour of his skin. We have forced him to do so because we have not paid him sufficient to live decently and on the same standard as the White man, and we have introduced that pernicious system into the social administration of this country. I say it is completely wrong; it is unjust and immoral and cannot be defended in any decent society. If there are hon. members in this House who think that they can justify the differentiation in the old-age pension payable to Whites and non-Whites surely there is no member here who could justify the differentiation between Whites and non-Whites in the matter of warveterans’ pensions because the Coloured man went to fight for and to defend the country in the same way as the White man did. He took the same risks as the White man and many of the Coloureds suffered the same disability. Many of them were maimed and wounded; many of them became blind as a result of service to this country, but service to this country is not the yardstick by which this Government measures the reward to be given, and here I do not only blame this Government; this has been the policy of all the previous Governments. The reward for services rendered is based purely on the colour of a man’s skin. I want to emphasize that here the Government has an opportunity to try to redress the wrong which the White people of this country have committed against the Coloured people of this country. Why should a blind man who has lost his sight in the war receive half the pension payable to a White man who has suffered the same disability?

Why is an officer who was blinded in the war receiving twice as much as a private?

Who told you that?

Apparently the question put by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) which I cannot answer has been answered by these interjections which clearly indicate that the hon. member does not know what he is talking about. The hon. member must not side-track this issue. I want to know —and I have received no reply which can be justified—why a Coloured man who lost his sight in the service of his country should receive half the pension payable to a White man. and I say again that because we have refused to pay the Coloured man an economic wage, because we have failed to pay him according to the service which he has rendered to us, we have forced him to live on a certain economic basis and we have perpetuated that grievous injustice perpetrated by the White man against the Coloured. to-day in every walk of life we see that all Government Departments— the Police, the Post Office—pay the Coloured man less than White people who perform the very same service. The Coloured man in a Government Department is paid much less than his White counterpart. Sir, the plea that I want to make here on behalf of the Coloured people is for equal pay for equal work. Pay people according to the service which they render to the State. Let that be accepted in the future as the principle that will govern the payment of Coloured persons. I want to ask the Minister of Coloured Affairs to play his part in trying to achieve this. He now has a separate Department under him. The question of social welfare and of pensions for the Coloured people has been transferred to him. I believe that he has a glorious opportunity of righting the wrong which we have been perpetuating for hundreds of years.

You are barking up the wrong tree.

The hon. member says I am barking up the wrong tree. I wish he would stop barking. I do not want to deal in detail with the differentiation of payment in other Government Departments. I want to admit—I think it is right that I should—that there has been an increase in the amount of pensions paid but that increase has been granted to everybody. It was given because economically it was required. I do hope that the Government will now try to do something to bridge that gap. It is unjustified and it should not remain there.

I want to raise some other matters. I feel that the use to which the Coloured people in this country can be put, the services that they can render, are not fully appreciated and not fully exploited. I do believe that in almost every Department the Coloureds have not been employed to the extent to which they can be usefully employed. I do hope that the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs will see to it that the Coloured man is given better opportunity than in the past.

Do you admit that there are better opportunities for them than in the past?

Order! I must ask the hon. member for Mossel Bay not to ask so many questions.

Well, he has asked one sensible question, Sir. I am sorry that the hon. Minister of Justice is not here because I want to deal with the question of our Police Force. I have the latest report of the South African Police here and I want to say that it is high time that these reports came out much more quickly than they do. This latest report is dated 1960. That is pretty far back and it may be misleading to hon. members in this House as far as the information therein contained is concerned. I notice from this report that the establishment set out in this report has not been filled in 1960. I do believe that to-day, having regard to circumstances, we need more policemen than ever. There is a shortage of police. No matter how wonderful our police may be—and I believe they are—there is a shortage of police, and I believe that the Coloured people, if you paid them well, if they got equal pay, will be only too glad to join the force. If you study the figures, which I will not quote now, Sir, you will see the disparity in pay. You cannot, therefore, expect the Coloured man to become a policeman to the extent to which they may wish if they received proper pay. There must be a shortage of police generally. I want to mention something as a matter of interest, something which struck me very forcibly when I looked through the statistics in the report of the Commissioner of Prisons. I found that more and more people were escaping to-day from gaol every year and fewer and fewer people are recaptured. It may be that the Police Force is not big enough to cope with the number of escapees because they do not capture them. In 1959 the actual escapees were 100; end of June 1960,140 and at the end of 1961 200. More and more people are escaping because there may not be sufficient policemen to look after them. And fewer and fewer of them are being recaptured. In 1959 65.9 were recaptured; in 1960 63.8; and at the end of June 1961,63.5. I am sure it cannot be a comforting thought to the people of South Africa to know that 38 per cent or more of the convicted prisoners, some of them probably convicted for very serious crimes, are roaming around the country and cannot be recaptured.

I now want to come to a matter which I think the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs should also consider. I think the time has arrived for the Government to consider civil defence in this country. The Coloured people can and want to play their part in that direction. I do not want to deal with that in great detail at the moment but I mention it so that the Minister of Coloured Affairs can let us know whether he agrees with the viewpoint and to see what part the Coloured people can play.

Finally I want to deal with a matter which I think is of great concern to all of us. I am very sorry that the hon. the Minister of Transport is not present. I think the hon. the Minister of Finance should listen to this and that he should discuss the matter which I am about to raise with the Minister of Transport. Sir, I do believe that South Africa has the highest accident rate on the road of any country. I think we should not regard this important question from a political angle. We should view this matter as South Africans and try to see what can be done about it. I think that a possible way of checking it would be for the Government to appoint a Department of Civil Traffic as opposed to Railway traffic. I also maintain, Sir, and I have said so before, that traffic in the cities has grown; it has outgrown the municipalities. The Government owes a duty to the people of this country to see that greater safety on our roads is maintained. It is a very grave indictment against this wonderful country of ours that so many people die on our roads. I raise this matter now because the hon. the Minister of Finance should now be able to make funds available for some department to be established to look after this question of accidents on our roads. I know there is a road safety organization. I do believe that they do endeavour through advertisements, through publications and over the radio to make it safer for people to travel on our roads. But I am afraid they have not yet met with very great success. I say, Sir, it is a great pity that we do not take immediate steps in that direction. I think the Minister of Finance should release some of his millions to establish a special department so that there can be co-ordination. We must not act individually or through municipalities; this has become a national matter and should be dealt with on a national basis. I do hope the Government will do something in that regard.

I do not want to deal with race classification. I really want to deal with that when the hon. the Minister of the Interior is present. But I want to make this appeal and I hope the hon. member for Mossel Bay will back me up. The hon. the Minister has made no concession. All he did was to say, “If you apply by 1 February you will not be prosecuted ”. But he knows as well as I do that there are hundreds of people who wanted to apply for reclassification but who were afraid for some reason or other to come forward. We will create thousands of criminals unnecessarily by not extending the period further than 1 February. I hope the hon. the Minister of Finance will talk to his colleague and impress it upon him that South Africa will not be placed in great danger if people do not have their classifications in another month or two. I do hope, Sir, that the Government through the Minister of the Interior, will grant further extension to these unfortunate people.

Mr. Speaker, part of the speech of the hon. member for Boland (Mr. Barnett) this afternoon was in connection with the difference between the pensions paid to Coloureds and those paid to Whites. The hon. member used to belong to a party which spoke in laudatory terms about the prosperity that prevailed during their regime. I want to ask him why they did not bring about this adjustment in pensions when they had so much money and so much prosperity. That is all I want to ask the hon. member.

This debate has been in progress for some days now and we have listened to quite a few speeches, dealing with different aspects of the Opposition’s amendment, but I have not heard a single hon. member on the other side touch upon the fundamental issues that one would have expected them to deal with. That is to be understood; it is as though the Opposition is afraid to face the truth. Here we have an Opposition which places vote-hunting above duty, an Opposition which suffers from lack of purposefulness. Mr. Speaker, if ever there was a time when the Opposition should learn a lesson it is to-day. I want to read out what the comment was in Britain after the 1962 by-election. This comment comes from the Weekly Review. The conclusion to which they came was the following. They posed this question—

What would the British public like?

And the reply was this—

And then—

Mr. Speaker, that party is becoming weaker and weaker, and here we have the answer: This lack of determined leadership and the inability, the unwillingness, to adopt a determined attitude in respect of the basic issues in this country. That is the complete answer. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to basic issues, I would have expected the Opposition to have posed the following basic question which influences our entire political thinking: Would the granting of concessions in respect of political rights get us out of the dilemma in which we find ourselves in respect of our colour problem? That is the basic question, and it is one to which we will have to give a reply. It will be of no avail to try to avoid it. We say that without granting concessions we shall be able to regulate colour relationships in such a way that we shall bring about the desired peace and quiet in South Africa. The Opposition says: “No, you have to make concessions.” We say that we are going to succeed and we have our reasons for saying so. I do not want to mention here what happened in Kenya or in Northern Rhodesia but I want to deal with the principle of concessions and the ultimate result of its application there, with reference to certain world events. I want to point out to the Opposition what a dangerous road they are treading. Year after year, following the pattern of what is said against us abroad, they come here and try to force us to make concessions in the political sphere— some slight concession to begin with, then a few more small concessions—and they argue that in this way we will appease our overseas critics and we will have a country in which peace will prevail, a sort of lotusland! I want to show hon. members on the other side what happened. If we were to do so, these people would not accept it historically. I say that historically it would be a crime against the White man. It would be a historical crime if we granted the non-Whites political concessions within the White area, concessions which would eventually lead to the removal of the White man’s control within his own area. I say, Mr. Speaker, that no Government has the right to sell the hereditary right of the White man. Hon. members opposite continually talk about the so-called failure to recognize the rights of the Bantu, but not one of them has ever stood up here and pleaded for the protection of the hereditary right of the White man. We are not going to sell the hereditary right of the White man in instalments on a hire-purchase system. That is the principle which is embodied in their race federation policy. It is a hire-purchase system under which they want to make a deposit; they want to barter away and sell our rights by instalments until the full account has been paid. That is what they want. That is a brief summary of their race federation policy; it is a hire-purchase transaction. As far as the Progressive Party’s way of thinking is concerned, I do not even want to comment on it because it is that line of thought which in its essence is an attack upon human dignity. [Laughter.] The hon. member laughs. He does not understand what I mean. When a party comes along and says that we must have equality or when a party propagates a policy under which it recognizes no division of rights on the basis of merit, no division on the basis of history or culture, then that party is interfering with my rights as an individual, because what it wants to do is make my dignity and the rights that I have acquired for myself as an individual subservient to the superiority of numbers. Because if the policy of the Progressive Party is to triumph, it will not be culture or hereditary rights or personal individual achievement but the superiority of numbers that will trample upon my individual dignity. That is what it amounts to.

I have said that I do not want to refer here to the lessons that we have learnt in Africa, but I want to point out to hon. members opposite what the outcome has been of this policy of making concessions. I want to take the period between 1933 and 1939. I have paged through the newspapers that were published in Britain at that time. I have paged through them carefully—and I can read English—and what do I find? I find that every political public speaker practically forced the then British Government to make concessions to Russia, to make one concession after another to Russia. This placed Britain and her Allies in such a weak position towards Russia that Russia suddenly came along and signed the 1939 treaty with Germany. That treaty was the direct cause of the war, because immediately afterwards Germany invaded Poland. It was the direct outcome of the granting of concessions that were demanded during the period 1933 to 1939.

I want to mention a second example, Mr. Speaker, Russia invaded Finland. We all ridiculed it; the whole world thought that Russia was worthless. She struggled to subdue the small handful of Finns. But, Mr. Speaker, in the tactics which Russia employed at that time, the softening-up tactics, the tactics of erosion, the breaking down of resistance, she was so strong that she eventually conquered Finland. That is the process by which the Opposition and particularly the communist agitators, typically according to communist tactics, are trying to soften us up and to break down our resistance. And that is my main charge against the English-language Press in South Africa, that they are deliberately trying from within to soften up our people and to get them to the stage where we will have to accept the policy of making concessions.

I want to mention another example. Kenyatta was the biggest butcher in the history of civilization. Systematically, however, the pro-Left newspapers and propagandists in Britain conditioned the British Government and the British public by saying: “You must make concessions to Kenyatta because if Kenyatta becomes the Prime Minister of Kenya, everybody will live together in peace, in partnership, in Kenya.” They influenced Britain to such an extent that Kenyatta, the biggest of all butchers, came over to make his bow before the Queen of England. The softening-up policy, the erosion policy, the concession policy! That is my main grievance against that party, Mr. Speaker. The principle of bringing pressure to bear to make concessions is the principle which is embodied in that party’s whole plea. If you read the British newspapers, if you look up the proceedings in the council chambers of America, you will see that Castro was represented as the great moderate, as a man who was not associated at all with the communists. He was represented as a man who would steer the middle course; he was not an extremist; he was not a communist; he was going to make Cuba harmless to America! All of a sudden, however, Castro emerged as an ardent communist follower. We know what followed. It practically brought the world to the brink of a precipice. That is the outcome of the policy of making concessions. I say that therein lies the sting of that party’s propaganda: “Be careful, you are being extremistic; that man is not so dangerous; do not place him under house-arrest; make concessions to the Bantu; make concessions to the Bantu in the White areas!” This is the process of breaking down the resistance. It is typical of what the Leftists want in South Africa.

You do not want to make concessions ( “toegee you want to give away ( “weggee ”).

The second fundamental question that we should have discussed in this debate is this: Will our economy be so strong as to be able to carry the scheme that we envisage, the scheme which the Opposition want us to exchange for the scheme that they want? We can thank the Lord for the fact that in this hour of crisis, in which we have to take such steps, we have a stronger economy than we have ever had before. We shall be able to bear the burden.

What about pensions?

I am not dealing with trivialities now.

Are they trivialities?

Yes, trivialities, because the question of pensions has been raised not in the interests of the pensioners but for the sake of gaining sympathy. South Africa is called “the land of promise.” This “land of promise”, South Africa, has an economy which will carry us through this period of crisis. Whether we in South Africa have broken through the economic barrier or not has nothing to do with it. We have broken through the barrier as far as quality is concerned. We are able to produce goods of the same quality and just as cheaply as the outside world. On the basis of achievement and inherent strength we have averted with great ease these threats of sanctions and boycotts. Our virility is such that we are in a stronger bargaining position in relation to overseas markets than the boycotters and those who have threatened us with sanctions. This whole bunch of screaming Black states in Africa with their big mouths—every single one of them—is dwarfed in the shadow cast by the emergent giant, the Republic of South Africa. Having said that I think I have given a picture of what I mean, without going into details.

The third question that I want to put is this: Will we be able to defend our borders against planned aggression from outside? Mr. Speaker, we can print the words “our profession in South Africa is the maintenance of peace” on the front door of the headquarters of our Defence Force. And when we strengthen our Defence Force in South Africa, we do not do so with the object of committing aggression but we want to be in a state of preparedness to resist those who wish to commit aggression against us. And let me say here that there has never been a time in our history when our Defence Force has had the striking power and the mobility that it has to-day and when it has inspired so much confidence in the mind of the public as it does at the present moment.

The fourth question that I want to ask is this: Will our educational system produce the men for the future to keep our economy going, to advance our military science in such a way that we shall be able to muster the maximum striking power, so that we can do what is of vital importance to us, and that is the implementation of our policy of separate development. My reply to that is “yes”. And that is borne out by the policy that we have heard here to-day from the hon. Minister of Education, Arts and Science; we see a new era dawning for our education. We were told the other day by the hon. the Prime Minister that special attention was being given to the training of scientists and technologists. That statement is like music to our ears, and I know that our educationists in South Africa will produce men for us who will enable us when the time comes to man all our fronts efficiently.

I want to conclude by asking this question: Will we be able to state our case to the outside world in spite of a continuous stream of false propaganda from the other side of the House?

Order! The hon. member must not use the words “false propaganda”.

I meant political propaganda, but I withdraw those words. Mr. Speaker, I want to mention a few examples to show what a tremendous stream of propaganda against us we have to cope with. Russia, as you are aware, is at the moment making propaganda over the air in Africa for 150,000 hours per week; she produces 200 full-length films every year; she distributes 3,800,000 publications in Africa every year; she spends $2,000,000,000 annually on propaganda and she has in her employ 500,000 agents who man 2,000 different committees and cells and fronts —the same sort of cells which are also seeking to rear their heads in South Africa and which we have to suppress. What is the result of this propaganda? The result is that whereas in 1903 Russia had only 17 people who had enrolled as Communist Party members, in the year 1962 she was exercising control in some shape or form over 40 per cent of the people on the globe. I want to quote from a book that I read recently—and I want to conclude on this note—a book written by Madame Labin, who is recognized as one of the greatest authorities on Communism. She writes—

I want to conclude. We are not confronted by a difficult Opposition but an Opposition which I am deeply convinced do not know what they are doing. We have an Opposition which with their propaganda and their opposition and their attacks upon us, carry within them the germs of destruction, without being aware of that fact. They are the people who are demanding concessions from us, the same sort of concessions which have placed the West in a dilemma as far as Russia is concerned. They are the people, who say that we must concede a little here and concede a little there. If we made these concessions they would share our doom. Instead of the Opposition’s attacking us in this House on these fundamental issues, what do they do? The hon. member for Durban-Point (Mr. Raw) comes along and makes a point here as to whether the number of unemployed in Canada is 8 per cent or 4 per cent. I say it is a disgrace. They stood up one after another and their arguments were so ridiculous that one begins to feel ashamed of sitting in this House. Petty! I want to ask the Opposition, in future debates of this kind, to attack the governing party on fundamental issues of importance and not to make a farce of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I am not replying to the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) who took us to task for speaking to the main legs of our amendment, because it is quite clear that neither he nor any other speaker on the other side really met the charges that we have made here. He accused us and said that we must not discuss inessentials like this and that we should come down to the fundamentals. I listened to hear what these fundamentals are, but all we got were a lot of fantasies. I will deal with some of the hon. member’s fantasies later in my speech. I first want to come back to the first two legs of our amendment. The first leg is simply that this Government is not doing sufficient to provide reasonable security for social pensioners. Not a single member on the other side has met this charge and argued it, not even the Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. And it is not as if it is such a difficult question. Surely if the Government ever thinks about pensioners and the level of pensions, there are two simple questions they must ask themselves. The first question that the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) asked yesterday is, “Are these pensions sufficient to afford the pensioners minimum civilized standards of living?” That is the first question they must ask themselves, and judging from their response last night, it is quite clear that they realize in their heart of hearts that the present level of pensions is not sufficient. Not a single one of these hon. members has claimed that these pensions are adequate. Having asked themselves that question, they must then say: “Can our community afford to pay better pensions to these pensioners?” Mr. Speaker, we hear every day from hon. members on the other side that we are one of the richest White communities in the world. Now surely if they are consistent, and we are one of the richest communities in the world, the Government should re-assess the position. It is no good saying: Look at what the position was in 1948 and compare what they get now with what they got in 1948. A lot of things have happened in the world since 1948. Standards of living have been rising all over the world, and I can assure the Government that had a sensible Government governed this country since 1948, our national income would have been such to-day that we certainly would have been able to afford minimum pensions for all pensioners.

There is the other point, the industrialization of the Witwatersrand. Not a single member has denied that the Government has no plans whatsoever, and if ever a nation has had notice in respect of an area that is going to have economic troubles in the course of the next ten years, it is this country and this Government. Because it is one of the most predictable things in the world that gold-mines will become exhausted by a certain date. All we got was that one of the hon. members over there tried to appropriate for the Government the work done at the University of the Witwatersrand, a study started by them. That is the only defence we have had up to now on this issue. What is the answer then in other respects? They try to justify the fact that they have no plan for the development of the Witwatersrand by trying to prove that border development industries are really economic. And what confused arguments we have had from the other side! We are assured that this is quite an ordinary economic development. If that is so, then why all these special measures to disperse industries there? Why all these special concessions? And then we heard this fabulous statement that every industry before it goes to a border area is properly investigated by the Government to see that such an industry will not compete with industries in other areas, and in particular the textile industry was cited. Surely the hon. Deputy Minister of Labour should know that every cotton textile industry in South Africa competes with every other one. He should know that King William’s Town competes with the textile industry in Benoni, competes with the textile industry in Paarl, in Wellington, in Standerton, in Durban. This is purely claptrap that you can settle industries in the border areas that will not compete with industries in the White areas. It is completely unreal. And then we had a new argument to-day that we must develop border industries because the Vaal Dam is so vulnerable to bombing. If that is an argument, then why have Iscor in one place? Then we should have 12 to 14 little Iscors. And why do we have a Sasol in one place? Surely exactly the same applies. The fact of the matter is that here is a problem that the Government can foresee and the country can foresee; serious economic consequences must result from the closing down of many mines in the next ten years on the Witwatersrand. But this Government is making no plans to meet that. They are waiting for a private organization to first do some research. I am amazed that Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers representing these constituencies on the Rand do not do something about it to try and get the Government moving. Of course the Government’s attention is completely centred on the border industries and they are overlooking the problem under their feet.

For the benefit of hon. members over there who represent the Witwatersrand, I just would like to read what Financial Mail wrote on 18 January 1963 (page 88)—

That refers to the work done at the Witwatersrand University. Financial Mail says—

That is the type of step the Government should take, not waiting for the result of the investigations of a private organization.

We also had the argument here that the Government is doing nothing to impede any industries that want to move to the Witwatersrand, or to establish themselves there. Is that correct in view of what certain Ministers have said in the past? Listen to what the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs said about Alberton, as reported in the Rand Daily Mail on 14 December 1961 —

There is the test laid down by the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs that only industries that at least employ an equal proportion of Black and White should go to the Witwatersrand. What does that mean in practice? If the hon. the Minister would go through the official industrial census statistics of this country, he would find that out of 18 scheduled specific industries, only in the case of two is there more or less an equality between Black and White; in all the other industries there are far more Blacks than Whites. What type of industry do they think can develop in those areas? I hope we will get an answer from the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs to-day. These two industries are comparatively small industries employing about 5 per cent of the total Labour force of the country. Of course in effect what hon. members say when they say that any industrialist is free to go to the Witwatersrand if he feels like it, is “don’t take any notice of what Ministers say; don’t take any notice of Government policy; we don’t really mean what we say That is what it amounts to. The hon. member for Brakpan also said that Brakpan is one of the communities where the number of non-Whites had been reduced in recent years. If that is so, in view of the shortage of White manpower of which we have heard such a lot from members opposite, how is an area like Brakpan going to expand industrially? Yet the same member says that they are welcome to expand. Unless intending industrialists say “Well, the Government does not really mean what they say, and we can go ahead and establish industries”, They would be very unwise to go to those areas, because the Government has means through influx control of limiting labour, so that they would not be able to get sufficient labour for such development. Or are hon. members merely saying that the Government is saying this for propaganda purposes and industrialists need not take any notice, and that they can be assured they can get all the labour they want?

I said that on these first two points of our amendment not a single member on the other side has really answered specifically. I hope we will get some answer from the hon. Minister of Economic Affairs before this debate ends.

I want to come back to the hon. member for Ventersdorp who said that we should discuss not inessentials but fundamentals, and then he said that one of the fundamentals (as I understood him) was that there should be no concessions. He said that as opposed to this party the Government was a party of no concessions at all and that was the only way, apparently, to save our civilization in South Africa. I want to ask hon. members on the other side what is the Bantustan policy except one concession after another. It is just another form of concessions, and far more dangerous concessions, because it was never in the mind of the leaders of the Nationalist Party ten to 15 years ago to travel this road. They are travelling this road making extensive political concessions, endangering the future of South Africa, militarily and economically, simply in order to placate world opinion. It is a far more dangerous form of concession than the concessions that our party is prepared to make, as I will show further.

Then the hon. member for Ventersdorp also said that what the electorate apparently like about this Government is their absolute conviction. Mr. Speaker, of course people like absolute conviction, but absolute convictions must be related to realities. A man in a madhouse can have absolute convictions, but you do not follow him. Let me give an example of our own history. More than 100 years ago apparently the Xhosas in Xhosaland had what they called a “white problem”, and a young girl arose called Nongquase. She was a visionary, and she got the absolute conviction that the way of getting rid of the White man was to destroy the cattle and the crops of the Xhosas, with the terrible consequences that every child who studies South African history knows, terrible consequences for her own people. Here we have a Government in power that apparently has an equally absolute conviction that what we must do to save White civilization in this country is to stop economic integration and in fact to reverse it. Mr. Speaker, superficially one would think that there is a world of difference between the policy of Nongquase and the policy of this Government, but if you analyse it deeper you find that both policies are fantastic in this respect that they both think that you can solve your political problems by destroying the economic basis of your society. That is the similarity, and far from solving the political problems of her people, Nongquase by destroying the economic basis of her society, destroyed her people. I say that economic integration such as we have in this country is the very basis of our society and the very basis of our economic life. I would like to prove it, Mr. Speaker. Surely these are the elementary economic facts of South Africa. If we look at our big industries, we find that in agriculture and mining almost 90 per cent of the labour is non-White—it is economic integration of non-White labour with White skills and White capital; if we look at our construction industries, we find that 77 per cent of the labour is non-White, integrated with White capital and White skills; if we look to our manufacturing industries, we find that 70 per cent of the labour is non-White, integrated with White skills and organizing ability and capital. Mr. Speaker, it is that economic integration of White and Black that makes the wealth that is in South Africa to-day. It is that economic integration that enables us to pay the highest wages to the non-Whites in the African Continent, that enables us to have better medical services and better educational services than any other country in Africa. It is that economic integration that enables this Government to defend their apartheid policy overseas. It is the fruits of economic integration that the Government uses ironically to defend apartheid. The means to defend apartheid flow ironically from economic integration.

We have had economic progress since 1948, not nearly as fantastic as hon. members opposite try to make out, by international standards. But why has that growth been possible? Did it come about as a result of apartheid, or did it come about as a result of economic integration? If we look at the facts again, we find that in 1951, if we take the 40 biggest urban centres in South Africa, in 1951 (and that is three years after the present Government came into power) in our 40 biggest urban centres there were for every 100 Whites 161 non-Whites. In 1960 (the latest available figures), in the same 40 urban areas you find that for every 100 Whites there were 183 non-Whites. An increase of 22. Is that apartheid heid or is it economic integration? And it is that economic integration, as every economist should know, the moving of unskilled non-White labour into the economic processes of the White man, that creates wealth and makes for progress. It is not the fruits of apartheid, but the fruits of economic integration that has made this progress possible in the past ten years. The economic reality of South Africa is, whether we like it or not, that we are an industrial technological society in which, unlike any other African country, more than 75 per cent of the Natives are already involved. They are directly dependent for their livelihood on the industry and the enterprise of the White man. The bulk of the Coloureds are directly dependent on the enterprise and the abilities of the White man. So also the bulk of the Indians. In that respect hon. members always compare us with other countries in Africa, but they must realize that we are totally different. In most other African countries, the bulk of the Africans are still dependent on a tribal economy, on a peasant economy. Here we already have a situation that at least 75 per cent of the Natives are implicated and are directly dependent on the enterprise of the White man, in other words on economic integration. That is why we have this high standard of living here.

If apartheid makes any sense whatsoever at all, what it means is that we must reverse this historic process of economic integration that we have had ever since the beginning of our economic history in this country. If we are to keep the Republic White as we always are told that apartheid will bring about, surely by the normal meaning of words, we can only become a White Republic if the majority of the people living there are White. Only then can you claim that you have made the Republic White. To achieve that, it will mean that we must move out the bulk of the Coloureds, the bulk of the Indians from the White industries and we must move out the 75 per cent of the Bantu that are in the White industry already, or a large share of them. How does the Government intend doing that?

I say that when it comes to the Coloureds and the Indians the Government has no plan to remove them from the White economy at all, despite the fact that they claim that apartheid also applies to these people. They have no intention of doing it, because they know that they cannot do it. So apartheid in the sense of separating the people and making the Republic White is simply not applicable as far as the Coloureds and the Indians are concerned. And when Nationalists promise that apartheid will lead to a White Republic, as far as the Indians and the Coloureds are concerned at least, it is a false claim, because all the statistics show that by the end of the century there will be more Coloureds and Indians than Whites in South Africa. How can you call it a White Republic then? How can they say that apartheid will lead to a White Republic? At best it must lead to a White-Brown Republic. That is the best you can achieve. As far as the Bantu are concerned, admittedly the Government has a far more concrete blueprint plan for them. We are told by the Prime Minister, with his concept of Bantustans, that by 1978 we will reach a sort of return date in our history, that there will be a flow-back of the Bantu from the White Republic to the Bantustans. Fifteen years hence, we are told, we will get to this return date in our history. A thing that never happened in our whole history will begin to happen from that date: Instead of the Blacks coming into our White economy, they will start leaving the White economy. What are the implications of that? Surely for that to happen it must mean that in 15 years’ time there will be more economic development in the Bantustan areas than in the White Republic. There must be more job-creation in the Bantustans than in the White Republic. Otherwise you cannot have that flow-back of labour. Of your increase in population every year at least 60 per cent is Bantu and 40 per cent is Coloured, Indian and White, so if you are to get to a stage where all the Bantu start accruing to the Bantustans, and not only that, but where the Bantustans are sucking the other Bantus out of the so-called White Republic, there must be vaster economic growth in the Bantustans than in the so-called White Republic. In 15 years’ time! That is what it means. Now can any person with any feeling for economics, any feeling for social processes, really believe that that is going to happen in 15 years’ time?

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

Evening Sitting

When the House rose I was making a point that according to the Prime Minister and hon. members opposite the great return date in our history, when thanks to apartheid the country will be getting Whiter and Whiter, would be 1978. I made the point also that if we try to imagine the circumstances that will make this possible, we must accept that by 1978 economic development in the Bantustan areas will have to proceed at a faster rate than in the White areas. I have already made the point that we use the term “the White Republic” rather loosely, because the Government has no intention of removing the Coloureds and the Indians from the White areas at all. But the point is that we have been promised that from 1978 the number of Bantu in the so-called White Republic will become fewer, and I said that can only be physically possible if more jobs are created in the Bantustan economy than in the White economy Surely that is common sense, because otherwise we cannot possibly get a flow-back from the White economy to the Black economy. So in 15 years’ time, by 1978, we should, if apartheid is to become a reality and it is not the pipe-dream that we on this side think it is, one would have to have a situation in this country where the Bantustan economy is actually developing far more rapidly and creating more jobs than in the White Republic. Now, let us for a moment try to imagine what conditions will have to be met for such a situation to arise.

It is quite clear that hon. members opposite all know and realize that as an agricultural, tribal economy, the Bantustans cannot carry more people because they are already overpopulated. It will only be possible to carry a bigger population if it becomes highly industrialized. It is only a technological and industrial society which could possibly create sufficient jobs in the Bantustans by 1978 to suck the people back from the White Republic. What does that involve? The Minister of Finance studied economics once upon a time, and the Minister of Economic Affairs is also an economist. They should realize that a position like that cannot just fall out of the heavens; one needs certain requisites for it, certain economic requisites. In the first place it will require investment running into hundreds and hundreds of millions of rand. Where will that investment come from? It can come either from the savings of the Bantu themselves, or it must come from some outside source, either from the White Republic or from Russia or from America, or some other country like China. Those are the only alternatives. Can it come from Bantu savings? Hon. members opposite know that at best Bantu savings only run to tens of millions of rand and what is required is hundreds of millions of rand, and it is humanly impossible for them to save sufficient money for it. We will have to start now moving rapidly towards that situation, and start investing rapidly, because where else can the money come from? Is the Government going to tax the White taxpayers to provide that money? Surely we are entitled to a reply on this. Or are they going to allow foreign countries to invest money on a large scale? I doubt whether foreign countries will invest money on a large scale, because I do not think it will be economic, and they could only do it for political reasons. Russia might do it, but I can hardly see the Americans or private enterprise investing large sums of money in areas which have so little industrial potential as the Bantustans. So investment there will be primarily political investment and not economic investment. Surely we are entitled to that answer. That is purely on the economic side, but what about the human side?

For this type of development that is envisaged and which is required for this policy if it is not to be a pipe-dream—we know the Prime Minister said that White enterprise would not be allowed there—the Bantu must lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Any industrial society requires tens of thousands of technologists. We have heard Ministers and a man like Dr. Marais recently mention that South Africa is running short of technologists, and in the next ten years we will need tens of thousands more technologists, and we are not supplying enough of them. What about the Bantu technologists? Where are they to come from? Are we developing those people? What is the present position in regard to the human material that is required for this vast economic development that is implicit in this policy of apartheid? What is the human material available at present? I would like to read some facts given by Dr. M. S. Louw in an address to the Swiss South African Association in Zurich in October 1962, where he gave some facts in regard to the existing situation in so far as Bantu technologists were concerned. He said—

And how many of those are highly qualified people? There are only 300 of these essential technologists which are required for rapid development. What are their qualifications? I may be mistaken, but someone told me the other day that it is an amazing thing that not a single Bantu engineer has ever been produced in South Africa. Industrial development will require thousands of engineers. Is the Government laying the foundation for training these people? Where are they to come from? Surely anyone with the slightest insight into social and economic matters must realize that this return date of 1978 is only a pipe-dream, and only political day-dreamers can possibly believe in it. Are hon. members opposite all day-dreamers? I would like to predict that 1978 will arrive just like 28 February 1857 arriving when according to Nongquase all the Whites should have been out of the country and the land should have been flowing with milk and honey. But the sun arose as usual and what happened? All they had was famine. I predict that 1978 will arrive and the Nationalists will find that there are more Natives than ever before in their midst. This vision of the Natives flowing back from the White Republic in 1978 will be like the rainbow—the nearer you get to it, the further it will recede. This is the rainbow policy of the Nationalist Party. The nearer you get to apartheid the further it recedes into the future. I am prepared to stake whatever little reputation I have as an economist on that. [Interjection.] In a way I really feel embarrassed to utter such elementary economic facts, such obvious trite facts, but what can one do in the Opposition if you find that you have a Government in power whose whole policy is based on disregarding these obvious economic facts? They are trying to shape a destiny for South Africa by ignoring all economic realities. What an ill-shaped destiny we are moving to! It is as unreal as Nongquase’s dream. It is a different policy, of course. It is far more subtle and it is far better camouflaged, but in essence it is just as impracticable and unreal. Nongquase was a simple, uneducated Native girl, but I say there is very little difference between her policy and that of the Government. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Ventersdorp said we must get back to fundamentals. I want to get back to fundamentals now. He is a highly educated man with numerous degrees. Surely he must realize that one can only regulate life, and even our national life, according to the facts. You must base your policy on facts. The complete ignoring of elementary economic facts, like this Government is doing, what can it lead to? They will never be able to carry it out. All they have succeeded in doing is to slow down our economic development, as they have been doing for the past 14 years. We have given them examples already about the Witwatersrand to show how a policy of ignoring an established industrial area in favour of a visionary area like the border areas can only slow down economic development. What will the outcome of this policy be? It will not solve a single problem for the White man in South Africa. The problems of South Africa will be solved far more easily, as we on this side have been saying repeatedly, in a society where incomes are rising rapidly. You can resolve all your complex racial problems far more easily if the standard of living for everyone is rising rapidly. This Government, by following a completely unrealistic policy, will not solve a single problem but will just retard our rate of economic growth and making the very dangers from which they are trying to escape far more dangerous.

For the past few years already I have been trying to find an explanation of how it is possible for a party like the United Party, which alleges that they are also good South Africans, to have so little confidence in the economic growth of our country, and particularly why they are so violently opposed to the development of our border areas. After having listened for the past two days to a number of speeches on that side of the House, and particularly to the speech of the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje), two things have become clear to me. The first is that hon. members opposite mainly represent large urban areas. They have practically been kicked out of the rural areas, with a few exceptions in the Eastern Province and Natal, and they are concentrated in a few large urban areas. When they get up here they plead for the interests of those large urban areas and care not one iota what happens to the rest of the country. I want to say that it is their object as the representatives of those areas to retain what they have there and to increase what they have, irrespective of what happens in the rest of the country.

But I want to mention a second and very serious matter. The speeches from that side of the House, and particularly the speech of the hon. member for Jeppes, who ridicules the idea that we want to make the White areas even whiter, clearly show me that the policy of that party can be explained by the fact that it has lost all confidence in the continued existence of the White man in South Africa. That party will never admit it, but secretly in its heart it believes that there is no future and no chance for White civilization to survive in South African for ever. And because that is what it believes, it says: Let us continue with this process of integration and of becoming blacker, as that hon. member has advocated; do not make the White areas whiter, but let them become increasingly Black, as long as we can do one thing: in the meantime we must make as much money as soon as possible because we do not know how long we as Whites will still have the opportunity of making money in this country—purely economic motives, but not economic motives alone, because everything they say is not economic but purely business and profit-making motives. That is what lies behind their policy. Therefore I say that that party is a deadly danger to South Africa because it contains the germ of defeatism, because it reveals what we see to-day on the part of many Western nations, namely that they have lost faith in themselves and in their own powers; and because they have lost it they have all kinds of doubts. If that spirit should become prevalent amongst the people who still have confidence in South Africa, we will be exposed to great dangers.

But to-night I want to discuss two matters if my time permits. In the first place I want to speak about the accusations made in respect of border industries, and I also want to say a few words in regard to the European Common Market. I cannot deal with all the numerous allegations made by hon. members opposite, but I want to try to analyse a few of the main arguments and to see how much truth there is in them.

The first argument advanced by hon. members opposite, by the hon. member for Jeppes and the Leader of the Opposition, is that border industrial development disrupts the unity of the economy of South Africa and that it will lead to a retardation of our economic development, particularly because those border industries, according to them, will be uneconomic. But nowhere did any of those speakers tell us what they meant by that vague concept of the unity of the economy. Even the Leader of the Opposition, who in a previous speech had much to say about the disruption of the unity of our economy, never told us what he meant by the unity of the economy. Evidently the idea of the Opposition is that when one already has development in certain places one should not allow any development elsewhere, because that would disrupt the unity of the economy. Even if there are potentialities in other places, and even if there are social reasons for economic development there, one should not do it; everything should be kept together. To those who have will be given, and from those who have not will be taken away even what they have. [Interjections.]

Order!

These propositions are of course utter nonsense. I would rather say that it disrupts the unity of the economy if one allows certain parts of the country to become highly developed whilst other parts, where there are potentialities, remain undeveloped. That would be disrupting the unity of the economy, if there were no equable distribution of economic activities and it were concentrated in certain parts of the country only. What I am saying here is true of the world; it is true of continents and even applies to individual countries. In so far as the world is concerned, why do nations to-day spend millions of dollars to uplift undeveloped countries? I know there are political reasons for it, but I also know there are economic reasons for it, because the countries of the world believe that it is in the interest of humanity as a whole to develop even distant undeveloped areas, and the prosperous countries are prepared to spend large amounts and to make great sacrifices because they know that in the long run it is to the advantage of everybody, those who give as well as those who receive. And the world economy is not disrupted by it, but unified.

The same also applies to continents. The Western European countries to-day realize that the prosperity of the one is dependent upon that of the other. They realize that no country can become rich at the expense of another. Therefore they are prepared to assist each other because they know that if one country uplifts a less prosperous one they are all better off and the unity of the economy will be greater. But it also applies to individual states in relation to their own internal economy. There is to-day hardly a country in Western Europe—and I also include the U.S.A.—which does not apply a policy of decentralization. There is hardly a country in Western Europe which does not use the strongest incentives and encouragement to develop areas outside the great urban areas and to let industries move away from the large cities to distant areas. All countries do that to-day. Does the hon. member for Jeppes, who is now laughing, want to tell me that this is the biggest economic nonsense? Does he believe that America, England, France, Germany, Holland and Italy, all those countries which apply incentives to an ever larger extent than we do to decentralize their economy, are all guilty of economic nonsense and that the hon. member for Jeppes alone knows what is economically correct? The object of distributing economic activities is to have a more even distribution of the riches of a country, because that is to the benefit of the new areas and of the country as a whole. The hon. member for Jeppes says that border industries will be uneconomic, and the reason he advances for it is that they must be assisted by means of concessions and other measures to establish themselves there. Well, if industries should not exist because especially in the beginning they had to be assisted, then most industries in South Africa have no right to exist. Then our whole protective policy in South Africa is wrong, and it is absurd, and even the industries of which the hon. member is a director are uneconomic because we apply certain measures to keep them going. Then the hon. member must argue that because we applied protective measures to protect our industries against competition from outside by means of tariffs, etc., it proves that those industries cannot compete and should not be allowed to exist. If we are guilty of such stupidity, then all other countries are guilty also. Then America, with its policy of protection, is also guilty of it, and the whole E.C.M. which makes use not only of tariffs but also of outside tariffs and of special measures to protect industries, is acting foolishly. No, we in South Africa must be the exception if we use special concessions to establish an industry here and to maintain it. Then it is uneconomic. They say it is wrong and uneconomic to make use of special measures to attract and to establish an industry, but on the other hand the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) asks what special concessions the Government will offer to attract industries to the East Rand? And then they mention the concessions they want, and they want to make use of them. Am I to infer from the standpoint of the hon. member for Jeppes and other hon. members opposite that the Government should nowhere in any part of the country make special attempts to promote industrial development? Are we nowhere in any part of the country to make use of special measures to promote industry and development?

Who said that?

The hon. member for Jeppes made the statement that it was not necessary to have industrial decentralization in South Africa; we are not overcentralized, and do you know what his argument was? The populations of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth are not yet as large as those of Paris, Tokyo, New York and London, and before they have such large populations there is no over-concentration here. That is his argument, but the decisive factor is not the population figures: it concerns the concentration of industries in a particular area and the consequences thereof. Is it not a fact that 50 per cent of our industrial production takes place in the Southern Transvaal? It is not a fact that 82 per cent of our industrial production takes place in four areas?

When we have regard to that we would rather say that our country is one of the countries with the least distribution of industries and the highest concentration of industries in the whole world. Hon. members opposite say that instead of developing the border industries we should rather promote development on the Rand, and that we should really do so because of the dying mines. I want to tell the hon. member that the Government is not blind to the implications of the closing down of marginal mines, the implications of it to the country as a whole and also to the communities concerned. A study has been made of that for years already. There is a special Cabinet Committee devoting its sole attention to this matter, the implications of the closing down of the Rand mines.

But is this matter not being exaggerated, and exaggerated to the detriment of the towns on the East Rand? Are these exaggerated statements and these dire predictions not busy giving bad publicity to those towns, publicity which they do not deserve and which they deplore? I maintain it is wrong to say that if the mines close down these towns will necessarily die. It is wrong to allege that if the mines close down those cities and towns must necessarily die. A town or city quite often starts with a definite stimulus. It grows and the stimulus disappears, but the town or city continues to develop with the momentum it has built up in the meantime. Johannesburg was founded and developed on the basis of gold. to-day the Johannesburg area produces only a small percentage of the gold production of the country, and yet Johannesburg is increasingly becoming bigger and stronger, in spite of the dwindling mines there, because of the expansion in trade and services and the other activities there. That is true also of the East Rand towns, and what grieves me so much is that hon. members come here with all kinds of allegations without adducing a vestige of proof. This process by which other branches of activity have been taking the place of the mines has already been in process since 1940. In 1960 there were approximately 30,000 mineworkers on the Rand, but there were 79.000 factory workers, 57,000 people employed in commerce and 62,000 in the various services. In other words, the other activities employed far more people than the mines. The gold mines were responsible for the establishment of that city, but to-day the mines no longer play the most important role in its existence. And talking about the East Rand— and this is what annoys me, because hon. members did not come to light with the full truth— between the years 1946 and 1960 the number of persons employed on the mines on the East Rand decreased by 37 per cent, but in spite of that the White population increased by 60 per cent. The number of mineworkers fell from 37,000 to just over 11,000, but in spite of that the White population still increased by 60 per cent. Is that not striking proof of the hollowness of these allegations? In spite of the decrease in the number of people employed on the mines, the White population increased by 60 per cent.

There are other industries, such as the building industry. Here I just want to mention round figures, where the increase was from 3.500 to 6,000; in commerce, from 7,000 to 15,000; in transportation, from 7,200 to 11.300; and in the various services, from 7,500 to 15.500. In other words, in the other industries and activities employment, whilst it decreased on the mines, rose from 35,000 to 75.000. Where do hon. members get the idea that when the mines die down these towns and cities will be in danger? Take for example Nigel. In Nigel the employment figure in the factories increased during this period from 108 to 570.

Let me give a few other figures also. I am sorry that I have to do so, but they afford significant proof. One finds the best proof of the industrial development of an area in its consumption of electricity. Let us now look at the electricity consumption of some of the East Rand towns and see how it has increased in spite of the reduced employment on the mines. Take Benoni as an example. I wonder whether the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) knows what the figure is! The figures I am going to mention are in respect of the years from 1946 to 1960. In Benoni it increased from 30,500,000 units to 163.000,000 units, thus five times as much as it was in 1946. That is a sign of industrial growth. In Boksburg the consumption of electricity increased from 11,000,000 to 115,000,000 units, and in Brakpan from 14,500,000 to 46,000,000 units.

Do these figures include the electricity used by the mines?

Yes, they represent the total consumption of electricity. In Germiston the increase was from 32,000,000 to 131,000,000 and in Springs from 23,000,000 to 130.000,000 units. In this way I can continue quoting the increase in figures.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it is hon. members opposite who want to tell the world that as the result of the laxness of this Government, ghost towns are developing because the mines are deteriorating. They have brought no proof for that. In fact, they cannot bring any proof for it; they just made bald and nonsensical statements. I want to point out that these towns on the Rand enjoy certain advantages in regard to the establishment of industries. They have all the facilities—water, lights, power, public buildings, etc.—necessary to attract industry. Why then do not industries go there?

Because you tell them not to go there.

Where does the hon. member get that from? I will give him the correct information in this regard and at the same time I want to reply to questions put by him and other hon. members. This Government has no power to compel an industry to go to a certain place, or to prevent it from settling in a certain place. We have no power to do that. Industries in South Africa are free to go where they like. If. however, they come to us and make inquiries, we do the following. When an industry is highly Bantu-intensive, i.e. makes intensive use of Bantu labour, we will inform it that it is our wish that it should go to a border area. If, on the other hand, an industry is capitally intensive or White labour intensive then we do not wish to encourage it to go to the border areas. Such an industry will be told that it can go anywhere in the country, inter alia the East Rand and other areas. Now I say that if those East Rand towns want to do something more, as some of them have already done successfully, to state and to plead their own case, I think they will get much further.

But I want to deal with another matter. Have hon. members considered the problem created by water on the Rand? I am not referring to the argument advanced by the hon. member for Jeppe about a bomb which may be dropped on Vaal Dam, but have they thought of the unlimited expansion on the Rand and what it may mean to the future water supplies of that area? Does the hon. member for Jeppes, for example, know that experts are of the opinion that at the present tempo of development it will take only a few more years before the Vaal River will no longer be able to serve the Rand? And does he, in spite of that, wish to continue to attract still more industries—the blacker the better for him—to that area in spite of the possible shortage of water which may ensue?

Mr. Speaker, these areas along the Reef will benefit from the general industrial development on the Rand. They will benefit from the general expansion of various types of industries, and they will get their share of those industries in the same way that they did in the past. If they continue along the course followed hitherto, I can assure hon. members opposite that the employment on the Rand towns will be much faster and greater than the decrease of employment on the mines. I want to state one thing, and in this lies the cardinal difference between this and that side of the House. This side does not want to follow a policy which will lead to the White areas becoming Blacker and Blacker. This party does not want to follow a policy which will lead to the Rand within the near future becoming a White island in a Black sea. In view of that, we will do everything in our power to keep the influx of Black labour to the Rand as small as possible and to divert it to the industries which are near to the Black areas.

My time has almost expired, but I still want to say a few words in connection with the European Common Market. At the same time I should like to reply to certain allegations made by the Leader of the Opposition—accusations he levelled against the Government and me—and which I deny and reject. In connection with the E.E.C., I want to ask: What is our future in respect of it? We know what happened during the past week. Because Britain in the meantime will no longer become a member of the E.E.C. and because negotiations in that respect have stopped, my standpoint is that we in South Africa should still carry on with the work we did in the past because that breakdown in negotiations is in my opinion only of a temporary nature and because circumstances favourable to the resumption of those negotiations will again occur in the near future. However, apart from the fact of whether Britain will now become a member or not, there are certain problems for South Africa in connection with the E.E.C. For the moment the dangers of preferent tariffs being applied against us has been averted, but within a short time it can be revived again. We will have to take into account the existence of the E.E.C. as a reality in the years that lie ahead. I do not believe that what happened in Brussels during the past week constitutes a threat to the E.E.C. I believe that unless anything more shocking happens, the E.E.C. will go from strength to strength. I further believe that its growth will be to the benefit of the Western world. In Europe something great is being born. South Africa must penetrate that market, and it can do so. In the past South Africa depended too much on the United Kingdom market and made too few attempts to penetrate the continent of Europe.

But there are problems. The first of these problems we shall have to meet is that of the common outside tariff. With the growth of the European Common Market the national tariffs of the six countries inter se are gradually disappearing. South Africa will therefore have against it the common outside tariff of those countries. In some countries that tariff will in future be higher than it is at present and our goods going to those countries will find it more difficult to enter. We must therefore bear in mind that there will be a common outside tariff. In the second place we shall have to reckon with competitors inside the Common Market. As I have said, the six countries are busy breaking down tariffs against each other. One of our competitors will now have free access whereas we shall have to pay certain tariffs. In the first place we shall have to bear in mind the associated areas. These areas—the ex-colonies and dependent territories in Africa—will also have free access to the countries of the Common Market. Some of these territories compete with us in regard to certain products like tropical fruit, citrus, apples, etc. We shall have to bear that in mind.

Finally we shall have to bear in mind these outside tariff measures. Even worse than the tariffs which will be applied against us are the regulations which will be applicable in the European markets in respect of certain products, particularly certain agricultural products. Those regulations are so stringent that it will be almost impossible for us, as also for almost every other country, to surmount them. They are so stringent that even a country like the U.S.A, has raised its voice against these onerous outside tariff measures. In future we shall have to keep these and other factors in mind. We shall have to bear in mind the actuality of the Common Market as it exists at present, and with the possible membership of Britain.

I can, however, give the House the assurance that this Government, which believes that its course of action in this regard up to now has been correct and that it acted timeously, will ensure that the interests of South Africa will be safe in its hands. There is much more I would have liked to say, but I think I should conclude by quoting the words of a prominent professor of Harvard University who visited South Africa recently. May his words put the United Party to shame! This prominent professor, Horace Gilbert, said a few months ago whilst visiting South Africa that the South African economy was one of the miracles of modern times. He said it was a miracle and that it was important that this concept should be transmitted to America. I can quote numerous other such opinions. When one of my colleagues yesterday quoted what another American had said, namely that South Africa was the best investment field in the world, everybody on this side shouted, “Hear, hear!”, but no single member opposite did that. South Africa’s economy is a miracle of the twentieth century. If only the Opposition would also believe that! If the Opposition would rather have some confidence in the economy of our country instead of continually belittling South Africa economically, and if only they would try to instil some confidence in the economy of our country and its future, they would perhaps also be rendering South Africa a service.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs has just said that the economy of South Africa was a miracle. I agree that it is a miracle—a miracle that it has stood up to the onslaughts of this Government!

I will deal with the last portion of the Minister’s speech first. He referred to the difficulties which faced South Africa vis-a-vis the European Common Market and indicated that these were very real difficulties. He also indicated that there were advantages in that there would be a lowering of tariffs. The Minister was silent however in regard to what was likely to take place when our tariffs were higher. He was silent about a possible quid pro quo being demanded at some future stage. He was careful in the final portion of his speech to indicate that there were many difficulties still to be overcome. We hope the Minister will be successful in his negotiations in this regard.

The hon. the Minister, however, was far more balanced in his speech about this matter than he was during the first part thereof. It is quite clear that the speech of the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) was very effective in that it called forth heat from the Minister. You see, Sir, most of the Minister’s reply was taken up by throwing down skittles which the hon. member did not put up at all. The hon. member did at no time, for instance, say that we were not in favour of the dispersal of industries. What we are against is the dispersal of industries on other than economic grounds. This is where this Government is doing the most harm. The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) referred earlier on the Hammarsdale as a border area. The Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, however, speaks with a different voice. You see, Mr. Speaker, there has so far been no clarity as to what is a border industry. We get, for instance, this gem from the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs quoted in the Financial Mail of 14 September 1962. Speaking at the Pretoria Show he explained—

Then he went on to say—

You see, Sir, if an industry is near Johannesburg, then it is a danger to South Africa and the Government does not want it, but if it is near Pretoria, then it is all right. In the Rand Daily Mail of 14 December 1961 the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs was reported as having said—

You see, Mr. Speaker, this is a difficulty which every member representing a Reef area is having. In areas where mines are closing down, they have tried to make the case that where mines have closed down, there is the problem of the people who have settled in these mine areas. The Minister, however, did not answer them on that point. He waived it aside and said that they had no need to worry. The problem is this, however, that in those areas where mines have closed down, the people employed there will not be available to secondary industry because the Government will insist that the industries be established elsewhere.

We have seen what has happened to the clothing industry in Germiston. Germiston was one of the main centres in South Africa in the clothing industry. Yet all the skills which were acquired over a number of years are lost because the industries are being taken away or encouraged by Government influence to go elsewhere. The Minister is aware of what has happened in Germiston.

The establishment of a border industry in Hammarsdale was not an outflow of Government policy. It happened by accident. One individual came down and looked about in the Durban-Pinetown area for some cheap land. In the process he went further and further away from Durban until he could find land cheap enough to justify the establishment of an industry in the area with Bantu labour nearby. Consequently, Hammarsdale was decided upon. I wonder whether the Minister has ever been to Hammarsdale? He says he has been. I wonder now whether he is proud of what he saw there? There was no planning there. If the Minister maintains that there was planning, he should be ashamed of it. A factory was started in the area; inquiries were made with the Department of Labour as to the minimum requirements. Only last year one industry, which was established later, did a dyeing process. The effluent from that factory was turned out in the veld. It went down into the escarpment and polluted the Umlaas River. From there it went on to the Shongweni Dam and ultimately a Government Department had to be called in. You see, Sir, some of the money of these organizations had been advanced by the I.D.C. and the I.D.C. were able to get exemptions from the discharge of effluent. Eventually the position deteriorated to such an extent that the farmers in the area made representations and ultimately, after the factories had been established for a considerable time, a very expensive water disposal scheme was established.

It just shows what a bad provincial council you have there.

This is a rural area, Mr. Speaker! It shows that the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) does not know what he is talking about! There is also no local authority there. It is bush country, on the top of an escarpment and quite unsuitable for industrial development. It is broken country—monkey land! I hope the hon. member will understand that!

This is the type of development to which we are objecting. We have seen what has happened in the clothing industry. I have here the schedule of the industrial council for the clothing industry in Cape Town according to which a qualified machinist in the clothing industry in Cape Town gets R 17.76 per week. According to the Government Gazette the figure is R7.50. Over the years we have built up skills. We have acquired skills and there has been an investigation by the Wage Board; there were negotiations between the industrial councils, by the employees’ and employers’ representatives. Over the years they have built up a schedule of wage rates which were regarded as adequate for the workers concerned. But what has happened? The Government, by its policy, is deliberately lowering the standards. Having as its object the desire to compete with Japan and Hong Kong, it is lowering the standards and in consequence people who have built up skills over the years are thrown to one side. There are hundreds of White women in Johannesburg who have acquired skills in the clothing industry but have been thrust aside to-day. The Minister shakes his head, but let him make inquiries with the clothing industry and ask them whether they are perturbed or not? Will the Minister deny that representations have been made to him by the clothing industry about border development?

No, Mr. Speaker; the whole of the economy of South Africa is being sacrificed on the altar of the colour policies of this Government. That is in truth the position, namely that this Government is following a policy which is sacrificing the economy of the country for the sole purpose of serving the Government’s political ideologies. The Minister did try to suggest that this diversification of industries was based on economic grounds. What we do not know is what the Government’s policy is in this regard. In the course of this very debate certain statements were made. The hon. the Minister was present yesterday when the hon. Deputy Minister of Labour said—

That was said yesterday and in the course of this very debate. Is it in fact the policy of the hon. the Minister that clothing industries should not go to the border areas? If that is in fact his policy, why then are these industries there?

They are not to be encouraged to go there.

The Minister says that “they are not to be encouraged to go there ”. But so with the Bantu. They have not been encouraged to come to towns but yet during the period this Government has been in office the non-European population in the towns has increased by more than a 1,000,000 people.

You see, Mr. Speaker, we have one series of statements which were made by the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs; another by the Deputy Minister of Labour; another by the Minister of Economic Affairs, etc. No wonder that the industrialists overseas are not certain of their position. It is any wonder, therefore, that they first try and find out what is and what is not a border industry?

That makes the position very difficult for the Minister of Information, is that not so?

Yes, very difficult indeed. But let me go on to state the different statements we have had to contend with. The Prime Minister, for instance, after the first meeting of the Economic Advisory Council on 26 July 1960 issued a statement stating its border industries policy and enumerated the inducements to industrialists to move to these areas. These inducements as enumerated were inter alia—

1. (a) The assistance with the provision of basic services, power, water, transport.

What transport is there at Hammarsdale, for instance? The position is that Hammarsdale is on the border of a Native reserve. There are to-day White factory workers who formerly worked at Germiston—trained personnel—but who to-day are living in Pinetown. They have to go by bus every day for 25 miles to the border industry and 25 miles back again to their homes. That is because there is no housing for Whites in that area. And has the Minister any knowledge of the wastage of labour at the factory at Hammarsdale? Does he know the labour turnover? Does he know that many of the non-Europeans coming there do not belong to that tribal area at all? They are drifters from Pietermaritzburg and Durban and hang round the factory doors meanwhile living in shacks on the hillside. Is the Minister proud of the housing outside Hammarsdale? The housing conditions for non-Europeans outside Hammarsdale constitute in fact a scandal for any country calling itself civilized. If the Government did plan the development there, surely it should have made provision for housing and for the other services first so that the development there could take place in an orderly manner? But no! The factory was put there first and only afterwards was it decided to declare it a border industry area. It is now going to take them a year or three to clear up the existing mess.

Meanwhile the conditions in some of the factories there, at least in one factory of which I have personal knowledge, are such as would not be tolerated in any town factory. Does the hon. the Minister know that in one factory the non-Europeans must, for calls of nature, go according to the clock? In other words, women are allowed to go in certain hours and the men in certain hours. That is a fact. Let the Minister send a representative of the Department of Labour there to find out for himself. And this is the new “planning” undertaken by this Government!

Other inducements offered by the Government to industries to settle in these border areas are—

1. (b) Assistance in the provision of housing for White employees.

But there has been no such assistance in the Hammarsdale area.

1. (c) Increased allowances for depreciation of factory buildings;
2. (d) Inclusion of the costs of moving in capital depreciation;
3. (e) Reimbursement of 20 per cent of building costs and a guarantee of 40 per cent of construction for 10 years;
4. (f) Erection and lease of factory buildings and layout of industrial sites;
5. (g) Provision of extra funds to the Industrial Development Corporation for investment on special terms in border areas;
6. (h) Maintenance of the principle of wage differentiation in border areas where justified, i.e. lower wages;
7. (i) Raising the low productivity of Bantu labour by means of trade schools in Bantu area; and
8. (j) Concessions to industrialists in respect of railway rates.

The Government, through the Ministry of Information, is telling people overseas “Look how we are raising the standards of these people. They were peasants in the country areas but now we are giving them something better than they had before ”. That is true, but only a half truth. What they should say is that they are paying wages which are much lower than that paid in the past and they are throwing people out of work in many of the urban areas …

But that is not true!

Yes, it is true. I suggest to the hon. the Minister of Information to go to Germiston and find out for himself. [Interjections.] They are encouraging sweated labour. Can the hon. the Minister of Information deny the difference in wage rates—R17 on the one hand and R7 on the other?

Go to the Good Hope textile factory and see whether the wages paid there are not higher than those paid in the United Party Government time!

That was 20 years ago, Mr. Speaker. The conditions which obtain to-day in relation to these border areas, are bringing doubts in the minds of industrialists who wish to plan for the future.

Why did the Cyril Lord factory come out here?

Why did it start where it started and not at East London? You know why!

The fact is that industrialists from overseas do not know where they stand and are uncertain. The Minister of Finance in the course of this debate referred to the fact that confidence had been restored to a great extent. The hon. the Minister of Information knows that confidence has not been restored. His own Department is quite ineffectual in restoring confidence. And the test of confidence is the difference on the London market and the local market.

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Speaker, I have full confidence in the future of this country but not under this Government. The difference in the price of shares on the London Market and on the Johannesburg Market is an indication of the difference in confidence which people have in this country. If people had complete confidence in this country there would not have been that difference in the price.

Is direct investment not a better test?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, direct investment is a better test, but the man who has a direct investment cannot get his money out. [Interjections.] Does the hon. the Minister not know that he introduced a system of blocked rands and that it was not successful. He admitted that during the course of this debate. Does he not know that he introduced an arbitrage scheme and that that scheme is not successful? The Minister said in his opening remarks that it was not as successful as he had expected.

The hon. the Deputy Minister of Labour made it quite clear in the course of his remarks that as far as the establishment of industries was concerned he regretted the removal of certain industries. The policy of the Government has shown without doubt that industry does not know where its future lies. Industry in South Africa is not certain where its future lies; it does not know what competition it might have to face. That is the reason why there are such large amounts in our banks and building societies on short call. Institutions have large amounts of money at short call, which industries are not prepared to invest further because they are uncertain as to the future.

Is not the Stock market also the barometer here?

Surely the Minister knows that a rise can also be due to a shortage of scrip. Surely the Minister knows that if there is a good deal of short-term money and interest is coming down, the rewards for ordinary shares will force the price up? If short-term money drops to 3 per cent it will have a corresponding effect on the Stock Exchange. The Minister will have an opportunity to reply to this debate; he has the last word. The industrialist in South Africa is uncertain as to the future because he does not know what this border development is going to mean. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, will you please ask the hon. the Minister of Information to stop interrupting the hon. member for Pine town.

Order! Hon. members must please give the hon. member for Pinetown a chance to make his speech. [Interjections.] Order! What did the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) say?

I said he makes a hopeless mess when he does speak and he spends his time interrupting.

Order! The hon. member may continue.

Sir, the overseas industrialist is not certain of the future of this country in consequence he is not prepared to invest his money here. The industrialist in the country is not certain of the future, he does not know how to plan in view of the Government’s so-called policy for industrial development. Until such time as the Government gives a clear indication as to what its policy is so long will the country remain in doubt. It is purely opportunism on the part of the Government to suggest that it has a plan. What it has in the initial stages was a vision: a vision by the Prime Minister. They tried later on to fill in the gaps. The Government had been in office for nearly 15 years before the Prime Minister appointed an Economic and Planning Council.

Finally, Sir, when the country has come to a stage of uncertainty and doubt we get the sorry state of the Minister of Finance trying to tell us that all is well in the country and that the country has a great future. We are satisfied that the country has a great future. The country’s economy is basically sound. It has a great future but not under this Government. It will have a great future under a government that will recognize that every section of the community is dependent upon the other, that economic integration is a fact, that we must use the labour and capital resources available to us to the best advantage and not break down the skills which we have built up in the past. The skills which have been built up in the past are being thrown away by this Government. There is no future for the non-European in the town as a temporary dweller; there is no future for the man who has acquired skills because he never knows when his job will be taken away from him. The non-European does not know how far he can advance because he never knows when the bogey of job reservation will confront him. So, Sir, any Minister of Finance or any Minister of Economic Affairs or any other Minister who has a real interest in the economy of this country, should do some more thinking before he can say with confidence that the policy of this Government can give this country a happy future.

I do not think this debate will be remembered in this House or in this country. The people who will probably forget this debate soonest are hon. members of the Opposition. During the period that I have been here I have seldom seen such a poor exhibition on the part of the Opposition in an Appropriation or a Part Appropriation debate.

There is one matter in connection with which we can congratulate the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) and that is the fact that in this debate he was overshadowed as the prophet of doom. He failed to distinguish himself in his old well-known role; he was overshadowed by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) and the hon. member who has just sat down. I should like to congratulate him on that fact but I can go no further than that.

In this debate, as in past debates of this kind, Opposition members distinguished themselves by foreshadowing doom for this country and by conjuring up imaginary dangers. In a certain sense therefore this debate is also symbolic of the position in which Opposition members find themselves to-day. They have been defeated and driven to a few urban constituencies. Because they can no longer prophesy doom for this country as a whole, they have emerged in this debate as prophets of doom with regard to the future of the Witwatersrand. Let me say this to them this evening: While we do not want to underestimate the value and the role of the Witwatersrand in the conomy of this country, the Witwatersrand is definitely not the entire Republic of South Africa. On the contrary, I think we can be grateful and feel proud of a Government whose policy is designed to encourage development in other parts of the country as well.

I should like the House this evening to turn its attention to an industry which belongs more specifically to this part of the country in which we find ourselves to-day. I am sorry that the hon. member for Constantia who was the first Opposition speaker in this debate, did not do so, because he represents a constituency, the name of which is really associated with this industry. I refer to the oldest industry in South Africa, the wine industry, an industry, which through the excise duty levied on its product, is contributing more than R27,000,000 to the Treasury during the current year. I want to add at once that this amount is considerably bigger than the amount received by the producers for their product. It is an industry which for many years has been earning many millions for this country in foreign exchange. It is an industry which forms the basis of the economic activities in a large part of the Western Province and which offers opportunities of employment to a large section of our Coloured population. It is an industry which from the material point of view perhaps cannot be compared with the mining industry, about which hon. members on the other side are so concerned, but which in importance can be compared with that industry, because in this industry we have people who are not constantly on the Government’s doorstep with requests for subsidies and other forms of assistance. In this industry we have a group of people who make ample contributions to matters of an educational, cultural and spiritual character, people who have produced leaders in the past and who will still produce leaders in the future. In this industry we have people from whose savings important financial and other undertakings which have become of great importance in this country, have come into being. At the same time, however, the people associated with this industry are in no secure and easy position, because of the numerous factors which influence their industry, factors such as taxation policy, the drinking habits of the population, foreign competition, tariffs in the foreign markets and trade techniques. It is for this very reason, Mr. Speaker, that the wine farmers, taken individually, are not privileged as some people think. On the contrary, the vast majority of the wine farmers are small-scale farmers who have to be very careful in order to be able to make a decent living and to be able to compete in the modern competitive market. They are people who work hard and who produce their product at a small profit.

As far as the export of their product is concerned, they have done everything in their power to find new markets having regard to Britain’s possible entry into Euromart. Mercifully, with Britain’s inability to gain admission, the industry now has a breathing space to persevere with its efforts to find new markets. It has gained time to achieve this purpose.

As far as taxation policy is concerned, the wine industry regarded the increased excise duty on spirits in 1958 as a heavy blow, which subsequently appeared not to be such a serious blow after all because the imposition of the increased duty in fact encouraged the consumption of natural wines instead of alcoholic liquor. The consumption of natural wine increased to such an extent as a result of the increased duty—not entirely but principally as a result of it—that the increased sales of natural wine practically more than compensated for the loss in the sale of spirits. At the same time it steered the drinking habits of our people onto the right lines, along lines that we should all like to see. The then Minister of Finance gave the undertaking that if the effect of the increased excise duty was that the industry suffered because of it and that the State did not get the excise duty from it that it anticipated or for which it was budgeting, the excise duty would be examined again. Fortunately, because of the healthy lines along which it steered the drinking pattern of our people, this was not necessary.

This was followed by a further wise step on the part of the present Minister of Finance who in the next year gave back to the wine industry R 1,000,000 of the excise duty in the form of a fund for research and propaganda. Unfortunately we are still not in a position to reap the fruits of that research. We know that this is something for the future, that the industry will be able to reap the fruits of this grant in the near future by making available bursaries for the training of scientists in viticulture. But nevertheless this created a new future for the industry and all sorts of new prospects were opened up for the wine industry. Last year the excise duty on all spirits was further increased and for the first time an excise duty was also levied on unfortified wine. But on the other hand, knowing the scope of our budget last year, particularly for defence purposes, the farmers in the wine industry accepted this shock and were proud to be able to contribute in this way to the defence programme of the country, because it was estimated that no less than R 14,000,000 would be collected from this additional excuse duty levied on their product. Since then not a full year has elapsed and it is not yet possible to test the full effect of this increased excise duty, but it is already possible at this stage to perceive certain trends, the first being that this time, contrary to what happened in 1958 as the result of the increased excise duty then imposed, the sale of brandy fell sharply for just a few months. In the previous case there was a decline which lasted for practically 19 months before sales reached their former level again. This time the effect was felt for just a few months before more or less normal consumption was restored again. Then we must also bear in mind the fact that during the same period, that is to say since the last budget, liquor has been made freely available to the Bantu. In other words, that additional market too, if there has been a market, has more or less countered the influence of the increased excise duty. In the case of fortified wine there was a sharp decline initially but after a few months there was also a rapid return to normal consumption. Over a period extending from the date of the budget to the end of October, sales dropped on an average by about 6 per cent, in comparison with the position from month to month in the previous year. With a bigger vintage in 1962 than in previous years, there was a drop in sales in the case of natural wine, a drop which was not as sharp as in the case of fortified wine initially, but which varied from 16 per cent to about 13.7 per cent as from April to the end of October. Over the full period there was a drop of 13.7 per cent as against sales during the previous year, in spite of the fact that during that same period liquor was made available to the Bantu. In other words one might say that the fact that liquor was made available to the Bantu had no effect on the sale of natural wine. When one bears in mind the fact that during the previous period, as from 1958, after the increase in excise duty on spirits, the sales of unfortified wine increased by 14 per cent in the first year, 14.1 per cent the following year and 14.4 per cent the year thereafter, one might say that there has been a striking change in the drinking pattern, a change which practically places the consumption of unfortified wine back onto the same basis as for the year 1959-60. If this tendency is to continue—it is difficult at this stage to say whether it will continue—then one sees that the sound drinking pattern which has developed since 1959 is deteriorating. It is difficult to say whether this is attributable exclusively to the increased excise duty. There are other factors too which may have influenced the position. One thinks of the increased producers’ prices that were announced last year; one also thinks of the retail trade which takes a bigger margin of profit on wine than it takes on beer, for example. The price at which they buy beer and wine is practically the same—about 15 cents per bottle— but beer is being sold at 21 cents per bottle of Special, as against 24 cents for wine. The effect of all this is that the drinking pattern, which we should like to see develop in this country, is showing signs of not developing as rapidly in that direction as we should have liked to see. Whatever the reason may be for this change, Mr. Speaker, it has three effects, the first being that our healthier drinking pattern is not developing rapidly enough and the second being that the prospects for the wine industry are deteriorating. A surplus of 26 per cent has already been declared this year as against 18 per cent last year. I am not going to suggest that this is necessarily due to the excise duty only. A bigger vintage is also anticipated this year. But these are all things which exercise a certain amount of influence on the future of the industry, and to the wine farmer this means a drop of R3 per leaguer this year in the price of his distilling wine. We shall see later on whether the State does in fact get what it hoped to get out of this excise duty. The result of these conditions, taken together, is that the wine farmer finds himself in a position of uncertainty to a certain extent and that he is unable to bring about the necessary improvements and to expand as he should have liked to expand.

Mr. Speaker, I want to avail myself of this short time at my disposal to urge that the various departments should examine this state of affairs and that the correct steps should be taken to place this industry firmly on its feet with a view to overcoming the difficulty of future competition in the overseas markets and elsewhere.

In the few moments left at my disposal I should like to say that the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Smit) certainly raised a very interesting and a very constructive subject this evening. I am only sorry that he raised it so late. I hope that on a future occasion we might have the opportunity of discussing the wine industry of this country. It is a fascinating aspect of our industrial life and it is something to which I feel we have not paid sufficient attention.

I should like to continue by drawing attention to what I think has been a very unfortunate aspect of this whole debate on the Government side. It started off unfortunately with the utterance of a Deputy Minister who instead of giving us a constructive picture of the labour position in South Africa, criticized my side of the House in that whatever was said was said with the object of bringing South Africa into disrepute in overseas countries. He was very well encouraged by the hon. the Minister of Information who finds a great deal of delight in this kind of criticism. The extraordinary thing, Sir, is this that in the past when this side of the House warned the Government of some of the difficulties into which it would land itself if it did not give more attention to the non-European situation, this side of the House was immediately dubbed with the term “kafferboetie”, a term which they used right throughout the country in order to exemplify the lack of interest of this side of the House in what they call the true problems of South Africa. Now that the Government is giving its whole and undivided attention to non-European affairs in this country, constructive criticism from this side of the House in regard to the industrial, commercial and financial aspects of South Africa’s life, is immediately regarded as criticism designed to bring South Africa into disrepute.

On the conclusion of the period of 12 hours allotted for the second reading of the Bill, the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 116.

Mr. Speaker, I must place on record that there is no financial criticism to reply to! I could have sat down with that statement for it is the most complete indication of the Government’s financial policy that on an occasion like this there is no financial criticism to reply to. I can say to hon. members that I was sorely tempted to sit down because all the other points raised in this debate, outside of finance, have been more than adequately dealt with by other speakers on this side. Usually I am allowed the privilege of trespassing on the preserves of other Ministers on an occasion like this. This year it is really not necessary.

There are, however, a few financial misconceptions and misstatements which I think I ought to correct. But before doing so I would like to say a few words about some strange features of this strange and unusual debate. In the first place, Sir, it seems to me as if the Whips have sent in the Opposition’s second eleven to bat in this debate, with the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) as the non-playing captain! The only lively bit of batting came from the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw), —and the name of his constituency (Point) is most inappropriate for there was not a single square cut in his whole innings! He did get a couple of lucky “sneaks” through the slips, but for the rest his strokes were more agricultural than economic. For instance, Sir, you will remember that he advocated that we should double pensions and just in one swipe add anything from R30,000,000 to R45,000,000 to our expenditure. If ever there was a wild swipe, I think that was one. That is about all one can say for the hon. member’s contribution.

I think all of us were surprised at the new role of the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson). In this debate he proved himself more optimistic than the Minister. But I had a horrible feeling, because you know, Sir, that whenever the hon. member for Constantia was pessimistic in the past, he was always wrong. Now that he is optimistic, may he not be wrong again? It gave me a real shock and I think in framing my budget I shall have to pay due attention to this unpleasant possibility! Fortunately the mantle of the hon. member for Constantia has fallen on the shoulders of the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Bijl); behold the new Jeremiah! So all may perhaps still be well with South Africa. He was followed—let it not be said that the hon. member stood alone—by a minor prophet of doom in the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell). You know what struck me again in this debate, Sir, is that nothing irritates these prophets of doom so much as prosperity in the Republic.

There was another strange feature and that was the amendment itself. I am referring particularly to that part of the amendment dealing with pensions. It has not been usual for the amendments to the Part Appropriation Bill to be devoted to pleading the cause of any particular group or any particular cause, however worthy. If that were to be done in future, speeches will be made here to plead the cause of universities, of hospitals or of various types of farmers, various types of industrialists. I do not think that is really the purpose of a Part Appropriation debate. The purpose is really to give an opportunity for a broad survey of the principles, the general policy of the Government, and an opportunity to criticize that policy. I have nothing against this amendment. I have nothing against the contents of the amendment, but I am merely pointing out that it is a strange feature. I took the trouble of going into the Votes and Proceedings of the past years and I found that this is almost a unique procedure. In the Votes and Proceedings of 1937 I found the following amendment to the motion of the Minister of Finance to take the second reading of the Part Appropriation Bill. I have it in Afrikaans—

That amendment was not accepted. But I find in reading through the Votes and Proceedings that amongst the people who voted against this amendment was one, Waterson, S. F. [Laughter.] One can very well say O tempora! O mores. It shows the inappropriateness of this type of amendment to a motion of this nature.

Let me say at once as far as pensions are concerned, the pensioners—and we do not say this in words only; our deeds have proved it —have had a very sympathetic friend in the Government. Their needs have always had a very high priority when we framed our Budget. In every single Budget I have presented —that means the last four—relief has always been granted to pensioners, and over the four years the relief granted amounted in total to R 13,600,000

Did all pensioners benefit?

And let me say that that was granted without any amendments from the Opposition. At that time they apparently had no solicitude for the pensioners, but now they come and they preach to the converted. After we have regularly, in the past four years, granted relief, they come and they preach to us. And, Sir, one would imagine from the speeches made by them that the pensioners have been totally neglected for a number of years and that repeated requests to this Government to help them have been turned down. There was not a single word of acknowledgment—anybody not aware of the facts who has been listening to members on the opposite side, could not have gained the impression that anything had been done for pensioners for the last number of years. On the contrary, the true facts are, as I have said, that this is one of the pleas to the Government most likely to succeed, judging by the experience of recent years; and the success of these pleas is almost one of the easiest things to predict. So much so that I may have to contemplate, sooner or later— may be sooner than hon. members think—to make a break in this tradition of annual relief, if only to preserve the novelty and the originality of my Budget.

I said that there were a number of misconceptions that I think I ought to reply to. The first is the point raised particularly by the hon. member for Green Point who accused us of under-estimating revenue, deliberately as he said, and who dished up the story of the R45,000,000 surplus. He was not quite certain as to what year it was.

I said that it had been reported in the papers now, this year.

It was in regard to the financial year 1961-2, and I am afraid the hon. member, just like many newspapers, have entirely misread the comments of the Auditor-General in this regard. Now I want to give the hon. member the true facts for that year 1961-2. If hon. members will look at my Budget Speech of that year, they will see that in the summary, I estimated the revenue for that year at almost R716,000,000. The actual receipts were R734,900,000. In other words, there was a difference in what I estimated when I presented the Budget and the ultimate receipts of R1 8,900,000. What did happen is that after I presented this Budget in March, import control was imposed and afterwards also currency control. We had in the meantime left the Commonwealth and in the written Estimates that I tabled later in the year, after these occasions, when we estimated that with the reduced imports there would be a fall in the income from customs, as well as from income-tax as a whole, we then presented figures which were much less than the actual figures on which the Estimates for that year were framed. It is on those figures that I based my Budget and that I gave tax concessions amounting to R9,300,000. Now the hon. member, and some newspapers, have apparently accepted not the figures on which the Budget was based, but figures which were revised after certain events, like import control and currency control, had forced us to be more realistic and to anticipate that our income would be reduced. The difference between that revised figure and the ultimate receipts was R45,000,000. Hon. members will see that actually the expenditure was R2,500,000 more than budgeted for. So if we had given tax concessions for R45,000,000— as the newspapers and the hon. member say we over-tax—then at the end of the year I would have had to face a deficit of R28,000,000. So if hon. members had carefully gone into the matter they would have seen what the real position is. But now let me say this that even on the basis of this lower estimate, which, as I have said, was not the estimate on which my Budget was framed, we were within 6.15 per cent of the actual revenue. The under-estimation was 6.15. If it was on the figures I gave in my Budget Speech, then the under-estimation was only 2.3 per cent. Now is that so extraordinary? If you say R45,000,000 or R16,000,000 it sounds a lot, but it represents 6.15 per cent and 2.3 per cent.

You would not pass Std. VI with those calculations.

In the years 1945-6 when the United Party were in power, the under-estimation was 8.1 per cent and in 1946-7, it was 12 per cent, and in 19478,7.25 per cent. And these are the gentlemen who say that we deliberately under-estimate income whilst that is the record of their party. And it is not so exceptional. Hon. members must not think that this is an exceptional thing peculiar to South Africa—the faulty estimation of revenue. I find that in the United States, the revised estimate of revenue for the fiscal year 1962-3 is now—and it is not even the end of the financial year yet—7½per cent lower than the original estimate a year ago.

There is a further point I want to deal with and it also was raised by the hon. member for Green Point. He made the remark here that we frequently say that we are the lightest taxed country in the world, and the hon. member asserted that that is not true. Then he went and quoted from one bracket in the income-tax of the United Kingdom. Now the scientific test is not that; there is only one scientific basis for comparison between taxation in one country and another, and that is not to take one particular tax, but to take all the taxes and to say what percentage does that form of the national income. That is the only basis. And now let me say that in respect of the last year for which the figures are available. Central Government taxation amounted to 13.9 per cent of the national income. For the United States it was 18.1 per cent, for the United Kingdom 28.4 per cent. And then the hon. member comes and takes one bracket of the income-tax as a basis of comparison! Let me give him some other brackets of the income-tax and let me give him a comparison. Where the taxable income is R2,000 the tax in South Africa is 4½ per cent of the income. In the United States it is 20 per cent and in the United Kingdom 15 per cent. Where the income is R 12,000, in South Africa the current rate of income-tax is 19.62 per cent, in the U.S.A. 30 per cent, and in the United Kingdom, 27.9 per cent, and to get nearer to the bracket of the hon. member for Greenpoint: Where the taxable income is R20.000, in South Africa it is 31.5 per cent, the U.S.A. 43 per cent and the U.K. 40 per cent. There is another test for comparative purposes and that is what percentage direct taxes (we are only dealing with direct taxes now) bear to personal incomes, not the national income now. I have the figures here again for 1961, and this includes provincial taxes: South Africa 4.6—that is 4.6 of the personal income of people in South Africa; in the U.S.A. 12.7 per cent and in the U.K. 14.6 per cent. So I hope that we have now heard the last of this ridiculous and unscientific way of comparing taxation, and I trust the hon. member will be more responsible in future. After all he holds a very important position in a very influential financial institution in this country, and to come and make a broad statement like that, without going into the facts, I think ill becomes the hon. member and I certainly did not expect it from him.

There is another misconception that I must dispel. I gathered from the hon. member’s speech that the gold-mines have been the Cinderella of this Government.

I never mentioned the gold-mines at all.

It was said that we have not given any concessions to them.

I never suggested that.

I am very glad that the hon. member was so wise as not to suggest it. It may have been some other hon. member, but I think it is good to have it on record what concessions have been granted by the National Party Government since 1948.

I did use the word “Cinderella”, but not in respect of gold-mines.

At any rate, I will give the hon. member this for future reference! In 1948 the formula tax was reduced, and the key-number of 63 was reduced to 60. That represented a 5 per cent reduction. The tax was increased again in 1951 and restored to the 63. But it was again reduced in 1956 and it is still 60 to-day. The percentage of outstanding capital expenditure deductible by existing mines was increased by this Government from 22½ per cent to 27½ per cent in 1948. In 1949, the customs duties on certain mining requirements were suspended. Then in 1956, we allowed a deduction of 5 per cent interest on pre-production capital —capital expenditure allowed to new deep level mines, and this concession was extended to existing mines incurring capital expenditure for deep-level mining, in 1959. Then in 1958, producing mines were allowed to deduct exploration and prospecting expenditure in new areas. I am giving these figures just to show that this Government has been solicitous of the interests of all sections. On the one hand I have mentioned pensioners and on the other extreme I have mentioned the gold-mines. And all in between have shared what we have been able to distribute in these years.

Those are really the matters that had to be corrected. There is however, perhaps one speech that I may refer to briefly, and that is the speech of the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje). I must confess that I was rather surprised at his philosophy. It seems to me that his theory is: If you can’t have any Bantus in the White areas, you prefer to have 15,000,000 rather than 6,000,000. That is the brief proposal. He says that we have not been able to get rid of them and we won’t be able to get rid of them altogether, and so integration must go on merrily.

As it is going on merrily.

He knows that by the year 2000 a.d. we will have in the White parts of South Africa 15,000,000 Bantu instead of 6,000,000 Bantu if nothing is done and he thinks that is preferable to having 6,000,000. I must say that the logic of the argument is to my mind very poor. But the morality of his next argument is even worse. The hon. member apparently believes in the materialistic doctrine that nothing is politically good which is not economically sound. In other words, whatever steps the Government takes, must be dictated by economic considerations and economic considerations alone. I want to tell him that we on this side reject that doctrine in toto. We say there are more important things than material considerations. We say there may come times in the life of a nation, in the life of a country, when it has to place those imponderable things, those things which cannot always be weighed and measured, above every consideration; and we believe that there is no profit, even economic profit, if you gain the whole world, if a country gains the whole world and loses its soul. And in order to preserve our soul we reject that materialistic doctrine that nothing is politically right which is not economically sound.

In passing, I must say this in regard to a further point mentioned by the hon. member: He has argued very strongly that the economy of this country can only thrive in the particular political background of his party. That shows a very great lack of faith in the inherent strength of our economy. A sound economy, whatever individuals may think, will thrive in the political environment in which it is placed. One man may say that it will thrive better in his political environment, and the other man may say it will thrive better in his. That is a matter that can be argued. But there is one thing one must not do: One must not put this shackle on progress: that progress can only come in one particular political environment in any country in the world. That I think is a totally unacceptable doctrine.

I have had to officiate at the last rites at the death of this for the Opposition, inglorious debate. It now belongs to the past. It will be interred in the annals of Parliament, and I think one cannot have a more fitting epitaph for this debate which has just now concluded than: Nothing became it so much in life as its departure therefrom.

Question put: That all the words after

“That”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion, Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—80: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G.P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; Diederichs, N.; Dönges, T. E.; du Piessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Heystek, J.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Loots, J. J.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Otto, J. C.; Pelser, P. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; van den Berg, G.P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; Van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Webster, A.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—46: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Miller, H.; Mitchell; M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and N. G. Eaton.