Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

It is scarcely three months since the general election, but in that short period there have been fundamental changes in the entire South African political scene. Old issues have been exacerbated and new problems have arisen, dangerous new problems, many of them largely undreamed of even three months ago. Quite clearly, Sir, we are moving into a new era, into a dangerous new world, a world of altering dimensions and accelerating rates of change, in which many of the things we have taken for granted throughout our lifetime may never be the same again. We may well be faced with some of the greatest challenges in our history. Sir, I believe the hon. the Prime Minister gave some signs of recognizing that something like this might happen when he gave his reasons for holding a premature general election.

And you queried it.

He said, in effect, that he wanted the election out of the way so that he could have a free hand to deal with the problems ahead. I agree, Sir, he did. But when the election came along, the Prime Minister and his lieutenants were remarkably silent about the future. A great deal was said about the past, but very little was said about the future and, in fact, so far as the Government was concerned, the elections were fought not in prospect but in retrospect. Of course, these tactics paid off temporarily; the Government has a few more seats in this House, but the fact is that so far as Government policies are concerned, there was no significant swing, no new choice of political direction. I make bold to say that from the country’s point of view it was a sterile election. [Interjections.] I say it was a sterile election because it resolved none of the urgent issues with which the country is faced; it merely postponed them. Of course, Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister may claim that by simply maintaining the status quo he has gained more time. Time for what, Sir? I believe he deliberately avoided putting the crucial issues to the electorate, and he certainly got no mandate for any new solutions as a result of this election campaign. Does he really intend to lead South Africa into the last quarter of this century in the bland belief that it will be no more than a repetition of the quarter now ending?

By contrast, Sir, we in our party faced up to the crucial issues.

In the caucus or outside?

In caucus and outside, and at our congresses. We put them to the people. Because of misunderstanding, because of misrepresentations, and because of the internal bickering in our own ranks, we lost support. But, Sir, neither the Government nor the Progressives on my left can look on their gains as a genuine expression of the voters’ choice of political direction. Their gains represented not swings in the political philosophy of the electorate, but a protest vote against that bickering in our party of which I have spoken and against certain minor domestic controversies which were highly exacerbated by the publicity given them.

Is that over now?

But, Sir, I am convinced that that was only a temporary setback. [Interjection.] Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister is trying to rush ahead; let him wait for one moment. I believe we have found our answers to these crucial issues, and in finding those answers we have the full support of our congress and the full support of our caucus. But, Sir, has the hon. the Prime Minister found his answers? He still has to sort out his problems himself, and judging by the view expressed in the newspapers by the warring sections in his own party and by the soul-searching and the questioning of the political editors who are now taking a hand in the game, I believe the hon. gentleman is in for a torrid time. There is a battle royal in the offing in his ranks, and he knows it.

Be that as it may, I cannot believe that the hon. the Prime Minister, with all the sources of information at his disposal, is unaware of the fact that fundamental changes, external and internal, material and human, are already gathering such momentum that many of his policies and his statutes are daily becoming more and more obsolete. I wonder, Sir, if he thinks that he can really continue to conceal the stark realities from the public? Has he faced up to what the non-White leaders of this country are now frankly saying about his policies as opposed to what his organs of propaganda are wishfully thinking they should be saying? Much of this was evident well before 24 April. We raised this in debate in this House, but the Government deliberately avoided confrontation on these issues in the election. Nevertheless what has happened since 24 April has brought hon. gentlemen opposite face to face with the realities of the situation. Sir, events have taken place which have resulted—in the months of May, June and July, the last three months—in seeing a remarkable quickening of discussion, of speculation and dialogue, not the least of which has been evident in the soul-searching amongst thinkers in the Afrikaans-speaking ranks of people who support hon. gentlemen opposite.

Sir, things have been happening on our borders and to the north of us which have given a new urgency to the situation. Changing Portuguese policies in Angola and Mozambique have brought to a head with unexpected speed the problem of how we are to safeguard a peaceful existence for our people, and indeed our ultimate survival in Southern Africa. New thinking, new decisions, new policies, are imperative. It is not only the situation on our frontiers that is changing; the situation inside our country is changing as well. Only a month ago Chief Magope had this to say—

Two weeks ago Mr. David Currie, deputy leader of the Coloured Labour Party, said—

Just to drive it home, Sir, in offering danger money to the police for serving on the border, there is a distinction between what is offered to White and Black, although both their lives are at stake.

That is discrimination!

Sir, we get these warnings from leaders of our Black and Brown peoples week after week and month after month, and their feelings are being more and more reflected by their behaviour. To take but one example, look at their partisan attitude toward any team playing against the Springboks in almost any sport. The hon. the Prime Minister has attended the recent series of test matches with the Lions. He knows what I am talking about; he must have memories of what happened at Boet Erasmus and at Newlands and at other places, and the behaviour of the non-White people in respect of the Springbok team. You see, Sir, it is not only the Black and Brown people who are warning the Government; it is not only the Opposition. To our voice has been added that of a wide spectrum of Afrikaner opinion enunciated by men with deep roots in Afrikanerdom, in the Nationalist Party, who are warning that if present policies continue our very future in South Africa is being jeopardized. And to their voices are added the voices of yet others—those people overseas, our friends abroad, who steadfastly used their influence on our behalf over the years.

Surely, the hon. the Prime Minister must realize that we cannot survive without the goodwill of our own Black and Brown people, without the goodwill of our neighbours in Africa, and without the goodwill of our allies in the Western world. And surely he must realize something else, and that is that without the goodwill of our own people he is not going to be able to gain the goodwill of the others. To put it differently, if our own Black and Brown people reject the policies of the Nationalist Party, how can he expect the rest of the world to accept them? What is happening today is that our own Black and Brown people are rejecting precisely those policies of the Nationalist Party at a time when what is happening to the north of us makes it doubly essential that we should be able to retain their goodwill.

Now, what has happened in respect of the Coloured Representative Council in the last few days highlights what I have just said. I think it is clear evidence that the Coloured people as a whole totally reject Government policy. I say that what has happened in respect of the Coloured Representative Council is a disaster of the first magnitude. It is not a disaster just because of the internal conflicts and procedural difficulties which have arisen within that Council, even though these have been frustrating enough in all conscience for all concerned. It is a disaster primarily because it is the culmination of a quarter of a century of steady deterioration in our relations with the Coloureds, and of valuable time thrown away. I think it is the final indictment of an obstinate illusion, an elaborate fallacy, that has cost South Africa a quarter of a century that it can never recover. The Coloured people who lie closest to our conscience and with whom we could and should be making a breakthrough into a more just and rational South African society, have been disillusioned and alienated. After a quarter of a century of wasted time our relations with the Cape Coloured people are infinitely worse than they were 25 years ago. They have deteriorated beyond all knowledge. The unfortunate history of this Coloured Representative Council is but one example of the sort of treatment the Coloured people have suffered at the hands of this Government. You know, Sir, when it first came into being it bore little relation to the promises made to them by the then Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, in 1961 about their own Parliament and the control of their own affairs. He spoke of a ten year period, if I remember rightly, in which this was to be realized. It has never realized those promises, and the Coloured people know it. It was not supposed to be a substitute for the representation of the Coloured people in this House. Dr. Verwoerd said so at the time. The Coloureds have been deprived of representation in this House. The Coloured Representative Council is in all conscience no substitute for representation in this House. No amount of amending undertaken by this Government, no amount of changing by it is going to put the situation right. But it is still the beginning and end of Government policy in respect of the Coloured people, and, therefore, the Government must answer to the country as to just why it has failed. Because failed it has and I for one do not believe that it is ever going to be possible to make it work in future under the policy of this Government. I do not believe it has failed because of the prejudice against it.

I believe there were and still are Coloured people who hope to make it work. However, gallant though their efforts were, they found themselves with a toothless tiger. It has cardinal weaknesses to which the Coloured people have drawn the attention of the Government from time to time through the Coloured Representative Council itself, but these have not been put right. What are their complaints? They complain that they pass motion after motion which goes to the Cabinet. Sometimes there are long delays and most times nothing happens at all. They complain of their legit-mate grievances, grievances of their own people in regard to the Population Registration Act, in regard to removals under the Group Areas Act, in respect of lack of housing for the Coloured people throughout the country, and little or nothing is done to put things right, certainly not enough to satisfy them. They complain that the budget is presented to them without proper previous consultation with them and that they do not have enough say in how it is drawn up. They complain that they do not have enough funds to give equal pay for equal work. There are a host of other complaints, complaints which I know must be known to this Government. The Government is well aware of them, because it was Mr. Tom Swartz, the chief executive officer, and not Mr. Sonny Leon, the Opposition leader, who drew up a memorandum in 1972 setting out all these grievances and made it public. The Government cannot say that they were unaware of the situation, but they did nothing to defuse it. What is more, it is already clear that they have waited too long before making this council wholly elected. What we want to know is what the Government is going to do to try to make the system work. After all, it is their system—not ours—and it is their job to see that it functions properly, because if it does not function, then there will be a vacuum which is going to be filled by other developments through which the Coloureds will seek to realize their political aspirations. There is always the danger that when that happens they in their frustration may resort to unconstitutional means. I want to tell the hon. the Prime Minister quite frankly that from the information coming through to me the mood of the Coloured people is a most perturbing one, if not already an ugly one. They see this whole business as yet another example of discrimination against them, because of the colour of their skins, which they have to endure but with declining patience in so may walks of life under the policy of this Government. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Prime Minister will ask “But what will you do?” We in the United Party made our plans in respect of the Cape Coloured people very clear in the past. We recognize that the Coloured community is one which has special affinities with its White neighbours and a way of life and an outlook which have much in common with ours. We recognize that the Coloured people deeply desire to share our civilization with us. After all, they were the first to help to build it up with us here. Even in Government ranks there is a growing concern at the impossibility of accommodating their aspirations within the rigid confines of the policy of separate development. We all now that the Theron Commission is conducting an investigation in depth into this situation. The fact that it has been appointed and is operating is probably an admission by the Government of the fact that its policy has failed.

What gives you that impression?

We can only hope that a fundamental re-assessment will take place in consequence. However, time is of the essence. Change is urgent. It is already evident that in the interests of our own security, their aims and aspirations should be identified with those of the White group. Our policy accommodates these aspirations. Our federal policy would give them full citizenship and full autonomy within their own community by means of a legislative assembly which would be a unit in a federal system and an entirely different sort of body from the present Coloured Representative Council, a body with far wider powers, with far greater responsibility, and above all, representation along with other communities in a federal assembly for South Africa. Beyond that there is full freedom for the White and Coloured communities to develop closer associations in all matters of common interest.

Have you decided what the powers of the federal assembly will be? [Interjections.]

I gave the hon. the Prime Minster a kindergarten lesson on that some time earlier this year. It is quite clear that his memory is not as good as it ought to be and I think it is time he started thinking about retirement. But I want to go further and say that there is also freedom, if it is the eventual desire of both the White and the Coloured communities, to merge their rights and interests to the extent that both communities agree and to share power within a single legislative assembly. Such a step would, in my opinion, open the way to a new understanding between Whites and Coloureds and would do much to help to heal the hurts and humiliations of present Government policy. I believe also that this would be a more just solution than to restore the Coloured people to limited representation on a national common roll. I pledge the United Party to work in this direction, not only because I believe it is right, but also because it is of fundamental importance to our future security.

Unfortunately this Government persists in resisting the logic and dynamic of a federal system, and the problem with which the hon. the Prime Minister is now faced is what honest alternative he can offer the Coloured people. What honest alternative does he have under the present unitary system which the Government continues to apply in respect of Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians in South Africa? There are some who believe that the only honest thing for the Government to do is to restore to the Coloureds representations here in this Parliament on the basis of a direct franchise. The hon. the Minister of the Interior, however, rushing in where others fear to tread, up in South-West Africa, appears to have repudiated any such possibility on behalf of the Government. Although his words, even after the explanation given by him, still seem to be subject to a measure of ambiguity, it seems quite clear that his thinking differs materially from that of certain Cape members of the Nationalist Party. Of course, there are other possibilities, but that is the Government’s responsibility and not mine, and they will have to face up to them. The point I want to make is that failure to find a solution must have very serious repercussions, because the Coloured people are not an isolated group. They have an important place in our society and they are very much an integral part of our interlocking racial structure. What happens to them affects us all. It affects us all because common rejection of the Government’s race policies by other non-Whites has created bonds and sympathies which may link all non-Whites in a common cause. In fact, separate development is being counter-productive, because it is doing the very reverse of what it set out to do. Instead of dividing people into separate inward-looking ethnic groups, it is stimulating all people who do not accept the policy and who are alienated by it into finding a mutual purpose and a mutual method. What does this mean? All this means that the collapse of the Government’s policy must be seen as a storm signal, not just for a local squall, but for a tempest which might rage throughout the entire country. If the Government cannot see it in this light and if they fail to see its full implications then I believe we are in for trouble, and bad trouble too, because one event will lead to another. The Government will be unable to avert the fatal consequences of a situation which they themselves have created and the consequences of which they should have foreseen. I say this because it is not only the Coloureds who have rejected Government policy; it is even more unacceptable to what we today call the urban Blacks. They have no representative council that is of any use to them. They do not have the right to home-ownership, family life, local government and a host of other things enjoyed by the Cape Coloured people. I have always said that they constitute the “flashpoint” of race relations in South Africa. If the Coloured people seek means of realizing their political aspirations, it will not be long before the urban Blacks will follow their example. They may even become their allies. But the homeland leaders also have no confidence in the Government’s policies. I believe they do what they do because it is only within the rules imposed by the Government that they can gain anything at all. They co-operate with the Government on the terms it imposes because they have no alternative. But they are learning to make common cause and to stand together; and if in the end they are forced by the Government into a separate independence, I believe this will not be the end of the road for them but the beginning of a new one. Already they are hinting that they want nothing less now or at any other time, before or after independence, than the right for each of their citizens to participate fairly and honourably in the resources of that one South Africa to which they believe they belong. If the Government does not understand that then they have lost touch with the realities of the South African scene and can do little or nothing about our future happiness and security here in South Africa.

For that reason I say that it would be a dangerous fallacy to assume that the events in Cape Town last week will not have a chain reaction throughout the country. I want to warn the Government this afternoon in all friendliness that unless the highest arts of statesmanship are now used, and used urgently, fearlessly and generously, to create a new deal for the Coloured people, this sudden vacuum could have highly explosive consequences. Sir, I think it is time we recognize this thing for what it is: It is the total rejection of the feasibility of separate development as a viable policy. There is no room for self-delusion any more about it. There it is. Secondly, it is clear that we must start again without delay to engage the co-operation of the Coloureds in a new deal. I fear we must inevitably start without the priceless asset of their trust and confidence. I believe the Government have lost those for us. That has been the result of a quarter of a century of their policy. I believe therefore that we can only hope to begin if we make it clear that we shall not make dispositions for them but with them. If in the process of consultation we have our differences—I have no doubt we shall have our differences—it must be accepted as common ground that these shall never again be based on discrimination, on the assumption of inherent and persistent inequalities between peoples of different races. Even on that basis it is not going to be easy to get their co-operation, but I am enough of a realist to know that without these preconditions we will have no co-operation at all. I hope nobody is going to be so foolhardy as to argue that we must first let things develop, or play for time, or put matters into cold storage. We do not have another quarter of a century to wait, because already the Coloured, the Indian and the Black leaders are telling us that they may be the last generation of negotiators, that the impatient youth behind them is most reluctant to allow them a little more time before it resorts to other means.

I suppose, Sir, the situation in which we find ourselves is one which was clearly predictable so long as the existing philosophy of the Government was being slavishly adhered to, the philosophy of parallel lines that never meet. You know, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that any solution within the four corners of that philosophy can ever hold out any hope of acceptance by the Coloured people. Nor do I feel that new elections based on the present constitution of the Coloured Representative Council will solve anything. I believe that the Coloured Representative Council as it exists today is unacceptable and unworkable. Some plan must be hammered out in advance of the new election. I believe the essential will be the unequivocal acceptance by the Government that social and economic discrimination will be removed. If social and economic discrimination is removed, a new political dispensation, such as a wholly-elected council, a council with greater powers, any one of a number of solutions, will be negotiable, but I believe it will only be negotiable if those pre-conditions are accepted.

The failure of the Coloured Representative Council is only the beginning of the avalanche of troubles we are getting into because of the inability of this Government to adapt its policies to the changing scene in South Africa and the new realities with which we are faced. In the sphere of race relations, to give but a few examples, more and more questions are being asked with increasing urgency all over the country. One of these is a very simple one. It is: “How will the Government reconcile the statistical projections of population growth, economic development, food, housing, employment needs, etc., over the next 25 years with its policy of independence for separate homelands?” I think we are entitled to ask the Government to give us its projections on land partition, on employment opportunities in the homelands, on the duplication of housing and other services for the millions of migrant workers they envisage under their migrant labour policy. I think they must tell us how this all adds up. After all, they have had enough time to do their homework. Surely they can show us something more persuasive than the pathetically inadequate progress reports of the Bantu Development Corporation. What we are entitled to demand is a balance sheet, a new Tomlinson Report, something which will tell us where they are going and what it all means.

My second question concerns those non-White people who will have a homeland neither in the real nor in the figurative sense. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education, Mr. Janson, has been candid enough to concede that in addition to the Coloureds and Indians there are also many Blacks of whom this is now true. With the vast projected growth of our population and our economy, the new generations of permanent industrial workers will greatly multiply their numbers. Has a constitutional formula yet been found, a formula which is consistent with the policy of separate development, a formula that will justly accommodate these millions of people who are living permanently in our midst and who already outnumber the Whites?

Then there is a third question and this question relates to consent, Government by consent. We have come to the end of a chapter with the Coloured Representative Council. The events may be interpreted in various ways and may lead into new channels, but I do not believe that anyone can doubt that the basic cause of the breakdown is the growing hostility of the Cape Coloured people to the extent to which discrimination forms part of the racial policies of this Government. This message does not only come from the Coloured people, but it comes from all over the country. The Government can get what cold comfort it likes from the courteous remarks of Black leaders or expressions of loyalty from those who are dependent on the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, but the message is quite clear. The policies of this Government are being rejected more and more even by those who have, theoretically at least, the most to gain from them. I do not think that I need to add in this House that the people outside the homelands—the majority of our Black population—are even more strongly opposed to those policies. The question is a very simple one. Does this Government really seriously intend imposing on South Africa a policy which the vast majority of the population reject? Does it really believe that, if it persists in enforcing it in the face of clear and explicit repudiation by the people concerned, that force and the weary submission to force will eventually combine to make it succeed? I think these are three fair questions, three very fair questions at the beginning of the first session of the new Parliament. The hon. the Prime Minister has been returned to power with a vast majority, so the public is entitled to know where he is going. I could ask many more questions and substantiate them more fully, but I think that these are sufficient to justify my charge that the Government was not prepared to seek a mandate on the basis of the new realities in the South African situation. I believe the hon. the Prime Minister owes the country a reply and, if he cannot give us any answers—in terms of his present policy, believe me, there are no rational answers—then I am fully justified in censuring this Government for its failure to adapt and adjust its policies to meet the challenges of the world, changing as it is at the present time.

One of the greatest of those challenges today is the challenge of inflation. I must confess, again, that the Government has shown some awareness of the danger and has gone to the trouble of creating certain committees to look for the remedies. I hope something useful will emerge from those investigations because inflation is a dangerous disease which is eating away at the roots of our economy and, indeed, at the foundations of our society. The startling upsurge in the consumer price index in June of 1,6% over May of this year, to give but one example, amounting to approximately 20% over the year as a whole if sustained, indicates to me that the situation is still out of control. There are other figures that could be given, such as the wholesale price index, but I think that what I have given is sufficient.

The Government has been at great pains to explain that inflation is an evil of foreign origin, that it has been imported, and that the Government has no real responsibility for what is happening. During the election the party in power even put out a glossy booklet in which it attempted to show that its defences against inflation were in full working order. The Government has, however, consistently failed to tell South Africa that we produce nearly five times as much, including nearly all our food, as is imported. Therefore inflation is bred locally and is basically not an importation from the outside world. I say this because I believe that, under this Government, we have no real defences against inflation because our vulnerability arises in the first instance from the Government’s own racial policies. Economists and business leaders all over the country have repeatedly diagnosed the vital weakness, namely wasteful employment practices—restrictions on labour, job reservation and many others—and low productivity. These are the inevitable outcome of discriminatory laws and practices. These are the paramount causes for concern and these constitute the field for the most urgent action against inflation. I see the hon. the Minister of Finance is taking an interest. Perhaps he will tell me whether at the symposium he convened on Saturday the eminent businessmen and economists did not identify our wasteful employment practices and low productivity as one of the major causes of inflation in South Africa. The hon. gentleman is silent, Sir. I think this is one of the occasions when silence means assent.

Another aspect of our unsatisfactory employment practices, and one closely connected with our inflation problems, is the growing threat to industrial peace in our country. For years we have enjoyed industrial peace in South Africa and, in a sense, we were the envy of the outside world. But suddenly the situation is changing dramatically. Labour unrest, it must be clearly understood, is beginning to have a profound effect not only on inflation, but on race relations in general. If there are strikes and disruptions in production they will necessarily have a harmful effect on the rate of inflation. Similarly, if there are disruptions in the labour field, they will have a spill-over effect on race relations with far-reaching political implications for South Africa. It is therefore vitally essential in a pluralistic society like ours that we do maintain industrial peace. I want to say, Sir, that if the Government persists with its present policies, we are undeniably going to have to face a period of greatly increased industrial strife. This is due particularly to the fact that the Government has not faced up to the realities of the situation. It has not recognized the Black worker as a permanent, integrated part of our economic machinery and it has obstinately refused to recognize the need to provide him with adequate collective bargaining machinery. As a result, we have a communications vacuum, a communications vacuum which is going to lead to continual industrial strife. If it is not stopped now, it is going to have very serious economic and social consequences in South Africa.

I believe that both sides of the House accept the principle of industrial representation for all workers, but the negotiating machinery presently favoured by the Government seems to me to have been tried and to have been found wanting. Black workers reject these works and liaison committees. They reject them as negotiating instruments because inter alia they regard them as being different from and as inferior to the machinery provided for White workers. They are adamant that their interests should also be represented by officially recognized trade unions. Black trade unions are in any event being formed at present. They are mushrooming day by day, but they are all operating outside the law. Their activities are not controlled or regulated by the Industrial Conciliation Act. A most undesirable state of affairs is developing in South Africa. Employer organizations are negotiating with these Black trade unions even though they have no de jure recognition. They are thus giving them de facto recognition. We cannot tolerate a situation where these unions are operating outside the law.

We on this side of the House believe that the only solution is that Black workers will have to be given full status as workers. We believe that the Industrial Conciliation Act should be amended to recognize them as employees so that they will be able to enjoy the full protection of this admirable piece of legislation and so that at the same time we will be able to enjoy industrial peace which could be provided for by the operation of that Act.

Does that mean trade unions?

That means Black trade unions. This does not mean, as is so often suggested by the Government, that we want Black workers to go on strike. They have the right to strike already, and the hon. the Prime Minister knows it. On the contrary, the real function of a trade union is to provide bargaining machinery aimed at preventing strikes.

There remains the further question that I know will come from the other side of the House: Do you favour mixed or separate trade unions? I think the answer to that is quite simple. It is not the function of the Government or of the Opposition to dictate to trade unions how they must organize their own affairs. That is not done anywhere in the world of free enterprise. We do not favour separate trade unions because experience elsewhere in Africa has shown that separate unions become vulnerable to political agitators. I am happy, Sir, to leave this matter in the hands of our existing trade unions. They will realize that it is in their own interests to accommodate and provide for Black workers in the trade union movement. The manner of doing this, I believe, is something which we can leave to them to resolve.

Sir, I have spoken about the utilization of labour. There is no doubt whatever that this Government has been at pains to try to show that there is no discrimination in our employment practices and the utilization of labour in South Africa. But, Sir, even with that desire, one cannot condone the sort of performance put up by the hon. the Prime Minister in the interview which he had with a Mr. Buckley on behalf of an American television concern, because he either showed that he was lacking in knowledge of what is really happening in South Africa, which I cannot believe, or else he concealed the true facts of the situation from Mr. Buckley and his viewers. What he did succeed in doing, however, was to bring the credibility of his Government into question. He clearly sought to give the impression that pay discrimination in South Africa was based on differences in skills, not on skin colour. Mr. Buckley asked him, for example, about the gap between Black and White wages. The hon. the Prime Minister first spoke about wages in Brazil and India and then when Mr. Buckley persisted, the hon. the Prime Minister had this to say—

Then the Prime Minister goes on to say—

Mr. Speaker, that is correct so far as it goes, but is the hon. the Prime Minister really so ill-informed that he does not know of the different pay scales in the Government’s own provincial services for White, Coloured, Indian and Black doctors; for White, Coloured, Indian and Black teachers; for nurses of different races, to mention but a few examples? What sort of impression did the hon. the Prime Minister think he created? Then there was his further statement that “in general” the employer could fire lazy Whites and replace them with industrious Blacks. Mr. Buckley put this question to him—

The hon. the Prime Minister replied—

Mr. Buckley then said—

To this the hon. the Prime Minister replied—

Sir, I forgive him; possibly he could not think of exceptions at the moment, but when one thinks of the election manifesto put out by the Nationalist Party during this election, a document which confirms that “a White worker may not, to his detriment, be replaced by a non-White worker”, how can the hon. gentleman say that? When one thinks of the statement of the hon. the Minister of Labour, Mr. Viljoen, that no non-White will ever replace a White so long as there are Whites available for the job in question, both in the Brakpan by-election and in Parliament, then one’s mind boggles at the thought of the hon. the Prime Minister having made these statements. Just imagine, Sir, what the effect of all this is going to be on people who know; on the foreign diplomats reporting to their governments from South Africa, and, believe me, they know what the situation is. Can they be blamed if they conclude that the credibility of this Government is going to have to be very carefully assessed? That is the trouble, Sir. You know, Sir, it is serious enough if your word is not believed in the field of public information. It is far more serious when you lose credibility in your international relations.

That, I deeply regret to say, is what has apparently happened in the Government’s negotiations with the United Nations over South-West Africa, a territory whose future is a vital element in the future security of South Africa. This charge, Sir, is made not merely by way of general resolution by the United Nations as a whole, but specifically by some of those very countries on whose moderation and goodwill we must rely. Sir, the Government seems to have failed to take the country into its confidence over the reasons for the breakdown of its talks and over the grave consequences this may have, and I think it is my duty to raise these matters in the House. What is the position today?

On 12 December 1973 the Security Council decided unanimously, by 15 votes to none; to put an end to its discussions with the South African Government. The Western countries, including Australia, France and the United States of America agreed that this action was justified, for three reasons: On the grounds of their disappointment and frustration at South Africa’s ambiguity, at its continued use of pious expressions of belief in self-determination and independence without giving proof of any intention to repudiate its repressive policies, and at recent developments such as the public floggings in Owambo.

These expressions are quite moderate compared with those of some of the other members of the Security Council, but I think they convey the sense well enough. The negotiations have broken down, they say, because South Africa’s words do not mean what they pretend to mean, and because South Africa’s actions are in clear conflict with the assurances given. What does that mean? Not to put too fine a point on it, it means that the South African Government stands publicly accused of dishonesty in the conduct of its negotiations. I said “publicly accused”. Now, this accusation can have such catastrophic consequences that I think it is essential to establish whether this Government by its diplomatic clumsiness and misconduct has caused a breakdown in the most crucial area of our foreign relations and thereby placed South Africa in jeopardy, or whether it has not. I do not think that I overstate the case when I say that that is what the Security Council’s charge amounts to. Now, I want to make it quite plain that I do not see it as my job to say whether the accusation is founded or not. It is not my job to act as prosecutor or judge in the Government’s dispute. [Interjections.] No, I am solely concerned with the Government’s obligations concerning South Africa and South-West Africa and its responsibility for our security. It is the Government’s responsibility to tell us, and I hope it will do so today, what the situation is. But it is my business—and I am going to do it—to bring this matter to the attention of this House, to identify the nature of the accusations, to make their real implications known, and to demand an answer from the Government. If the Government had been more frank and less complacent it would probably not have been necessary for me to do this.

What is the first major cause of complaint? It is that the Government has given the Secretary-General of the United Nations the assurance that the wishes of the whole population of South-West Africa would be fully respected in regard to its future constitution and that it had no intention of imposing any particular system upon it, but that in practice the Government is continuing to impose its own policies. Sir, let us make the conflict of interpretation clearer, because I believe it is a conflict of interpretations. The Government has given the assurance to the Secretary-General that any exercise of this function of determining the wishes of the population will not be compromised by any existing political or administrative arrangements. Yet in the explanatory memorandum which accompanied the Bill introduced last year for the development of self-government for the Native peoples of South-West Africa it was specially stated—I drew the attention of the hon. the Prime Minister to it—that the Government re-affirmed, inter alia, its oft repeated assurance that it was its firm and irrevocable intention, as in the Republic, to lead individual nations in South-West Africa and the Eastern Caprivi to self-government and independence. In the debate I drew the attention of the hon. the Prime Minister to this conflict between the assurance given to the United Nations about the integrity of the Territory as a whole and the Government’s persistence with the concept of individual nations each in their own territory. I warned him of the danger in the negotiations with the United Nations. He gave me a firm assurance that my warnings were groundless. Since then two things have happened. The first is that the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and his officials are openly and systematically continuing to apply the Bantustan policy just as promised in the memorandum: “... as in the Republic ...” and I believe with irrevocable effect. I think the hon. the Prime Minister owes this House an explanation. Either he stands for one policy and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development for another one or the accusation by the United Nations has some substance. The second thing that has happened is that despite the hon. the Prime Minister’s assurance to me in 1973 that the Bill would not prejudice his negotiations with the United Nations, we find in fact that it played a substantial role in the collapse of the negotiations. The Security Council’s resolution of 12 December confirms that this was so. Now where are we? There is also another charge. This concerns political freedom in the Territory. In 1973 in the Geneva talks the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs gave an express assurance that the Government recognized the need, subject to the requirements of public security, for freedom of speech and political activity, including the holding of public meetings. The principle would be: Equal application to all political parties in the Territory. The Government recognized the need. What is the difference between recognizing a need and honouring a principle? Proclamation 17 of 1972 has remained in force making it impossible to conduct political activity in any normal and peaceful sense of the word. The proclamation has not been repealed. It can certainly not be said to have equal application to all political parties in the Territory. Have certain political figures not been detained, eventually released to the tribal authorities and publicly flogged and humiliated? Was this done in the interests of public security; if so, how can it be reconciled with the recognition by the hon. the Prime Minister of his full and overriding responsibility for the Territory? How can it be reconciled with the reported statement of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development that—

The world-wide publicity and protest to which these incidents gave rise and the Government’s pious protestations of impotence have been without doubt a major cause of the breakdown in those negotiations. What were the results? These are the main charges and they have lead to a breakdown in the negotiations which we had all hoped would lead to a solution of this problem in South-West Africa. In September the United Nations will again convene in General Assembly and there will then be pressure on them to enforce their will in respect of South Africa. The time is short and the dangers are great. The hon. the Prime Minister can no longer conduct dialogue with the Secretary-General, but he has not told us what his position is in respect of South-West Africa. I believe we have a right to know in this House, we have a right to know in this debate exactly how, if at all, he is going to apply his mandate from the electorate, his blank mandate from the electorate because it has never been put to them. We have a right to know how he is going to apply this mandate to the solution of this major and pressing issue. I say South Africa can no longer afford performances of this sort, especially at a time when the dangers to the north of us and the situation in a dangerous world make it absolutely essential that we should retain the credibility and the friendship of the countries of the Western world. Because we felt that so strongly, also because we felt that these things were morally right in themselves, we have taken certain policy decisions which have had a great deal of publicity. I want to mention certain of these here today, because they are so important in respect of human dignity and that discrimination on the grounds of colour alone which has played so big a part in building up tensions and creating frustrations in our country. Why I am mentioning them primarily is because I believe they involve initiatives which this Government could have taken without sacrificing any fundamental principles of its policy, if only they were prepared to adapt and keep pace with the realities of the modern world.

The first concerns the achievement of a just and fair society aiming at the removal within its federal framework of all discrimination on the basis of skin colour alone, but allowing for personal choice in that people who do not want to mix or those that do, will be provided for. This question of discrimination on the basis of skin colour alone is obviously fundamental to our race relation problems in South Africa. Therefore it deserves everyone’s attention. As far as we are concerned, we believe in equality of opportunity in the economic field. We believe in personal choice in social matters and in a federal framework in the constitutional sphere in which each federal unit will have autonomy in the management of its own affairs and will be free from domination by any other group. It is the essence of federation that there should be free political expression without the domination of one group by any other and that it should be coupled with a sharing of power and responsibility. We believe that our framework gives adequate opportunity for all these things without offence to anyone. In the social field we have made it clear that we will not tolerate petty apartheid, but that we stand neither for compulsory separation nor for compulsory integration. We believe that the right of personal choice is an essential element of the recognition of the dignity of the individual.

As a matter of fact, you stand for nothing.

The hon. the Prime Minister says I stand for nothing, but how different would our position be in respect of the Cape Coloured people if he and his party could say that they were moving in this direction?

We shall come to that.

I hope we will come to it. I hope the hon. the Prime Minister will remember it when he negotiates with the Cape Coloured people. There is a second matter which I want him to remember when he talks to the Cape Coloured community, namely that we stand for education aimed at free and compulsory schooling for all races. We already stand committed to spending twice the percentage of the gross national product that is at present being devoted to education. We accept quite freely that compulsory schooling cannot be introduced overnight, but we have a definite commitment to work in that direction. Not only is this a matter of vital importance to every individual in South Africa, but its effect also on the productivity of labour could be tremendous. We live in a world where science and technology are playing a more and more important part and where we need a sophisticated labour force to keep up with the industrialized states of the world. Once again, here is a field in which the Government could have acted. But, Sir, what has happened? It has become a slave of its own ideologies. Do you remember the days, Sir, when the amount to be spent on Bantu education was limited to R13 million a year out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund? This Government was not prepared to make any further contributions. Looking back, how different would things not have been, had they had a different policy at that time? If free and compulsory education could have come and greater education facilities had been made available more rapidly, what would it have meant in the sphere of greater productivity of our labour force at the present time? What would it have meant in respect of our ability to compete with the outside world?

I spoke of wasteful employment practices. This brings me to the third point on which we achieved unanimity, and that is the specific rejection of job reservation and the acceptance of the logical consequence that some Whites may have to work under the direction of non-Whites, something that is already happening under this Government. Here in South Africa at the present time, particularly in the Transkei, a member of the family of at least one member sitting on that side of the House has had to work under the direction of a non-White. Coupled with this would go the extension at a reasonable pace of all training and employment opportunities now enjoyed by the more advanced group to all race groups. One need not say much about this, save that to ensure rapid economic growth it is essential to give our people opportunities to progress and to earn a fair share of the wealth of the country. That is why we say that statutory job reservation is not only a form of mediaeval guildism, but that it has no place in a modern economic society. Needless to say it has constituted one of the main platforms of criticism against us from outside South Africa. Why could this Government not have moved openly in this direction? They have been doing it clandestinely, we all know. Why do they not move openly in this direction, give us the advantages and the credit in the outside world, and see the definite changes that could come as a result?

Then there is a fourth matter which concerns once more the urban Blacks. It concerns their industrial and their business rights when they are permanently settled here in our big industrial complexes. So far, their business rights, their rights to establish industries, have been limited to their own areas and subject to the most severe restrictions. Surely it is time that enterprising members of these great urban communities should be encouraged to establish much needed services in these vast dormitory towns. Since they form a permanent part of these industrial complexes in which they live, surely they should have the right to own and operate industrial or commercial enterprises in those commercial complexes just as other communities have. In promoting their welfare, we would merely be enhancing our own. Such a development would conform to our philosophy, the philosophy of recognizing them as permanent, allowing them things such as home-ownership, undisturbed family life, a say in their own local affairs and the emergence of a Black middle class. Surely steps in this direction would not only be what is morally right, but would also be an insurance against the dangers that are presently inherent in the existence of rightless, rootless proletariats existing in the neighbourhood of our big industrial complexes who are denied everything other than ‟temporary permanency” by the policies of this Government.

Sir, I have only mentioned four issues. They are all matters we should like to see implemented immediately and these are initiatives that could be taken by this Government, I say once again, without any fundamental sacrifices of the principles underlying its policies. They are all practical adaptations and realistic amendments. In fact, I believe there are many members on that side of the House who would be prepared to see action taken in these directions at once. I want to tell you a secret, Mr. Speaker. Sometimes I count the hon. the Prime Minister amongst them, and sometimes I do not. His trouble is that he is held back by the violent differences of opinion that he knows, and I know, exist within the ranks of his own party, and his fear of an electorate which has been subject to indoctrination for the last 25 years, and the hon. gentleman knows it. I want to say that I do not envy the hon. the Prime Minister his problems. Common sense demands ... [Interjections.] The hon. gentleman laughs, but let us look at his dilemma. Common sense demands that he moves in the direction which I have indicated, but the rigid ideology and prejudice of his own members are restraining him. Make no mistake, I do not underestimate the strength of that ideology and prejudice in the ranks of his party, but neither do I estimate the strength of the forces for change in South Africa. They are going to force him to come to decisions, decisions which he did not take during the election. By contrast I believe that we on this side of the House will weather the storms and weather the challenges without leaving them to do it ...

Talking about challenges, just tell me who is challenging whom?

The hon. the Prime Minister asks who is challenging whom. I shall tell the hon. gentleman what is happening. The force of events is challenging the stupidity, the stubbornness and the obstinacy of the present Government to change its policies and to do something practical and realistic in the interest of South Africa.

Hear, hear!

I am going further than that. I say that this party will weather those challenges and storms because of its shared and deep-seated sense of South African patriotism, a South Africanism which can survive clashes of personality and differences of opinion just because it is deep-seated, just because it is non-exclusive and just because it reaches out at all times and on all levels to embrace all people who share a love of and a loyalty to this country. Because there is that deep-seated sense of patriotism, it has coloured our attitude to the decision of the South African Council of Churches if I am to believe the newspaper report of the resolution. Because this matter is current, I think it is right that I should make available to this House the statement that I issued in that regard today. I said—

1. (1) We believe it is the duty of every South African to assist in the defence of our country against aggression including terrorism and that the encouragement of conscientious objection to this duty would only serve the course of violence;
2. (2) Changes in South Africa must be brought about by peaceful and constitutional means and without external interference; and
3. (3) The defence of South Africa and opposition to terrorism is not an issue between the Government and ourselves and it is important that not only South Africa, but all who seek to harm us should be left in no doubt on this issue.

I have said that we are a truly South African party—I believe we are the only truly South African party because not only have we always stood for the closest possible bond between English- and Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, but also all who belong and have belonged to this party have recognized and will continue to recognize that South Africa is a multi-racial country in the full sense of that word. We have recognized that South Africa is blessed with men and women of diverse backgrounds and of different colours and creeds. We of this party are dedicated to making this country their home and the home of their children and their children’s children. When I speak of a home, I mean everything that “home” should mean to a man—where no one is a despised relation; where everyone, especially the weak, enjoy the protection of justice and compassion; where no individual’s rights are trampled upon by others; where the aim is that all will have a share according to their need; and where loyalty and service of free men. That is the cause that loyalty and service are the loyalty and service of free men. That is the grand ideal which has inspired our party and which has given us the right sort of philosophy to keep our thinking alive to the challenges of the new evolutionary forces at work in the world at the present time. That is not the philosophy of the party opposite.

Better join the Progs.

That is not the philosophy of the Government and least of all of the Chief Whip. They have an entire different philosophy. For them sectional nationalism is more important than South Africanism, and they know it. For them South Africanism does not embrace the non-White races. The only important contribution to political thinking they have made in the last 25 years, the theory of self-determination for South Africa’s indigenous peoples, has been soured from the start by excessive emphasis on those aspects that overtly contributed to the insulation and privileged position of the Whites; and has evidenced all along the line the Nationalist Party’s lack of concern for the dignity and right of people of colour. What is the result of that? It is simply that the policy of this Government has failed lamentably to meet either the needs and aspirations of the Blacks or to fit into the new order between nations, peoples and races in the world at the present time.

I believe that the hon. the Prime Minister is going to have insurmountable problems indeed to meet the new challenges with which he is faced. I look forward to his reply.

Mr. Speaker, one has a very high regard for a boxer who has been knocked down but comes back out of his corner making feeble little gestures which must create the impression of an attacking manoeuvre. Not only does one have regard for such a boxer, one also feels an intense sympathy for him, especially if one knows that some of his reputed supporters are secretly waiting for the knock-out blow. Surely there can be no doubt that, in spite of the solemn assurance of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition as to the unanimity within his party, it is only he who thinks so and no one else.

Discuss your own problems.

Let me tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that I do not necessarily find the evidence for my statement among the ranks of those on this side of the House. I would recommend him to read an open letter to himself by one of his former confidants and political associates.

The hon. Leader stated that they are known to be a South African, patriotic party. I do not want to call his patriotism or his South Africanism in question, but I do want to tell him that he should not take this side of the House to task in this regard. I want to tell him that the reasons furnished, in this letter to him, for Mr. Philip Myburgh’s resignation from the United Party, are to be found in the accusation that it seems, more and more, as if patriotism is not being accorded its rightful place by the hon. the Leader and his political associates.

Secondly, I want to tell him that it is easy to pay lip service to a principle or concept of South Africanism and nationhood. Who accuses the hon. the Leader’s party—and by implication him as well—of being the last to present itself as the exponent of these fine aspirations? None other than his former confidant. I leave him at that.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition demonstrated once again this afternoon that he has the undoubted ability to take a beating. He also proved that he has a tough tenacity of purpose, and while I want to compliment him on these particular characteristics which are personal qualities of his, I cannot, unfortunately, say the same of the tactics which he adopted here this afternoon. What is the substance of the allegation made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition against this part of the House, the Government? I think the essence lies in the accusation that this Government has become hidebound and has also failed to make the adjustments demanded of it by changing circumstances in the world and in our domestic situation. Let us analyse and examine the situation for a moment, examine it critically, and let us then compare what that side of the House and that Party, of which the Leader of the Opposition is nothing but the mere nominal leader, have done in this set of circumstances, with what the National Party Government has done.

If I may, I should first like to deal with the general position and after that the details. I want to do this in reply to certain points which he made.

I looked forward, and listened, with great interest to the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I want to say at once that his resourcefulness in formulating motions of censure and no-confidence is excelled only by one other characteristic of his, and that is simply his ability to present stale platitudes as newly-found arguments. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke of failure to cause changes to take place, changes which are compelled by circumstances. I want to say at once that of all of us in this House, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is most probably the best qualified to speak of change. The change of which he has first-hand knowledge is the change of dwindling numbers and of disintegration. In this regard we have the practical evidence before us. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana has once again presented us with it. The amount of interest in the United Party in Natal, where he is the power-house of his Party, the leader of that party in Natal, is demonstrated by the fact that 51 per cent of the voters voted between him and his opponent. A total of only 51 per cent of the voters went to the polls. In other words, 49 per cent of the voters did not even take the trouble to support either that hon. member or Mr. Gerdener. Surely no one is unaware of the one important fact which is that the hon. the Leader of his Party has been reduced during the past two decades from a powerful party to an ineffectual Opposition. Sir, the party represented by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and the other opposing group in this House, are competing with each other in their feverish haste to hold discussions with and to discuss other population groups. But, surely, Sir, the result of the latest election—and no one can deny that result—is irrefutable proof that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his people are not, in fact, speaking on behalf of anyone. Surely they do not have a mandate from their own voters to proceed with this venture. Sir, what right does that hon. member and his Party, and the other off-shoot which originated from it and for which he must accept responsibility, have to speak on behalf of any population group in the country whatsoever?

That is a rather poor argument.

Sir, they are not accepted by their own people and their own voters, but they are seeking acceptance by other people and by other nations.

That is not true.

Sir, it will not be the only time in the history of the world that people are used unwittingly as instruments of rebellion and revolution. The joint Opposition, as they sit there, are an insignificant factor in terms of numbers and support, and I am going to prove it. After all, the climate which had been created during the past few years, and particularly during the year preceding the election, was never more favourable for hon. members opposite. Surely the climate created for them by the Press was the climate of change in which they had a role to play. [Interjection.] Sir. the hon. member for Umhlatuzana will be afforded an opportunity of defending his achievements or his standpoint, or lack of either. The most naïve political observer is aware of one thing, which is that hon. members opposite do not see themselves—and this is the only point of view they have with which I agree—as an alternative Government, for they are, after all, competing with the other opposition group in the country, not to be the alternative Government but to be an alternative Opposition for one another.

Even your own people are laughing at you.

My own people appreciate my standpoint. Sir, if we look at world circumstances, which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition mentioned, then there is no lack of opposing forces; if we consider world circumstances there is no lack of destructive forces, but there is in the world and among hon. members opposite a need for creative forces, a need for creative ability. Sir, who would deny that in any country, and in our country as well, a creative ability and a creative force has to rest on certain foundations, and I maintain that that base, that foundation, is stability and order. And because this is so, those forces which seek to destroy are in fact uniting to eliminate this stability and order in South Africa. Sir, many unfriendly things are being said of the National Party, but no one will deny that in South Africa and in the Western world the National Party is the symbol of stability and order. [Interjection.] Sir, that hon. member should not talk of disintegration. He can do so with authority because he is experiencing it. But, Sir, there are people—and many of them are sitting in front of me here—who think that stability and order is an outmoded concept, who think that stability and order are not reconcilable with development—that stability and order are not reconcilable with growth, and in terms of the words of the Motion, not reconcilable with change. Sir, I maintain that the National Party Government has, in world politics, apart from the local scene, become the symbol of stable and orderly government, and that economic, political and social development has taken place on the basis of this stability, and that it forms the basis of confidence. In the words of the Motion I contend that this is a condition of change, but I want to say this. It is very easy for the hon. the Leader on the opposite side and his colleagues to speak in pontifical language of elevated ideals, but I want to sound a note of warning: We should not through the language in which we speak create expectations which are left unfulfilled, or which are of necessity incapable of fulfilment, and that would affect the essence of order and stability, which is a condition of the meaningful change of which he spoke. Sir, the real reason which makes a mockery of the motion of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is that it has in fact been the National Party which has during the past 25 years continually taken the initiative in changing South Africa in a constructive manner, and bringing about this change.

But in the wrong direction.

At least it has not been in a retrogressive direction, such as the one represented by the hon. member opposite. In this process the National Party has developed South Africa into one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and with this I am not suggesting that we do not have financial and economic problems. I am still coming to that, but what I do want to assert is that the benefits of this prosperity, this progress, did not remain confined to a specific group of people. As a result, the benefits of this development and of this prosperity have fallen to every population group in the country. Sir, who would deny that the standards of living of all the people in this country are higher than those of other countries whose policy is held up to us as a pattern in South Africa? But this constructive change which the Government has brought about in its own time and in its own tried and tested way, is obviously not the type of change which hon. members opposite have in mind, which the joint opposition has in mind. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition is apparently naïve enough to think that this Government—and this I want to emphasize—will allow itself to be stampeded by coercion from within or without, or by the ideologically straying Young Turks in his ranks, who might as well be Progressive, or by the English-language Press. Sir, the public has rejected them, their policy of helter-skelter changes for the sake of change and not for the sake of development. Sir, if one listens to the arguments which are being used here and elsewhere, one would honestly say that the mandate this Government received was to change its policy, while the mandate which it actually received was to implement its policy to its full consequences.

The hon. member for Umhlatuzana is a follower of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He has just fought an election and I want to ask him: What accusations did he make against his opponent concerning the position of the Indians in Natal? Who but the hon. member sitting there sees in the Indians a threat? And then we are forced to listen, Sir, to lip-service to the concept of human dignity. Then we are forced to listen, Sir, to the accusation that the National Party Government does not have respect for the human dignity of other people. The National Party has never exploited the rights of other people for personal gain, politically or otherwise. Secondly I want to say that those local authorities that do little or nothing to provide services for or satisfy the needs of other people are not controlled by the National Party. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana ought to know that.

You do not know what I said at the meetings.

I am discussing another aspect now. The hon. member ought to know that. If he would open his ears and listen, he would know what I am talking about.

Sir, at least South Africa is fortunate in that, in the midst of the complicated ethnic and group structures in its population, it has a Government which, in spite of what other members may think of it, has a policy which it is bringing to fruition step by step, but not under coercion. This it is not doing under coercion from within or without. This it is doing in accordance with the requirements of the South African demands. Sir, it would be a tragedy if South Africa were to be governed by a party or any of the groups opposite. This applies to them all, Sir. If it should happen that this country were governed by opposing factions and groups which are totally obsessed by a mania for change, and which are irretrievably adrift, tossed about by every little breeze that blows, then I know what would happen to South Africa.

I shall tell you, Sir, what would happen to South Africa under such a régime and in such circumstances. If such a party were to come to power, the only form of change we would experience in this country would be that change which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party is experiencing, i.e. the change of disintegration. In contrast to the accusations being levelled at it, the National Party is and has been the instrument of orderly and meaningful change in this country. Did the National Party not change the politics of South Africa? Did the National Party not change South Africa physically? Did it not change the housing conditions? Did it not change the social conditions of its people? Did it not change the economic life of the country completely? What are hon. members waiting for? For no other reason than to disguise their own inability.

As if nothing positive now existed in this country in terms of meaningful development, as if nothing positive existed in this country in terms of group and ethnic relationships, as if nothing existed in this country which they could in fact embrace. Why, if we are supposedly so patriotic, do we see nothing good in South African society and nothing in the development of South Africa which is deserving of appreciation? Surely these changes in the political and other spheres relate to the group character of the population structure, and have given shape and content to these group associations. None of us are responsible for the diversity in South African society. No one is responsible for the divisive factors which are inherent in South African society. No one is responsible for the conflict potential which results from any society composed of diverse elements. But all of us have a joint responsibility to deal with those problems. My Party does not stand accused by its members of not having done its duty in regard to these very problems. Surely these structural changes in the various spheres have to an increasing extent afforded the various population groups the opportunity of achieving a meaningful self-expression and identification.

I want to give warning that we should not, for political expediency, for petty political gain, and to score points and satisfy demands, get away from the fact that self-expression and identity is the essential part of the existence of every nation. I want to warn against gearing our domestic policy slavishly to react to goads and forces or coercive measures from without which are not geared to the handling of the complex problems of South Africa, but which are geared to creating an unendurable and exploitable position in South Africa which has nothing to do with the handling of our problems and which has nothing to do with the complicated situation of the realities of South Africa. I want to repeat that these realities are not of our creating, but that they are our responsibility

Hear, hear!

I am glad the hon. member is saying “hear, hear’’. For 25 years his party has made no contribution. These forces are not interested in the health and welfare of the various population groups living here. Nor will this be the first time that people are unwittingly used as instruments to create such an exploitable position in the country. After all, we have had experience of the situation in South Africa. The United Party, and the wild off-shoot originating from it, the Progressive Party, have recently abused the term “change” to such an extent that this concept which is otherwise a useful one and which comprises the essence of our policy, has been reduced to meaningless clichés or slogans. To them it is a matter of a change per se. To them it is a matter of change as an objective, without any clear concept of what change they want or of what change could be applied constructively and positively in the South African situation.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council. I do not want to say very much about this, but I do want to ask him: Is a representative council for the Coloureds not a component of his federal structure?

That is quite a different council.

I am asking him: Is it a component, or is it not? And how is the voters’ roll for that council drawn up—separately or otherwise? The hon. the Leader laid a charge against this side of the House to the effect that we had not effected those changes required by the times. I want to ask him: Who should judge what changes have to be effected in the country? Secondly I want to ask him: Do the voters whom he represents in this country support his standpoint? And if they do support his standpoint, did the voters vote for this type of change which he is advocating? I also want to ask him whether this type of change which he is advocating, takes these complex group relationships into account.

On this side of the House the realization of the need for change is not a novelty as it is for hon. members opposite. I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition which other party in the history of South Africa has effected greater and more essential changes. That change in the modern world is the only constant factor is surely no invention of hon. members opposite, and it is no discovery to us. I maintain that it is the point of departure of the basic policy of the National Party. But, Sir, because we know that every change is not necessarily an improvement, it is for this side of the House not a matter of change per se but a matter of a course and a direction of change.

What is the change in the course?

I shall set out the course for you, since it seems the hon. member is still not aware of it. It concerns changes which go hand-in-hand with a positive direction. If we were now to test the various federal concepts advocated by hon. members opposite in terms of their workability in any country with a population structure such as ours, where is it working? Where is it serving such a set of complex inter-group relationships? Where has it brought meaningful development? I challenge hon. members to tell us. It is a matter, as I maintain, of changes which are positively orientated and which have to do with growth and progress in the various spheres of life for the various population groups.

Tell us about it.

I shall do so, if they would only wait a while.

Tomorrow?

I am still waiting for the Leader of the Opposition to say something. Sitting on that side of the House are a few people with fertile imaginations, if I may give them the benefit of the doubt. But unfortunately it is an imagination which borders on phantasy, and I want to prove this this afternoon. They are having phantasies about changes which have nothing to do with the reality of South African society. They are having phantasies about constitutional changes which bear no relationship to the actual balance of power in South Africa.

They are having phantasies about changes in the pattern of inter-group relations, changes which indicate that they have no concept of the deeply-rooted views of the various population groups of this country. They are having phantasies about constitutional notions which have no growth potential in the South African relations politics, and they know it. By doing so they are part of the pattern of the creation of expectations which cannot be satisfied. They are having phantasies about a handful of shadow boxers who are merely sparring partners, but who will never, in this demanding period of decisions, be in a position to take the responsibility for the implementation of those decisions.

Produce your proof.

The proof which I produce is the fact that the numbers of the hon. members sitting on that side have dwindled. The hon. members on that side will never be in a position where they will be confronted with their policy and the need to take executive decisions affecting the South African situation. The hon. members opposite think like an opposition, speak like an opposition and are doomed to be an opposition.

I want to refer to the accusation levelled at this side of the lack of change, and I can refer to the creative achievements of the National Party, to the way in which we have kept pace with the real needs of the time, and to the essential changes which we ourselves inspired, initiated and effected. The National Party does not have the laissez faire attitude of the hon. members on the opposite side, who only take decisions when forced to do so. The National Party is not governed by circumstances, but the circumstances are governed by it because it has the responsibility necessary to do so. The National Party has adopted a course, and although those hon. members may reject it, the voters have rejected them. The National Party has maintained its course and has indicated a clear direction in which to develop. It has laid down specific guidelines, in terms of which it has to take its decisions.

I am not implying that this party claims that it has in final, perfected and absolute terms formulated a clear destination for every component of South African society. The National Party has never made that claim, but what I do claim is that this Government, in contrast to the party on the opposite side of the House which is casting about in search of policies, has set its compass on the right course. If hon. members on that side ask me what this course is, I want to say that this course in the delicate, problematic sphere of relations politics, is separate development. I want to ask hon. members to show me another country which has, during the past 26 years, developed the ability to ensure order and stability in such a society as ours.

†I am convinced, and this conviction is shared by the people who sent us here, that it is only the National Party that is competent to govern our society and to guide our society on a road to a stable, just and prosperous future where all the people will share the benefits. My conviction is partly based on the remarkable achievements of the National Party Government in many spheres of civic life, not withstanding the pressures and strains on the international scene and notwithstanding the momentous changes and developments on the domestic scene. My conviction is based essentially on the Nationalist Party’s clear and realistic understanding of the many challenges, crucial challenges, which are facing us for the years to come. We are very much aware of our task to resolve the conflicts which are inherent in a society composed of different peoples. We are aware of the need to create opportunities for the development of individuals and groups in an ordered and civilized, prosperous society. However, I would contend, that, had it not been for this Government, none of us and least of all the other people, would have shared in the benefits that are derived from stability and order. There are many obstacles we are going to face, but the policies and the directions of the National Party, to which I have referred, are predicated on the following basic assumptions. I think one should repeat them for the record. Separate development has eliminated and will in future eliminate the domination of one group by another.

What about the Coloureds?

It will eliminate the causes of friction and unrest. The hon. member asks, “What about the Coloureds?” The hon. member for Umhlatuzana, in his election campaign, was talking of the possible dominance by 800 000 Indians ...

I said we should move away from domination.

That is right. That is what we are doing.

Secondly, separate development will create and has created opportunities allowing each major coherent population group to fulfil its own destiny in accordance with its own ideals, traditions and culture.

How will the Coloureds do that?

They are doing it now.

Where?

Proceeding on these basic assumptions the National Party Government in the past two decades took measures firstly to separate the various racial groups, thereby eliminating situations of inter-group contact which had given rise to unbearable tensions and untenable conditions—nobody can dispute that.

*Let me ask this question today: What effective political instrument of any significance did the Coloured and the Black people of this country have prior to 1948?

What do they have now?

I am asking what effective instrument they had.

†Secondly, nobody can deny that on these assumptions steps were taken which were positive and development-orientated, which brought benefits in every sphere of life to all the population groups and basically ensured the co-existence of people. Hon. members know that, as far as the Bantu groups are concerned, the various traditional homelands serve as the focal points of their respective independent nationhoods. They know that other constitutional instruments were created. In this way and by means of these particular changes the way has been and is being paved towards the evolution of constitutional structures in which, the common interests of all the inhabitants of South Africa can be safeguarded without destroying the specific interests of the individual groups of which South Africa are composed. Again, Sir, hon. members on that side must know this.

A future is envisaged—and who does not share this desire—in which no group will be swamped culturally, politically or economically by anybody else. This can be achieved by effective self-determination and co-operation. I would like to suggest to hon. members that, instead of going on wild-goose chases and trying to play with some sort of federalist system, they should come back to the realities of South Africa. In contrast to the policy of the National Party, the alternatives offered by the Opposition parties are not only vague and blurred, which is why they were rejected, but on close analysis they prove to be completely barren. It is a fact, Sir, that both the United Party and the Progressive Party are currently toying with their umpteenth experiment on federalist lines. They cannot even agree amongst themselves as to what the foundation stories of their system are. The articulation of the federalist system, which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the other Opposition members in this House present to us, articulation by major factions in their own parties—and this includes the Progressive Party—is so varied and vague that it eludes systematic analysis completely. In view of the poor record of this particular constitutional system elsewhere in the world, I think this prospect is for South Africa by no means encouraging. I say that South Africa and our South African society can hardly afford ill-conceived, utopian experiments.

*That is what hon. members now want to do.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked in what direction we are moving. A policy lays down guide-lines in terms of which a changing situation can be set in order socially and politically, thus ensuring stability and continuity. The National Party has proved during the past 26 years that it is capable of allowing constructive adjustments to develop in such a way that the changes do not get out of hand, but so that they can in fact be canalized in order to prevent chaos and create order. It is the task of the Government to cause this to happen by way of orderly evolution. I maintain that the National Party is the exponent of this, and is also applying its policy within the bounds of what is possible in our society. In my opinion the National Party is able to navigate the political ship of South Africa effectively and efficiently between the Scylla of petrification and the Charybdis of confusion—of which hon. members opposite are exponents.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition levelled an accusation at the National Party Government and said that, according to us, the only cause of inflation had been imported. No one has ever alleged that.

What about the pamphlet?

I do not think the hon. member for Durban Point should talk about inflation—he is merely a tangible example of it. No one has ever alleged that the rate of inflation which we are experiencing in South Africa is attributable only to imported reasons. In fact, if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had done his homework he would have known that we had said that it had been responsible for approximately 25% of our inflation. In the second place we said that the increase in food prices was an important factor in the spiral of inflation. We also stated that shortages which had developed were due to climatic conditions. But we went even further. We also said that there were various causes of inflation, depending on circumstances. The most important of these, at the moment, is cost-push inflation. But did hon. members opposite not advocate an increase in wages and salaries? Is it not also part of the policy of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party, as he told us only today, that they believe in equal wages and salaries? But surely there would then have to be a great deal more inflation. I want to warn against an over-simplified statement on a complicated problem. What the National Party did in fact say was that inflation was a world problem. If hon. members opposite have a monopoly of the necessary wisdom, why do they not solve world problems? But secondly, Sir, according to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party, the only reason for inflation is the labour policy which this country has been applying.

Where did he say that?

He said it this afternoon. It seems to me as if the hon. member does not even listen to his own leader; I do not blame him for not doing so. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that the reason for inflation in South Africa was our labour policy. He may correct himself if he wishes. But then, Sir, I put this question to him: What is the reason for the rate of inflation in other countries of the world, where the rate of inflation is far higher than here in South Africa and where such a policy is not being applied? I am asking him: Why has the government of America not contained inflation, and why are they at present experiencing the highest state of inflation in their history? Take England. Is it the labour policy which is bringing inflation in its wake? Sir, of course inflation is dangerous, but I want to point out that the first person to sound a warning in international circles that we would not solve world trade and monetary problems if we did not devote attention to the limits of inflation was our hon. Minister of Finance, Dr. Diederichs, and for that reason I do not think that when we debate among ourselves in this House we should simplify the problem as has been done here today.

Sir, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated that they are in fact prepared, in the changing circumstances, to make the policy adjustments necessary in this situation. He stated that they had, in view of this, taken certain policy decisions. I want to refer to a few of them. He said that they had decided that there would not be separation on an enforced basis, but that it would depend on personal choice, if I understood him correctly. Sir, I want to know who is going to exercise this choice, for are there not two or more groups involved in an association? If the Coloureds want to associate with the Whites in private schools, who takes the decision as to whether or not they may? I repeat the question: If the Coloureds decide that they should have the right to attend private schools, who is going to decide whether or not they may do so?

You did not listen.

No, I did listen. Sir, when the United Party was electioneering in Sea Point, what became of this sacred article of faith as far as swimming baths are concerned?

“Keep Sea Point White.”

[Interjection.] But I said, did I not, that the hon. member for Sea Point was an off-shoot of the United Party. He originates from them. [Interjection.] Sir, let us go further. In our schools according to what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, we shall now, according to this policy of voluntary choice, have to find a place for every group which does not want to do so and we shall have to find a third place for those who do. Sir, how does he want to bring order to this society of ours on the basis of such ill-conceived standpoints? If his standpoints are correct, why does he then want to allow free social association according to personal choice while he does not want to do so for franchise purposes? Why does he not want to base his federation on geographic foundations only, but also on racial foundations? I want to ask him: Why does he want to do this, or is he also afraid, or does he have an inkling, without wanting to admit it, of the political balance of power which is so delicate in South Africa?

Sir, I want to go further: Surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had an opportunity to fight an election; surely he participated in one. Did he announce this decision that he now advocates Bantu trade unions, while he opposes the Progressive Party on that score? In the second place he stated that he wanted to leave the question of whether the trade unions should be integrated or not to the trade union leaders. Is this not another blatant example of how a person who aspires to the government of a country, wants to shift his responsibility on to others? You see, Sir, the reason why the number of hon. members opposite have dwindled visibly is precisely because their voters know that they can only vote a party into power which is able to accept the responsibility of decisions, executive and otherwise.

May I ask a question?

No. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is interjecting. I think there is something he should look up. Perhaps I should quote it for the record.

I merely said that the Government could not, after all, take over the farming practice of every farmer.

I just want to tell the hon. member what Mr. Philip Myburgh said of him. The hon. member is tempting me now, Sir. He said that he had always thought that patriotism was a characteristic of his old party, but that there were now certain considerations which gave him serious misgivings as to whether or not this was so. What did he say? He said that the present main speaker of the United Party—I take it that is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout...

On what?

On foreign affairs. He said he was discussing South-West Africa and the Portuguese territories with an accent which sounded less and less South African. It is not I who said this. But, he said, when the British broke the weapons contract with us, there was a resounding silence. He then went on to discuss how the hon. member had during the past week expressed an opinion on this step in public which had been prejudicial to South Africa.

He has other motives, but you are too feeble to realize this.

Secondly he stated that participation in the Schlebusch Commission had been questioned for months in public by M.P.s. I do not want to discuss it now but this friend of yours until last week is calling the patriotism in question. He said it cast a shadow over the patriotism—I am not saying this—of the United Party which he could not endure; it would be more honourable to walk out now than to crawl before the reformers; and he said that those who are sitting here, are crawling before them. Then he went further. He said that he had always believed that the party stood for co-operation. He said so, and he was a member of your inner circle; he was a candidate on three occasions. What else did he say? Under the guidance of a group of reformers a decision has to be taken to give meaning to this concept. What happened then? [Interjection.] But then they must not accuse us of sectional behaviour. They must look to their own members who are experiencing this in their own ranks. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated that their poor achievement in the election was not because they were without a policy, not because they were without a leader, not because they were undergoing a crisis of confidence, but because the people wanted to express their disapproval of their internal problems in regard to policy. Sir, surely this is a compliment to the people who sent us here. Of course the Progressive Party has made progress at the expense of the United Party and its leader. But why? Because people are looking for confidence. The people are looking for responsibility. Sir, if there is one thing that characterizes the United Party, even now, then it is that it is undergoing forms of crisis. It has a leadership crisis, it has a policy crisis and it has a crisis of confidence, for they do not trust one another. It is very easy to water this down by trying to sow dissension on this side of the House. I challenge the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to bring me one member of this party who differs on policy. I challenge him to bring me one. [Interjections.] Give me the names of a few members who have said this to him. [Interjections.] No, I do not think that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition can, in this respect, point an accusing finger at this side of the House. Surely the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has no right to do so, in view of the situation in which he finds himself, in view of the situation in which his party finds itself, and in view of the situation in which members of his party find themselves. I wonder whether the drafters of this new declaration of faith which had to be signed, signed it themselves, while other people had to sign it. Before I resume my seat, I want to point out that all of us should at least be motivated to seek and to find solutions to the problems confronting us, problems which will, to an increasing extent, continue to confront us. We must not, for the sake of petty political gain, harm the interests of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is very hard to believe what the hon. gentleman who has just sat down said in his last few words. He said we must not quarrel about small things, but that we must think of the interests of South Africa. What has he been doing for the last hour? The Government is faced with the biggest crisis about its policy that it has had in 25 years. It is faced with the position that its policy has been rejected totally by the Coloured people because it is unworkable. Here we have a leading Cape Nationalist being put up to take the hour, as he is permitted to do by the Standing Rules. In the whole of that hour he did not even touch upon the problem, the crisis, the crucial issue raised by my hon. leader. [Interjections.] If anything demonstrates the inability of this Government to deal with this situation, then it is the speech of that hon. Minister. As I say, the hon. gentleman is a leading Cape man. He is a Minister. What is going to happen? Is no one going to answer this question? Is the hon. the Minister of the Interior from the Transvaal going to have to say something about it? [Interjections.] All the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs could say in regard to this problem was to ask how the Coloured Representative Council would fit into the federal plan. If he had only listened to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition when he stood up, he would have learnt just exactly how this fits into the United Party’s federal plan. However, he spends his time here saying that the Nationalist Party is a symbol of stability and law and order. What kind of stability is this? What kind of stability is envisaged? It is a philosophical, temporary stability at all costs, a sort of pressure-cooker stability without a safety valve. The whole point of this is that we believe that our philosophy, in adapting to change, will create permanent stability and a permanent state where you can maintain law and order.

When you have an hon. Minister saying that they have never exploited individuals or groups for political purposes, one must point out that the whole of their philosophy and their policy exploits individuals and peoples and robs them of their rights and their dignity. They will in fact exploit anyone and anything if it will keep them in power, as I shall demonstrate. The Minister went on to say that no one was responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves; it is merely inherent in the situation; it is just our sort of historical problem. Let me ask him why the Coloured people are as bitter as they are now. That is not inherent in our probelms; the Government created that situation. Why do we have a potentially explosive situation with regard to the urban Blacks? You created that. It is not a product of our history. It is a product of the economic development under a Government which is blind and will not see further than its own philosophy, because it is unable to bring itself to accommodate reality. After 25 years of this Government that is where we find ourselves.

Only the Nationalist Party can govern the country, he says, and all the people will share in its fruits. Are the cultural fruits of this country, for example, shared in the Nico Malan Theatre in Cape Town where that hon. Minister comes from? Is job reservation another way in which all the people share the fruits of this development? Blacks in urban and other areas are not entitled to have their wives with them. It has to be done by means of a permit. Is that also an example of sharing in the fruits? There are different rates of pay for people who do the same work. Is that also sharing in the fruits? He talks about a federal plan being a utopian paradise and being impractical. But why then does the Nationalist Party apply a federal policy to South-West Africa? Why do they contemplate a federal policy there? For one reason, viz. because when the hon. the Prime Minister had to negotiate the future of South-West Africa he realized that he had to negotiate it on the basis that South-West Africa would have to be dealt with as an integral whole in which case, with the different race groups there were, so different from one another, he was forced to deal with the situation on a federal basis giving federal rights ...

That argument is not correct...

Of course it is correct. Either South-West Africa was to be treated as an indivisible unit with the many different groups in it or as a country where the different groups could in fact be cut out ...

I say your argument is not correct.

You can call it what you like, but it is in effect federation in the sense that you deal with the country as an integral whole in the first place. You therefore have to have a controlling body over the whole of it in the second place and you must give real exclusive rights to each group to deal with its own affairs. That is what he proposed to do in South-West Africa and if that is not federation then call it something else. Call it hooblahdooblah, I do not mind. But the fact of the matter is that it is the federal principle and the philosophy which is embraced by the United Party. We believe South Africa is an integral whole and that you cannot break it up. We also believe that the people in it cannot survive economically one without the other. That is what federation is all about and I do not care what he calls it. If he were to apply it in the same sense in South Africa as he does in South-West Africa he may in fact be able to deal with the situation which confronts him.

I hope we are going to get something from someone about the crisis that exists, because the crisis of the Coloured Representative Council is absolutely symptomatic of the Government’s inability to adapt itself to the realities of today or, indeed, of tomorrow. The facts of the matter are laid bare by the situation in the Coloured Representative Council, viz. that this Government has no realistic policy whatsoever and that if they do apply their policy it will destroy the whole fabric of our society in South Africa. Things are changing so quickly that unless you have a policy which you can adopt and adapt to the changing circumstances then you cannot be trusted with the future of this country.

That is the only field in which you beat us. You can change so quickly.

We can adapt, because the basis of our whole philosophy and the whole conception of our federal plan is such that it can adapt itself to the changing circumstances.

Perhaps you will now explain why you have changed.

I want to say that the situation is moving so quickly that that is why we have adopted this plan, because you have to adapt yourself and be flexible. That is precisely where the hon. the Prime Minister is in trouble right now, because he is unable to adapt and to adopt. That is his problem.

Is that what you wanted to say to us last year?

That may be. It may be that I say it better now. I am quite happy to be a butt for the ready wit of the hon. the Prime Minister, although I do not think it gets us very much further in this debate.

I think one must appreciate that the time is past when we can pretend that we in this Parliament can determine the future just by dispensing laws and without, in fact, finding out what people want and adapting ourselves to it. The time has arrived where we cannot make laws for people anymore from here; you have to make, as my hon. leader said, laws with people, not for people. The pressures and the forces within and without the country have to be accommodated here if we are going to survive.

The Coloured Representative Council is just the first warning-light. Apparently the Government does not regard this as so terribly serious at all. They put up the hon. the Minister of Tourism, who has done nothing about it. The hon. the Prime Minister says he is not going to move away from his policies. That is what he said about the Coloured crisis: “We are not going to change our policy”. He does not have a policy, Mr. Speaker. It is lying in tatters and shreds all around him. What is the policy with regard to the Coloured people? Even the hon. the Minister of Tourism could not give it to us. Sir, there is no such thing. After 10 years the Government has succeeded in making the Coloured Representative Council an institution which is incapable even of conducting the intimate affairs of the Coloured people. They, the Coloured people, utterly reject Nationalist Party policy. I think we must get this Coloured Representative Council in the right perspective.

Do they accept yours?

I will come to that. They utterly reject Nationalist policies—not the idea of a coloured representative council. What they reject is the philosophy and the policy of the Nationalist Government in which this Coloured Representative Council is expected to work. It cannot work within the framework of Nationalist Party policy and philosophy. Until they remember that they are not going to resolve this problem.

In 1962, when Dr. Verwoerd addressed the body that preceded this one, he said that the development of a Coloured Cabinet would provide for the management of all the affairs of the Coloureds. This would be a big programme, and it would take time. But he expected that it would be completed within 10 years. Ten years later, in 1972, it has proved to be so unsuccessful that the Government anticipated that something would happen. They actually anticipated that the council would refuse to allocate the funds for the services provided by the Coloured Representative Council. They amended the Act and gave the Minister the power to appropriate moneys himself, both in respect of a situation where the council did not appropriate moneys—for their own people, mind you—and also if the Executive failed to act. That was anticipated in 1972. And in the period of more than two years since then, what has been done by this Government? The hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs is sitting there. What is being done? If this was anticipated, why were consultations not undertaken? What have they done during these two years? The hon. the Prime Minister thought that he would just leave it to his children, and then they appointed a commission. But the fact of the matter is that there is nothing this Government can do about the situation, nothing at all, because their whole philosophy is too old-fashioned. The prerequisites laid down by the Government have ceased to have any relevance in the 1970s, not only in relation to the Coloureds, but in relation also to all the other race groups. What is it that the Coloured people want? They want what they call full citizenship, meaning economic and social equality. They want a proper control of their own affairs, and they want a voice in a central forum which makes decisions for all South Africans.

They do not want a proper control of their own affairs; they want one man one vote.

This gets better and better. First of all we had the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs being the main speaker on this most important subject and now the hon. the Minister of Justice ...

What do you know about it?

May I ask the hon. the Minister of Justice whether he has spoken to any of them. Has the hon. the Minister spoken to any of these people who represent ...

Now you are back to your old tactics again.

Have you spoken to anybody who represents ...

Have you spoken to anybody?

Yes, indeed. Does the hon. the Minister think I would talk if I had not?

What are your qualifications?

I shall tell the hon. the Minister that the difference is that I have spoken to some of them whilst the hon. the Minister has not.

Have you signed a declaration with them?

The Coloured crisis is but the beginning of other crises which are going to develop under this Government.

Let us look at the same attitude, the same inflexible attitude in respect of the Blacks. I do not think that there is any doubt that independence as a solution for Black people in South Africa in the urban or in the homeland areas is no longer a tenable proposition. Apart from the fact that it is a non-solution, especially with regard to the urban Blacks, it has been rejected by the Blacks by and large. The concept of independence as the hon. the Prime Minister has put it forward, has been rejected by the Blacks. Now we have the situation that the Coloureds have rejected the policy and that the Blacks have rejected the policy as well. The hon. the Prime Minister concedes that they do not want independence. They have indicated that they do not want independence in the form in which it has been dished up. This is common knowledge. The hon. the Prime Minister said in the past—and I want to quote from Hansard on the occasion when the hon. gentleman referred to this matter. I quote from col. 291 of Hansard of 8 February 1973. We had an exchange across the floor on that occasion. I said—

The hon. the Prime Minister answered “Yes”. I went on to say—

Now we have the situation that the hon. the Prime Minister says that they do not have to take independence so they now reject the policy and say: “We do not want independence as you want it”. Therefore the position will now remain exactly the same. Is this a tenable proposition? How can you govern a country when in fact the radical thoughts you wish to apply to the different race groups in the country they do not accept—and in fact they reject the whole concept of your philosophy? I say “the concept of your philosophy” because the effect of what the hon. the Prime Minister has said and the effect of the rejection by the Blacks of that policy is that they are now to remain forever as a permanent part of South Africa under circumstances, in conditions and under a policy, which can only become explosive and which can only lead to violence. The hon. the Prime Minister has lost the initiative with the Blacks and he has lost it with the Coloured people. If that is the position and if that is going to be the attitude of the hon. the Prime Minister, how can he possibly adapt to changes and how can the country possibly adapt to changes? You create a situation where you cannot take account of their legitimate aspirations. It means that, because the Government is concerned with its own fantasies, the realities and interests of South Africa will be ignored. It means that the way in which the country will be governed, will ultimately be that you will have to govern by force and not by mutual agreement in a constitutional framework which will ensure progress and will guarantee the rights of all. You cannot ignore the strident voices of the Black people, the Coloured people or the Indian people. You cannot pretend that they make no difference, and that you have decided that you are going to lay down the law from here, regardless of what they want.

What strikes one most of all in talking to the Black people, the Coloured people and the Indian people is not a demand for all the things which hon. members opposite, running around the country, frighten the electorate with; what they want, basically and in every case, is some respect for their dignity as human beings. It is almost impossible to accord that dignity if you follow the policies of this Government and apply the laws they make in the manner in which they are being applied. This is the basic dilemma which faces the country and which faces the Government.

If the Government were to concentrate on those matters which we have in common rather than concentrating on the differences between the various groups, I think there might be some hope of this Government eventually being able to accommodate the situation that exists. In fact, the reality is that we have more in common than we have differences. So far as the country is concerned, what we have in common is that we are all here. What we have in common is that we all belong to the same economy and that we cannot economically exist one without the other. What we have in common—and I believe it is still there—is that we all have a deep love of the country called South Africa. What we still have among the Blacks, the Coloureds, the Indians and the Whites is a patriotism for the country which they believe is theirs. We agree that these are all different peoples, but if we would only accept the realities of those things which we have in common, perhaps there would be some hope. To put it bluntly, we believe that all the peoples living in this country have a common destiny together. In the greater South Africa, you must accommodate those differences and build together on the basis of that which we have in common. This cannot be done in any other way other than on a federal basis. For the reasons I have given, we can remain one country on a federal basis and we can accommodate the different race groups and give them real power over their own affairs; we can provide a vehicle in which there will be real consultation the one with the other, and also because it is flexible.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Is that possible with this Parliament having a veto according to your policy?

Of course it is possible: it is not possible without having this Parliament, in my view, because this Parliament is now sovereign. This Parliament will regulate that federal scheme and it is necessary that this Parliament should have that function.

And it must retain that veto right?

What do you call a “veto”? I do not know what the hon. the Prime Minister means. The White Parliament plays a most necessary part in that scheme in developing the whole scheme. Let me be perfectly frank—I have said this before: If one were to anticipate that the White Parliament would remain there forever, the whole conception would be a fraud.

As long as it is there, it will have the veto right?

As long as it is there, it is the regulating force. This is another big difference between the hon. the Prime Minister and ourselves. We do not believe that you can say: “Here is a scheme; this is what we are going to have; this is our dispensation for the future, and you will take it or leave it; it will work or it will not work”. That is not the way we do it. We believe that you have to accommodate the future; you have to negotiate the future, when it concerns other people, with those people. You do not dispense it and simply say “that is what you are going to get”. The role of the Parliament in that federal scheme is to ensure that things do work smoothly, to see that if it is possible for that federation to blossom out properly, that it can be done, and we believe that it is our duty to see to it that it can be done. By the same token, however, you cannot lay down any programme for the future in 1974 and say that this is what you are going to do and that this is going to be the final picture. The final picture will be one that will be negotiated with the people who are going to be accommodated in that federation. Because it is flexible, because a scheme of this nature must inherently be flexible, it provides for a negotiated solution which will be the reality of the time. What we have experienced today on the part of the hon. the Minister of Indian Affairs, is a situation of complete atrophy so far as this Government is concerned. It was a situation where you had this almost prehistoric attitude, an almost prehistoric, monolithic monster impeding any change in this country, bogging down the country’s future, an attitude of mind that is incapable of seeing anything except through the Nationalist Party’s glasses. They cannot see things any other way. I want to predict that they will die like all the other prehistoric monsters died, like the dinosaur died. The dinosaur died because he was unable to adapt to change. I fear, however, that this Government will by its actions cause this country to die.

I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister to request one of the hon. members on his side to stand up in these urgent times on this urgent issue and not ask us how we are going to do various things when we are in government, but to tell us what they are going to do about this crucial issue now and whether they are prepared to change their attitude in any way at all.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat said that the hon. the Prime Minister had lost the initiative. If the hon. member thinks that he has taken the initiative today, I want to tell him that it would have been better if he had never done so. He did not get into his stride. I do not know what he wanted to say. What is interesting is that after an election was held in April, we now have this silly debate in the month of August 1974, after certain cardinal matters concerning the future course to be adopted in South Africa have been pronounced upon time and again. I want to go so far as to say that they think what South Africa is busy with is a joke. During the first few seconds of his speech the hon. the Leader of the Opposition gave one the impression that he was at last going to have something sensible to say when he let on to a certain extent that he knew what was happening in the outside world. But then his channels of communication suddenly broke down. Once again everything collapsed around him and time and again we had to hear the same things: What about the Coloureds? What about this, what about that? They say we are the Government and we have to find the solution, but did they not tell the electorate that they were the alternative government? Or have they now decided that they can never govern or never want to govern? When we debate policy against policy here, we have the right to ask them what it means and implies. We have the right to ask them what the rights of their federal parliament are which they want to have established. We have the right to ask this of them and they must give us a reply. They may not come and tell us that is is what it is, that they gave us the reply last year, or that they gave kindergarten lectures on the matter. They must reply to it.

This afternoon I should like to confine myself to a certain extent to what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said about South-West Africa. He knows very well that this is a thorny topic, but he has been put up by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to drag South-West into a debate in which it does not really belong. But if he thinks that we shall shrink back from that, then I just want to put a few questions to him with reference to his accusations against the Government. He said that the negotiations with Dr. Waldheim and UNO had been terminated as a result of this Government’s lack of insight. He levelled the serious charge that the Government’s credibility was involved; he levelled the charge that nobody knew what course the Government was adopting in connection with South-West Africa. He created the impression that hide and seek was being played and that certain things were being concealed, that one story was being told here and another story overseas. He referred to a number of countries that had allegedly voted for further negotiations with the South African Government to be terminated, and the reason why those countries had allegedly voted like that was the Government’s uncommunicative attitude and its inability to furnish replies to certain questions. I want to read out to him what Dr. Escher reported to UNO; he said—

This is what reported by the Secretary-General’s personal representative in mid-November 1972. By 30 April of the next year the Secretary-General’s report was submitted, and then the main discussion with the South African Government were over. However, shortly before that date Dr. Escher still said that the discussions should continue. What does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition have to say about that? Was it in order up to that stage? Did the South African Government show good faith act satisfactorily until November 1972? After Dr. Escher’s discussions something inexplicable happened all of a sudden, an event which made countries decide to vote against the Government. This is the kind of argument one gets from people who are not prepared to read their documentation and to make a real attempt to ascertain what happened in U.N. What is more, an Opposition member accompanied us on our visit to U.N. last year. The Government invited the former member for Parktown along with me to the U.N. session, and he was after all M.P. until the election, if I remember correctly. Why did they not ask him what had happened there? He could have told them a great deal. He could have told them what had actually happened there and why those negotiations had broken down. Why do they not ask him? Or is it no longer worth consulting him now that he has lost his seat?

He is not reliable any more.

An accusation has been made here that the South African Government does not state clearly what its policy is. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to it when he made certain charges, and after him the hon. member for Durban North rose and spoke about a federation as though the Government were being forced to propose a unitary state, a federal policy, for South-West Africa, and when the Prime Minister reacted to that, he did not even realize that he was on the wrong track. In February 1973 the hon. the Prime Minister gave detailed replies in this House on this matter. Are they to be repeated now, and how many times are they to be repeated before they are understood? When the Prime Minister was asked whether a given system was to be introduced there—be it a federation, a commonwealth or whatever—he replied—

It has been said time and again that all options will be open to them. I quote again from the Hansard of 19 February 1973. On that occasion the hon. the Prime Minister said—

Is that not clear? He went on to say—

What is obscure in that? Where does the hon. member for Durban North see in it a standpoint that it is the intention that one has to treat the territory as a federal unit? How does he arrive at that? And when this is pointed out to him, he does not even realize that he is making a fool of himself. How much longer do we have to endure this kind of conduct on the part of the Opposition? Allow me now to quote from a speech made by the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was reported fully in the South African Press. This was said in U.N., and hon. members should please take note of it now. It was said with reference to the accusation that one story was being told there and another here. This is what was said by the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the General Assembly of U.N. on 5 October 1973, after an attempt had been made to prevent him from speaking—

And then the hon. the Minister went on and outlined once again the events in connection with the discussions and South Africa’s standpoints, and this was reported fully in the Press in South Africa and on the radio, but today the hon. the Leader of the Opposition comes along and he does not know what course we are adopting in connection with South-West Africa. To conclude this part of the argument, Sir, let me read from a publication published by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1967 in regard to policy—

This is virtually word for word what the hon. the Prime Minister said in this House last year and virtually word for word what the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs said and wrote at UNO. Then there is still a letter of 300 pages from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to U Thant in 1969. It was published and sent to all members of the House of Assembly. Here I have other documents dealing with the court case on South-West Africa and published by the Department of Foreign Affairs almost every year, as well as documents dealing with the South-West Africa question at UNO, and hon. members received them and were informed in full. Time and again hon. Ministers, the hon. the Prime Minister and representatives stated the policy at UNO; these statements and policy were reported, and when this publication was published in 1967, it was commended by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He said he liked it; it constituted good statement of policy. But today the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says it is too vague; they do not understand what is going on. Now what is one to do with such an Opposition, Mr. Speaker? What do they want? There is no other topic relating to the South African scene which has been reported on as exhaustively and in regard to which steps have been taken as openly and on which they have been informed as well as has been done in regard to South-West Africa. But this is thorny and delicate topic and after they have lost the election, and like bad losers they have dragged in this topic, despite the fact that it is a thorny and delicate one. I think the Opposition ought to be censured for this attitude of theirs in regard to South-West Africa. I think it is outrageous to take up such a standpoint. They have no grounds for doing so. I have now proved this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, unless he knows nothing about what happened in South-West Africa in the past. Over the years, since the time of Gen. Smuts, we have been building on a firm principle concerning South-West Africa in UNO. which has been upheld by the Government and which has brought it honour abroad in that it has not jumped about from moment to moment and from one stone to the other. It has steadfastly adhered to a standpoint, and that standpoint has been that the interests of the people of South-West Africa come first. What more do they want? But, no, for the sake of a little bit of political gain, for the sake of creating a little bit of atmosphere and raising a little bit of dust, sensational point has now to be made here of the Government’s credibility. But he did not even have his facts straight. His case fell flat completely.

But that is not all. I have said that for a few moments the hon. the Leader of the Opposition gave evidence of knowing in what a state the world was. It is true—in all earnest—that we are in a dilemma. The Whites of South Africa are in a dilemma. They are in a dilemma because they find themselves in the turbulence of a continent on which there are 350 million people in 42 states. There are 3,7 billion people in this world and there are more than 130 countries in UNO, an overwhelming majority of whom are hostile to us. We are occupying, one may as well say, a key position between two mighty oceans. The race for the southern point of this continent is going to determine whether the West—not only us, but the entire West with all its philosophies—is going to survive the next few hundred years. Will China have more success with its southward penetration than it has had up to now? If it could edge the West out of the southern point of Africa, then it would have the South Pole and control the route across the two oceans and would have isolated the West. Then everything would be over. This is a dramatic time in which we are living. We admit this. We admit this when we consider how technology has developed. We admit this when we see what the trend is everywhere, how subversion is becoming a norm and is being extolled. We see how man’s outward movement in cosmic space has made him a lonely being. He is searching for new objectives, moralites and ethics for himself. These are the times in which we are living. My question to the hon. members opposite is what chance they have with their colonial policy in such a situation. What chance do they have with their policy, which is based on the Cyprus model, while Cyprus is going up in fire and smoke? If they tell me that they did not have the Cyprus model in mind, I say to them that they did have it in mind. They can bring any other federation model. They can bring me any system of so-called qualified franchise—for that is, after all, what the federation ultimately is, something which is qualified so that one is restrained from realizing one’s full political rights. All these systems are inherently fatal. We are being told that we are old-fashioned. Can one picture to oneself their policy? All over Africa it was rejected with contempt and it is being denounced by the whole world. There is only one cry: “One man, one vote”, and to blazes with the rest. However, they say we are old-fashioned. They say they know what is going on in the world: that they are cognizant of world trends. But these world trends are repudiating their policy in anticipation. What they do not notice is that a party came into power here—let me put it this way—in a prophetic manner, and that this party had modern norms built inherently into its policy, norms which can be complied with if double standards are not applied. We would have complied with those norms, and I still say we can comply with them if double standards were not applied. I repeat that we shall be able to comply with the standards that may be set by the world, provided that double standards are not applied. Inherent in our policy we do in fact have the solutions which, if a uniform criterion is applied, can satisfy world standards as far as self-determination, human dignity and the emancipation of people are concerned. This is simply a fact. After all, have hon. members not heard how long ago the declaration dealing with the granting of independence to colonial peoples and people was adopted by UNO, something which has virtually become a norm for them and in which it is said that the franchise should be exercised in an unqualified manner? However, today the hon. member for Durban North droned on about their policy, which was derived from of the old colonial period, and then he accused us of an inability to accept change. He is completely out of step and behind the times. However, that is not the worst. Incredible as this may seem, they referred again—and I suppose we shall also hear this from hon. members of the Progressive Party—to practices degrading to man, as though this were our policy. I think there comes a time when we must tell hon. members opposite that we are getting tired of that They apparently want us to conduct debates in this House on instances of unmannerliness occurring in South Africa. I am not denying that they do occur, but I want to tell them, and I want to repeat this that it does not form part of the National Party’s policy to be unmannerly. Hon. Ministers on this side have repeatedly made appeals to the public. However, have we ever harped on provincial councillors from that side who are dragged before the courts because of certain sordid acts? Have we ever harped on the remarks made by a certain Sannie van Niekerk, a once well-known U.P. member? We have not dragged that kind of incident across the floor of this House. Therefore, if there are White South Africans who do not know how to behave themselves, I repeat: Let us stand together so that we may, by example and by deed, as the Government and hon. Ministers are doing, stamp out those elements. For every unsavoury incident dished up by them with scorn and malicious joy to be sent abroad so that we may be maligned and besmirched, I could mention advocates to them who are members of the National Party and who have defended non-Whites pro Deo without really being paid for doing so. I could mention farmers to them who, when their workers are ill, take them to doctors in their pick-ups, faster than Sandton’s ambulances can move. I shall bring them Whites in the rural areas who, when their daughters get married, make arrangements for their Bantu workers to attend the proceedings in church, without any row or fuss being made about those things of which we are being accused. And so I could go on showing you, Sir, what humanity and what appreciation Whites throughout South Africa—English-speaking people, Afrikaans-speaking people, farmers and others—have for non-Whites. But why do hon. members opposite not try to join us in stamping out these negative aspects? Why are they trying to suggest that this is an element of our policy and not of theirs? Do they want us to malign one another across this floor in 1974, before the world and the Black people, and do they want us to fight about whose policy is acceptable to whom or to what? Is the question before us not what is in store for South Africa in this alarming world and what we are to do about it? It would seem to me, though, that we are agreed that the future is going to be rough. Hon. members have gone through the election and I want to tell them that it is over. We are now going forward and we must steer our ship on a safe course avoiding the rocks. Let us therefore co-operate like statesmen, like people who are really concerned about the future of our children, on the basis and foundation of this party, because this is the mandate that was given us; there is no other. We shall have to carry through this mandate in order to survive. Why then do hon. members not put forward suggestions on how it is to be applied and at what rate it is to be applied. To think that in 1974 hon. members are repeating all the stereotyped, sordid and silly things that have been dished up here year after year! Do we not have a right to become tired of that? Have we not reached a stage where we can say: “So far and no further”? We are dealing with serious things and we see a world which is getting more confined for everybody, for hon. members opposite as well. We are aware that it is shrinking, that means of communication are increasing and that the world is getting smaller. We are aware of terrible problems facing us and of our dilemmas. There is not a single hon. member on this side of the House who talks about them lightly or laughs about them. Bring me an hon. member on this side who differs on one point of principle as regards the m ain objectives of our policy. Hon. members have referred to some of our National Party newspapers, but I want to ask them to bring me one that differs on the basic principles of the party. They may differ on matters such as the application, pace, etc., but bring me one which has carried on the way the papers have been carrying on with the United Party. Bring me one that has said our policy is impracticable. There may be differences between us and National Party journalists, but these are healthy debates which are being conducted.

In this changing world ... [Interjections.] ... yes, seeking our blood, but for reasons quite different from what hon. members are thinking—we are being confronted with major challenges. I want to ask hon. members opposite whether they are prepared to go as far as Rhodesia with their constitution. They are not even prepared to go as far as Rhodesia, but why then does Rhodesia have trouble? Were hon. members prepared to go so far as the Portuguese régime? And what has happened to them? Hon. members have no idea what the point at issue is in the outside world. After all, the Portuguese did not have an Immorality Act, so why then did the terrorists take up arms against them? Is it not possible for us to reach a stage where the United Party will gain some clarity on what powers really are at work in this changing world and what the object of those powers is? Then let us see whether it is not possible for us to have a measure of consensus in respect of those aspects of security which are a threat to us. While it is true that the world is getting smaller for us, that it is getting more malicious and more dangerous, I want to say that it is getting more dangerous for everybody. Just ask the Americans. In these balance-of-power shifts which are taking place between America and Russia on one hand and China on the other, it is not only we who are experiencing an explosive situation but, ultimately, everybody. The major question is not whether the big explosions are going to hit one, because there is precious little one can do about them, but how one can establish locally a policy which not only is viable, but also implies, in an orderly manner, the possibility of peace for all one’s people. I challenge hon. members opposite to point this out in their policy. Hon. members have been differing so much amongst themselves that they have become a watered-down little party. And then, in their audacity, they censure us for our alleged inability to adapt to a changing world. How ridiculous can a party become before it disappears, or how ridiculous does it have to become before it disappears? The National Party is aware of this modern world and of the changes taking place in it. As our leaders have said, we shall remove irritations as they occur and where necessary. He will do everything so as to give the peoples in South Africa a future. Granted, whereas we are on the one hand faced with a dark picture today, and whereas we have dilemmas on which this side of the House is deliberating and reflecting, one also has, on the other hand, an ideal and a dream. One has an ideal, a dream of a Southern Africa that could be inhabited peacefully, with a number of states which could co-operate with one another, economically and otherwise; in which water and power could flow back and forth and labour could be arranged internationally by way of contracts, and where knowledge could be diffused by the technically more highly developed groups amongst the technically less developed groups. One has a dream of a power-bloc balance which could develop, with economic co-operation and political peace, which could be an example to the world and which could play a dramatic role in world history by preserving the southern point of this continent from the nihilism of communism.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wonderboom made a wide-ranging speech. He directed his attention to various matters. I am not going to answer all the questions he posed, but I do want to ask him, when he speaks about a qualified franchise, what sort of franchise is he prepared to grant the Coloured people? They have no vote at all. His party is responsible for giving the Coloured people the kind of political representation they think the Coloured people deserve. Now this hon. member for Wonderboom has the temerity to come and speak about a qualified franchise, when he is prepared to give no franchise whatsoever. I want to ask the hon. member: How long does he think the Coloured people are going to be satisfied with that kind of treatment in South Africa? Already the Coloured people are giving the answer to his policy; they are rejecting it. Now he wants to know why we on this side of the House have the temerity to move a motion censuring the Government. We had a motion of censure in another semi-Parliament which the Nationalist Party has created. I wonder what the hon. member thinks about that.

It is with a certain amount of reluctance that I join in this debate. I happen to be a member of the Erika Theron Commission, appointed to look into the problems of the Coloured people. It will be some time before that commission reports, and I think quite rightly so, because an investigation in depth is being undertaken. It is being undertaken in a thorough way, and I have no doubt that when this commission reports, we will have the facts and the information we require to make it possible to create a better relationship between the White people and the Coloured people in South Africa. I would have preferred to participate in a debate at that stage. Unfortunately, two events have taken place which make it, I believe, necessary that I should participate in this debate.

In the first instance, I believe the prorogation of the CRC is an event of very considerable significance in the political life of both the Coloured people and the White people of South Africa. I believe it is an important event, and we in this House must be sure that we, the White people, who have the sole right to be in this House, take sufficient note of the seriousness of the message which the Coloured people have conveyed to us by the action which they have recently taken in the Coloured Persons Representative Council.

Then there is another important event, but perhaps not quite so important. There has been a reaction by the Minister of the Interior in respect of the policy of the Government in so far as it affects the Coloured people. If I read the newspapers correctly, it becomes quite clear that the Minister of the Interior has reaffirmed the Nationalist Party policy. I believe that when he did so, he had the authority of the Prime Minister to make that speech and to say what he did say. He made it quite clear that not now or in the future would Coloured people ever have representation in this House. I have no quarrel with the hon. the Minister’s statement. He is a leading figure in the Government benches, and he has every right to make a statement. But at the same time he knows that the Government has seen fit to appoint a commission to look into the problems of the Coloured people. I believe that, in making this statement, and offering no alternative or even making a suggestion about a homeland, possibly in the Transvaal, for the Coloured people—there is no option at all; it was a straightforward statement—the activities of the commission have been restricted to a certain extent.

There is another point I wish to make. If we look at the situation in South Africa today, we find that the Prime Minister too has rejected our policy of federation which offers the Coloured people very considerable advantages. The hon. the Prime Minister may react by saying that the electorate have also rejected it, but it makes no difference. Our policy offers real political rights to the Coloured people as opposed to the Nationalist Party policy under which they have no political rights whatsoever today. Quite rightly, and I think it is something which we could have anticipated, the Coloured Representative Council has in recent days also rejected the policy of this Government, namely the policy of parallel development. They have rejected the concept of a Coloured Representative Council as proposed and developed in terms of the policy of parallel development for the Coloured people.

The White electorate supported it.

We have an interesting situation now. The federal policy of the United Party which offers a real and meaningful alternative to the Coloured people is rejected by the hon. the Prime Minister, the Coloured Representative Council has rejected the policy of this Government and the hon. the Minister of the Interior says: “Never, not now or in the future, will the Coloured people ever have representation in this House.” What options do we have now; what can we offer to the Coloured people?

What do you offer them?

I did not hear what the hon. the Minister of Justice said ...

What do you offer the Coloured people? Do you want to give them representation in this Parliament—yes or no?

We shall give them representation in a federal assembly.

What about this Parliament?

I just want to say to the hon. the Minister of Justice that we are not debating my policy, but that we are debating the Government’s policy which has failed. In the light of this I am not surprised that the hon. the Prime Minister has said that this problem has become so difficult for the Nationalist Party that we should leave the solution in the hands of our children. But this issue is too important for South Africa. The hon. the Minister knows it and the Nationalist Party knows it. The question of the future of the Coloured people is too important and too critical to leave in the hands of our children. It is an issue on which there can be no further procrastination. The hour to take meaningful decisions about the future of the Coloured people in South Africa is now.

I must presume that the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs must have realized a long time ago that he was heading for the kind of trouble in which he finds himself today. He participated in a debate two years ago in which he had to amend the provisions of the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act, the Act which brought the Coloured Representative Council into being, in order to make provision for the very situation which has now arisen. Therefore he must have anticipated this position. My question to the Government is: If they knew these things were coming, if they knew the Coloured Representative Council was not going to succeed, if they anticipated the kind of trouble that they were going to run into, why did they not take the kind of measure that could possibly have made the Coloured Representative Council a workable proposition? I think this is a question the hon. the Minister must answer.

If we have to ask ourselves why the CRC has in fact failed, I do not think we have to search far to find the answer. The answer is simply that this Government, which represents white South Africa, has provided the Coloured people with second-class political rights. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations whether he agrees with me that at this stage in the history of South Africa the Nationalist Government has given the Coloured people political rights that can only be described as second class. It leads to the belief, almost a unanimous belief, amongst the Coloured people that they are being relegated to a position of second-class citizenship in South Africa by the Nationalist Government. That is what makes the situation so serious.

I believe that most of the members on that side of the House are prepared to agree with me that the Coloured people have a real role to play in South Africa, that they are looking for a better deal in South Africa and that they believe that the time has come for this Government, or any other government, to afford them something which I believe, they are entitled to, viz. full citizenship in South Africa. I think that we in this House, the highest authority in the country, must seriously and sincerely ask ourselves whether we can reasonably expect the Coloured people to be satisfied with the political situation and the socio-economic situation in which they find themselves today. I think we must be honest and say that we cannot expect the Coloured people to be satisfied with that situation. I want to say in all seriousness that if we agree that they should be satisfied with what they have got, we are being irresponsible and that we will be forcing good citizens to become agitators.

I believe this Government has been tremendously fortunate. During the years the Coloured Representative Council has been in operation, there have been many outstanding and patriotic Coloured people who have gone out of their way to cooperate with the Government in making the CRC a workable political and administrative machine. However, I believe the Government has failed most especially those Coloured leaders who attempted to make the CRC work. What has happened? The hon. the Minister, the department and the people concerned have not done those things which should have been done to make it possible for those leaders who were prepared to co-operate with the hon. the Minister to make the CRC a workable proposition whereof their own voters would have said: “We send you to the Coloured Representative Council to achieve the things we ask you to achieve.” Because they have not been given the tools, they have achieved precious little for their people.

The average Coloured voter today is consequently not interested in the elections. He is not interested in what goes on in the CRC because the Coloured people have not been able to achieve the sort of things they hoped their leaders and elected members would be able to achieve for them. I believe this Government has failed to do several things in respect of the CRC.

I think that first of all they have failed to do that which my Leader accused them of failing to do in this motion before the House, namely that it has failed to amend its policies to meet the challenges of a changing world. In respect of this particular field that I am discussing, I believe that the Government has failed to amend its policy, in respect of the CRC, to make it a workable and worthwhile institution to serve the interests of the Coloured people. Above all else, the Government has failed to recognize, in terms of its own policy—not any other policy but its own policy—that the Coloured people have advanced.

Let us be honest about this; there has been considerable advancement; there has been progress. The Government has however failed to recognize the fact that the Coloured people have advanced to a stage where they are entitled and can demand to be able to participate fully in the real development of South Africa and in the government of South Africa, and to have a real and meaningful say in the running of all those affairs which are of intimate concern to them. If one speaks to the average Coloured person today one finds that that person is deeply frustrated. This is because they are not getting what they believe to be a square deal from White South Africa.

I say that if we are to do more for the Coloured people, the sacrifice will have to be made by the Whites of South Africa because, if we are honest with ourselves, we must realize that the only people who can make a sacrifice are in fact the White people of South Africa.

Let us look at the application of the Group Areas Act. This is the sphere in which one finds the greatest disappointment, the greatest heartbreak, the greatest disruption in family life because these people are uprooted, for no good reason that they can see, and are moved from one area to another. I believe that in this particular field the Government has very largely ignored the needs and wants and aspirations of the Coloured people. Why did the Government not allow the CRC, if not initially then at some stage, a say in regard to the decision as to where a group area would be proclaimed? The department of the hon. the Minister of Planning is responsible for deciding where group areas will be sited, what their boundaries will be and so forth.

To what extent have the Coloured people been consulted when a decision has been taken in regard to where a group area would be situated, where certain people have had to be moved from an area where they had lived all their lives, to another area? Were they consulted? To what extent is the CRC allowed to decide where amenities such as beach facilities are to be located? What happens is that they are told: “That section of beach is for the Coloured people, there you may swim.” But they have never been consulted as to whether that region suits their requirements.

[Inaudible.]

Were they asked? These are the things that hurt the Coloured people today, i.e. that in the things that concern them intimately, they have never been consulted.

That is not what they are complaining about. They want representation in this House!

The hon. member must listen and then he will learn something. If the hon. member for Algoa listens to me, he will come right in politics.

Sir, the trouble is that when decisions are taken affecting what will happen to the Coloured people, where they will have to live, what kind of housing they are to have, it is always a fait accompli; the Coloureds have not been given the opportunity to participate in the making of decisions which will have a very real effect on their future. I will be the first to admit—and I have already admitted—that certain positive things have been done. There are many things that one sees that one is pleased about; there has been this progress. But, Sir, the failure of the Government has been not to take note of the progress that has been made and to develop it further and to give these people the rights and the authority which they so much wish to have. That is why we have an impasse at the CRC. Their own people, the people who have been co-operating with the Government, now realize that they can no longer support the policy set by the Government because it is not bearing fruit in so far as they are concerned. Promises which they expected to be fulfilled have not been fulfilled, and even these people today are voting against the Government’s policy. I notice that the hon. member for Parow is having a joke, but I want to point out to him that the Coloureds affect him very much.

He is joking while Rome is burning.

Yes, he is joking while Rome is burning. Sir, in the field of education, what rights have the Coloured Representative Council, even in comparison with a provincial council, which is a subservient body in the White political structure? They have far fewer rights than the provincial council. They can take no decision about the real education of their own children. At the present time every decision depends on the confirmation of the Department of Coloured Relations, which is headed by the Minister; his decision is final. It is not the decision of the CRC or of the leader of the Executive that counts. The final decision in respect of a matter like education is still in the hands of a White department; it is for them to say yea or nay. How long are we to wait before this matter is rectified? Can the Minister explain the fact that a Coloured teacher doing the same work as a White teacher receives a different rate of pay?

In the same school.

In the same school and with the same qualifications. I would like the hon. the Minister to tell us what is going to happen in this regard.

Then, Sir, you have another serious situation. In 1972 we in South Africa were spending roughly R460 per capita on education for White schoolchildren. The comparative figure for Coloureds was a paltry R94. When will this situation be rectified? We must be realistic; we realize that these things cannot be done overnight, but it is this kind of thing that is causing bitterness and hurt amongst the Coloured people. The hon. member for Parow shakes his head. Does he suggest that my figures are wrong? Sir, in the field of taxation, what right has the CRC got? Sir, I come from a small village called Nieu-Bethesda. There are 50 voters on the voters’ roll of that municipality, but that little municipality has more real rights than the Coloured Representative Council. That little municipality has the right to tax its ratepayers; it has the right to decide how to spend that taxation. It can take meaningful decisions in respect of the people it serves. Can the hon. the Minister tell me what rights the CRC has and what decisions it can take which it does not have to refer to some other body for approval? Sir, we in the United Party believe that things of this sort should be rectified as quickly as possible if there is to be any hope of the CRC being preserved as a meaningful organization. When a general registration of the White electorate is undertaken the Government pays for the registration of all voters. Why, in the case of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, cannot this be done in the same way? Why must there be this discrimination? All that happens is that notices are put up in the magistrates’ offices and various other public places advising that there is going to be a general registration. In the case of the Whites, large sums of money are spent, as the Minister of the Interior knows, to give everyone the opportunity to become registered as a voter. This does not happen in the case of the Coloureds. Why is there this discrimination? So we can go on to enumerate many other reasons why the CRC has failed and why the Government has been forced at this stage to prorogue that council.

I want to say one final word about the Coloured people. The Coloured people of South Africa are no longer prepared to be treated like second-class citizens. They believe that they are entitled to full citizenship in South Africa. We on this side of the House believe that that time has come. The Coloured people has accepted our Western way of life. They speak our languages, English and Afrikaans, and they follow our churches. They have defended our country before, and they will do so again. That we can expect from the Coloured people. But can we expect them to go on doing these things if we do not treat them in the manner in which they deserve to be treated? I believe it is correct that the Minister of Defence will have to spend more money on the defence of our country. We on this side of the House agree with that. We believe that the security of our country is paramount. I believe, too, that it is the duty of every man to serve his country in time of need. I believe that every Coloured man will be prepared to do so. But if we spend more money on defence and we improve the quality of our arms, that is no guarantee that we will be able to defend ourselves. The real guarantee, for us to be sure of our security, is to have all the people in the country on our side. The other real guarantee is that our people are motivated to defend what they have, that they are prepared to take on all odds to keep that which they have earned and have gained. I think this is the supreme test of whether this Government’s policy is succeeding or not. We as White people will know whether we have the confidence of the Coloured people when they are prepared to take up arms to defend to the end the country of their birth. Now I should like to pose one question. I found it saddening, when I was at the Boet Erasmus Stadium watching the Third Test, to listen to the cheering from the Coloured people. They were not cheering the Springboks.

That has been so over all these years. [Interjections.]

I think the hon. member for Algoa is as concerned about it as I am. I ask myself the question, and I hope the hon. member for Algoa will also ask himself this question: Why does this happen? [Interjections.] Sir, it is happening because the Coloured people are losing confidence in White South Africa, and the hour is late in this regard. If we get into a position where South Africa has to be defended, and we have the kind of situation that we saw there, where an important section of our population was showing their sympathies in another direction, then the defence of this country will be a matter of great difficulty. I think this is a warning of which we as Whites must take note. I appeal to the Government to try to do something to improve the position. It is in their hands. They have the power. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, if one comes along and sings here in the House of Assembly like a cicada, as did the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central, who has just resumed his seat, it is no wonder that his previous constituency rejected him and that he had to go looking for a home in some other, unfamiliar spot. That is why the hon. member has today again failed to make any contribution. He re-hashed the same old matters over and over again. His optimum contribution was in saying that the Coloureds did not cheer the Springboks. Even that is not news to us. The hon. member said that by means of the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council we are making second-class citizens of the Coloureds. However, I want to point out to him that the Coloured Persons’ Representative Council is there to teach the Coloureds the skills of government and administration, without which they would not be able to participate in any other form of government in the future.

However, I do not want to confine myself to the hon. member who has resumed his seat. I would rather take a look at the words of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He moved—

It is interesting, actually ironic, that these are virtually the same words with which his own people and the English-language Press have rejected him as Leader of the Opposition. These are virtually the same words that have been given as the reason for the political stunt in the United Party of choosing a leader while the hon. member for Groote Schuur is still hale and hearty. This is a political stunt which has assumed such astounding proportions in the United Party and the English-language Press that it would be something to cry about if one were a U.P. member.

If one addresses the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, he virtually does not react at all. He feels humiliated every time someone in the House says: “The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.” Since that is the reason for the position he finds himself in, I find it surprising that he moves such a motion against the Leader of the National Party and his strong and dynamic Government. Throughout the years the Government has specifically furnished proof of its adaptability in being able to handle every changed set of circumstances within and even beyond the borders of South Africa.

If one takes careful note, one sees that interesting things happen in the Opposition benches every time someone says: “The hon. the Leader of the Opposition”. The hon. member for Groote Schuur feels humiliated, as I have said, and he sits motionless in his bench. That is virtually the only impression it still makes on him; he has no other interest in it. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout, however, looks around anxiously, preferably at the Press Gallery, and he smiles meaningfully. The hon. member for Newton Park takes a sidelong though strained glance at the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. The hon. member for Hillbrow looks to both sides—at the Old Guard and the Young Turks—he hesitates between two ideas, although the Sunday Times has already branded him. I am sorry the hon. member for Yeoville is not present at the moment. He sits there dejectedly, because he himself says there are certain reasons why he is unacceptable as leader of the United Party, and if that were not the case, he would also be available. I did not know that apartheid in the United Party would hit so hard; I thought it only happened at certain exclusive clubs in Johannesburg.

Order! I want to appeal to hon. members not to refer in a controversial fashion to other hon. members when they have not yet made their maiden speeches.

That was not my intention, Mr. Speaker. Nevertheless, the hon. member for Yeoville, who is also the leader of the United Party in the Transvaal, states very clearly that a person like Chief Buthelezi could become the Leader of the Opposition in this House. In the Press Gallery and also in the editorial offices of the Sunday Times Stanley Uys and Joel Mervis are smiling broadly because they would also like to see Chief Buthelezi as the Leader of the Opposition in this House, in preference to the hon. member for Groote Schuur. For the stature which these two persons have attained in South African politics, they are solely indebted to the support of the two gentlemen to whom I have referred, their spiritual allies and the help of the English-language Press. But they will still discover that this excessive amount of icing with which they have been sprinkled by writers, from Molly Reinhardt on the one hand to Joel Mervis on the other, has actually made of them nothing but journalistic “sugar sticks”. They will yet discover that if one bends a journalistic “sugar stick”, it breaks with a loud crack under the impartial gaze of the Speaker.

In coming along with a motion that the Government should be censured for not having continuously changed its policy to adapt to a changing world, the hon. member for Groote Schuur also referred to the statesmanship of our own respected Prime Minister. He remarked that he should reconsider his position as the leader of the National Party; therefore I want to come back to the Opposition, as they sit here before me, and their search for a leader specifically as a result of the same words which the hon. member, in his motion which has been tabled, used in this allegation against the Government. I have said that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout looks at the Press Gallery because he is being lauded to the skies as the big new shining star on the United Party’s horizon. Worst of all is the fact that he also implies that he is available, specifically as a consequence of the words the hon. the Leader of the Opposition uses in his motion, as the new Leader of the Opposition. This I regard as the pinnacle of rashness in the political history of South Africa. This could really be managed only by a person with the political hitch-hiking instinct which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout does have. If he does not become the Leader of the United Party, for the reasons the hon. member for Groote Schuur himself mentioned, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout will pack his bags and before long walk away from the United Party with the Young Turks. But his conduct is more than political rashness. It is open provocation and contempt of the United Party’s leadership, specifically in consequence of the words the hon. the Leader of the Opposition used in his own motion. The United Party completely lacks the necessary disciplinary power to curb the hon. member’s swaggering somewhat. If the United Party cannot even discipline one single member, how does it then want to govern a people and the country? From where then comes this absurd motion of censure in one of the most dynamic governments in the world? Where there is public speculation about a possible successor to a political leader who is in office, this is usually accompanied by the necessary respect, taste and discretion. But these are elements which are totally lacking in the situation under discussion. The English-language Press is engaged in a blatant glorification of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and this coincides with a campaign of condemnation against the hon. member for Groote Schuur, which are coupled to the words he uses in his own motion. The theme is “Graaff must go”. And as always, the Sunday Times places the actors one by one into the cast of the United Party’s ridiculous play, which is too silly for words and too mad for tears.

In time the English-language newspapers will do the very same thing with the Progressive Party, to which I scarcely want to refer in this House; except to say that their resurrection is nothing more than the fact that brother swallowed up brother in the ranks of the United Party, in other words like cannibals. That is something which has not affected the National Party in the least. With their declared policy, i.e. that they would recognize the Communist Party and would strive for full integration, the Progressive Party in this House will be nothing more than a sounding board for all undermining elements, a situation which would elicit the cheers of all leftist liberal groups in South Africa. That will be the chief role of the Progressive Party in the future politics of South Africa. In this they will be energetically supported by the English-language Press.

As I have said, the resurrection of the Progressive Party is nothing more than the fact that brother has eaten up brother in the ranks of the Opposition. And thereby has come the total and irrevocable collapse of the United Party. The English-language Press has already, time and again, confirmed that they have irrevocably collapsed and will never get up again. But this was done in an exceptional way by The Pretoria News of 25 April 1974, and it was done in the following words—

It was eaten up, I may say, by its man-eating brothers. As if that were not enough, the bones of the U.P. skeletons rattle on in their own ranks. They suspend one another and abuse one another. They mistrust one another and hold one another in contempt. They reproach one another and eat one another up. They even revile the United Party. This was done in an exceptional manner by Miss Annette Reinecke after her defeat in Pinelands. According to Die Volksblad of 14 June 1974, she said the following (translation)—

Sir, if someone who is an M.P.C., and who was a candidate for the United Party in the House of Assembly election, someone who therefore knows the very heart of the United Party, says there is a sickness in its soul, I must believe this. And now that kind of mentally ill person comes along and moves a motion of censure in one of the most dynamic leaders ...

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words “mentally ill type”.

On a point of explanation, Mr. Speaker ...

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the remark. No explanation is necessary.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. And now I want to do an unprecedented thing. I want to break a lance for the United Party. The United Party did not develop its soul-sickness completely of its own volition. It did so as a result of the poison injected by the English-language Press time and time again. The truth of this has repeatedly been confirmed by the leaders of the Old Guard, but the English-language Press has vehemently denied it. However, those who have had eyes with which to see this, have seen it and read it. The technique was chiefly: “Graaff must go.” That was their theme.

I now want to do another unprecedented thing; I want to break a lance for the hon. member for Groote Schuur. With such a party, such a policy and such an Opposition Press, no one could have done better in the recent election than the hon. member for Groote Schuur. Of the United Party’s policy the English-language Press, in this instance the Sunday Times of 2 June 1974, states the following:

Now look at the wording of the motion which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition tabled, and look at the accusation the English-language Press has levelled. I continue—

To want to imply now, after the election, on the part of the English Press—and I am still breaking a lance for the hon. member for Groote Schuur and he must therefore listen—that everything will go well for the United Party if the hon. member for Groote Schuur goes, is a farce. This is merely to throw dust in the poor U.P. supporters’ eyes, because the motives of the English-language Press lie much deeper than that. They imply that they want to save the United Party by having the hon. member for Groote Schuur go, but what they hope for is that with the hon. member out of the way many more people will be prepared to link up with the trends of thought which the English-language Press cherishes in its heart of hearts, i.e. the far-leftist liberal ideology of an integrated unit state in which the Whites will play a subservient role if—and this is for the hon. member for Bezuidenhout’s information—a role is ever assigned to the Whites in this casting process. The English-language Press states clearly that the hon. member for Groote Schuur must first be got out of the way, that the signing of more declarations must be encouraged and that the place of the Coloureds is in this Parliament. All this is in the so-called interests of the United Party. This is what the position looks like today in the editorial offices of the English-language Press where decades of hostile ideas and concealed motives lie stored, waiting for the right moment to send a spark into the powder-keg, a keg they are in the process of shaping. It looks like an impossible task to clean up there, even if the leadership ranks of the Old Guard have woken with a start in the realization that the warnings we have continually made in this connection are completely sound. For the Old Guard in the Opposition benches it is once and for all too late; they will be swallowed up.

I want to do another unprecedented thing. I am going to so reluctantly, but I am nevertheless going to do so. I want to break a lance for the English-language Press. I want to say that it is not solely the fault of the English-language Press that the Opposition, in this instance the United Party, has collapsed completely, although the role of the English-language Press in that connection has been considerable. The United Party collapsed in ruins and desstroyed itself because it did not, for its inherent strength, rely on a policy that should have assisted it in solving the problems of this country and its people. Even today they have not brought along any solution. For their inherent strength they have relied on a collection of all those elements in their bosom, which, with bitter hatred, is hostile to the National Party and even to South Africa. Now those elements are destroying their own Party from within. They have throughout been so foolish as to think that the public at large never saw what they were gathering up in their bosom. By thus underestimating the intelligence of the South African electorate in matters of this kind, they have insulted the voters to such an extent that they paid that very heavy price for it at the polls in the recent election. That is why they returned to Parliament in these scant numbers. It is therefore not only the English-language Press, but chiefly the South African electorate, that has rejected and destroyed the United Party. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana is the most recent example of that.

He won.

Yes, hé won but they say it very softly. Now such a Party moves a motion of censure in the National Party, which is today the only Party which can give the South African electorate the guarantee that their identity as a White people will be preserved, because the United Party has now joined the Progressive Party in accepting integration as a policy. The hon. member for Groote Schuur declared that the Immorality Act and the Mixed Marriages Act would be abolished and that integration would be allowed in accordance with personal choice. What sense is there still in the United Party subsequently persevering with a policy about how White/Black relationships and White/Black political arrangements should be made in the future? It is absurd, but that was the theme of their policy and their speeches up to the present! They spoke of nothing else. They can delete it from their policy now, because with this statement by the hon. member for Groote Schuur we are back to the hon. member for King William’s Town’s “one nation, White and Black, consisting of 20 million people with one common father-land and citizenship for all”. “One man, one vote.” What is the United Party’s policy other than this? It is a policy which has been rejected time and again by the South African electorate. It is only cherished still by the leftist liberals of the English-language Press, but the hon. member for Groote Schuur has so short a memory that he has, in truth, forgotten it. In the recent election the South African electorate again rejected that policy.

I am sorry the hon. member’s memory is so short—because I really cannot accept that he is all that stupid—that after sitting for all these years in the Opposition benches he has not yet realized the truth of this. I am inclined to agree with the Young Turks and the English-language Press that if it is true that his memory has left him in the lurch he should seriously reconsider his position as the Leader of the Opposition, because this change of policy on his part will do nothing to help the English Press restore his honour as the Leader of the Opposition.

No, they will continue to press the hon. member for Groote Schuur until the new jingoism which the hon. member for Newton Park identified, triumphs. That is what they look like as they sit here in the House: There is the Old Guard and there are the Young Turks; there are reformers and there are new jingos; there are aspirant leaders and there are political clowns—the devil alone knows what there is! In their own words: “A grisly old bunch,” but they are together under one blanket here in the House of Assembly. For how long this will be the case, we do not know, because we see the newspapers speculating about all kinds of things.

That is what the United Party looks like as it sits here before us, in contrast with the National Party which today stands like a beacon of stability in the modern world and which gives the South African electorate one of the most dynamic, far-sighted and vital leaders at present governing in the modern world: The hon. Adv. John Vorster. Since having disbanded here at the end of February, more than a dozen governments have collapsed throughout the world, but in South Africa the National Party is in its 26th year in power. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? Specifically because it could continually adapt its policy so as to meet the changes. That is why it is in its 26th year in power—and then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition comes along and makes a nonsensical proposal! As I have said, the National Party is the only Party which can give the South African electorate the guarantee that their identity as a White people will be preserved. It is the only Party which is able to tell the White voters of South Africa that their sovereignty will not be shared with another people, that their security will be secured and that development and progress will be created to the benefit of everyone in this country. In such a Party, and a Party which, in addition, can continually adapt its policy in such a way that it can meet every facet of our problems, in such a Party the hon. the Leader of the Opposition moves a motion of censure. I want to reject this with contempt, and I do so with contempt because it appears to me that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition no longer knows what is going on around him, least of all what is going on in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is seldom that I have been able to watch the faces of a number of hardened politicians as I was able to do during the past half-hour and to see the obvious embarrassment on their faces as was the case while the hon. member for Parys was speaking. He was spared that because he was speaking from behind them. Let me say that all one need do to deal adequately with his speech is to ask his colleagues how they felt while he was speaking.

The hon. the Prime Minister recently announced that he had had more dialogue with African leaders in South Africa than any of his predecessors. One welcomes a statement of this nature from the hon. the Prime Minister because one understands that those whom the law separates must have contact and dialogue if a confrontation is to be avoided. This is a healthy and realistic approach. One asks oneself, however, why formal dialogue should be necessary between sections of people who are both de facto and de jure citizens of the same country, South Africa. We must also realize that this dialogue between the different race leaders and the hon. the Prime Minister is an exclusive exercise in the hands of the Prime Minister with possibly one or other of his Cabinet present. This, however, is not dialogue with Parliament; it is not dialogue with the legislative body of South Africa. Whilst internal dialogue is taking place, it is noteworthy that international dialogue in Africa is virtually non-existent so far as this Government is concerned. I believe that this is so because the hon. the Prime Minister finds himself today a victim of his party’s policies and of his Government’s actions and of the actions of his predecessors. Dialogue today is defensive; it is not outward-going. Dialogue is one of the means that this Government is prepared to attempt in order to try to defuse a situation which is of its own making because of its own legislation and its own policies. Attempts have been made over the intervening years to soften the image of apartheid, the slogan of apartheid of 1948, by calling it separate freedoms and separate development but the essential element of this Government’s divisive philosophy, political philosophy, remains in South Africa because of those policies. Until 1948 successive Governments were attempting to find ways and means whereby the various groups in South Africa constituting the South African nation could live in harmony. In the ensuing 26 years, however, the attempted implementation of apartheid has caused a situation which I believe is dangerous to the whole of South Africa and is possibly explosive.

Now, Sir, instead of an advance in cooperation, there has been this steady growth of an attempt to extend apartheid. I said in this House four years ago, and I want to repeat that we in this Parliament have obligations which we cannot escape. We must recognize and accept the economic interdependence of the peoples of South Africa as a fact; we must accept economic integration, if you wish to call it that, as a fact, and we must give to the non-White races a say in the Government of our country. I also said four years ago in this House that all our peoples of all colours are entitled to improved standards of living and to a proper share in our national prosperity. The difficulty in which the Government finds itself is one of its own making. It has attempted to control human relations by laws. It has attempted to do what few, if any, economists, jurists or academics would consider feasible or necessary, and that is to make every human contact and association subject to some control under laws passed by Parliament. Let us remind ourselves of what this Government has done over the past 26 years in the application of this divisive political philosophy. The basis of Government policy is political separation, a policy which would enable the Bantu and the Whites to have their political future apart from one another. We were told that separateness was not the crux of their policy of apartheid; the purpose of the policy was to set aside areas in which every group of the Bantu would have their future and where the White man would have his; there would be territorial separation, with residential separation, educational separation, social separation, and separation in all spheres, including sport and amusements. That was how it was defined by Dr. Verwoerd in 1965. Sir, all this has to be done to enable the White man to retain his position, but justice would be done to the non-White so that a defensible standpoint could be stated in the new world. That is the test today—whether there is a defensible standpoint underlying the policies of this Government in the eyes of the new world. That was the philosophy of Dr. Verwoerd. In an attempt to achieve that separation, what did this Government do? It first set about categorizing people into racial groups, not by acceptance, not by appearance, but by definitions and laws passed by this House. I challenge the hon. the Minister of the Interior to deny that today still there are dozens and dozens of people trying to sort out their position and to escape the miseries of that piece of legislation. I have sent letters almost daily to his department. Having laid that foundation, the great divide started and inter-personal relations became more and more regulated by this Government. In 1949 we had the Prohibition of mixed Marriages Act. What is the result of this?

May I put a question to the hon. member? In terms of their policy of federation, too, separate representation is granted to the Coloureds in their federal council. Therefore they too would have to implement race classification in one way or another in order to be able to differentiate between people.

Sir, the hon. the Minister is exposing his total ignorance of the position before 1948. Even today in South Africa there is a necessity to draw a dividing line between White and Coloured, but it is not done by a rule of law; it is done by custom and acceptance, and it was done by custom and acceptance in South Africa before 1948. But the laws which this Government has introduced mean that a man who marries outside of South Africa, against what the Government thinks is right for him to do, finds when he comes back to South Africa that the sanctity of that marriage is put aside by the laws of this Government. However sanctified and holy that marriage might have been outside of South Africa, this Government says, “We are holier than thou; we do not recognize it.”

Sir, then we had the Group Areas Act. What has happened under that Act? The Minister of Community Development knows that 26 000 Coloured families have been told, although they have houses: “You cannot stay where you are; you will have to move”, and they live out their lives in misery and uncertainty, not knowing when on earth they are going to have another roof over their heads and when they will have to move from the properties in which they reside today. And when they do move? The people will come in and they will doll these houses up and they then go to the Minister of Community Development and say: “You know, these properties are over 100 years old; we have restored them to the proper status and now they must not be subject to rent control.” And that must really make the Coloured people very happy, those who have been told to get out of these homes and who were paid a paltry sum when they were taken away, to see what is being allowed to be done. In 1953 we came with the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, imposing a rigidity which is certainly not matched by equality. So one goes on. In 1955 there was bus apartheid, and in 1957 no more mixing in cinemas and tearooms and restaurants. In 1959 there was taxi apartheid. Today a Black man can drive White passengers in a White taxi, provided he is an employee and not the owner of the taxi. In 1962 scientific and industrial organizations were directed to separate, and in 1965 there was the proclamation, No. 26, which enforced further apartheid in civic halls, agricultural shows, sporting events and in the field of education. In 1953 we had the Bantu Education Act and the establishment of separate universities, while in the economic life of the country we had segregation in the building industry in 1951, and the Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953, which redefined an employee. In 1956 we had the prohibition of mixed trade unions, and in 1957 the separation of nursing professions, and in 1960 the rigid separation of factory workers. And we had job reservation, of which Mr. Dirk Richard once said—

Politically this great philosophy was devised in 1951, when the Natives Representative Council went, and in 1959 there was the abolition of members of Parliament representing the Natives. From 1951 to 1956 we had a series of Separate Representation of Voters Bills, the High Court of Parliament and the enlarged Senate, and finally the amendment of the South Africa Act. Now, with this miserable history, as my hon. friend says, the non-Whites were to be given their great opportunities to achieve for themselves politically everything that the White man wanted for himself.

Then came the Coloured Representative Council. I believe there is a growing realization in Nationalist Party circles that their policies are inappropriate today and that rapid and meaningful adaptation should be made. When one listens to a speech like that made by the hon. member for Parys this afternoon, one wonders whether that feeling in the Nationalist Party ranks outside this House is being communicated to some of the members who are inside this House. The homeland leaders are not interested in independence. They want to remain what they are, South Africans. Then there is separate economic development. Where is it in the homelands? Where is this great economic development being achieved? Sir, may I just say to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration that I went back purposely after a short visit to Malawi to see how a poor country was developing. Here is a country with a population equal approximately to the population of our homelands. Sir, in the past decade the per capita income of the population has doubled. The growth rate has been on an average 12,2%. I concede it is from a low base because it was a poor country, but they are exporting maize, as well as other commodities, like rice. Where does one find that dynamic growth being provided in the homelands in South Africa? I know there was an attempt to establish agriculture schools in the Transkei. From the information I have, they have all closed, except one for the sons of chiefs. In the other Black countries of Southern Africa they are using agricultural training to the greatest possible extent, and they are doing so not with modern ideas of tractors and ploughs, but are teaching people to work, and they are working and they are producing. The agricultural production is growing, for the simple reason that they have a dedication to and a patriotism for the country in which they live.

Where are these schools which are supposed to be closed?

In the Transkei they have been closed. [Interjections.] Sir, this Government has received a mandate, and we concede it is a mandate from the country. That mandate was given in April this year. They were given a mandate to maintain law and order, to protect the daily lives of the citizens of South Africa from subversive activities and disruptive confrontations. However, they seem to be unable to face up to the challenge which is equally important in the maintenance of law and order, and that is to face up to the human claims of the non-White people in South Africa. They are unable to face up to the challenge to give the non-Whites the opportunities which they ask for themselves to allow South Africans of all races to be able to associate and not to be under the restrictions under which they have been and which have been built up over years of separation in professional and scientific organizations, etc.

The hon. the Prime Minister knows of the need to eliminate the disparity in wage remuneration paid out to Whites and non-Whites, to open up avenues of economic opportunity for the non-White people and to recognize the aspirations of the individuals who live in the urban townships. We on this side of the House warned the Government from time to time that the Coloured Representative Council would collapse because it had no meaningful function to perform. The hon. the Prime Minister replied that we should continue with the council; the final end of the road would be determined by later generations.

You know that that is not correct.

I will accept that the hon. the Prime Minister put it in a different wording, but it was to the effect that the future would decide the end of the road as far as the Coloureds were concerned. [Interjections.] If that was not so, then I would have expected one of the hon. gentlemen opposite to have stood up this afternoon to tell us exactly what the end of the road for the Coloured people would be, where the Coloured people would seek, secure and acquire their sovereignty. The Coloureds have become frustrated beyond measure and I want to remind the House of a Press statement issued by the then Minister of Coloured Affairs in 1972. I should like to indicate the change that has taken place. This was a Press statement dealing with a consultation between the then Minister of Coloured Affairs, Mr. Loots, and the then Deputy Minister, Dr. Van der Merwe, on the one hand, and members of the CRC led by Mr. Tom Swartz on the other hand. They discussed motions which had been passed by the CRC. They discussed motions dealing with housing, dealing with problems of disqualified persons trading in Coloured areas, dealing with conditions of service, the adjustment of the balance between wages and current cost of living, etc. The important part to which I should like to draw attention is this—

That was as recently as 1972 and what has happened now, two years later? Mr. Swartz and his party have become completely disenchanted and exasperated. His party has joined forces with the Labour Party to reject the Coloured Representative Council. Does that not mean that there must be adaptations and that something must be done? It is not beyond the power of this Government to tackle the job and to get on with it before it is too late. The Coloured people want equal economic and social treatment in this country. Let me give one example of where their indignation rises. Some ten years ago at the conference of the Central Co-ordinating Health Committee of South Africa, a joint meeting of the provincial councils, Exco’s and the Department of Health, a ratio of pay was agreed upon for non-Whites in the hospital services in the Republic. That ratio which was previously something like 10: 8: 6 was changed to something like 10: 9 for non-Whites in the Cape Province. It was adopted 10: 9: 8 in some of the other provinces. That was ten years ago. When I asked questions last year I found that instead of that gap having been brought even closer than a 10: 9 ratio, it had expanded to a 10: 5 and a 10: 6 ratio in some positions occupied by Coloured doctors. That is the sort of thing which causes the non-Whites to wonder how much longer they can buy time for us to sort out the future of this country, because that is what they are doing.

In the light of this situation I want to pose a rhetorical question, one which my hon. Leader has posed before but which I want to pose again. I think it should be posed to South Africa as a whole. Have we really so little confidence in ourselves and in the responsible men of other races that we cannot trust in our ability to work together in matters of mutual interest? That is the question. Can we not trust ourselves and the leaders of the other races so that we can work together peacefully in matters of mutual interest? Can we not realize that the share in South Africa’s prosperity is so disproportionate per capita that there is reason for grumbling and discontent on the part of the under-developed sections of our population? When the per capita income of the Bantu in South Africa is less than 10% of the per capita income of the Whites, and when the Coloureds and Indians are in an only slightly better position, and when those facts are known to the Bantu people, as they are, do they not have reason to grouse and to say: “Why cannot we participate in the prosperity of South Africa?” I believe that our non-White people are entitled to receive from this Parliament assistance and support of the nature that is expected to be given and is regarded as being necessary for underdeveloped countries in Africa. When we do that I believe we in this country will be able to face the challenge of reconciling the difficulties and the problems which exist between us and our neighbouring states. Our non-Whites want security and our Whites also want security. The Whites want to maintain their standards of civilization whilst the non-Whites want to attain and share in those standards of civilization.

This is a reasonable approach. There is no dilemma in South Africa when one looks at those two needs, the needs of the Whites and those of the non-Whites. While we remain obsessed with a sectional approach to the solution of our problems and while we abide by a divisive philosophy which is impossible to fulfil in South Africa, because we must always have a multi-racial population in South Africa ...

But not on the same basis.

We must not do it on a divisive basis. Meaningful rights must be given to the non-Whites so that they can participate as well. Sir, the position is simply that we are creating for ourselves a situation in which our friends in the African states—and we do have friends there—are finding it difficult to maintain that friendship. As the rest of the population of Africa is regarded as being of Africa, no matter whence they originated—in countries such as Tanzania there are large descendant populations who are accepted as Africans—so the Whites of Rhodesia and Mozambique, Angola and South Africa should also be regarded as a permanent part of the African continent, as White Africans. If we want to maintain and develop that spirit—and I believe it exists and can be developed—we must show those people that we are prepared to give to our own Blacks and to our Coloureds a greater share in the prosperity, the economic life and the government of this country. To the extent that this Government has not been able to indicate an ability to move in that direction, I support the motion of censure moved by my hon. Leader.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sea Point was in a rather pessimistic state of mind this afternoon ...

You have the wrong Point.

I mean the hon. member for Green Point—my apologies. I say that the hon. member for Green Point was in a rather pessimistic state of mind. He has not seen a ray of light in the darkness of the apartheid picture painted by him here this afternoon. It has all been doom, discrimination and destruction. There is no dialogue, no progress, no nothing happening in this country whatsoever. There is no achievement whatsoever on the part of the National Party Government. All he wants is that the people be free to move where they wish, to associate with whom they wish, and then everything will be all right. That is the sole solution which he offers. People should be free to associate with whomsoever, they wish, speak to whom they wish and go where they want. That is the simple and sole solution to all the problems of South Africa. What an absolutely naive approach to the very involved problems of South Africa! How can we do it? How can one accept such an approach? That hon. gentleman is a member of a party which has evolved a federal system based on the very concepts of the multi-racial situation in South Africa. In terms of his own policy, he differentiates between the peoples of South Africa, but when we do it, it is wrong; when we do it, it is darkness, doom, destruction, and apartheid, the very curse of South Africa.

Will you accept our basis?

You have accepted our basis. We listened this afternoon with a measure of solemnity to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition during the introduction of his motion. I suggest that we carefully listened to him because he broached subjects of some importance in South Africa as a whole. He pointed to difficulties and problems which beset South Africa. He pointed to those aspects which require the attention of the Opposition and the Government, and of the whole of South Africa. In fact, he showed that he was aware, as we are aware, of the problems that beset South Africa. I suggest that we listened to him carefully, because we ourselves are conscious of these problems. The National Party and the Government are conscious of these problems. The National Party has evolved what we feel is a policy which can meet these problems and we are continually thinking about these problems. It is not the privilege of the Opposition alone to consider the problems which beset South Africa; it is the duty and the responsibility of the Government to attend to these matters.