Mr. Speaker, the second reason why the Argus does not interfere in the day-to-day running of SAAN affairs is that it suits the Argus and therefore Mr. Oppenheimer to maintain at least the pretence that SAAN is independent. Thus neither SAAN nor Argus directors serve on each other’s boards. In the light, however, of the Argus and SAAN shareholdings being firmly in the hands of Mr. Oppenheimer, as they appear to be from my researches, it is hardly surprising that he is pulling out of any overt involvement in the Press while maintaining control from behind the scenes. It is not accidental that with Anglo-American’s financial control of the Argus and SAAN, the Press has gone Prog-Liberal. In days gone by, when JCI. was independent of Anglo control, and while Rand Mines was independent of Anglo influence, the Argus group did not follow a Prog, line but rather a neutral line. Today this is no longer the case. When Gandar left Anglo-American to become editor of the Rand Daily Mail, SAAN was not controlled by any nominee companies under the influence of Anglo-American; but with this event—that is to say, Gandar going to SAAN—things began to change. Today we have the situation where English speakers are deprived of a choice of newspapers because the Argus-SAAN octopus has extended its tentacles far and wide. It is a trend which I believe should be deplored in any democracy since uniformity of viewpoint in the Press inhibits free and unfettered discussion on matters of public interest. In South Africa, our country, with complex language and racial problems, the fact that virtually the whole English Press is pushing the Prog-Liberal viewpoint to the exclusion of any other argument, viewpoint or policy, is both disturbing and disastrous. It can only result in a total polarization between English-and Afrikaans-speaking people. That is what is happening today and that is why I am making this speech in this House.

Mr. Speaker, we must bear in mind that this is not a new development through a free, independent and competitive English Press reaching the same unfortunate and, to me, utterly unacceptable conclusion, namely, that Prog-Liberal policies are the country’s only hope of salvation. That is not the case at all. No, Sir. What we have to contend with is a uniformity of policy imposed through a virtually monopolistic combine, controlled, I submit, by Mr. Oppenheimer, …

Rubbish!

… who by no coincidence is also the chief financial backer of the Progressive Party. Mr. Oppenheimer not only controls the Argus but if and when he wishes to do so, if I am correct, he can also muster more than 50% of SAAN shares. This explains why SAAN’s two Prog editors—of the Rand Daily Mail and the Financial Mail—have been joined by a third on the Sunday Express. A fourth is already on The Cape Times, which is also owned by SAAN, while an Argus editor with strong Progressive leanings, Mr. Tertius Myburgh, has been imported from the Argus by SAAN, apparently with the Argus blessing, to become the editor of the Sunday Times, the only English-language newspaper in South Africa with a circulation of almost half a million. Of this half-million, I may say, about 100 000 circulate in the townships.

That is very tortuous reasoning.

The Progs, with Mr. Oppenheimer’s help, have taken over the editorship of the SAAN newspapers and have eliminated in the process the one editor who backed the official Opposition, Mr. Johnson. He backed the official Opposition, the United Party and its leader, Sir de Villiers Graaff. He stood for a moderate conservative policy.

Some of the official Opposition!

His successor, until recently, was the deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail, and he was a Prog.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Argus will claim that it is independent politically but any independent observer of the Press will have noted the radical change which came over the Argus newspaper group before, during and after the last election. Far from being neutral, they participated in the campaign to break up the party on this side of the House, in the cause of so-called reform, and almost to a newspaper, took part in the politically dubious and opportunistic propaganda drive of: “Vote for the best man—vote for an effective Opposition”. This caused my party to lose support and seats at the last election.

Understandably!

Almost the whole English Press adopted the same attitude to the United Party. They mouthed the same false accusations against United Party elected leaders while at the same time pressing the candidature mainly of Progs on the so-called “Best man ticket”. It is clear to all observers that whereas the Argus, unlike SAAN, will not openly nail its political colours to its newspapers’ mastheads, it has nevertheless allowed or encouraged editors to take a progressively Prog-Liberal line. This is indeed a surprising development in a newspaper company which in the past was more noted for its slavish adherence to the interests of the mining industry and the general conservatism of its policy than for any sort of missionary political zeal. However, times and control have changed. Because of this, I now want to deal with the direction of the Press.

I am concerned about who controls the English Press, but there are graver misgivings about the direction taken by the English Press. Mr. Oppenheimer is in the forefront of the forces for radical political, social and labour changes in South Africa. He and his political party are in the forefront of moves to break up the political party on this side of the House and to forge a Liberal front in which the Progs will play a leading if not dominant role. We are now confronted with editors and political writers who are no longer satisfied with reporting and commenting on events. They have become the political activists in South Africa. They play an undermining role in which they seek to dictate party policy and in which they use the power of their newspapers to determine who may or may not become candidates for a political party and who may or may not come to Parliament. They plot to bring about artificial alignments and radical changes in the political structure of South Africa. These men have no responsibility other than to themselves and to those who pull the strings behind the scenes. They denigrate and they destroy people as if it were their God-given right to do so. If one hits back at them, as I am doing today, they shelter behind the parrot-cry, “You are seeking to destroy the freedom of the Press”. What they really mean by the “freedom of the Press” is a licence to denigrate and destroy opponents and to question the bona fides of the Government and the Opposition leaders. They stir up racial hatred among non-Whites by making them feel inhumanly oppressed and exploited and they destroy the country’s image by their unrestricted and destructive criticism of everything that the White man has achieved in South Africa. This criticism, Sir, has been sent to all the corners of the earth by parasites who work on South African newspapers and act as correspondents for journals elsewhere. I will shortly deal with one of these parasites. But in the meantime I need hardly remind hon. members that there has been a deliberate and calculated plot over the past few years to smash the party on this side of the House and to form a new alignment of liberal forces. It is a plot which a section of the English Press has both master-minded and hatched. Sad to say, nearly every English-language newspaper has taken part in one way or another in this vile campaign, either by ageing the plotters in everything they have said or done or, like political conjurers, pulling the rabbit of reform out of the hat to bemuse and to trick their readers.

Now I want to deal specifically with the Sunday Times. No. 1 conspirator is the Sunday Times, whose editor, Mervis, in a flush of political megalomania in old age and before his retirement, decided that he had a God-given mission to change the face of politics in South Africa. His Mein Kampf is set out in the columns of the Sunday Times from July 1972 onwards. His Mein Kampf instruction is to attack and destroy the United Party leadership and take over the party machine and, if this fails, to destroy the party and link the break-away elements in the party with the Progs, the Democrats and the so-called Verligtes. This would result in a liberal front which the Sunday Times has for two years sought to achieve. Should one be surprised at this turn of events, Mr. Speaker? Of course not, because SAAN, of which the Sunday Times is the chief money-spinner, is controlled by the Argus group, which in turn is dominated by Mr. Oppenheimer, if I am correct, whose political aim is to bring about a realignment of political forces in which the Progs, whom he supports financially, will play the dominant role.

Sir, let us look at the Mervis plan of campaign. First, he helped to create and publicize a group, as he named it, within the United Party, ostensibly to revitalize its organization and its finances. Secondly, in a vile campaign against democratically elected party leaders, whom he called a Verkrampte Mafia, he sought to pick off one by one the leadership corps around Sir De Villiers Graaff. In February 1973, flushed and emboldened by his success in creating schism, distrust and dissension in the United Party, Mervis demanded that “Graaff must go”, and he even publicly questioned Sir De Villiers Graaff’s credibility, something which no newspaper or politician in South Africa had ever done before.

Shame!

This move failed, because most of the newspapers knew what Mervis in his megalomania did not appreciate, namely that United Party supporters stood behind their democratically elected leader. These newspapers were not going to stick out their necks for Mr. Mervis. He found himself out on a limb and dropped his frontal attack, but not his campaign. First of all, Marais Steyn was hounded out of the United Party chairmanship in the Transvaal through a sustained Press campaign: André Fourie was written out of his Youth Chairmanship of the Young South Africans; Etienne Malan was driven out of Orange Grove by the vicious propaganda of the Sunday Times over a period of weeks before the election. The Cape leadership—Mr. Streicher, Mr. Hickman and myself—have been subjected to a sustained campaign of verification, the like of which only Marais Steyn and Sir De Villiers Graaff have had to endure over the years. To give added impetus to the Sunday Times campaign to break down the status of the Cape leadership in the eyes of their supporters, an organization known as GROW was formed to get rid of Streicher, Hickman and myself. The Sunday Times parliamentary reporter, Strydom, is shown in the GROW minutes not only as an active participant in the activities of this secret group of intriguers, but is also shown as having been appointed its publicity director, and is recorded as having contributed R25 to its funds. His belated denial of “membership of any secret organization”, as he put it, is nothing more than a quibble with words, or else a deceitful attempt to save the remnants of his reputation and status in the eyes of his colleagues. I prefer to call it a lie, because I know Strydom. This same Strydom is President of the S.A. Society of Journalists and has during his presidency awarded the Pringle medal to none other than his editor, Mr. Mervis, which shows that he is not altogether unenthusiastic about the type of journalism that has been pursued over the years by the Sunday Times under Mervis. Sir, Pringle and Fairbairn, the fathers of the freedom of the Press in South Africa, must be turning in their graves. But Strydom is comparatively small-fry, because right at the top with Mervis is Stanley Uys, the Sunday Times political editor, to whom I referred earlier as a parasite. To employ some of his own techniques of denigrating his opponents, “it is believed by informed people” that he is no newcomer to radical politics; that he is no novice at political plotting and that he is no stranger to leftist conniving. In his younger days, quote, “some of his friends will tell you,” he was a card-carrying member of the leftest of all leftist organizations. Whether this is so or not, only Mr. Uys can say, but it is a fact that he has been South African correspondent for a string of overseas journals, some of which, such as the New Statesman, are outrightly left and hostile to South Africa. Sir, what does the Press Commission say about this man Uys? At page 789 of the Press Commission’s report, in referring to two cables sent by him to the News Chronicle in Britain, the commission says—

At page 799 the commission quotes further full cables sent to the News Chronicle by Uys and concludes that Uys’s reports were “a malicious distortion”. At page 804 the report states—

At page 1650 the report states—

At page 2048, the report states—

Sir, on the Sunday Times this Stanley Uys is the political hatchet man for his editor, writing parts of the often scurrilous Hogarth de Hoogh column and “leading” articles besides his own political column. In my opinion, he can be co-joined with Mervis as the chief conspirators in the devious and disruptive political campaigning of the Sunday Times in recent years. He is also one of the most effective propagandists against the Government in overseas journals and does harm to South Africa’s image abroad, more possibly than any other journalist that I know of. Sir, just in case you think that the leopard has changed his spots after being castigated by the Press Commission, look at the report he wrote about the student/police confrontation on the Cathedral steps in Cape Town only a year ago. It appeared over a full page in The Observer, written by Uys, purporting to have been an eye-witness to the alleged police brutality and to the student demonstrations and stating, inter alia—

But Uys was at the time in Europe, not in Cape Town, and while he may have written the report a few days after his return from overseas, he was definitely not present as an eye-witness of events on the Cathedral steps. His “eye-witness account” has raised eyebrows even among his journalistic colleagues. This then, Mr. Chairman, is the man who with his team of political assassins has tried for over two years to destroy the United Party. From what I gather, Uys spends more of his time writing for overseas journals than for the Sunday Times, and he could retire from that newspaper and live on the proceeds of his overseas writings. “It would be interesting to know”, say some of his friends, whether his overseas’ income has been accounted for in terms of both foreign exchange and income tax laws, because “some” say it has not. There is an unholy quartet on the Sunday Times, Mr. Speaker. With Uys, Mervis and Strydom is Serfontein. Like Uys he is not a stranger to intrigue inside or outside his own newspaper. I only need to mention his participation in the campaign against Johnson becoming the editor of the Sunday Times in which both he and Uys took part, Serfontein afterwards boasting that he had circulated among the staff of the Sunday Times a petition and leaked the contents of the petition to two Nationalist newspapers, and that he had thus cooked the chances of the editor of the Express of becoming editor of the Sunday Times. The tragedy is that the Sunday Times team have not only blackened the name and the reputation of politicians who because of newspaper group control cannot correct their reports and their falsehoods in other English-language newspapers and who have thus no right of reply, but it has encouraged other English-language newspapers to follow their despicable example. The Cape Times of course is a servile follower of the Sunday Times and, as Die Burger once put it, its jackal. The Rand Daily Mail has exploited the situation previously created by its sister newspaper, the Sunday Times, by tendentious and inaccurate reporting of United Party affairs, also in the interests of an alliance between the so-called reformists, according to the Press, and the Progs, for whom the Rand Daily Mail is the mouthpiece. Only the Sunday Express of the SAAN newspapers supported the United Party at the last election and now its former editor has been replaced by a Prog. The Argus newspapers joined in the campaign, but on a muted note, by withdrawing any support from the U.P. that they might have given in the past and concentrating on the “best man, effective opposition” policy which helped to bring more Progs to Parliament. So in effect English speakers have been deprived of a freedom of choice in their newspapers. No major newspapers have been started in South Africa in English since before the war and conformity of policy is being imposed on nearly all English newspapers. South Africa, particularly at this dangerous time in its history, needs an English Press which will help to build bridges between the races and the peoples of South Africa and which will bring about consensus on national issues. It will never under this present English-language newspaper Press dispensation achieve that, because they are virtually under one control. To me, if I am correct, all indications are that Mr. Oppenheimer is able to exercise control over both the major English-language newspaper groups, Argus and SAAN.

In conclusion I want to say this. It appears from the share records that there has been a change in the biggest shareholding in the Argus company and that the Standard Bank Nominees may be holding former JCI and Rand Mines shareholdings. The share structure of SAAN appears to indicate that SAAN interests are so interlocked with the Argus that to all intents and purposes Argus controls SAAN. It is my contention that these developments in the Press are a negation of democracy and the principles of a free Press and are not in the public interest. South Africa, at this dangerous time in its history, cannot have a Press that keeps English-and Afrikaans-speaking South Africans apart, constantly harping on differences and keeping old animosities alive. The greatest possible unity is needed. South Africa must be placed first and above any sectional interest. It is in this spirit, Sir, that I have felt it necessary to bring to the attention of the House and the public on my own responsibility and my own responsibility alone a state of affairs which I honestly believe should be ventilated because it is unhealthy and dangerous, dangerous to my party, but more dangerous to my country. With the information I have, were I not to have done what I have done, I believe I would have been accused of being unpatriotic. I have here the shareholdings of the companies to which I have referred. I am making them available to my leader, the Leader of the Opposition, and to the Prime Minister.

It is a measure of coincidence that I had intended to make a few remarks this morning on the subject of trial by the Press, or perhaps conviction by innuendo. I had intended to make these remarks after the speech made here yesterday by the hon. member for Yeoville when he attacked the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs. First of all I want to refer to the speech just made by the hon. member for Simonstown.

In his opening remarks the hon. member asked the question whether the English-language Press was indeed free. Then he went on to produce facts to show that the English Press is tied to the shoestrings of certain financial interests in this country. I want to say that he has made a brave speech and I want to congratulate him on the speech which he has made. I will also say that there is going to be some dancing as a result of his speech and his head is going to be asked for on a platter. I have some sympathy for him in that regard. I am not always in agreement with the hon. member for Simonstown. In fact, he knows that we have fought two elections against each other in the constituency of Simonstown, but there is much in what he has said this morning with which I agree completely and wholeheartedly, and I commend him for the brave attitude and stand he has taken in this House this morning. I also have some sympathy with his complaints about the treatment he has suffered, he and certain members of his party, at the hands of elements in the Press, but he will forgive me if I say, perhaps a little improperly, that it gives me a feeling of malicious joy to witness a little bit of discomfort on the part of the party on the other side.

We do not expect anything from the Afrikaans Press.

If the hon. gentlemen opposite remember correctly, we on this side of the House have been complaining about this sort of thing since the years 1969 and 1970, when character assassination became the role played by the Opposition.

And Die Vaderland and Die Transvaler? [Interjections.]

Order!

We have been complaining about the attitude of the Press in this regard, which was aimed at the assassination of character. You will remember, Sir, and members of the Opposition, that we had the case of my predecessor in Parliament in the constituency of Bellville. We had certain references to fishing companies. We had references to an ambassador overseas and even the Prime Minister and his family were not left without certain scurrilous remarks being made.

There was very little I said about the fishing industry that was not correct.

The campaign in that case and the one we are dealing with today was one of meaningful questions, the raised eyebrow, the loud whisper, the raising of doubts and not dealing with them completely, the innuendo, the hint at something wrong or fishy going on, all without producing proof. [Interjections.] Sir, the hon. gentleman who has just left the Chamber has gone to get instructions from his newspaper. All this happened without proof being produced of the hinted wrong, and with disregard of the consequences, whether these suspicions were in fact true or not. These are the matters we have been complaining of for a very long time on this side of the House.

*I say that this pernicious practice, which commenced some time ago in 1969 or about that time, persisted and became part of the way of life in South Africa to the dismay, fortunately now, also of hon. members of the Opposition as well who are now experiencing the effects of this very same practice at first hand. I believe that this practice, which we regard as a pernicious practice in this country, and which we want to fight tooth and nail, and have fought and complained about and criticized in the past, is something which blew over to this country from overseas. Our impression is that hon. members opposite in their efforts and fervour to get at the Government, started doing this in 1969 and obtained advice from a certain American adviser to adopt this very same procedure.

The hon. members must forgive me if I derive just a little bit of pleasure from their discomfort. I also have a great deal of sympathy with them however, because we know what it is like constantly to have to deal with this situation in South Africa. There are elements in the Press which cannot combine authority with responsibility, elements which abuse the respect we have for Press freedom until it borders on licence, and to whom factual reporting is of less importance than the promotion of standpoints. As it has been so aptly put in the English-language Press itself, there are elements in the Press who prefer advocacy to accuracy. Particularly the hon. member for Yeoville, who is not here at the moment, complains about threats of censorship, about the gagging of the Press on the part of the Government, but there have been no proposals in this regard. Hon. members should rather wait and see what our proposals are. They can then complain about the matter. There have been no serious proposals that the Press would be restricted by means of legislation. There have been indications in that direction, but there have been no serious proposals. Complaints are being heard about threats of censorship on the part of the Press Union itself with the introduction of the new code. This very same code which is being introduced by the Press Union is however being fought tooth and nail by the same Joel Mervis, about whom the hon. member for Simonstown has complained, because he would be restricted by this and he would no longer be able to express criticism and make innuendos freely. He will no longer be able to act freely.

In the meantime we do have censorship in South Africa. This censorship is that of the editorial table which we have at the moment, the censorship of the distorted image, the half truth, the creation of caricatures in South Africa. What could be more offensive than the cartoon in yesterday’s Cope Times in which the hon. the Minister of Justice is represented as if he pays no attention to the actions of warders in the prisons service? It is being suggested that all warders are guilty of assault. What could be a greater caricature than this cartoon? What could be more pernicious than the leading article of The Daily News of 31 August 1974 in connection with the purchase of land at Saldanha Bay? Questions were asked and statements made such as the following—

This statement was made without the matter having been investigated properly. The suggestion was simply made that money had been squandered. To this allegation the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs furnished an appropriate reply a few days later—I think it was during the debate on 3 September. He furnished a number of facts from which it was apparent that land at Saldanha had been purchased at an average price of approximately R350 per ha. To my mind this is a very fair price compared with the prices of land which is being purchased at Richards Bay. This same leading article went further however in making innuendos and posing questions without furnishing the answers, questions with ulterior motives—

This I regard as a most scandalous allegation, a scandalous innuendo. What the newspaper did was not to proceed from there and to try and defend these people or to obtain the true facts. It claims for itself the right to leave a question hanging in mid-air and leave it to others to defend themselves. Yesterday for example a leading article was published in The Daily News in which the following was said about the actions of the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs—

They wrote this without questioning the hon. the Minister or without even obtaining the information from him first. He furnished this information the next day in this House in the course of a debate. He replied to questions in this regard, but the newspaper simply left these questions hanging in mid-air with the added innuendo that the hon. the Minister was not doing his duty.

†Coming back to the hon. member for Yeoville, in the name of the freedom of the Press he claims the right to inquire, to probe and to expose and to ask questions regardless of the consequences of these questions.

I never did that!

In advance and without giving it careful consideration he brushed aside the legislation suggested by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs.

We do not know what it is.

If I read his words correctly from Hansard, it would appear that the mere fact that a man asks a question imposes on the Government the duty and obligation to constitute a commission of inquiry. If one listens to the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Sea Point, the mere fact that a question is being asked imposes that obligation. There is a difference between asking questions and making allegations. In his speech yesterday he also complained about the reply given by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs in answer to a question put to him in an interview with The Cape Times. In that interview the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs merely stated that in terms of his proposed legislation hon. members would be free to ask questions. When it comes to making allegations and when it comes to putting questions in the form of allegations, however, it is a different matter. When you start making allegations and when you start drawing people in, you should be able to substantiate what you are alleging. That is the difference which the hon. member did not notice. To ask a question is one matter but to ask questions in terms of which you allege or impute, you must be prepared to substantiate what you are imputing. I am afraid that the hon. member for Yeoville will still have to swallow some of his words. He referred to the hon. the Minister as having lost his cool. He himself was rather hot under the collar when playing the role of a high priest of Press freedom in a high-pitched voice, a role which he can play with equanimity while he remains the lackey or shall we say, the blue-eyed boy, of the English-language Press.

Mr. Speaker, …

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

I withdraw the word “lackey”, Mr. Speaker, and I say while he remains the blue-eyed boy of the English-language Press. The hon. member should wait until he makes a wrong decision in terms of what the Press wants and then he will find himself out in the cold. Then he will find himself in the position of the hon. member for Simonstown. Then he too will start complaining of what the hon. member for Simonstown was complaining about this morning. He must wait until he makes his first wrong turn; he must wait until he disregards his instructions; he must wait until he expresses himself in too patriotic and unjingoistic terms …

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, first the hon. member accused the hon. member for Yeoville of being a lackey and now he says that if he disobeys his instructions, he will see what happens … [Interjections.]

Order-What did the hon. member say?

I said that the hon. member must wait until he starts disobeying his instructions and then he will find himself in the cold.

The hon. member may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think it is an offence in terms of the Powers and Privileges of Parliament Act to suggest that a member in exercising his duties in this House is being improperly influenced by someone else. [Interjections.]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just want to explain that the newspapers are the educators of public opinion in this country. As such they act as instructors and educators …

Order! The hon. member is not allowed to furnish an explanation on a point of order. The hon. member for Bellville may proceed.

Let us get to this question of word-swallowing. The hon. member for Yeoville suggested yesterday that there was protection to public companies under the law of defamation and libel and that they could claim damages if they were libelled. The hon. member is a legal man, or at least has had some legal training, and he should know that there is no complete protection in this regard. May I quote to the hon. member from the book The Law of Defamation (Libel and Slander) in South Africa, by Nathan. I want to quote to him a certain case of Wit-watersrand National Laboratories Association v. Robinson (1907), T.S. 264. I want to read a quotation from this book, from page 155, where the judge said the following in this case—

That was the general rule laid down.

Have you looked at the 1946 Appellate Division decision?

The commentary of the writer on this is as follows—

The writer goes on to say—

The commentator goes on to say—

The hon. member has erred in stating that there is protection in the law of defamation. There is no actual redress for these companies and corporations except perhaps for an interdict which the hon. member has referred to. But I want to go further and put a question to the hon. member. We talk about a trial by Press; what would he say of a court where the accused appears, where the judge conducts the prosecution from the bench himself, where the jury is not in the same chamber, where the prosecution consists of hints and innuendos of a possible misdeed, where the onus of proof of the accused’s guilt lies not on the prosecution but on the accused to prove his innocence, where the accused’s defence is not placed verbatim before the jury, but only in the words of the judge summing up …

It sounds a lot like the Schlebusch Commission, doesn’t it?

That is what you are doing now.

Is that justice? Would the hon. member call that justice? [Interjections.]

Order! I shall now have to ask certain hon. members to keep quiet.

That is what we are complaining about. We are complaining about this trial by the Press. There is no justice in this. The editor of the newspaper acts as the prosecutor and the judge at the same time. He need only to hint that something is irregular, but he need not prove anything. In his summary to the general public he need only publish his views on the defence of the accused, and not the entire defence of the accused. The onus of proving his innocence is on the accused and not on the accusers. He personally suggests to the jury that the accused is guilty. Is this the kind of justice, this trial by Press and conviction by innuendo the hon. member for Yeoville endorses in terms of his actions in this House yesterday and his remarks to the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs? If there is any complaint, why could it not be submitted to the Police by means of a statement, or has the hon. member no confidence in the Police? It is only fair that complaints raised in public should at least be based prima facie on facts. If the hon. member for Yeoville does not concede this, he is in favour of the Press abusing its power. If the hon. member claims the right to continue with this as he has done in the past for people to be accused of some offence without any proof being furnished, an exercise both I and the hon. member for Simonstown are complaining about, then we are also entitled to adopt certain standpoints. At the risk of being guilty of this kind of offence myself, I want to suggest that something is amiss with the English Press, that something is amiss with regard to the attacks on Iscor made in this House by the public arm of the English Press in particular, and that there were some ulterior motives with the attacks on Iscor. Those sustained attacks should be investigated very carefully to see whether there were not some ulterior motives with the whole of this onslaught.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bellville has devoted most of his speech to an attack on the hon. member for Yeoville for having criticized the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs for his statement in respect of allegations made in this House, a statement which I very much suspect was made without the authority of the Cabinet. I suspect that the gentleman was on an adventure of his own, a very dangerous adventure.

Is that so? You had better get your facts straight.

Well, I am asking the hon. the Minister: Was it made on the authority of the Cabinet?

You made a statement.

I suspect that this statement was made without the authority of the Cabinet.

What is your answer?

I shall be speaking in this debate. You will get a very clear answer.

I am very glad to hear that the hon. the Minister will be taking part in this debate. Perhaps he will tell us then whether in his view the absolute privilege accorded members in this House should be restricted in any way.

Who has suggested that?

The hon. the Minister asks who has suggested that. He has made threats that members who make statements in this House will be called upon to substantiate them outside this House. [Interjections.] I want to say quite categorically …

Order! I want to point out to hon. members that I insist on the hon. the Leader of the Opposition being given a polite hearing.

I want to say quite categorically that, as far as this side of the House is concerned, we will brook no interference whatever with the absolute privilege of members in this House. Where members act irresponsibly, it is for you, Mr. Speaker, to take action in this House. It is for nobody outside this House to take action, nor is it a privilege or a right that should be limited in any way by law. It is the essence of democratic government that there should be absolute freedom of speech in this House.

This discussion arose as a result of a speech made by the hon. member for Simonstown which he says he made on his own responsibility, as indeed he did. Regarding that speech I want to say quite plainly that I cannot accept all the facts nor all the views.

Some of them?

Just tell us which you do not accept.

There are some things I want to say to the hon. the Minister, who is so talkative this morning. One of the things I am going to tell him now is that I have been at the receiving end of attacks from both the Nationalist Press and the English-language Press. Let me tell you, Sir, that the English-language Press is still in the kindergarden school by comparison with the Nationalist Press when it comes to denigrating politicians.

Hear, hear!

By whom are they controlled? All the directors are sitting over there. They are front-benchers.

I believe one of the essences of a free Press is that there should also be freedom as to who controls the Press, subject always to the provisions of for example the Monopolies Act. I think it is common knowledge that when Argus and SAAN were thinking of merging, there were talks, influence was brought to bear and there was an indication from the Government that that would not be acceptable to them. The plan was not proceeded with. Subsequently, of course, Perskor was created and since then it seems as if the views of the Government may have changed somewhat. I do not think it is important who controls the Press, but I think what is important is how the Press behaves and to what extent and with what responsibility it reports the truth. Once before when this matter was raised I had occasion to say that we were not interested in the freedom of the Press for its own sake, but that we were interested, and vitally interested, in it because of the role the free Press plays in developing and protecting the freedom of the individual and preserving the country’s image as a free and democratic State. I also said that we were vitally interested in the role a free Press plays in keeping the public informed so that they were properly equipped to exercise their democratic rights. Now, Sir, we know there are certain legally enforcible curbs on irresponsible action by the Press, by any body, or any individual and there are some that are recognized as reasonable throughout the whole world. We in South Africa have not been slow in regard to laying down similar rules of conduct for our Press. But I think the essence is that a free Press which is responsible, and I stress the responsibility, is an essential watch-dog in a free society. Newspapers tend to be a mirror of society itself and one cannot blame the mirror if the picture that is reflected sometimes is ugly.

But, Sir, it is tragic that we should be arguing things of this kind in the light of the sort of background against which this debate is being conducted, because we are conducting this debate here in this House at a time when world influences are playing a bigger and bigger role in influencing South Africa. Those influences are of a kind which signify that all the elements of a revolution of immense dimensions are upon us and likely to disrupt our entire way of life here in South Africa, as they are doing in other parts of the world. You see, Sir, there have been changes in the world in recent years, changes which have made new demands upon us, which have made life more complex and which have resulted particularly in three things happening. They have created new patterns of behaviour, they have resulted in all too many people rejecting traditional codes of conduct and they have created a situation in which large sections of the population have clashed with established authority. It has become an accepted thing. People have new ideas and new problems today. Their anxiety is not that plentiful natural resources will be inadequately exploited but that unless there is sufficient restraint those natural resources are going to become exhausted and the world will be without any means of replacing them. Their anxiety today is not so much that nature should be tamed in the interests of civilization but that civilization will destroy the entire natural environment. I think the oil crisis has come as a sharp reminder that many of our essential resources are limited while the demands of a growing world population are steadily increasing. Food production is below requirements in many parts of the world and it is becoming evident that it may now never be possible to adequately feed all the hungry nations of the world. I think there are many who are questioning whether our political, our financial and our commercial systems can meet the demands of our changing times. I think that the hon. the Minister of Finance will support me when I say that there is growing concern at the breakdown of international monetary systems with the consequent decline in the exchange of essential commodities. I think that the hon. gentleman will also agree with me when I say that the ravages of inflation have undermined faith and confidence in money as a store of value and hence in thrift and investment as a means of increasing productivity. These are all serious weaknesses and unless there are radical changes and effective new remedies these things are going to weaken the ability of the Western world to resist the attacks of Communism upon it and the consequent impoverishment of the human spirit which will result in any such takeover. I believe we have been lucky in South Africa. We have been insulated against a large number of these things, first of all, by vast reserves of natural resources and, secondly, by distance. Nevertheless, I think three things are happening here. The first is that we are becoming a focal point of international pressure. The second is that our sub-continent is being singled out as a place where unless the accepted order is changed we are going to be systematically excommunicated by the world community. In the third instance, it is becoming a place where the new forces of subversive warfare are preparing for action against the existing order in our society.

It is against this background that we have to view this session of Parliament. I think that it has been notable not for what the Government has achieved but for what the Government has not achieved. I believe that it has not achieved it because it has failed to grasp the gravity of the situation. I think I have said sufficient to indicate that a dangerous situation is developing in the world around us. This is a situation in which new threats, new pressures and dangerous new dimensions are apparent in our international relationships. What has been the reaction of the Government? As far as I can see, it has been a reaction of inertia, a sluggish reluctance to enlist the participation of Parliament and the people or to gain their active contribution. It confers in private, it reaches secret decisions when the entire situation cries out for frank confidence, mutual trust and the combined resources of all men of goodwill in South Africa. Here in South Africa itself, things are beginning to move faster. Patterns are changing and yet we see an astonishing lethargy on the part of the Government. It has a dawdling reluctance to commit itself to the great issues of the day, a frightening caution in casting away obsolete ideas, and almost an insensibility to the swift passage of time. We have done our best on this side of the House to rouse the Government. Throughout the session I believe that we have put the real issues squarely before Parliament. We have identified the dangers, we have taken new initiatives, and we have advanced new ideas, new ideas in the field of the modernization of the constitution, race relations, South-West Africa, and economic industrial planning, and new patterns of labour, sport and many other issues. We tried to criticize where criticism was due and to criticize constructively. In the interests of South Africa, Sir, we have offered co-operation where such assurances might, we thought, have broken the deadlock within the Nationalist Party. But, Sir, it has been like flogging a very tired horse, almost a dead horse, so tired and weary that it can hardly move at all. One good example is the Coloured Relations Vote, which we finished earlier this week. No one will deny the seething discontent of the Coloured people and how serious it is and how essential it is that it should be of immediate concern to Parliament. Only last Wednesday there was a statement from the rector-designate of the University of the Western Cape, Dr. R. E. van der Ross, who said—

Sir, whatever our differences, surely it is common cause between us that the rapid deterioration in the relationship between these people and ourselves has got to be repaired and has got to be put right. It is not merely a matter of international goodwill; it is not merely a matter of loyalty and good order; it is all of those things, but it is something more; it is a matter of conscience and it is a matter of common sense. But nothing we could do has forced the Government to move. In fact, Sir, the horse seems as weary as ever; neither whip nor spur, not even a carrot, has made it possible to move that horse along any faster, and the tragedy of it all is that this should be the position at a time when I should have thought that a new deal for the Coloured people was a vital issue in the future security of South Africa. Sir, I think that already there is a growing awareness in the minds of most South Africans that pressures and hostilities are mounting. We have known for some time that the cold war is relentlessly closing in on our frontiers; we have known that this cold war is coming and that our enemies are no longer satisfied with bloodless victories at conference tables overseas. I think those people must be realizing that a real war, a new kind of war, compounded of sporadic violence, terrorism, subversion, has overthrown some of the outer bastions of South Africa and that there is a decisive phase in that war approaching us at the present time. What I want to ensure today, Sir, is that we have no illusions either as to the nature of that war or as to its remedy. As to its nature, I want to say that we have to face an enemy who is not going to draw up his armies in classical formation on our frontiers. He is going to be careful never to engage in force, very seldom to give us a target for conventional weapons to disperse his forces with any concentration of strength against him and to strike only at points of weakness. He will come by night, Sir. He will come with the weapons of terrorism, subversion and deception. He is going to receive moral and logistic support. He is going to receive his training, his weapons, his propaganda and his money from the communist countries. He is the soldier, Sir, that you saw in Malaysia, that you saw in Korea, that you saw in Algeria, that you saw in Vietnam, and that you have seen more recently in Mozambique and in Angola. We know that inevitably and remorselessly he is going to strike at South Africa. Sir, what defences have we got against this kind of warfare? I believe we can build effective defences, but if we are to build effective defences, then every single person in South Africa has got to realize that they have got a job to do if we are going to be able to resist this onslaught. Nothing could be more foolish than to believe that a strong, modern army, an air force and a navy could provide a sufficient shield behind which we could continue our normal way of life. These conventional resources, these conventional protections, are essential and I am satisfied that as far as South Africa is concerned they will measure up to every duty they may be called upon to perform. But we know that in this type of warfare, this subversive warfare, it has been said that the biggest defence lies in the hearts and minds and in the resolution of our own people, and unless all our people are completely convinced that they must face these dangers together so that they can share the fruits of the triumph afterwards, then we have no ultimate defence against that sort of attack. I believe now is the time, without any further indecision, to put those defences in order. It is because I believe that the Government has been too slow in doing this that I am raising this matter again this morning. I want to say in all fairness that there have been some slight signs of movement during the past session of Parliament, of movement in the right direction, but they have been tentative, cautious advances, far less adequate than the hopeful judgment of many political correspondents. But there has been a little progress. Let us look at it.

We have had from the Minister of Sport a most involved and dialectical explanation of the basis on which mixed sport will be permitted. Beyond the dense thicket of words there seems to be a realization that further rapid advances will have to be made. His caution, I think, arises not so much from lack of conviction as from the necessity to reconcile his actions with the orthodox doctrines of his party. We have had some slight movement in regard to Coloured affairs. We had a long and frustrating debate, to which I have referred already. We had no clear statement from the Minister, but we did get a concession that he believed that some progress could be made by extra-parliamentary consultation and discussion. But we still do not know who is going to consult with whom, or where or when, or what it is going to be about, nor do the Coloured people know, and it has certainly not carried the matter much further. Apart from those hopeful indications, we have had Government acceptance of some aspects of United Party policy. As regards the master and servants laws, the most unfortunate aspects of them, the more archaic features of them, have been repealed. Non-Whites have been permitted to play a part in our representation to the United Nations General Assembly, something for which we on this side pleaded for so long. There was the question of encouraging private White capital in the Reserves. I think the hon. the Prime Minister himself startled the Federated Chamber of Industries and the rest of the country as well with his sudden change of heart on this issue. So sudden indeed, after 20 years of restrictions, prohibitions and red tape, was the change in which the homelands leaders were given a virtually free hand, that on the very morning of the day on which the hon. the Prime Minister announced it, the president of the Federated Chamber of Industries was in fact pleading that this should be done. What happened? It came as such a surprise that there was a lyrical apologetic in Die Transvaler—

Well, now, Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister is no new broom. He has been Prime Minister for eight years. If it is going to take him so long before he can penetrate our problems in depth with a realistic and clear vision, then I think the earth’s revolutions will have to slow down before the sunrise can herald the birth of a new day. Let us look at what the hon. gentleman said. He said: “I am not one of the quarter to twelve people; I believe it is half an hour before sunrise.” [Interjections.] In the light of this, that is evidence more of complacency than of optimism. It is 20 years ago that in this House the argument for the investment of private White capital in what was then called the reserves was strongly put by this side of the House in debate after debate.

Twenty-six years ago you went into Opposition and you are still there.

Yes, we are still there and the hon. the Chief Whip is still where he is and he has still solved none of the problems of South Africa. [Interjections.] The hon. gentleman talks about 26 years, but what did Prof. Tomlinson, the author of the Tomlinson Report, say only two days ago? He said that because of the Government’s pusillanimous approach to this issue, 15 years have been wasted because of the fragmentary and timid approach of the Government to the great task which his commission had outlined.

There are other examples of changes during this session of Parliament. Multiracial consultations like crocuses in winter are peeping forth in diverse areas and fields, priority is being given to the training of Black diplomats and information officers, Blacks and Whites, unsegregated—can one believe it—watched our triumph in the Davis Cup. All these are indications of a change of heart and they are welcomed by the Opposition. However, it is cause for concern that they are being undertaken by a party so long unused to change and so unconvinced of the correctness of the line they follow. This holds out two dangers, viz. over hasty action on unprepared ground and a lack of that deep-seated conviction that the new approaches are right, and therefore a lack of the necessary determination and drive to see that the new policy programmes are carried through to their logical conclusion. I want to give just one or two examples to show what I mean. I think the Government has already reached the stage where it realizes that there has to be better training of our Black labour in South Africa and that more jobs must be opened up to it. More facilities are therefore being made available for training and more jobs are being opened to Black labour in South Africa. However, at the same time what are we finding? At the same time we are finding, running parallel with this, a whole series of court cases in Pretoria at the moment in which employers are being convicted for employing Blacks in jobs reserved for Whites. Very often they are jobs of the most trifling concern. Another example is the Government’s persistent illusion that separate independence for the homelands will remove race discrimination. That is all right, but alongside of that we have the recent example of a well-known editor of a Black newspaper, at one time Senate correspondent for The World here in Parliament, being manhandled by Government officials at an airport.

Why do you take that incident to condemn our policy?

It should not happen at all.

Anticipating the sort of interjection I have had from the hon. the Chief Whip, I have the reply for him, not from me, but from Schalk Pienaar, the editor of Beeld. He says—

That is the trouble; “daar is geen end aan nie”, as far as this Government is concerned. Why? Because these new situations are being handled by a generation of civil servants fed on “verkrampte” ministerial directives. The essential infrastructure of enlightened thought combined with realism built up solidly over the years, is too often lacking in Government circles. Statesmanship and wisdom are at a discount and this is the problem with which we are faced. Nevertheless we on this side of the House are grateful for these advances. We have pioneered advances of this nature over the years. We have consistently made “voor-brand” and we have shown intelligent anticipation After an initial rejection by the Government we frequently had the satisfaction of seeing our ideas introduced by the very same Government in some or other new semantic disguise. We look forward with confidence to the eventual triumph of logic over sectionalism and over short-sighted prejudice and we know that very much of what we are advocating today is going to be accepted by the Government tomorrow. But time is of the essence and because time is of the essence, I want to draw the Government’s attention to some things which I feel have to be tackled. We know for instance that the Government cannot much longer evade the realities of Black industrialization nor delay the necessity of extending both the protection and the restraints of the Industrial Conciliation Act to the Black workers. Why delay? Why not take the necessary steps? It is obvious that petty apartheid and obnoxious racial discrimination must go. The ambassador of South Africa at the United Nations said so only yesterday and I quote him—

Despite its protestations to the contrary, the Government is still the main stronghold of these practices in post offices, in Government buildings and in Government services. I can only say that I hope that changes will not be delayed too long. There is another one. We know that the Government cannot stubbornly persist with the iniquities and humiliations inherent in certain aspects of section 16 of the Immorality Act. This is what Die Transvaler wrote about it on Wednesday this week—

It is quite obvious that South Africa cannot justify or tolerate much longer the failure to pay equal pay for equal jobs and responsibilities or the wide discrepancies in wages and in social pensions which are paid to various races. Has the time not come to narrow these gaps and tackle this job meaningfully? We have a rapidly growing population. Our expanding economy is creating a shortage of skilled workers and it can only be satisfied timeously if facilities for technical education and secondary education are urgently expanded. If we delay it is going to slow down our rate of growth and it is going to lead to the lowering of living standards. Surely we should supply these institutions, wherever opportunity offers and to an increasing degree, in our own interests. It has been made obvious on many occasions during these Budget debates that South Africa with its particular problems and particular dangers cannot allow its social and economic advances to be broken down and destroyed by inflation. It is also obvious that as a country we could have better defences against inflation than any other country in the world, if the economy were properly managed. But new inspiration, new initiative® and drastic remedies have got to be applied otherwise you are going to have that erosion of living standards which is going to eat away at the very roots of our security in South Africa. The problem which is facing us particularly, as well as other countries in the world, is that the unitary constitutional structure which has served us so well has certain very real shortcomings which are delaying the finding of adequate solutions. Surely it is time to recognize without prejudice and without partisanship that one or other federal system will be needed in South Africa if we are to reconcile once and for all the diversities of Southern Africa with its common needs. Why delay? These are only some of the initiatives we on this side of the House have advanced. These are initiatives vital to our security and vital to that security particularly in the days and months that lie ahead. These are once again examples of intelligent anticipation and I believe their logic is unarguable. I do not believe anybody is going to get up on that side of the House and say that we cannot do these things that I have suggested this morning. Then why are we delaying? They must inevitably be accepted in due course. What I want to get across to hon. members opposite is that these sorts of changes are just as important to the security of South Africa as the purchase and manufacture of arms and weapons to defend ourselves.

Hear, hear!

When we talk about the defence of our national frontiers and the safety of our homes and people, it is these steps promoting goodwill between the peoples of South Africa which are of vital importance. What I want to get across today too is that there is no more time to seek petty political advantage in these matters. We cannot afford the luxury of playing games with each other any more. How different would things not have been today if for various reasons many of the changes we have proposed were accepted years ago instead of having been accepted in the last year or two? I believe it is this delay, this playing at politics, that is putting us behind the clock as far as security in South Africa is concerned. It is magnifying the dangers with which we are faced. I know that the hon. the Prime Minister has his troubles and I know that he has dissident elements in that party.

Who is talking?

I know the hon. the Prime Minister has his troubles and I am probably far more experienced in dealing with them than he is. I would concede that at once. Therefore, let me give him a little advice. Anticipating just this sort of interjection, I have here another quotation, particularly for the benefit of the hon. Chief Whip. It is once again from Mr. Schalk Pienaar and reads as follows:

The hon. gentleman can take his choice. In which school is he? I have no doubt that he accounts to the hon. the Prime Minister regularly on how his caucus divides up on this issue. Perhaps one day, when we know each other a little better, he will tell me the score. Naturally, it varies from day to day. Mr. Pienaar has something else to say with regard to the question of whether progress is being made fast enough. He says—

I cannot agree more with this gentleman. The time for urgent action is upon us. We believe, therefore, that it is the paramount duty of the Government most urgently to put the interests of South Africa before any party or sectional advantage. I believe that, if my assessment of the situation is correct, and I have no doubt that members on the Government side who are informed, will agree with my assessment of how serious that situation is, they will agree with me that that is the paramount duty of the Government.

I appreciate that duties and obligations do not lie on one side only. In so far as an Opposition can, we are prepared to take our share of the responsibility. That is why I have said and repeat today, that the United Party will not seek to embarrass the Government if the Government does those things that are necessary for the achievement of a new era of inter-racial co-operation and goodwill in South Africa and that are necessary to safeguard the security of South Africa. I say that quite categorically. We have given examples of that in the past. Our forbearance on the South-West African issue is one example. Others are our efforts to assist in the question of defence, our undertaking that, if homelands are on the point of independence, we will not stand in their way, and many other matters of that kind. We have given evidence of that responsibility. Unfortunately, this offer I have made has often been wrongly interpreted. It has been interpreted as a willingness to seek consensus at any cost or to abandon the objectives of the United Party in the interests of finding some sort of common solution. That is not my objective. Therefore I want to make the position of this party perfectly clear and beyond any doubt.

Firstly, we believe in our principles, and purposes and we are convinced that they must ultimately prevail. Secondly, we believe that the Government must inevitably come to accept the greater part of these principles and purposes, but we understand their difficulties in doing so and we do not propose to exploit their difficulties. Thirdly, in the meantime, there are some essential things that must be done. They may deviate in form or method from the course we ourselves would take, but provided that such steps are constructively directed to the same end, i.e. a new era of inter-racial co-operation and goodwill that is so vital for our long-term security which I define as our ultimate objective, we shall not oppose them merely because the route is different. Let me illustrate the last point with a practical example. We have made it clear that we believe that the best interests of South Africa, the interests of all communities, can only be safeguarded by the acceptance of the federal principle, the Government on the other hand believes in the multiplicity of separate states operating on the unitary principle, but it has difficulty in accommodating the Coloured people in that system. I therefore said that the Government had no option other than to give the Coloured people direct representation within the White unitary system, and we will not oppose the Government if they take that step. We ourselves would prefer to advance directly to the federal system, but, as long as the unitary system prevails, we shall support improved representation for the Coloured people under that unitary system. I have even gone further; I have indicated that if the Government is able to get consensus with the Coloured people on matters of fundamental policy which we believe to be in the interests of South Africa, we shall not stand in the Government’s way but shall support that consensus even if it does not entirely coincide with our policy.

I want to come to another proposal, a firm proposal, which is wholly consistent with the three principles I have outlined and which I trust will be correctly understood. It is common ground, I think, that the peoples of South Africa whatever their racial or other diversities, have a stake in the ultimate peace and progress of us all. Whatever our ultimate constitutional links may be, we can no longer proceed without meaningful consultation and willing consent. I believe the time has come to construct a consultative body, something of the nature of the Council of Ministers in the European Community, a Council of State, a consultative body, in which we may regularly meet and seek to reach agreement on matters of common concern to us all. An institution of this kind will take the place of no existing Government bodies and will have no powers in conflict with them. It will not anticipate the structure of any constitutional organ, federal or otherwise, that may eventually be evolved by mutual consent. Therefore, it would be representative of views and interests but not of numbers. Its purpose would be to seek out common ground and to define the common purpose; to advise but not to instruct. It would be an advance on the present stage of sporadic consultation between the Government and leaders of individual communities, and it would be an advance to a new stage of regular consultation between the leaders of all communities in South Africa. Surely we can start by getting together and talking about those dangers and those defences that are essential for the security of us all?

Cannot we ensure that matters which require mutual support and consent can lead to solutions on which we can all rely? Cannot we find a place where we can define our areas of firm agreement and seek to repair the areas of uncertainty and dispute that might exist? I believe that whatever the difficulties or objections that may arise from past prejudice or from present doubts, the time has come to take a new initiative in this direction. After all, all parties in this House are agreed about the eventual necessity of some or other institutional form of co-operation between the various States or communities or peoples that constitute a greater South Africa.

We spoke of a federal solution: the hon. the Prime Minister spoke of a “Magsplan”, an economic union, and things of that nature. But, Sir, events are crowding in on us. The options that are open today will be closed tomorrow. Why cannot we make a constructive beginning while there is still time? The hon. the Prime Minister made a most important speech in the Other Place early this week, in which he clearly implied that South Africa cannot reconcile the heavy human and financial cost of escalating confrontation in Southern Africa with the vast task of feeding, housing and employing our expanding population in this part of the world. I cannot support this too strongly. There is full agreement on this issue and we need not waste any more words arguing about it, but what we have to do now is to work out a system by which this great purpose can be achieved. A Council of State of the kind which I envisage could play a big role in achieving these ends. In the field of labour it could recommend measures to achieve full employment in South Africa. It would be the kind of body which could recommend a solution to the problem of the urban African.

We have full employment.

Did I hear someone say we have full employment? You know, Sir, when those words of wisdom come from an hon. Deputy Minister who should know how many unemployed persons are walking about in many of these townships and in the African homelands, then one comes to realize that it is this sense of unreality that creates dangers and troubles for us. [Interjections.] This sort of body will be the sort of body that could find a solution to the problems attached to migrant labour and could perhaps work out a charter for migrant labour in South Africa. In the constitutional field it could deliberately and continuously work for the construction of a system in which all communities would participate while ensuring that large groups would not be able to dominate small groups. In the economic sphere it would be concerned …

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Leader a question? Would the hon. the Leader of the Opposition tell me why the mines, industry and agriculture are looking for labour at the moment? They came to see me about it during the past week.

Mr.

Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to know from me why the mines, industry and agriculture are looking for labour. I shall tell him. Just to start with, the physical test and the health test set by the mines is so high that a large part of our Black population cannot satisfy those tests. [Interjections.] I want to say something else. I challenge that hon. the Deputy Minister to go and apply for his red ticket to work underground. I have been through the test myself.

I shall do that.

I wonder if he will pass. [Interjections.] That is one of the reasons.

What about farmers?

The hon. gentleman asks: “What about the farmers?” Let me tell him this. I applied for four men to come to my farm and I have been waiting nearly four months. They have been there all the time.

Why?

Because of the slowness of the administration of this Government working through the homeland authorities. Mr. Speaker, the system is rotten from top to bottom. I have never known any clerical system work with as many delays as is happening at the present time.

It is a labyrinth.

It has become such a joke that in my area farmers apply for leave to take a truck and travel into the homelands to look for labourers themselves.

Can they find them?

Yes, they find them all right. The problem is to get these labourers registered, to get them accepted to come and work in this area. If the hon. gentleman would even now accept our system of labour bureaux throughout South Africa to bring the employer and the would-be employee together …

That is what we are doing at the moment.

No, Sir. Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman has no imagination at all. His system just is not working and he just does not have the ability to put it right.

You only have imagination; nothing else.

The hon. gentleman says that I have only imagination and nothing else. Mr. Speaker, I would rather have that than the other attributes that hon. gentleman has! I was speaking about a Council of State, about what it could do in the labour field, in the constitutional field. In the economic field it could be concerned with the sharing of resources and the proper employment of technical aid so that the most promising areas of progress could be developed for the common benefit. Can you imagine, Sir, the advantages it would have in the field of internal security? It would enable us to talk to each other instead of about each other in the sensitive sphere of race relations, and defuse any situation of tension that was arising or might arise. It would enable us to plan together to meet and to oppose any fear of terrorist infiltration, and to maintain law and order in South Africa.

It would enable us to work together to evolve blueprints and act jointly to realize them for faster economic expansion and improved living standards for all our people. It would ensure that we developed a common loyalty to each other and to South Africa which is so vitally necessary for our security. Look what it could do in the field of foreign relations. It would make it clear that if our Government chooses, as the hon. the Prime Minister indicated in his speech only two days ago, the road of peace and prosperity in Southern Africa, it would be choosing it on behalf of all the peoples of Southern Africa and not just of this Parliament. It would emphasize that we offer to participate in planning those developments which the hon. the Prime Minister singled out as being of vital importance to the future of Southern Africa; that all race groups are ready and willing to co-operate. It would enable us to select from the race groups to represent South Africa at conferences overseas, people who are accustomed to working together and who have the same background as to events in South Africa. It would emphasize to the guerrilla on our borders that we stand united as one South African people in our resistance to onslaughts upon us and in our determination to resist foreign interference in our internal affairs.

Sir, we have nothing to lose by the establishment of such a body; we have an awful lot to gain. Is it too much to ask this Government to be just a little bold and a little brave just once? I believe what we need today are men and women who can plan ahead with clarity, without fear and with a deep sense of humanity’s common needs and aspirations. Sir, I want to leave this one thought with you: We shall quarrel again; I have been quarrelling with the Government for 26 years; we will not see eye to eye on many, many issues, but let us at least accept one mutual dedication and that is to peace and goodwill in our country, South Africa. Sir, the battle that lies ahead is not a battlefield for personal or sectional triumph, but I believe it offers a unique opportunity for a concerted victory for a greater South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, today we have experienced a day in this Parliament which would have led my hon. friend, the hon. member for Carletonville, to say: “Parliament is now becoming an exciting place again.” I my lifetime, I have seen the hon. the Leader of the Opposition playing much rougher before, but today was the first time I saw him in the role of a lightning conductor, as a person who was trying his best to break the tension, and who was trying his best to get the topical matters raised by the hon. member for Simonstown and also by the hon. member for Bellville safely out of the way in this debate.

Sir. I am sorry the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not react in greater detail to the two speeches which preceded his, for I think that the two hon. members raised what is probably one of the greatest, one of the most complicated and one of the most deplorable problems with which we are faced in South Africa, and that is an irresponsible Press which has no South African insight or feeling. The reply of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was that he was being attacked by both the Afrikaans and the English-language Press, and therefore we should all simply take it lying down, and be satisfied with the situation. That is not an argument, Sir. A year or two ago the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself rose to his feet in this House and threatened to fight back against the Sunday Times, but he left it to the hon. member for Simonstown to do this. It would have been welcomed by the whole of South Africa, and it would have been a good thing for the world if we had been able to hear from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he was satisfied with the behaviour—forget for a moment the personalities they indulge in, and the character-assassination which they commit—of certain newspapers and certain journalists as far as the status of South Africa in the world is concerned. He could simply have stated specifically whether he thought it was good for South Africa for a man such as Mr. Stanley Uys, while he was in Europe, to have disseminated loaded reports of incidents here in Wale Street, and then to have told the world that he had been an eye-witness to these incidents.

On these matters the hon. the Leader of the Opposition kept silent. Sir, I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition should consult the next speaker on the Opposition side, for this debate is not going to last for ever, so that we can ascertain what the official standpoint of the United Party is in regard to this absurdity which is developing in South Africa, i.e. an un-South African, unpatriotic Press which revels in the embarrassment of South Africa. Sir, there were a few high-water marks in the speech made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I think we all welcome hearing from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that he is willing to co-operate in a responsible manner when the interests of South Africa are at stake. One welcomes this.

This has always been the case.

The matter which was raised here by the hon. member for Simonstown is one of the things in regard to which we want to know immediately where the Opposition stands in the face of this danger threatening democratic South Africa today, but nothing was said about that. And then, Sir, we do want to hear more, we want more informative statements from the hon. Opposition. For example, the Opposition has every confidence that the Government will in due course take over the federal standpoint of the United Party. There was a time when I shared that confidence, but today, I must ask: What federal standpoint? and: If we were to take over their federal standpoint today, would they not perhaps come forward with a new one tomorrow which they would also want us to take over? How can the Leader of the Opposition tell us that if the Government is forced through circumstances to give the Coloureds direct representation in this House, they will support it? For they themselves do not want to do this if they come into power. They will not, on the day on which they come into power, immediately have a federal system in South Africa. It will take years to create a federal system from our unitary system, and during that time, according to their policy, the Coloureds will not have representation in the White Parliament, which alone has the power and will have the right to decide on that matter. Yet they are willing to support the Prime Minister if he should do so. On the other hand, according to their own policy, this will be a purely White Parliament. What value can one attach now to that party’s exaggerated demands that the Government should take over their policy?

You know that what you are saying is nonsense.

Sir, it is no use. I believe that the United Party is suffering as a result of a major problem, and I sympathize with it, but until such time as it is able to solve that problem, it will not really contribute to the schools of thought in South Africa, to the South African political dialogue, do what may, as we ascertained today. And this stems from the fact that the United Party, at its peak, was a commonwealth party in South Africa. The United Party under Gen. Smuts derived its strength and its inspirations from the fact that it was the party which stood for South Africa’s membership of the Commonwealth and the playing by South Africa of a considerable part on the world scene as a result of its membership of the Commonwealth. But that reason for its existence has disappeared. Not even the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would have asked to return to the Commonwealth if it had still existed today, but they have not yet found anything to put in the place of that ideal. Their lack of idealism, the lack on their part of anything which is great and powerful and noble which they can offer to South Africa, is the reason for their floundering about to such an extent; for that reason they have an unstable policy, in so far as they have a policy; for that reason they change from one day to another. For that reason, too, as I have already said in this House before, they as well as the Progressive Party, are doing South Africa disservice in that they are not affording that section of the population of South Africa whom they represent and who are being misled to such an extent by the Press, an opportunity of comprehending the powerful spiritual, moral and intellectual adventure in which the National Party is engaged in South Africa. Sir, I want to spend a little time discussing that idea today, for I think it is pitiable that the Opposition does not rectify what only it is able to rectify, and that is the fact that as far as the readers of the English-language Press are concerned, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the real issues and the real achievements of the various parties in South Africa. Now we find that, because they cannot do justice to that experiment, they rely on touting, on the creation of misgivings, on the casting of suspicion on every action of the Government. When Iscor wishes to accomplish a mighty deed to strengthen the development of South Africa’s infrastructure and its foreign exchange, then every possible attempt is made to cast suspicion on that deed, for example by levelling complaints of corruption which cannot be substantiated. When the Government adopts essential security measures, every possible means is utilized, but without any substantiation of those allegations, to create the impression that the Government is renouncing democracy and its highest principles in South Africa. Restrictions are regarded as being the cruel conduct of people who prosecute the innocent. In respect of our Prisons Service, unfortunate, isolated incidents are held up as being the practice in South Africa. Special visits are paid to criminals, with whom no one in South Africa can have any sympathy, and they are held up as being leaders because they are supposedly the leaders of their people. Surely South Africa is worthy of more than that kind of conduct; surely South Africa deserves better from its people than that.

I want to make an appeal to certain elements in both Opposition parties not to let the English-language Press down, for they are sitting here today, not on the basis of a policy, not as a result of their standpoint, but because the Press bluffed the people that they were, on merit, more deserving than their immediate predecessors in their constituencies. I ask any impartial observer of the parliamentary scene where that merit is. I am saying that they should not let their Press down, and next session they must act in such a way that we can see that they were elected on merit, for we have not seen this yet. We see people who can read out little speeches very well, speeches which were probably written for them by other people. [Interjections.] I see people who lean heavily on researches in the second storey of the Opposition section of the Parliamentary building. Where is the merit? Where is the new dynamite which we were supposed to have seen in Parliament; where is the new vigorous Opposition which we were supposed to have had on the part of the Young Turks and the Progressive Party? They are soft! For that reason they have to rely on suspicion-mongering, the undermining of confidence, not in the Government’s policy, but in the probity and sincerity of the Government. This is a disservice to South Africa under the present circumstances.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that the hon. the Prime Minister made a very important speech in the Senate the other day. I agree with him. Perhaps we should, in our political differences and disputes in this House, think more often in terms of that clarion call which we heard in the Senate, for there the Prime Minister made it clearly apparent that South Africa is sharing its gifts, its knowledge and its skills with its own people in this country, but also desires to share them with the rest of Africa, if it wants to co-operate with us, for we have a special responsibility towards it since we are also citizens of Greater Africa. We are making that offer with a powerful testimonial: These are the achievements of South Africa in the sphere of the upliftment of its people with the development of the policy of multi-nationalism. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke for more than an hour today. He made certain demands and also spoke of safeguarding South Africa, but nowhere did he show that he appreciates the tremendous progress which is being made with this policy, to win the goodwill and favourable disposition of the one community after the other in South Africa. This is what I deplore, for an Opposition which is not part of the life of a country cannot, under the British system which we are practising in South Africa, fulfil the role which can be expected of the loyal opposition of South Africa. We are not an inconsiderable country. We are a country to be reckoned with in the context of Africa and our achievements are becoming spectacularly greater and more considerable by the day. In 1947 the gross national product of South Africa was less than R2 000 million, while it had increased by 1973 to approximately R19 000 million. Over the course of 25 years, it therefore increased ninefold. Surely this is a tremendous achievement. Are the hon. members of the Opposition not as proud of this as we are? If we take a look at the real growth—in which we allow for inflation—of our gross national product, South Africa had, by the end of last year, fared better than countries such as France, the Netherlands, Italy, West Germany, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland and the United States of America, with an average growth rate of 6,2%. We have something to offer to Africa, but we will never hear any mention of this when we listen to the speeches made by hon. members of the Opposition. They pretend to be unaware of this.

No.

To the extent to which they are aware of it, they come forward only with petty criticism and with malodorous proposals. Every time the hon. member for Yeoville rises in the House, I wait to hear what stink is going to be raised next to try to catch the attention of the Press. We get nothing constructive, nothing real and nothing constructive for the future of South Africa. We must give consideration to how the ordinary people in South Africa are progressing, and take cognizance of the fact that salaries and wages, despite inflation—which we are all concerned about—are increasing more rapidly than the value of our money is decreasing. If we consider the Railways, we find that the salaries of railwaymen increased between 1948 and 1973—while the number of railwaymen did not increase considerably—from R109 million to R527 million per annum. This represents an increase of almost 500% over a period during which the cost of living rose by only 126. The salaries increased almost four times as rapidly as did the cost of living. This is typical of what is happening in South Africa. This is something to be proud of, and we want to make the knowledge, the skills and the means which made these things possible available to the other countries of Africa, who are struggling and suffering hardships today owing to circumstances over which they do not always themselves have control. We invite the Opposition—and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is so keen to co-operate—to co-operate with us. He must use his influence to convey this tale of achievement to Africa. He can help us to gain the goodwill of African states. Our taxes are among the lowest in the world, and we return many millions of rands collected in taxes to the people of South Africa. We return R210 million per annum in the form of welfare services, and we return R120 million in the form of food subsidies. The items which are subsidized to the greatest extent are bread and mealies, which form the staple diet of the poor people in our community. In 1947 our industrial production was R780 million, while it has now increased to R8 140 million. This is colossal, and something to be proud of, and we are offering these achievements and that which our people have achieved to the rest of Africa. Speak with us, help us, recognize the facts and be grateful that such things can happen to our country. I can mention many other examples, but time does not allow me to do so.

I want to say something about housing, a subject which some hon. members of the Opposition have at heart. In the 28 years between 1920, when the first Housing Act was passed and 1948, an amount of R54 million was spent by the State and municipalities on the building of 22 300 houses for Whites. An amount of R19 million was spent on building 19 000 houses for the Coloureds. An amount of R1½ million was spent on building 1 190 houses for Asiatics.

And what is the present shortage?

During the past 26 years an amount of R406.5 million has been spent on building 78 000 houses for Whites. An amount of R116 million was spent on building 115 000 houses for Coloureds. During the preceding 28 years, only 19 600 houses for Coloureds had been built. An amount of R 102.5 million was spent on building 38 500 houses for Asiaties. This is tremendous achievement. All the Governments together, from 1920 to 1972 spent a total of R920 million on providing Bantu housing near to and around our cities. A total of 629 000 houses were built. This is an achievement of South Africa which is available. The knowledge, experience, skills and the means are available on a voluntary basis to the friendly states of Africa. Surely this is something tremendous and positive which is being offered, and then the Opposition struggles along with its pettiness and suspicion-mongering and forgets the role which South Africa can play in this developing, severely tested, continent of Africa. To come more specifically to what we are achieving by means of the policy of multinational development, I first want to remind hon. members of what precisely this policy means.

You did not always say that.

Wherever I sit in this House, the meaning remains the same. It means that the Whites in South Africa demand and claim for themselves the right to be themselves, to remain themselves, and to retain their own identity. But that is not all. They also say, consequently, that they grant this to other ethnic communities in South Africa, so that they may be themselves and may retain their own identity. They also say that they are prepared to make sacrifices to make this possible if they must. But we will never hear anything of this vision on the opposite side of the House. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition keeps on saying that one cannot continue on a unitary basis. It is far more than a unitary basis, it is a recognition of differences and recognition of separate identities and a willingness to help to develop this and to allow this to flourish so that people can realize themselves in the community of South Africa.

What about the Coloureds?

If there is time, I should like to discuss that matter. I shall now tell the hon. member something about the Coloureds. Since the Coloured Persons Representative Council was established, our Coloureds have been receiving more and more opportunities to govern themselves in the matters which are of importance to themselves. This has to be supported by the Opposition, for on paper and in theory it is their policy as well. They should be grateful and encourage it. In 1970 the Estimates on Revenue Account of that Council was R68 million, in 1973 R111 million and this year 133 million. At least one aspect of the federal policy is being vigorously implemented. But why do we not hear expressions of thanks, appreciation and support for that? I wish I had the time to elaborate fully on this matter, but I just want to say that the greatest need among the Coloureds is that those 80% of them who, in the words of Dr. Van der Ross, are creating a subculture of hereditary poverty, must be uplifted. To be able to do this, an infrastructure is needed for these people. Above all, knowledge and school education is necessary. It is this Government which has introduced compulsory education for Coloureds, but for this we never receive a single word of thanks or appreciation. Under this Government there are already 2 000 schools for the Coloureds at present, which are being attended by more than ½ million pupils. The number of matriculants is already approaching 3 000 per annum. Surely this is an achievement. Surely this is the prerequisite. After that it will be easier for the Whites to seek a solution which will not be tinged by the fear which all of us have for the 80% who are, in the subculture of poverty, suffering from a lack of the realization of their democratic obligations today. Let us do the first things first. The Prime Minister will give attention to the political matters. We should like to discuss this matter in a debate, but let us first concentrate on this prerequisite as a joint action by a united people who know what is necessary for South Africa. Hon. members will know what is happening under multi-national development. The Asiatics also have compulsory education today. Their greatest need is knowledge and skill. For the first time in their history they have a higher technical college of their own. I can testify, from personal experience, to the testimonials which have reached me during the past year expressing gratitude and the deep appreciation for this fact that they can now enter skilled avenues of employment in the service of their own people on a scale which was impossible for them in the past. In the past they were able to do coolie labour on the sugar plantations, work as waiters in hotels, and own small shops everywhere in South Africa. Now they have their own university, which was started in 1961 with 161 students, and which today already boasts of 2 200 grateful students. The campus of that university alone cost R15 million.

Take the Bantu. They are being assisted in a spectacular way. Their own return in revenue in the homelands amounts to approximately R70 million per annum, while the Whites, the Coloureds and the other races in South Africa, by means of taxation, are making a further R250 million per annum available for their development. For every rand which they contribute themselves, therefore, R4 is contributed by this Parliament. Surely that is significant, or does the hon. member for Sea Point think that it is nothing? Does he think that this is verkramptheid? What I find most commendable of all is that this money is being applied by organizations which did not previously exist, and by means of which the Bantu themselves are participating in their own upliftment, and are becoming responsible for their own progress. In 1948 there were, in all the homelands together, 54 government bodies. A total of 428 individuals participated, through those bodies, in their own self-government. According to the latest figures I have been able to obtain, there are today 557 such bodies, while 9 000 Bantu are participating in their own administration. In 1948 there were virtually no school committees. Missionaries were at the time requested to do the work, but today there are 514 school boards in the homelands, 6 000 school committees, in which 80 000 Bantu adults are involved. In 1935 there were approximately 300 000 Bantu children attending school, in 1948 less than a half million, and today—I am saying this to the hon. member for Sea Point—there are 3 000 000 Bantu children attending school. We are therefore defeating the problem of illiteracy among these people. According to the hon. Opposition, however, one would think that under the policy of multinationalism no development is being achieved, that there is only suppression and a violation of the democratic institutions. [Interjections.] In 1962 there were still only 14 700 hospital beds in the homelands, which were served by 230 medical practitioners. Now, eleven years later, there are 30 500 hospital beds, which are served by 525 medical practitioners. These are facts which present proof of the progress which is being made. Time does not allow me to mention the pages of examples which I have. But is there any impartial listener to this debate who can honestly say that this Government does not have the interests, in terms of its insight, which is a noble insight, of all the communities in South Africa at heart, or that we do not, through our achievements and through the way in which we have proved our good faith, have the right to say that we also have something to offer to Africa, something which will be worth far more to the people of Africa than confrontation, discord, hatred and conflict?

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the annals of political history in South Africa will reserve a very special place for the hon. member for Turffontein. He remains in my estimation one of the most remarkable political phenomena of our time. The hon. member was for a long time a leading personality in my party and in many ways he was my political tutor.

You were a very poor pupil.

I have listened with attention to a number of things which the hon. member has said over a very long period. When the hon. member for Turffontein takes exception to the valid and sincere criticisms levelled by members on this side of the House against the actions and expressions of opinion coming from members of the Government, one cannot but stand aghast at the somersault this hon. member has performed in his political life. Nobody in the United Party could compare with him in his vehement denigration and criticism of the Nationalist Party, its policy and its leaders. Nobody on our side of the House could compare with him in the vicious and slashing attacks … [Interjections.]

Order!

… he made on the Nationalist Party, on their personalities and their leaders. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister of Justice must control himself.

Not only did he make vicious and slashing attacks on that party and its policies …

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

I withdraw the word “vicious”, Sir.

You look vicious.

Order! The hon. the Chief Whip, too, must withdraw the word “vicious”.

I withdraw it, Sir.

It often happened not only in this House, but also in print that he not only attacked and criticized the Nationalist Party and its leaders but also cast doubt on the integrity of that party and its leaders.

We are only interested in his future.

What is his future? [Interjections.]

He will go down in the history of South Africa as a remarkable phenomenon. [Interjections.] I have admiration for a person who can be so effectively transported from one set of values to another. [Interjections.] The dexterity with which he displayed his ability to quote from the statistics of the South African Yearbook, made me think that possibly he was a better man than the present incumbent of the post of Minister of Information. However, after considering the matter carefully, after listening to what the hon. member said and after observing his efforts and performance here, we on this side of the House would like to recommend to the hon. the Prime Minister that the hon. member for Turffontein be appointed to a Deputy Ministership, and we think the best possible Deputy Minister-ship that could be given to him is that of Transport. We believe he is suited to that position, we believe he has the ability… [Interjections.]

Order!

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Yes.

I want to know what the standpoint of the hon. member is with regard to the speech by the hon. member for Simonstown this morning. [Interjections.]

I hope the hon. member will give me the opportunity to continue, for I am dealing with important matters at the moment … [Interjections.] I am now dealing with the political future of the hon. member for Turffontein. [Interjections.] I am dealing with that so as to do him a big favour.

†We recommend that he be appointed to that post and we shall enthusiastically accept his appointment. And I am not talking a lot of “Ralls”; “Faros” be it from me to do that. I believe the hon. member will be able to explain the difficulties in that department equally well and possibly much better than his predecessor. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to come to matters which are more fundamental and important. The hon. member for Turffontein said a number of things this morning and I want to refer to two of these.

What about the hon. member for Simonstown?

In the first place, he responded to the address by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and he chose to misinterpret the sincere approach of the hon. the Leader of the United Party.

What are you running away from?

Which one?

Order! I shall allow intelligent interjections, but not a constant noise.

The hon. the Leader of the United Party made what I believe was the most brilliant and most statesmanlike speech we have yet heard this session in a sincere, honest and open-hearted way. He in effect said to the Nationalist Government: We are prepared to join with you in taking positive, necessary and urgent steps to improve inter-race relationships in South Africa and thereby ensure the future of the Whites of this country. Because we consider the interests of South Africa far above those of political parties, we are prepared to do everything in our power to encourage, support and assist the Nationalist Government to take any steps which are in the interests of South Africa and its peoples and which will ensure our future. However, we must also make it perfectly clear that where the Nationalist Party’s policies are negative and, in our assessment, damaging to and destructive of race relationships and are placing the future of this country and its people in jeopardy, you must expect that we will not only criticize the Government but we will criticize the Government in the harshest and strongest possible terms.

Tell us about the leftist Press.

No Government can ask for more than that. No Government can expect greater responsibility, greater preparedness on the part of its Opposition to participate responsibly, positively and sincerely in the conduct of the affairs of the nation.

Do you repudiate Stanley Uys?

This offer which the hon. the Leader of the United Party made on several occasions has regrettably had no reaction from the other side of the House. When there is a reaction it is like the one we had on the part of the hon. member for Turffontein who I believe chose to misinterpret what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition had said. I believe that he and his party are embarrassed by the positive and sincere approach on the part of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I am starting to suspect that the Nationalist Government only talks about doing the right things but is not prepared to take the necessary action. It is important to point out that when the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that if the Government consistently refuses to accept the dynamic policy of federalism for the plural society of South Africa, to accept the principals and the concepts of federalism—i.e. our policy which we are promoting now and which we will continue to promote with the utmost confidence and sincerity—and if they are determined to adhere to their particular policy—which is at this stage and will apparently continue to be for White South Africa for all time, a unitary form of government—then there is absolutely no alternative, moral or otherwise, to the introduction into this House, the Parliament of South Africa, of representatives of the Coloured people. The United Party had not changed its policy; the United Party has not changed its philosophy; we have not changed the principles on which our policy is based. All we have said is that if hon. members opposite are prepared to take this vitally necessary step, irrespective of whether or not it coincides with our policy, we will support them in the interests of South Africa.

Write it into your policy first. Would that not be logical?

You are deliberately misunderstanding the position.

It is a shortsighted Government indeed, an ungenerous and ungrateful Government, that is not prepared to accept an offer of that nature made sincerely and honestly and with a sense of urgency by its Opposition. Sir, if the Government is not prepared to accept that offer—and that offer has been standing now for a long time—then we will have to be forgiven if we come to believe that the Government has neither the determination nor the wish nor the courage to face up to the problems of South Africa and to get stuck into the evolving of solutions for those problems. Their sincerity will be in doubt.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Turffontein also showed another alarming tendency. When he spoke about the policy of the Government, he refused in any way to come to grips with the week points in their policy. The hon. member for Turffontein speaks against a background which is in print, a long political background in which he commented repeatedly and on many occasions and substantially on every aspect of South Africa’s politics, but in particular he examined and commented upon the philosophy and the policies of the Nationalist Party. Not only did he consistently question the sincerity of the Nationalist Party and its policies, but he questioned their intelligence; he questioned their competence and their ability, and he denounced and denigrated practically every principle and every policy of the Nationalist Party, and now that we have the opportunity of hearing the hon. member for Turffontein expounding his new-found political philosophy and of telling us how he reconciles his present views with his previously held views, he prefers not to make use of the opportunity. I would like to ask him a few questions. Sir, the hon. member for Turffontein said that the Nationalist Party’s policy of discrimination was wicked and inhuman.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Sir, I have already replied to a question earlier; I do not have the time to reply to a further question now.

When did you become a member of the United Party?

How does the hon. member, who now refuses to comment on the future status of the urban African, reconcile the views of his present political home with the view that he held that the urban African is here permanently and must be accepted as a permanent resident and must be given rights in his place of residence? How does he reconcile the views of his present political home with the view that he expressed that the Coloureds must be accepted and given status and dignity; that they must be given the right to conduct their own affairs without discrimination and without domination? How does he reconcile the views of his present political home with the view that he held that race discrimination in South Africa must be removed from the political scene; that all the race groups should conduct their own affairs through their own bodies, and that all race groups should sit in one body, a federal body, within South Africa where matters of common concern can be discussed?

I did not stand for your White “baasskap” policy.

Sir, when the hon. member for Turffontein speaks in this House, we are not interested in listening to his jokes and to his clowning; we are not interested in listening to the statistics which he reads out from the South African Year-book; we are not interested in the praise that he lavishes upon the people whom he previously denigrated. What we would like to know is how he reconciles the views which he held some months ago with the views of his present political home.

Read Hansard.

Answer John Wiley’s question.

Sir, we do not want a situation where the sincerity of our leader and of the offer made by him is drawn into disrepute and into question by the hon. member for Turffontein. Even when the hon. member for Turffontein speaks about the Press, I am sure he must do so with his tongue in his cheek. [Interjection.] It may be that he has changed his views with regard to the principles he previously espoused, but even on the matter of the Press the hon. member on many occasions expressed views, and I can quote many of those views, which do not accord with the views he holds at present. He now seeks to expose the Press, but when that Press exposed him, when he was exposed as the result of the exercise of the freedom of the Press, then the concept and the principle of the freedom of the Press lost its attraction for that hon. member.

Is that your answer to Wiley?

I want to read a quotation I happened to come across. The hon. member said—

It was that hon. member more than anybody else who exposed the fact that the Nationalist Party newspapers were a lackey Press. Now the views, the publicity and the propaganda of that party are accepted, without question and without intelligent examination. Sir, I think we must be grateful to the hon. member. There are a great many weaknesses and a great many wrongs and a great many rotten areas within the Nationalist Party of which we would not have been aware if it had not been for the diligent way in which the hon. member for Turffontein enlightened us on those things, if it were not for the way in which he exposed the Nationalist Party and placed their weaknesses in the spotlight of the English-language Press of South Africa, a medium he used consistently year in and year out to enlighten South Africa about the weaknesses of the Nationalist Party. Sir, so that there can be no mistaking my attitude and the attitude of my party to the Press in South Africa, I want to say … [Interjections.] Now that I want to answer your questions, you do not want to listen. Sir, so that there can be no mistaking the attitude of myself and of the United Party to the freedom of the Press in South Africa, in case the wrong impression may have been created …

By whom?

… we stand unequivocally for the freedom of the Press in South Africa. We believe that it is a vital aspect of our democratic system, of our democratic way of life. We will always stand for the freedom of the Press; we will not tolerate any interference with the freedom of the Press. [Interjections.] We believe that one of the greatest advantages that accrues to South Africa in regard to our image in the outside world is the fact that we have a free Press in South Africa. [Interjections.] Can you imagine what the attitude of the outside world would have been if we did not have a free Press in South Africa?

Sir, on a point of order, with great respect, I think that the hon. member is entitled to your protection against this continual barrage of interjections and questions.

Order! I have already given a ruling. Hon. members must now obey it.

Can you imagine our image in the outside world if South Africa did not have a free and independent English-language Press? Can you imagine, Sir, the alternative within South Africa if South Africa did not have a free and independent English-language Press? Can you imagine the excesses to which the Nationalist Government would go in its actions and in its deeds if it were not subject to the scrutiny of a free and independent Press in South Africa? Can you imagine, Sir, the possibility that South Africa may today not have been a free and democratic country, may not today have had a two-party political system, may not today have had an enlightened electorate, if we did not have a free, independent and enlightened English-language Press? The free, enlightened and independent English-language Press in South Africa is part and parcel of our way of life; it is part and parcel of the democracy which we espouse; it is part and parcel of South Africa; and it is a part of the South Africa which we in the United Party will not allow to be destroyed in any way whatsoever. I hope that no impression whatsoever was created that the United Party could possibly be willing to support any action of any sort … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Kuruman is too loquacious.

I hope that the events this morning will not in any way suggest to the Government that the United Party may possibly agree to the muzzling of the English-language Press in the contribution that it makes to our democratic way of life.

In the minutes which remain I should like to make a few other points. The hon. Leader of the Opposition referred to the speech of the hon. the Prime Minister in the Other Place and he referred to the speech made by our Ambassador to the United Nations. We have not yet seen a verbatim report of that speech of Mr. Botha, but I believe it will be very interesting and very valuable to this House to scrutinize. The reports which we have seen are very pleasing indeed. I want to read just a short comment on the speech in The Star—

I would have felt much happier if, the sentiments which were expressed were not subject to any qualifications. I would have felt much better if the ambassador had said that his Government was going to remove race discrimination totally from the fabric of South Africa, that this Government would not continue with policies which humiliate, denigrate and discriminate against people because of the colour of their skin. The time has come for all of us to face the facts. We can no longer afford to bluff ourselves and we can no longer succeed in bluffing the world. We have to put our heads together and we have to evolve solutions to our problems because the hour is late. Answers have to be found and carried out quickly and urgently. The year 1974 has the political significance that it is the last year of the third quarter of the twentieth century. In the third quarter of the twentieth century of South Africa because the only country in the world where as a result of the philosophy of a political party laws exist which enshrine discrimination and domination based on race; a vast array of laws, touching every aspect of the lives of millions of people of colour in our country, impose discrimination on them many ways day in and day out. [Interjections.] South Africa is the only country left in the world, where legislation is passed and applied only to people of colour, legislation which discriminates against people of colour, which hangs a label around the neck of every person of colour, thereby indicating an inferior status in the country of their birth and that because of that they are subject to discrimination and to inferior services and treatment. That is a situation which we can no longer tolerate. Up to the year 1974, the last year of this tragic third quarter of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of people of colour in South Africa have been subject to the discriminatory laws of this Government. These laws do not apply if you have a white skin because a white skin is a free pass; it frees you from the application of a vast array of discriminatory laws.

You are an agitator!

Up to 1974 we, the Whites, have been …

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

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for you, but I really mean what I said about the hon. member.

Order! I want to ask the hon. young member very politely to withdraw the word “agitator”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it.

The year 1974 is a watershed in the political history of South Africa, because up to now we have been an all-powerful White minority having complete control over the destiny and the day-to-day existence of many millions of people of colour. We have decided for them. We have been the boss. We have determined their rights, their privileges and the discrimination and disadvantages to which they have been subject every minute of their lives. However, times have changed and the picture has changed, and the White man is no longer ineffective control of the future and the destiny of this country. We still have military control; we still have the power structure in our hands, but the direction of political development in South Africa, the destiny and the future of this country and its peoples is no longer effectively under the control of the Whites. Effectively, our future is now being influenced by factors beyond our control. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the speech which the hon. member who has just resumed his seat made, was made by him in a time in which our foreign relations have reached a delicate stage, in a time in which South Africa is negotiating with the outside world, and in a time in which we have to fight for our continued membership of the UN. The speech which the hon. member made today, is a speech which is in conflict with the better interests of South Africa, and which disgraces the hon. members of the Opposition as a whole. The speech made by the hon. member is in conflict with the spirit and the disposition displayed by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself. The acerbity of and the reproaches inherent in the hon. member’s words …

And the ignorance.

… and the drastically exaggerated statements which he made were a disgrace which we had to listen to in this House today. I do not have words strong enough to express my disapproval of the attitude which the hon. member displayed today. In contrast to the hon. member for Turffontein, who asked in a positive manner for co-operation and mutual recognition in the interests of South Africa, we have the negative, destructive attitude of the hon. member for Bryanston. One of the reasons why the hon. member is so bitter, one of the reasons why the hon. member feels so dissatisfied, is because the hon. member for Turffontein is no longer sitting on that side of the House.