Mr. Speaker. I move—

1. (a) the expenditure of moneys by or on behalf of candidates at an election;
2. (b) the improvement of the procedures that are followed at voting by absent voters; and
3. (c) the elimination of problems experienced when holding House of Assembly and Provincial Council elections on the same day, the Committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers and to have leave to bring up a Bill amending the said Act.

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I now move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, it was my intention this afternoon to come back to the speech of the hon. member for Green Point, but due to the interesting developments of the past few hours, it would be more convenient for me to leave his speech until some later occasion when the latest developments in the United Party are over. There are serious differences among the members of the United Party caucus. These differences are concerned with policy, for example, with the continued existence of the White Parliament, with leadership, with the approach to the political problems of South Africa, with discrimination, the protection of the so-called rights of the individual, human rights, and so on. These differences manifested themselves in the formation of two groups in the United Party: on the one hand, the reformists, and on the other hand, the conformists; the one side is called the Young Turks, and the other side the Old Guard. We may also refer to the one part as the dynamic part of the United Party and the other part as the sterile part. At present this polarization of the United Party is the most important factor in the political life of that party. It is important for us to decide for ourselves who the Young Turks in the United Party are. They are the hon. member for Bryanston, the hon. member for Sandton, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Yeoville. I am a little uncertain about the hon. member for Edenvale. Sometimes he ranges himself on the side of the left wing of the Old Guard, and at other times with the right wing of the Young Turks. One cannot quite fathom him out. Now an important thing has happened. The hon. member for Randburg has been kicked out of the caucus of the United Party. The reason for his being kicked out is particularly interesting. Recently, so we understand, two opinion polls were conducted. The one poll, so we understand, was conducted by him, and he subsequently discussed this opinion poll in a private conversation with a newspaper. Afterwards The Star, acting on its own initiative, arranged an opinion poll of its own, and this poll was published.

Now the chairman of the United Party caucus comes along and furnishes the reasons for the hon. member’s dismissal. If we analyse these reasons, we see that he was kicked out purely on account of the fact that he conducted an opinion poll and that he went to the newspaper with the details of this opinion poll and held a discussion with them. It is not because this poll that he had conducted was published. The resolution of the United Party caucus does not imply that the hon. member for Randburg was dishonest, it does not imply that he projected a false opinion to the world or that the opinion is scientifically unacceptable to the United Party caucus. After this resolution of the United Party caucus had been published, I want to assert that the opinion poll of the United Party which was conducted by The Star achieved enhanced status. There was no attack on it whatsoever by the United Party caucus in its resolution. This man is being kicked out of the United Party caucus for a relatively small and trivial thing. As a member of a caucus I want to say that his action was quite wrong, but if there had been a fine spirit in that caucus, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout assured us last night, the leaders would have taken the accused by the arm and said: “Friend, you are a newcomer to this caucus; you acted wrongly and are not allowed to behave in this manner.” They would then have reprimanded him.

However, this is not what it is all about in the United Party caucus. This man was apprehended for a far greater reason. This reason is that an attempt was made to get to the heart of the Young Turks as such. This resolution of the United Party caucus is not a resolution which was directed solely at the hon. member for Randburg. It was aimed at the Young Turks in that party, as I have already said. It was adopted as a result of the policy of the Young Turks, as a result of the success of the Young Turks and as a result of the methods of the Young Turks. That is why the caucus took action against the Young Turks in this regard. Every Young Turk sitting in this House must realize that the resolution adopted by the caucus last night is not only a resolution aimed at the hon. member for Randburg sitting here, but a resolution aimed at each of those Young Turks; it is a resolution against the hon. member for Bezuidenhout; it is a resolution against the hon. member for Sandton; it is a resolution against the hon. member for Bryanston, and it is more or less a resolution against the hon. member for Edenvale, but the most important thing of all is this: It is not only a blow aimed at the hon. member for Randburg, but a resolution aimed at the hon. member for Yeoville. The history of the United Party has now developed in such a way that the hon. member for Randburg has had to become a symbol of the dissension within the United Party caucus. Sir, the Old Guard in the United Party decided to make him the martyr, to crucify him, while they actually intend going much further. Sir, when this resolution was proposed in the caucus, the hon. member for Yeoville—so I presume—most assuredly interpreted it as I interpret it, but the hon. member for Yeoville defended this resolution along with the other few Young Turks sitting here. There was no agreement on this resolution. They defended this resolution since they realized that this resolution was directed at them as much as it was directed at the hon. member for Randburg, and that is why they had to try to prevent a split. No, Sir, our conclusion today is that there are more people than just the hon. member for Randburg who have become losers. I want to say to the hon. member for Sandton: “You were a loser in the caucus yesterday.” The hon. member for Bryanston was a loser in his caucus yesterday; the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was a loser in his caucus yesterday, and the hon. member for Yeoville—and he is the most important of them all—suffered a serious defeat in the United Party caucus yesterday. Sir, in the past few years we have seen how the Leader of the United Party in the Transvaal, Mr. Harry Schwarz, was built up as a winner. At all costs his “winning image” always had to be held up to us; at breakfast on Sunday mornings we had to read: “Harry Schwarz triumphs again”; Harry Schwarz the great winner”; (translation) “Harry Schwarz’s opponents have now been destroyed”, and so on. Sir, this winning image of the Leader of the United Party in the Transvaal was destroyed in the United Party caucus yesterday because he was the loser there. I want to make an important statement here, and that is that every member of the Old Guard, as they are sitting here today, also interprets yesterday’s resolution as a victory over the Young Turks I have mentioned here. I want to put this question to the hon. member for Hillbrow, who is one of the ringleaders of the Old Guard: Do you deny that you interpret this caucus resolution as a victory over the hon. member for Yeoville? Sir, I challenge the hon. member for Hillbrow to deny that he interprets this resolution as a victory over the Young Turks.

He is a fence-sitter.

I also want to put this question to the hon. member for Albany: You too interpret this resolution as a victory over the Young Turks, not so? I challenge the hon. member to deny it. I ask the hon. member for Newton Park: Do you deny that you interpret this resolution as a victory over the hon. member for Yeoville and all his henchmen? The hon. members for Simonstown and Maitland cannot deny that they interpret this resolution of yesterday as a victory over their opponents within the caucus, i.e. the hon. member for Yeoville and his people.

Boet has nailed Harry’s hide to his door.

What are the Young Turks going to do now? This morning’s Cape Times states—

Hear, hear!

Sir, I am asking the hon. member for Yeoville: Are you going to resign from the caucus?

Do you believe The Cape Times?

I believe The Cape Times when it says so. I am asking the hon. member for Yeoville again: Is he going to resign from the caucus? If the hon. member asks me whether I or any of the members here are going to resign from the National Party caucus, our answer is “No”, for we are not even considering it, but an accusation has now been levelled at him in public that he is going to resign from the caucus, and I am now asking him: Is he going to resign, yes or no? Sir, the hon. member for Bryanston is sitting over there with a poker face. I put it to him: Is he going to resign from the caucus, yes or no? Is he considering resigning from the caucus, yes or no? Sir, I want to tell you that the hon. members for Bryanston, Sandton and Yeoville are considering resigning from the caucus.

Ask Vause.

Sir, we are now drawing closer to the position of the hon. member for Yeoville. We have got to know the hon. member for Yeoville in this House as a man with exceptional talents, talents for which there was no scope within the ranks of the United Party. Sir, this opinion poll that was published evoked an interesting reaction, and I want to examine this reaction a little. The hon. member for Yeoville reacted to this opinion poll as follows; he said—

Sir, with those words the hon. member for Yeoville lent status to this opinion poll. He tried to persuade the people to take this opinion poll seriously. He is trying to get people to take more notice of this opinion poll. In other words, if this opinion poll is an act of disloyalty towards the members of the caucus and towards the Leader of the United Party, I want to tell you that the action of the hon. member for Yeoville is probably more disloyal than the action of the hon. member for Randburg, for the hon. member for Randburg actually committed a private sin, whereas the hon. member for Yeoville committed a public sin; he committed a far graver sin. I now want to put this question to this group of frightened men in the Old Guard: Why did you not kick out the hon. member for Yeoville, for it is obvious that you have more reason to kick him out than you have to kick out the hon. member for Randburg?

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

Mr. Speaker, I substitute the word by “politically slightly hesitant”. The Old Guard of the United Party decided to bully the little ones, but they were afraid of the hon. member for Yeoville. Sir, if one compares the reaction to this opinion poll of the hon. member for Yeoville with that of the hon. member for Hillbrow, it is interesting, for the hon. member for Hillbrow immediately issued a statement which conflicted with that of his leader in the Transvaal; he said that this opinion poll was “divisive mumbo-jumbo”; he rejected it altogether. But one expects this from a man who is loyal to Sir De Villiers Graaff, the Leader of the United Party. He issued this statement without the permission of his leader in the Transvaal and, in all probability, without his knowledge. This means that the hon. member for Hillbrow preferred to stand by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and not by his leader in the Transvaal. Sir, a very clear split has arisen between the hon. member for Hillbrow and the hon. member for Yeoville. Perhaps the hon. member for Hillbrow will now feel more at liberty to furnish us with a reply to this question: “Do you hate the hon. member for Yeoville?” Sir, the question is what is going to happen to the United Party now? The hon. member for Randburg says that he is going to remain in the United Party. I now want to put this question to the hon. member for Yeoville, for he has the power to do so: Is he going to take disciplinary action against the hon. member for Randburg in order to kick him out of the United Party, or is he going to take him under his wing in the Transvaal where he is no longer able to protect the hon. member for Randburg within the Parliamentary caucus of the United Party? I come next to the hon. member for Sandton: This hon. member once adopted a very bold attitude when Mr. George Oliver said certain things which he did not like; he then said that he personally was going to initiate steps in the Transvaal to kick out Mr. George Oliver, and he issued a statement to that effect to the newspapers. He can now tell us whether he is going to be as rash towards the hon. member for Randburg so as to get him kicked out of the Transvaal United Party. Sir, let us consider what the position is today. The United Party leader in the Transvaal, Mr. Harry Schwarz, knows that every political leader, to be able to act, needs a power structure. The power structure of the hon. member for Yeoville consists of his Young Turks as they are sitting in that caucus; that is his power structure. This resolution of the United Party caucus means that his power structure has been weakened. Sir, the resolution of yesterday inflicted a grievous political injury on him. He is becoming a political invalid. The hon. member for Randburg was his right-hand. I understand that he also wrote out the cheques with his right hand. But his left hand is the hon. member for Bryanston and his left foot is the hon. member for Sandton. But now his right hand has been removed. Sir, the power structure of the hon. member for Yeoville has shrunk. The hon. member for Yeoville is now without a right hand. He knows as well as all of us do that steps are being taken and that the aim of the United Party caucus and the Old Guard is to amputate his right hand, to amputate his left foot and also his right foot and to make of him a political invalid, and once they have done all these things, they will throw him out, for as long as he has a power structure of any kind they will not be able to take action against him. The hon. member must realize that if he wants to play a political role in South Africa, he must get out of the United Party before he is politically maimed to such an extent that he can no longer be of any political significance whatsoever.

And while we are looking at this position in the United Party, Sir, how grateful cannot we and South Africa be that we belong to the National Party of which we can be proud. In this Party we have a party which is going from strength to strength; a party which does not suppress, but develops; a party which does not suppress, but liberates its people; a party which, under the leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister, is progressing step by step, which is progressing successfully to enable South Africa to take up its place in the comity of nations. It is at this time that we should like to say to the hon. the Prime Minister that we urgently require his leadership and that we are proud to be able to be members of a party such as this one and to be able to sit together in a caucus with a leader such as the one we have.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend getting involved in the spirited exchanges between the hon. member for Pretoria Central and the United Party about last night’s happening in the United Party. But I do want to say that I think it is high time that the official Opposition realized that its supporters in South Africa are getting sick and tired of the continual bickering in their ranks. The public is bored to tears with all this inside bickering that is going on in their ranks. Day after day one picks up a newspaper and one reads that there are to be caucus meetings and head committee meetings …

Tell us about how you broke your pledge.

… that there are expulsions and threatened expulsions. [Interjections.]

Order! It is difficult for me to hear the hon. member.

I think it is quite incredible that at the start of this parliamentary session, when the whole of Southern Africa is at a crucial point, the official Opposition should have time for all this nonsense and the witch hunts that are going on. No wonder that the Nationalists are laughing all the way to the polls. [Interjections.] There can be one of three reasons only for this peculiar behaviour on the part of the official Opposition. The first reason is that the United Party cannot get its priorities right. That is the first possible reason. The second possible reason is that this is just another manifestation of the inherent death wish which I for a long time have said the United Party is harbouring, and the third reason is just poor leadership. For one of these reasons, or perhaps for all three of these reasons, they are in this position, but whatever the reason is, it is a complete bore and it is high time that the official Opposition got on with the job of opposing the Government. [Interjections.] Throughout this debate the hon. the Prime Minister has sat in his bench with what I can best describe as a self-satisfied smile on his face … [Interjections] listening to all the accolades being heaped on his head. Before he gets too pleased with himself I want to remind him of one or two home truths.

The first is that I should like to remind him that 10 years ago, almost to the day, in the no-confidence debate of 1965, I warned the Government that it should not attempt to bolster up the Smith Government because this would not be for the good of Rhodesia in the long run, and that the problems that Rhodesia had to settle, that is the co-existence of a small White minority with a large Black majority and the maintenance of decent and rising standards of living for everybody, would not be settled by bolstering up that Government. Now, 10 years later, when the strategic position has changed immensely, the hon. the Prime Minister has just managed to draw South Africa back from what could easily have become a Vietnam situation in Southern Africa. The whole process of negotiation is much more difficult than it would have been if the Prime Minister, when he took over nine years ago, had immediately set in train some attempt at negotiation by Mr. Smith with the Black leaders.

If you had had to handle it, it would have been a Cuba.

That is a very easy and, I may say, unsubtle interjection of the hon. the Prime Minister.

But that is so; you know that is so.

What does the hon. gentleman think is happening in Africa today because of the inability of White minorities to settle their quarrels by negotiation with Black majorities? There is something else of which I should like to remind the hon. the Prime Minister. If he had been spending the last eight or nine years dismantling the clumsy structure of apartheid in South Africa it would not have required a last-minute veto by the three major powers, the United Kingdom, the United States and France, to save South Africa at the United Nations at the end of last year. I do not think that we ought in South Africa to be confusing brinkmanship with statesmanship, and it seems to me that that is what we are in danger of doing. I was in the United States very shortly after the hon. the Prime Minister had made his now famous “give us six months” speech, and I want to tell him that he has aroused great expectations overseas. Everywhere I went in the States—and I was travelling from coast to coast meeting people—everybody wanted to know what the Prime Minister meant with this speech. I wish I could have told them. Unfortunately I did not know. I said that we would have to wait and see because nobody knew, as the hon. the Prime Minister had not told us. I want to tell him, Sir, as one golfer to another, although his golf is infinitely superior to mine, that having started his backswing he had better see to it that he follows through because having aroused all these expectations, people overseas are now expecting something to emanate from this situation. And, of course, the expectations that have been aroused overseas are doubled and quadrupled here at home. I want to tell the hon. the Prime Minister that nobody construed his speech to mean anything less than radical changes in race policy inside South Africa, and I might say that Mr. Pik Botha’s speech at the United Nations confirmed that impression. Nobody thought in terms of the Government’s relationship with Black Africa. They were thinking in terms of the Government’s relationship with Black South Africans. That is what they were thinking about.

Have you taken the trouble to read my speech?

Every deathless word, Sir.

Then you will know that inter alia I asked you to be more responsible.

Oh, I was very responsible. The hon. the Prime Minister would be amazed at how responsible I am when I am overseas. I am at great pains to correct all exaggerated statements that I hear about South Africa, but I have said before, and I have told the hon. the Minister of the Interior, that he must not think that I confuse defence of South Africa with defence of the National Party’s policy. I do not confuse that and I will never confuse that. I want to tell the hon. the Prime Minister that nobody was thinking in terms of the pinpricks that everybody says he or she is willing to see removed in South Africa. Nobody was thinking in terms of petty apartheid or even of the Nico Malan Theatre, although that is of some significance. They thought of the whole grim collection of laws to segregate people compulsorily, economically, politically, socially and educationally. Those were the laws they were thinking of. No one was thinking in terms of separate development and the possible emergence of a single little independent Bantustan. They thought in terms of the realities of South Africa, of its highly integrated economy, of the fact that more than half the Black population live outside the homelands, in South Africa, and they thought about our highly sophisticated Coloured and Indian population. I want to tell the hon. the Prime Minister that when people thought of a changed South Africa they were thinking not only of change as far as race discrimination was concerned. They were also extremely interested in the whole question of civil rights. Let me tell that loyal South African who is biting his finger-nails at the moment, the hon. member for Algoa, that not even he would have got to first base overseas if he had tried to explain away the holding in solitary confinement of 40 people for over four months. Not even he could explain away the abrogation of habeas corpus and, as I say, detention without trial for long periods. The whole question of civil rights in South Africa is a disaster area overseas. It is impossible to explain—I certainly do not attempt it—why a country, a modern developed country like South Africa with its great achievements in science, in the business world, in the world of art and in the sports world, should so incongruously be adopting the tactics of some miserable little Republic. It is quite incomprehensible abroad; people just do not understand it. The sharp image of South Africa as a modern developed country becomes a blurred picture of a frightened insecure little country ruled by a small minority of White people who are only able to maintain their position, their security and their existence by drastic measures to suppress free speech and free association.

Only among your circle.

When that hon. member goes overseas and mixes freely with people he will find that there are far more people of my circle than there are of his circle, millions more. Overseas he is in a tiny minority and it is only in South Africa among a small minority of White people supporting the Government that he is in the majority. As I have said, the expectations which the hon. the Prime Minister aroused overseas and here, I might add, include a return to the normal rule of law in South Africa. It is widely accepted in all the Western countries that the suppression of civil rights is justifiable only in times of national emergency and that measures which suspends civil liberties should be adopted only with the utmost reluctance, with the utmost circumspection and should only be employed with the utmost use of safeguards. I take Britain as an example.

As in the United Kingdom at the present time.

That is the nicest interjection. I am just coming to that point. In Britain, where there is a state of national emergency, where there is street warfare, where there is open terrorism and where well over 1 000 people have been killed and well over 10 000 have been injured, the recent law that was put on the British Statute Book was drawn up with the utmost circumspection, because the maintenance of the rule of law is held in such high respect. The British Government has passed the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, and the detention of anyone without trial cannot go on longer than seven days and then only with the permission of the Home Secretary. South African Terrorism Act—need I still point it out?—provides for indefinite solitary confinement and detention. The British measure is effective for only six months, after which it can be renewed by the Home Secretary only after the British Parliament has agreed to it. Our law is a permanent part of our legislation. It is permanently on our Statute Book. In Britain, unlike South Africa, there is no suggestion of solitary confinement, of non-access by persons other than officers of the State. There is no embargo on information such as the embargo I encountered yesterday when I attempted to get some information from the hon. the Minister of Justice. Detainees have access to lawyers and are entitled to know their rights. There is no question of the power of the courts being excluded to supervise the manner in which the law is implemented. This is really the great function of the law courts, viz. to watch-dog the implementation of the law.

There is no question of the death penalty, there are no minimum sentences prescribed and there is no retrospective clause. Most important of all, there is a very narrow definition of terrorism in the British Act. If hon. members think they have an easy reply by saying “Well, that is why there is terrorism in England”, let me inform them that the people who commit terrorist acts are dedicated fanatics who are prepared to die for their cause. This sort of deterrent, i.e. the death penalty and indefinite detention, does not have any effect on them. As I say, it is the deep respect for the rule of law that the British people have which has resulted in so circumspect a law being on the Statute Book in order to attempt to cope with the situation.

I want to mention two other instances which I think the Government must consider in view of the serious repercussions abroad as a result of the kind of action taken at home. The hon. member for Green Point yesterday referred to the question of visas and passports. I shall not go into that in any detail now except to ask the hon. the Minister of the Interior—if I may have his attention for a moment—if he thinks we did ourselves any good by the summary treatment we handed out to Senator Diggs at Jan Smuts Airport the other day by not even allowing him to leave the airport building. Does the Minister really think that that kind of thing wins us friends in America? Does it not rather consolidate the support of the Republicans who otherwise would not support Senator Diggs?

I want to ask, too, whether the hon. the Minister of Justice thinks that he did South Africa any good by treating the editor of one of the leading English language newspapers in the ham-handed way he did over the publication of a report concerning a banned pro-Frelimo Rally in September of last year. The hon. the Minister, who acted on a report in the wrong newspaper, ordered the summary arrest of the editor who was dragged out of a social function in Durban where he was to deliver a speech, carted down to the police station, finger-printed, held for several hours and finally released on R50 bail. When he and the senior assistant editor of the newspaper were eventually charged under the Riotous Assemblies Act, the editor who had been so summarily treated was found not guilty and discharged, while the assistant editor was cautioned and discharged. The Argus company, to which the newspaper belonged, was fined, I think, the princely sum of R10. I would say this is an indication that the court regarded the whole matter as an absurdity, but nevertheless what did happen was that this case naturally received banner headlines overseas. It was a crude attempt to intimidate the Press, and I am glad to say that it was an attempt that is not going to succeed.

I want to turn now to another instance of what I consider to be ministerial ham-handedness. It is perhaps not fair to lay all the blame for this at the feet of the hon. the Minister of Justice. I have no doubt that this was a Cabinet decision and I shall return to that in a moment. I am referring now to the pathetic case of Bram Fischer. When I used the word “pathetic” I do not mean the man; I mean the Government’s handling of this case. That has been absolutely pathetic. As we all know, section 71 of the Prisons Act lays down, inter alia, that every prisoner whose release is expedient on the grounds of physical condition may, on the recommendation of a medical officer, be released by the Minister either conditionally or on parole, as the Minister may direct. Of course, the State President may also release any man, even a man who is under life sentence. There is no mention in the law of the political beliefs of the prisoner; there is no mention in the law of the political crimes which he may or may not have committed and for which he may have been convicted. These are blanket provisions and they apply to all prisoners.

Having taken part in many appeals to the hon. the Minister in the past, I am very well aware that the Government has been adamant in its refusal to grant remission of sentence or amnesty of any kind to political prisoners. I am aware of this because I have failed on many occasions to get it, but surely in a case like Bram Fischer’s the Government might have shown some flexibility. Here is a man who is known throughout the world largely because of the Government’s actions in this regard. Here is a man who is dying of cancer and who is a terminal case. He has a few months to live at the most so I am told by his son-in-law who is a medical man who sees him almost every day. Here is a man who is barely able to totter a few yards down the corridor with the help of sticks and who is unable to get in or out of bed by himself, but the hon. the Minister gives as one of his specious reasons for refusing the Fischer family’s plea that he be allowed to spend his last few months with them, that this man is a security risk. I ask you, how absurd can you be!

The other absurd reason the hon. the Minister gave was that this man had been awarded the Lenin Prize. So what? This was announced eight years ago and what possible bearing does it have on the attitude of the hon. the Minister to a dying man? The third specious reason that he gave was that Fischer, together with his “comrades”—mark the emotive word that is always used—in gaol had prepared a memorandum for the Commission of Inquiry into Penal Reform. What was the crime there? The only “crime” as far as I can see was that these men were preparing an open memo for submission to a Government commission. There was nothing secret about it. It was not a plot to blow up John Vorster Square! It is true that it was outside the terms of reference of the commission, but everybody has been rather confused about the somewhat ambiguous terms of reference of this commission. I would think that the hon. the Minister would study this memorandum very carefully because I can think of nobody who is in a better position to point out abuses in prison than an educated man who has spent ten years in gaol as Bram Fischer already has. This is one of the reasons which were given by the hon. the Minister for refusing the plea of clemency by the family of the man concerned. I want to say quite categorically that if ever there was a case where section 71 of the Prisons Act should be applied by the hon. the Minister of Justice it is in the case of Bram Fischer. There is no reason that I can see except heartlessness for the refusal of the hon. the Minister so to do.

There is of course another reason, and this is why I said that I did not want to put all the blame at the hon. the Minister’s feet. I can just imagine what the real reason is, and anybody with a little imagination will be able to see it. I can imagine the whole Cabinet sitting there in solemn conclave to consider this case. I do not think that the hon. the Minister took this decision by himself. I think they all sat there in solemn conclave …

I take full responsibility for it.

The hon. the Minister might take full responsibility for it, but I do not think that the decision was the hon. the Minister’s alone. I think the Cabinet sat there and somebody asked: “But what will Dr. Hertzog and the Herstigtes say?” Somebody might even have asked: “What will the official Opposition say”?, and then said: “They will all say that we are going soft on Communism.” Then panic set in and any question of the release of this man was shelved. I ask the hon. the Minister to consider whether in fact the decision that has been taken is the right one. I ask him to reconsider this case and to show a little mercy and a little compassion so that he can bring South Africa more in line with the thinking which undoubtedly would have taken place in any other Western country that I know of. The sad thing about South Africa is, of course, that our threshold of tolerance is rising all the time. One sees it in the case of the detainees who were held for over four months and apart from one or two exceptions there was hardly a whimper of protest from anybody. Yet I remember that in 1971, when there were Police raids on a widespread scale and a large number of people were detained, there was an uproar. A great fuss was kicked up in South Africa. It seems to me that South Africa is indeed living up to those shrewd predictions Dr. Verwoerd made when he wrote this thesis. He talked about the blunting of the emotions. One only has to do something over and over again for the emotions to be blunted. That is what is happening and has been happening in South Africa over 26 years of Nationalist Party rule. South Africa’s emotions have been blunted and the things we ought to be reacting to, we are not reacting to at all.

In conclusion I want to re-emphasize that the whole overall image of South Africa has to change if we have any genuine desire to be re-admitted to the comity of the Western nations and if we want to put a halt to the growing hostility of our own people in South Africa. I want to support the third leg of the amendment which my hon. leader has moved, viz. that the Government must take steps to restore the civil liberties of South Africa and to find a way to govern this country so that it is not necessary to abrogate those civil rights, and that means a change in the whole racial pattern in South Africa. I want to remind this country, and the Government in particular, because that is where the power lies, that if demands are not met today, the demands that will be made tomorrow will be ever so much greater. That, I think, is something we all ought to think on very seriously.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton will excuse me if I do not reply immediately to the points on which she attacked me, viz. the security position in general with reference to the position overseas and specifically in Britain. I may just say in passing that it is, after all, evident that what is happening in Britain, has never yet happened in South Africa on a similar scale. You will allow me, Mr. Speaker, to return to this at a later stage, and if I do not have the time at my disposal to do so, I shall debate the matter further during the discussion of my Vote.

The hon. member also referred to the O’Malley case. I shall try to react to that as well at a later stage. In case time does not allow me to return to it, I should like to say to her at this stage that she has obviously not done her homework in regard to the O’Malley case. She is a lady who usually does her homework, but this time she did not do it, or she does not understand the court case at all. That is her problem.

She also referred here to my handling of the unfortunate case of Mr. Bram Fischer. Let me inform you immediately that I understand, on the basis of the medical reports which reach me every day, that Mr. Fischer does have cancer. I want to say immediately that I, as one human being to another, am very sorry for the man. If I could apply humanitarian consideration purely and simply, as the hon. member for Houghton does, I should give very serious consideration to releasing him. But I am unfortunately the executive head of the Department of Prisons. There are many prisoners who are ill and who have wives and children. Those wives and children are often in a pitiable state because of the crimes those men committed. Now the question is whether I should release everyone on parole on purely humanitarian considerations and whether I should allow those who are ill to go immediately. Should I do this simply because the hon. member feels sympathy for a man who has become ill? I, too, feel sympathy for him.

He is not just ill; he is dying.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is beginning to cackle again. I want to say to her today that it is either a sign of high blood-pressure or approaching old age. I only hope it is a sign of high blood-pressure. However, together with the human feelings I have, there is the difficult task which has been entrusted to me and not to the hon. member for Houghton, viz. to take the interests of the community into consideration. It is a task the agony of which I have to go through alone, and the hon. member for Houghton is trying to make it as difficult as possible.

Oh, come on!

It is not “Oh, come on!”. All the hon. member must do is listen.

The hon. member for Houghton is not the only one who has asked me to release Mr. Fischer. I have received a series of letters and a series of telegrams. There are all sorts of pressure groups which are trying to persuade me to release him unconditionally. One of the most interesting of these is one which I received from the youth of East Germany. It reads as follows—

I presume that that means “German Democratic Republic”—

They do not ask me; “they demand”—

It was the “Central Council” which sent this telegram to me. It is also very interesting to look at the address to which they sent this telegram. This address reads as follows—

[Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, if I had not known that the hon. member for Houghton, although she is able to speak Afrikaans, has a total contempt for the language owing to the fact that she never uses it, I could even have suspected her of telling them: Send the man a telegram. I should like, however, to lay her odds of ten to one that the East German youth have completely forgotten about Mr. Bram Fischer. I am sure that they were incited from South Africa, and that they were told: Make sure that that telegram reaches that man. Send it to Parliament Street, 516, H. F. Verwoerd Building, Cape Town. These pressure groups are organized from here.

I also received a number of letters. These letters are in the form of a petition, but I should have preferred a petition because it would have been less conspicuous. I received these letters from various places, and they read as follows—

I received a string of letters, all worded in precisely the same way, which actually means that this is a petition. One would have appreciated a little more honesty; if they had said: “The following people are signatories to a petition against the detention of Mr. Fischer” for example, instead of trying such a stupid bluff and sending the things all over the place, asking people to sign them and post them to the Minister. It is interesting to take cognizance of the persons who signed these letters: Inter alia Mr. Graham McIntosh, M.P.—he is so proud of his “M.P.’’-ship that he appends it to everything—and Mr. Lawrence Wood, M.P. Mr. Dennis Hurley is also among these. Senator Winchester as well. It is a wonder that we did not have all the Young Turks, and that they did not all sign these letters, despite the fact that the hon. member for Durban North conceded to me that I know more about this case than other people do. Apparently he could not get that through to his members either. Now I just want to tell you this: Sir, only the day before yesterday the daughter of Mr. Fischer wanted to come and see me, and just after that I heard that the other daughter had allegedly stated that if her sister were unable to succeed in the Cape, she would employ her own means of getting Fischer released. I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton now: Was she in contact with the Fischer daughters?

All the time.

Then I want to put this further question to her: Is it her intention to kick up a row about a sick man’s position and, in this way, to try to exert pressure on the Government and cause the Government embarrassment? Is that what she is trying to do?

You know I have been in touch with you.

The hon. member says she was in touch with me. I am still waiting for her. She said that she wanted to come and see me about something; she told me that she wanted to come and see me about Bram Fischer. I have been at Parliament for a week now, and I have been in Cape Town for quite a number of weeks, and she still has not come to my office to see me about Fischer. No, she does it across the floor of the House.

[Inaudible.]

Sir, the hon. member for Houghton’s great difficulty is this: If the leftists get a bee in their bonnet about something and want to form a pressure group to exert pressure, they use this “dummy” in the House of Parliament to rise on their behalf in the House of Parliament and dance to their tune.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. the Minister allowed to refer to the hon. member as a “dummy”?

Mr. Speaker, she is a “squeaking dummy”.

Order! I think the hon. the Minister must withdraw that.

I withdraw it. Sir, if I have to give consideration to the question of whether or not I should release this man, then there are other facts as well which I must bear in mind, and one is the fact that this person was the cause of that group of Communists organizing in South Africa from 1963 until he was caught in 1967. You will remember what the Rivonia case brought to light. In one case Mr. Justice De Wet had the following to say about these men—

That was many years ago.

The hon. member must not be so hasty. It is generally known that over the years, until recently, until just before his illness, this man alleged that there would be a radical change in South Africa and that he would yet become Prime Minister; that was his aspiration. He was still saying that until a few months ago, until just before his illness. All the time he was in prison he was trying to incite people to do certain things. He had a hand, as I said in the Press, in the drafting of a document, for the Prison Reform Commission, a document in which the total hatred of the man, not only of the prison system, but of the whole social system was expressed.

I shall read one or two of the paragraphs to you, in support of my statement. Here is one—

this is in prison now— …

This was the “stand” of “high treason”, Sir, to which the judge referred. And here we have another gem, in another paragraph—

Sir, I want to tell you that this would almost have amused me if it had not been such a serious matter, that we find these words “what was an intellectual opposition”. If this is the sort of “intellectual opposition”, Sir, then I just want to tell you that we are dealing with psychopaths of the most serious grade here, people who do not realize what they tried to do and who have no feeling of guilt about it. But this is very typical, Sir, may I tell you, these attacks on the prisons, and I am not afraid of criticism of the prisons. We debate it every time. But I say that it is very typical because what did Bram Fischer himself write? Under the heading “Immediate Tasks” he declared (translation)—

And this is still being done, Sir, by people such as the hon. member for Houghton, who lends herself to this. Mention has been made of the fact that I said he is a Lenin prize-winner. Let me just tell you what a Lenin prize-winner is. There are only two kinds of prizes. There is a Lenin Prize for technological progress and there is a Lenin Prize for peace, and the word “peace” is used in the communistic context and this means, immediately, party political activities and subversive activities in Western countries. As far as I could discover—and there may be others—there are only six winners of the Lenin Peace Prize among the 240 million Russians and all those Chinese and in all the satellite countries, and this man, for whom representations are now being made, was one of them. The point which I made in this regard—and this Dr. Wilson and the hon. member as well did not understand at all—was the high value that they attached to the work of this man, the absolute fanatic with whom we are dealing here. I say that these are things which I must bear in mind when I give consideration to this case, and the principal thing which I must bear in mind, is the medical history. Let us consider the medical history.

Mr. Fischer was in prison and fell while he was going into the shower, and he injured his leg. Because we know that a great fuss is made of it, no matter how slightly he is injured in the prison, and that in his case he has many friends outside and also in Parliament who will immediately take up the cudgels for him, I gave instructions that in such cases he was to be taken immediately to an outside hospital and that reports were to be compiled and sworn statements taken of how the injury occurred. They took him to hospital and originally they thought that he had merely fractured his leg. Subsequently they realized that there might be cancer somewhere in his body. His condition deteriorated in hospital. It deteriorated to such an extent that, by the middle of December, he was almost unable to speak to people. He was completely finished. His son-in-law justifiably thought that his last days had come. The family came to see me. I dealt with them, to the best of my ability, in a friendly way. I said to them: “My friends, it will depend on medical reports. I must wait to see what the position is, bearing in mind this man’s background. I just want to tell hon. members what the position was when I arrived back from a holiday on 20 January, but before I come to that, I would just like to indicate under whose care this man was while he was very ill. His regular doctor is a specialist, Prof. T. Fichardt. He is assisted, in helping this man, by Dr. D. Marais, an orthopaedist, Prof. G. Falkson, cancer chemotherapist, Dr. Alfonso Rossouw, neurologist, Prof. C. R. Jansen, nuclear physician—I might say that Prof. Jansen’s name is world known for his work in the field of nuclear medicine—Dr. W. J. Pepler, anatomical pathologist, Dr. Meiring, chemical pathologist. Prof. A. G. Sandison, head of the Radiotherapy Department, and Dr. L. F. Malherbe, internist. Nine specialists, the best in South Africa as far as cancer is concerned, have given their attention to this man. My department has done this at our expense.

But he is still dying.

No, he is not dying. The allegation is that we do not care. If we did not care what happened to him, we would, after all, have left him alone and let him die.

Nobody said that.

But we know our responsibility towards every prisoner. This does not apply only to him. Every prisoner is properly looked after when he is sick, and this man had nine specialists. Let me say this to the hon. member for Houghton this afternoon: Even if any of these prominent Ministers who are sitting here, and even the Prime Minister, became ill, they could not lay claim to more than we have given Bram Fischer.

It is not in question.

It is in question. It is, because the hon. member regards me now as being heartless. She regards me as a person who does not want to show mercy.

Not on those grounds.

If the hon. member would only keep quiet, I would tell her what I found upon my return. On 10 January the medical report was as follows (translation)—

In other words, Sir, on 10 January this man was reacting positively as a result of his hospitalization. On 14 and 15 January I then found the following—

Then, on the 20th, I received this summary (translation)—

The diagnosis was that there was a source of cancer somewhere, but they could not find it. They then decided that he should receive treatment from an internist. This doctor said the following on 4 February, i.e. yesterday (translation)—

“Epigastric pain” is, in reality, simply a pain in the stomach—

A doctor tells me that the nausea could also be due to cobalt radiation. I read further—

They are still looking for the primary cancer in this man; they were still doing so only yesterday. Now, I have been told, by people who know far more about it, that there are different kinds of cancer and that it is necessary to locate the cancer first, to diagnose the cancer, to determine whether it is going to be the cause of your death or whether you can recover. I have been told that there are many people who have had cancer and who are completely healthy today and will remain healthy until they die of old age in their beds.

You think that is going to happen?

I do not know. My point is that the hon. member must not forget that she is dealing with the Minister of Justice.

I never forget that.

I hope not. My difficulty is that this series of specialists have still not been able to tell me where the primary cancer is, or what the primary cancer is. There are signs that this man has reacted well to cancer irradiation, and it is not impossible that he will recover completely.

Oh, come on!

You say “Oh, come on!” But it is because you do not want to believe it. I am telling the hon. member now that I do not know what the position is. I rely entirely on the medical reports.

He weighs 100 lbs.

We all weigh 100 lbs. when we come out of hospital. One recuperates afterwards and picks up weight. Yesterday, his daughter came to me and indicated that she wanted the man to come home. I now want to ask the hon. member why the man should go home. These ten doctors are looking for the cause of his illness, but she wants him to come home. When I asked her why she wanted the man to come home, she said that her sister and brother-in-law had to undertake a two-hour journey between Johannesburg and Pretoria to visit him, and that it was too tiring for them. However, they do not consider their father. She also complained that the man could not read all the books that he wanted to read. I then told her that I would speak to the General and if there were any books that he wanted to read, he could possibly get the books for him. That is no real problem. However, I bear the responsibility of restoring that man to health because he is a prisoner. If I were to allow that man to go home and he should die within a week, the hon. member will ask in my Vote why I let the man go home and say: “You knew he was going to die; that is why you let him go”.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Order! I cannot allow continuous interjections by the hon. member for Houghton.

Herein lies the dilemma: Should the man recover without a final diagnosis I know from the reports which I have that this man will carry on with anti-Afrikaans activities to the end. Should he remain ill, however, I can tell them that he belongs in a hospital and I then give him the best treatment which one person can give another, because I am sorry for him as a person. Can I do more for him than that? One would now expect that if the family comes to see me—I receive them gladly and listen to them—they would say to me: “We have a favour to ask of you; we are now prepared to give the following undertaking on our part …” That is not the attitude of this family, however. The attitude of this family is. “You are almighty; you can restrict the man as you like; you can clamp down on him just as you like.” Then I said to them: “But, my friends, I have him in custody. You want him released. Tell me on what conditions and I will then consider it. Let him make the conditions and then I can consider them”. I am not inhuman, but I am not going to keep a lot of policemen at his home on the farm.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

No. I do not want to answer any questions now. If they were to come forward with constructive proposals now, one could consider them. But what is more, before I can consider anything, it is necessary, to my mind, that the doctor is able to tell me with certainty, or with a reasonable degree of certainty, where the cancer is, whether the cancer is still active and whether it is incurable. As far as that is concerned, I am completely and utterly in the hands of the doctors, and I am waiting for a report in which one of them tells me that although his life expectancy cannot be determined, there is no hope for him whatsoever. What do I find in the reports, however? They are looking here and they are looking there, and this is possible and that is possible. I do not know what the position is. After all, I am not a doctor myself. It is also necessary for me to indicate the place where this man will be detained. Unless the people can convince me to the contrary—and I am open to conviction—it is my personal feeling that he must not be kept in Johannesburg. There is a very simple reason for this. Mr. Wilson said to me, terribly sarcastically: “You will say that all the ‘goggas’ are in Johannesburg”. I am not going to confirm this. I may have such suspicions, but I will not say anything like that. What I can in fact say, is that the headquarters of the Communist Party, of which Mr. Fischer was the leader, was in Rivonia in the Johannesburg area, and most of the people who were charged with him, were all people from that area. It is not possible for me to allow, even from the mere inspiration of his presence, a new communist movement to begin in South Africa after we had, with so much effort, grief and debating, crushed the previous communists. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, in the nature of the matter hon. members will understand if I do not follow up on the hon. Minister’s arguments. This also applies to the statements by the hon. member for Pretoria Central. I say this simply because I believe that we cannot afford to waste time while, in this important period we are living in, South Africa is waiting for positive and energetic action and leadership.

In company with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and other speakers on this side, I too want to express my personal appreciation for the initiative displayed by the hon. Prime Minister and the Government in recent months. In this regard I have in mind in particular the Prime Minister’s diplomacy in Southern Africa, the speech by Mr. Pik Botha before the Security Council concerning the indefensibility of discrimination on grounds of race and colour, the Prime Minister’s discussion with members of the various non-White groups, the changes with regard to admission to the Nico Malan Theatre and other signs of a new approach. In this connection there are two developments which I regard as particularly important. Firstly, the assurance the hon. the Prime Minister gave the members of the Coloured Persons Representative Council that favourable consideration would be given to the removal of those forms of discrimination that create unnecessary friction and that have nothing to do with the maintenance of group identity, if I have interpreted the hon. the Prime Minister correctly. As does every member of the Opposition, I heartily welcome this statement. I hope that in the course of my speech I shall be able to go into this matter further. However, it is very clear that if we are really in earnest about doing away with discrimination, it is essential for us to involve the non-White himself in order to ascertain what they regard as discrimination, and not you and I, Sir. The forms of discrimination which they in fact find unacceptable or indefensible, must be ascertained. The policy of colour discrimination and enforced racial separation followed by this Government and previous Governments up to now, was imported and applied without consultation with and without the agreement of the various non-White groups. I say “without consultation and without agreement” because inter alia all political power was concentrated in the hands of Whites. We as Whites, therefore, were able to impose and execute our ideologies and our conceptions of how society should be ordered because we regarded it as self-evident that we knew best what was in the interests of South Africa and all its people. It is clear that we can no longer continue to exercise the sole right to take decisions of this nature, with the monopoly on the decision-making processes where the interests of other groups are involved.

What must we do now?

I am coming to that. The best guarantee against that would, of course, be if the non-White groups were represented, as, in the federal policy of the United Party, provision is made for representation in this body and in bodies where these decision are taken. Surely this is the essence of the matter.

In this Parliament, too?

In the light of the fact that this Government has repeatedly declared that it will not give the non-White groups any representation in this Parliament—which is the sovereign legislative body in South Africa—it is essential for other ways to be found. It is the task and the responsibility of this Government to find ways to involve non-White groups in the process whereby they ascertain what they regard as discrimination and how that discrimination affects them. Various ways have been suggested. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout suggested that a Select Committee be appointed to investigate the matter. Then there is the possibility that a representative commission of inquiry could be appointed. Members of the other groups could also be represented in such a commission.

Oh no really, man!

I want to make an earnest appeal to my hon. friend opposite to tell me in what other way we can involve those people in the ascertaining of this vital question if we do not want to allow them to come and sit here in the House and make their contribution here. We must do so in order to be able to carry out the promise made by the hon. the Prime Minister and the promise made by Mr. Botha before the Security Council of U.N. Whether this takes place by means of a Select Committee, a commission of inquiry or according to any other method, I just want to say that we do not have all the time in the world to do it. Within the next few months, not only in the interests of our relations with U.N. or in the interests of détente in Africa or in the interests of our relations with the outside world, but also in the interests of our internal relations, people must be given the message of hope that will show that we are in earnest in creating a different structure in South Africa.

The second development to which I want to refer, is the hon. the Prime Minister’s statement which he made last year in this House in which he said—I could quote it, but let me rather leave it at that—that while it is the policy to extend the powers of the Coloured Persons Representative Council to the maximum, there is a common ground, a wide area of common interest, which White and Coloured must consider and decide on jointly. That is what the hon. the Prime Minister said, if I understood and interpreted him correctly. In the light of this the hon. the Prime Minister announced that a joint Cabinet committee would be established and that the Coloureds would be given a say in other statutory bodies. I really do not believe that this arrangement will satisfy the political aspirations of the Coloured population, just as I am convinced that if the roles were switched, the Afrikaner would not have been satisfied with that kind of arrangement as the realisation and embodiment of his political aspirations. We would not have been satisfied with that, nor is it an adequate answer to the needs and aspirations of the Coloureds. What is important, is the acknowledgment implicit in that announcement, namely that there are common interests and a common destiny and also, arising out of that, that the existing separate machinery—the Coloured Council on the one hand and the White Parliament on the other—cannot effectively look after the interests of the Coloured group in that common area. The separate machinery is unable to deal with this and for that reason, joint machinery must be created. This is an acknowledgment and I am therefore grateful for the lead taken by the hon. the Prime Minister. His announcement is an admission that the interests of Coloureds and Whites may only be divisible at a certain level and that in many spheres our interests are interwoven and indivisible. It is a recognition that the policy of apartheid, of division, cannot serve as the final and comprehensive answer to our relations problems. There are some of us who have been trying for many years to bring home this simple fact to our people, often in the face om much vilification. I am grateful for these signs of realism, even though we are only standing on the threshold thereof. This means, too, that the road of parallelism, as a reply to this problem, is dead because along that road provision is not made for the common ground of interests concerning which we must deliberate jointly. What I am saying here about the Coloureds naturally applies to the Indian community too. What I want to convey thereby is that we shall have to seek different answers to those we have had thus far in this matter. To put it differently, where indivisible and indistinguishable interests are concerned, we shall have to find some arrangement according to which there will be a joint say for all the groups sharing in those communal interests. I personally believe that the federal policy is the only one capable of doing so. If we continue as we are doing now, we are simply maintaining a situation of supremacy, rationalize as we may. Please, let us have no illusions on that score.

I want to come back to some of the concepts which are often used, have been used in this debate too and will probably still be used in the future. I do so in an effort on my part to make constructive contribution to this debate on the abolition of discrimination. It seems to me that in considering the pattern of race relations, the pattern that has developed over the past 26 or 27 years in South Africa in particular, we can distinguish three elements. Firstly there is the concept “differentiation”. Then there is “discrimination” which I shall come back to. In the first instance there is differentiation. To me this embraces merely the acknowledgment, as such, of the existence of a specific group or category of persons with its own distinct interests and identity. That is what differentiation is, namely the acknowledgment of distinct groups and their own identities. If there is differentiation or a distinction drawn between such groups or categories, then the aim of that differentiation is to serve the specific interests of that specific group without the interest of any other group being detrimentally affected or threatened thereby or without any rights or privileges of that specific group being detrimentally affected. I should like to mention a few examples in this connection.

Hon. members are aware that we in South Africa have recognized to Bantu law as a legal system for the Bantu. That is a differentiating measure. It acknowledges the fact that the Bantu are there and that they have their own legal system. We did not simply make the Roman-Dutch legal system of the Whites applicable to the Bantu because that would have been a form of cultural domination. We acknowledged that they are there and that they have their own legal system and we granted recognition to that legal system. That is a differentiating measure. We did not prejudice the Bantu thereby, nor did we prejudice or detrimentally affect the Whites. Our recognition of the separate language and cultural rights of Afrikaans and English-speaking people in South Africa is also a differentiating measure. It is a recognition that various groups exist and that cultural and other interests of those groups must be recognized. No one is harmed thereby. It is simply the acknowledgment and acceptance of the interests of those groups. So I could continue. There is also the fact that we recognize polygamy among the Bantu. Take the question of the setting aside of land for the Bantu. In spite of the interpretation given to this by the hon. member for Vereeniging and the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, the setting aside of land for the Bantu was from the earliest times a differentiating measure with the aim of recognizing the facts. The Bantu community was there and the Whites came across this position. All the Whites said, was: We uphold your right to possess your land. No one was prejudiced thereby, because that land was not possessed by individuals; it was land belonging to the Bantu nations as units. We recognized that. We did not tell the Bantu: You may not obtain the Western right of ownership of land elsewhere. That was not the intention, not if we are speaking of differentiation. I need not go into the matter any further. I can only say that there is nothing to be said against this form of differentiation because it does not benefit one group or person more than another group or person nor does it put one group or person in a position inferior to any other. The aim remains consistent—to act solely in the interests of a specific group.

In contrast we get, in the second place, the concept of discrimination. In essence, discrimination means—and I am trying to state this as accurately as possible in order to try and assist the progress of debate in this regard—that a situation is created in which one group or person is benefited more than another group or person, or where a specific group or person or their interests are subordinated to another group or person or their interests, where one group or person possesses rights and privileges which are denied another group or person, or that obligations or restrictions are placed on one group or person which are not also placed on other groups or persons. That is discrimination. That is prejudicing as against benefiting, the granting of rights and the denial of rights the imposition of obligations as against the absence of such obligations. If, then, we talk about colour or race discrimination, then it means that colour or race is the factor employed to discriminate against or in favour of groups or persons in the way in which I have indicated here.

It is very clear that in South Africa, in our Statute Book and in practice, there are hundreds of cases of discrimination of this nature. I need not mention them. I have already indicated that our political structure is a discriminatory structure because the other race groups are not represented here in Parliament, the highest authority, the legislative authority. That is discrimination. We can say that it is essential or desirable; we can say that it can be explained historically, but it is discrimination. I can mention other examples of discrimination: The colour bar legislation, in accordance with which certain people are unable to obtain certificates of competence; job reservation; the arrangement that where White and Coloured trade unions are separate, the management of the White trade union has the right to negotiate and also to bind the other; the Nursing Association where the same situation applies, where only the White Nursing Association can negotiate and has the right to bind the other, too: the salaries that are still being paid to lecturers at non-White universities where Black lecturers are paid less than others; the pensions payable to the various population groups; the Prohibition of Interdicts Act; taxes that have to be paid by the Bantu, and all the other restrictions. There can surely be no doubt about the fact that these measures discriminate because they benefit certain people as against others, and all I want to plead is this: If we are in earnest when we say that we want to do away with discrimination, let us then make an immediate start with these measures; after all, this is not in dispute; no reasonable, rational person could doubt that we have here forms of colour and racial discrimination. It is not differentiation; it is purely and solely discrimination and no reasonable person can doubt it. If we are in earnest about doing away with discrimination based on race or colour, then we must start with these things. I take it that it is these things that our ambassador at U.N.O. had in mind when he spoke about discrimination. It is pointless for us to try to get away from these things by coming along with the glib story that it is not discrimination but differentiation.

Sir, these things constitute discrimination and this is surely clear to every one of us. I want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Green Point said, namely that many of these things can be changed immediately. We need not wait for a commission of inquiry.

Sir, the third factor I want to mention in this regard which, in my opinion, has not yet been properly considered here and which, to me, is actually more important than the other two, is the principle of apartheid—apartheid not as recognition of the existence of diverse groups, but the enforced separation of people on the grounds of race and colour. A far greater area of our society than is taken up by discrimination and differentiation is regulated by the principle of enforced separation between person and person and group and group on the grounds of race and colour. As far as I am able to judge this has been a cornerstone of the Government’s policy thus far, although fortunately, in recent times there have been signs that in certain cases the Government is anxious to move away from this as for example in the field of sport, and now, in the Nico Malan Theatre too, etc. It is generally known that it was the policy of this Government under the late Dr. Verwoerd to effect separation in South Africa on the grounds of race and colour in every possible sphere and to the greatest extent practicable. This has been said time and again and is really not in dispute. Sir, examples of these things are legion, for example group areas, separate universities, separate trade unions, the nursing profession and academic associations. It was not even permissible for an academic association to be mixed, and hon. members know that as well as I. There are all the forms of petty apartheid that have been mentioned so often over the floor of this House, such as buses, taxis, beaches, theatres toilets, restaurants, hotels, seats, entrances. These are all examples of enforced separation between person and person on the grounds of race and colour. Our whole country is full of it. Our daily life is full of it. There is the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, the Immorality Act, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, sport. Just name it. More specifically, it is the principle we have laid down in legislation over the past 26 years and have applied time and again in practice.

This enforced separation is aggravated still further when it is accompanied by real discrimination. For example, as I have already mentioned, there is the case of the separate universities. This is not just enforced separation, but within the separate universities we still discriminate, too, on the basis of race and colour. In our Reservation of Separate Amenities Act it states in the Act that nothing done under the Act will be declared invalid merely on the grounds that those facilities are not equal. Sir, there is no doubt that this enforced separation on grounds of race and colour with all its implications and consequences, together with the policy of discrimination, must carry the primary blame for the bitterness and the dissatisfaction to be met with among large numbers of the various non-White groups and for the hostility towards South Africa on the part of other Black States in Africa and the outside world in general. Surely it is clear that when a person is prohibited on the grounds of his race or colour from having access to or use of places and amenities to which other people with a different colour of skin do have access, or—and again I am choosing my words with care—when anyone, on the basis of his race or colour, is restricted from associating freely with a person of another colour or race group, it necessarily results in such a person and the colour or race group to which he belongs feeling stigmatized and in fact being stigmatized, and his human dignity is in fact being injured by this measure. The tragic situation that our hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs cannot even take any of the persons he took with him to U.N.O. to a restaurant here in Cape Town to have a cup of tea together, is proof of that. [Interjections.] That is the truth. It is these things that fundamentally hurt human dignity. [Interjections.] I want to say at once that I realize that many of these practices did not only arise today; but I do want to say that the only basis on which such enforced apartheid and separation may be acceptable, is when the decision in this regard are taken jointly by all the groups concerned. In other words, it is only when White and non-White decide together that a specific form of separation or apartheid is desirable and when, in addition, they also have an equal say in the execution and the application of that decision, only then can the element of stigma and of injuring of human dignity possibly disappear. But as long as it is the White person who decides on these matters alone and in addition arrogates to himself the sole right to execute and apply a decision of this kind, he should not expect to obtain the approval and the co-operation of the people who belong to other colour groups and who are affected by those measures.

Sir, in this regard it is said that these separating measures are only a consequence of the multinational nature of our society and that through them recognition is granted to the specific group identity of each specific group or people. Even though that were so, I want to repeat that we cannot expect the other peoples or groups to be content with measures of this nature if they have not had a joint say in the decision-making process and the process of execution. I want to add at once that in the execution of these measures it is not true, either, to say that this constitutes execution of the concept of national diversity, because the distinction we draw in the case of these measures is between White and non-White. We do not have separate entrances for Indians, Coloureds, Xhosas, Tswanas, Zulus or whatever. It is not correct to say that these measures merely constitute execution of the concept of national diversity. In addition I also want to say that these measures have nothing to do with the maintenance of group identity. The identity of the White person is not endangered when he enters the same bus as a non-White. His identity is not endangered when he passes through the same gate. His identity is not endangered if he has to stand in the same queue. The attempt to explain and justify these measures on the basis of the maintenance of one’s own identity simply does not work. It has no validity whatsoever. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I want to refer in passing to a few ideas raised by the hon. member. I begin with that big word which he used, viz. “stigmatized”. Because there are certain laws which apply to non-Whites and to Whites, he says that the Black people, the non-Whites, are stigmatized by them. He referred to such Acts as, inter alia, the Immorality Act. Let me put a simple question to him. This law can be contravened by a White or a Bantu. The hon. member says that we stigmatize the Bantu by it. Why? Why is it always said that it is aimed at those people? If that law is contravened by a White and a Bantu, is the White not charged as well, or does the hon. member not understand this? So does this constitute discrimination against a Bantu only?

It is the White man’s law.

Yes. Sir, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has a habit of putting his foot in it. Now he says that it is the White man’s law. That is true. Allow me to tell the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that he must warn the hon. member for Edenvale that he will go the same way as the other hon. member went last night if he does not watch out, because before that hon. member came to this House, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated most positively that if the United Party were to come into power, there would be certain things which they would have to accept and would accept, and one of those things was group areas. Is that correct? I am asking the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether that is correct? I address my question also to the hon. member who has just spoken of mandatory racial segregation and mandatory residential areas. Is it correct that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, on behalf of the Opposition, that separate residential areas and that kind of thing would be accepted by the United Party?

The principle. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, you must forgive me if I do not want to argue further about this kind of thing. Yesterday a striking speech was made by the hon. member for Pretoria Central, in which he pointed out the rifts in the United Party. I am not going to do likewise and waste my time on the death of an opponent. After all, it is a macabre way of passing one’s time to keep dancing on the corpse of a man who is already dead. I do not intend dancing on the skeleton of a party which deserved to die long ago in any event. The United Party does not need a Pegasus poll or a diagnosis; it only needs someone to conduct a post-mortem. That party, which is dead already, died as a result of its lack of policy, as a result of strife in its ranks, as a result of concessions to its left wing every now and again in order to satisfy everyone, as a result of that spirit in which it says one thing to the Black man and another thing to the White man and one thing in the rural areas and another thing in the urban areas. That is what killed it, and it is not necessary to mourn the passing away of a party which has already played its role. I believe that some people in the United Party will still be able to play a role, and I hope that what happened last night, is the beginning of a process which should have begun long ago, viz. to purge that party of a group of people who do the sort of things that are now going to be continued by a new party.

Why are you so worried about us?

I am worried about South Africa and the Opposition is also a part of South Africa. I am worried about the interests of South Africa and when the Opposition has become to decrepit, it is to the disadvantage of South Africa. The hon. member for Durban Point can laugh about it, but I do not think it is necessary to laugh. I have said in public what I want to say this afternoon here in this House: This party has died from the lack of policy, but the policy of that other party on the Opposition benches will mean the death not only of a party, but of South Africa, of Whites and Christians in South Africa. It is time that the conservatives in the United Party wake up to that idea and realize where the enemy lies. I say that the policy of that party, the Progressive Party, is the death of South Africa and I am going to try and explain that. I want to put a simple question to those members who tell me I am talking rubbish: Who of them will stand up to look Whites and non-Whites squarely in the eyes and tell us what the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs was unable to elicit yesterday from the leader and the back-stage leaders of that party? Do you believe in an unqualified franchise for the Black people of South Africa together with the Whites in one Parliament, yes or no? And whether it is the corner-stone or grave-stone, just say it. The silence which reigns over there and the embarrassed laughter is an admission that where they are going is either the complete domination or the destruction of White civilization here and the elimination of the Whites in South Africa. There is no getting away from that. None of the investigations of that Afrikaner who represents that party, will be able to change this in any way. Write Finis on to White civilization and carry on with your investigation, whether it be a Pegasus poll or whatever.

I would prefer to deal with the party to whose hands the future of South Africa has been entrusted. I want to avail myself of the opportunity this afternoon to say a few things which I think we on both sides of the House, and not only inside this Chamber, but also outside, must take into consideration. I want to say it, by way of summary, with reference to those inspired words which the hon. the Prime Minister has used and put into practice repeatedly, viz. that the policy of the Nationalist Party is to grant to others what we demand for ourselves. I think there is one thing which we must understand clearly, which we must say honestly to all non-Whites in this country, and which we must always keep saying honestly, as Whites, to our own people and to the world outside under any circumstances which might arise, viz. that that sentence also contains the words “what I demand for myself”. What do I demand for myself? What does the White man in this country demand for himself and what has this Government promised to try to guarantee for the country? What we demand for ourselves, we did not get through theft. Nor did we get it in any other way than the legal way which has existed throughout the centuries. The territory and material goods which we have acquired, even if sometimes by means of war, was acquired by the labour of the Whites, whether of French, English or Dutch descent. What we demand is nothing new. We are not going to demand land from any other country, Botswana or Lesotho. We demand only that we have acquired for ourselves over the years. We demand that the heritage of our fathers must remain the heritage of our children. To that the National Party has committed itself. However, we demand more than just material goods. What we as party promise to our people is their due. The cultural goods which we have inherited, the Christian civilization which was given us, must also be retained for our progeny and for other people with whom we coexist. For this reason the National Party has said—and the hon. the Prime Minister repeated in this House what he said in the Other Place—that we shall give to others what we demand for ourselves. But under no circumstances will we give ourselves. He said this at the leaders’ conference as well. We are not prepared to share this Parliament with others, not now and not in the distant future either. This is how the Prime Minister put it (translation)—

Let it also be clearly understood that the National Party and the conservative people in that party on the opposite side have the same task. They can play their part, as the hon. member for Turffontein did when he made that bitter choice and is now going to a valued colleague and play a great role in the development of what we promised to give to our people.

I want to come to the second aspect and members of the Opposition will perhaps be a little less noisy now. What do we mean with this concept “Grant to others …”? Perhaps I should then speak in all earnest even to my own people, but also to other people who have promised much and given little. These words “Grant to others …” are not a question of a passive action and cannot apply, as a passive attitude, to the National Party that must carry out its task in the turbulence of the year 1975. “Grant to others …” does not mean that we sit back and simply let others acquire for themselves those things which they are capable of acquiring. We pride ourselves on being a Christian people, and I believe we have the right to be thankful for that. I must add to this, whether or not it sounds like a sermon, that one can read somewhere in the Bible that if you say to a man who comes to you naked and hungry: “Depart in peace, be ye warned and filled”, and you do not give him clothes and you do not give him food, then you have not come close to the Gospel. This is what the National Party is putting into practise in these days of challenge, viz. to help others to acquire what we have acquired for ourselves.

What happens to the urban Bantu?

Yes, I am still coming to the urban Bantu. The former hon. Minister of Finance said in his moving farewell message to all of us—to me and to other hon. members—that a golden future is awaiting South Africa provided only we carry on confidently, and provided we work. Those were the words which the hon. the Minister used. We must abandon the petty disputes in our own parties and elsewhere of which the English proverb says: “You cannot see the wood for the trees,” and the squabbling about who said what, and on what date and in which year. There is work ahead for us to do. I believe that the National Party is great and strong enough also to admit that we can make mistakes in the execution of our task, but it is also true that the only person who does not make a mistake is that person who does nothing. It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize, but I am not going to confine myself to replying to someone who keeps interjecting with that hackneyed old phrase: “What about the Coloureds and what about the Indians?” I am going to confine myself to my own department and say what we envisage for the coming year and what we shall do in the implementation of our policy with respect to the Black peoples.

In the first place I should like to state it as our ultimate goal that we are going to work towards the establishment of self-sufficient, viable homelands for the various Bantu peoples, where they can live as peoples in their own right, can work and develop their areas, whether it happens now, or in ten, 20 or in 30 years’ time. That is a milestone for the achievement of which we can all co-operate. We can work to give them constitutional rights and to give them land tenure as is now being done by the other division of our department to ensure consolidation is disposed of. We can work by encouraging people to bring capital to those countries. We can also work to inspire the homeland leaders and we, both the Opposition and this side of the House, can collaborate by eliminating suspicion-mongering and by not using other people as pawns when we conduct a debate across the floor of this House. The name of the chief member of the executive council of KwaZulu, that of Chief Minister Buthelezi, has been mentioned repeatedly in this House.

Today I want to say with hesitation, but in all earnest and with the utmost responsibility, that for a long time in this House the argument has been advanced that Chief Minister Buthelezi rejected the homeland idea completely and that the National Party should consequently throw in the towel. I just want to say that the National Party will not do so. By quoting from an official document. I want to point out a strange aspect of the same case. I do not want to make confidential conversations public, but I want to refer to the official statement issued by the office of the Prime Minister. The moment it suits them, some homeland leaders can say one thing, while on another occasion, when they are with their friends, they sing a different tune by saying something else. Under the heading “Foreign investment in the homelands” in the statement issued by the office of the Prime Minister, I want to quote the following:

At that stage the “homelands” idea, the idea of a homeland which has the right to negotiate directly and on its own behalf, suited Mr. Buthelezi. As far as other measures too were concerned, Mr. Buthelezi came to the same deliberations to talk to the hon. the Prime Minister and to the Republic’s Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. However, when Chief Buthelezi walked out, he said that he did not want to speak to them. Certain groups of the Press gave the utmost prominence to this. They then made a hero and a martyr of him. I am not reproaching Mr. Buthelezi for this; I am reproaching those people who are constantly using homeland leaders in a game which they are playing with the future of South Africa.

We shall have to face the fact that until such time as the ideal of full homeland development has been realized and until such time as we find the solution to our problems as we see them, there will be an interim stage when we shall have to deal with serious problems. We shall have to deal with serious problems, as we are already experiencing at present.

†It is not merely a question of working for a solution; we have to cope with the problem in the meantime, a most difficult problem at all times to cope with.

*In this connection I should like to tell you that in the urban areas—and not only the “urban areas” in the sense that the Witwatersrand is the only such area—we will have to face up to one reality, viz. that, as has been demonstrated in a homeland area just outside Pretoria, as well as in the whole of Europe, industrialization brings about a concentration of people. With all the influx control measures which we have and which we shall have to apply rigidly, it remains a fact that, as the animals go where the pastures are, so people come to where there are job opportunities and food for them.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has learned, hasn’t he? We have been telling you this for a very long time.

Because this is a fact, the influx control measures must be applied in such a way that conditions do not deteriorate into conditions such as those which were experienced outside Pretoria. Perhaps the hon. member for Hillbrow, who speaks against influx control measures, will come with me so that I can show him, in all humility, what happens outside Pretoria when we allow those conditions to arise.

[Inaudible.]

He can come with me to see what land ownership has achieved for the Bantu outside Pretoria. He can see what the evils of family housing are, as against housing of migrant labour.

Speaking of migrant labour, this brings me to the next point. I have said it before, and I still say it, together with all the churches that have investigated the matter, that migrant labour is not an ideal system in South Africa either.

A monstrosity according to your colleague.

The hon. member says that it is a monstrosity, but he must use his commonsense, of which he has sufficient. I want to ask him again what I asked him last year already: If the system of migrant labour is changed into one of family housing, would he, as a representative of Cape Town, agree with the Divisional Council that the slum conditions on the Cape Flats where there was an uncontrolled influx of people, should be cleared, or does he not agree with that?

Your colleague, Mr. Marais Steyn said it was a monstrosity.

If he agrees with that, then why the constant discussion of influx control measures and the existence of pass laws? Surely that is ridiculous. As far as the problems brought about by migrant labour are concerned, I told the hon. member for Durban North in this House the year before last that we must work on a charter for migrant labour, and we are in fact working on it. I want to tell hon. members that, following an inquiry by the department, one interim report as appeared, a considerable number of whose recommendations have already been implemented, recommendations to eliminate irritations and to make it possible for fewer arrests to take place. It is an intensive inquiry which is still continuing, and we shall carry on with it to eliminate the unnecessary areas of friction between people and for people, both White and Black, as far as this is possible.

I want to come to another point in regard to which I should like to request the co-operation of both sides of this House. There are people who complain that Bantu are receiving too much training. Sometimes there are even people in the National Party who criticize us, saying that we are doing too much in this regard. A trained Bantu in his homeland is just as essential a part of the infrastructure of the Government of that homeland as railway lines and other things could possibly be. The training of Bantu and the increasing creation of training facilities for them so that they can eventually take over the government of their people, is of cardinal importance for Whites and for non-Whites. We must simply face this fact.

As far as the representation of the Bantu is concerned, it has already been announced by the hon. the Prime Minister in Press statements that we are presently working on an altered type of representation so that dialogue can take place on a local level and more responsibility could perhaps be given gradually to the Bantu leaders, always in the knowledge that in White South Africa the Whites will continue to govern. I want to express my confidence that, if such changes do come, we shall succeed in maintaining dialogue on local level and developing it. With the greatest respect and appreciation, I want to say that even if the hon. the Prime Minister and other Ministers take all possible steps to meet African leaders and homeland leaders, it will be to no avail if we do not continually conduct that dialogue on a local level as well. When Germany is on the way to Moscow and thinks that it can conquer Moscow, then its lines in the rear are broken. These lines in the rear, lines which must be maintained while we govern, while this Cabinet continues with its great task, these lines all true and faithful South Africans can help to build. Therefore I want to make an appeal this afternoon—also in connection with further steps which people might have in mind— to the Press and to the public, and to people whose intentions are honest even though they differ from us politically: Bring those things, which cause local or country-wide irritation, to our attention, and they will be investigated.

We want to give you the assurance, in this House, that, as far as this department is concerned, with the ideals which we as National Party have set for ourselves in view, we will deal daily with the problems which come before us, and that we will solve the problems in every sphere, in so far as it is within our ability to do so, with the greatest sympathy, in co-operation with homeland leaders and other leaders of the Black peoples. And if, in the meantime, measures have to be adopted which must be seen as interim measures until all the facilities have been provided in their own areas, until they are independent in their own areas, until a commonwealth of nations has been created with those countries, as the Prime Minister has said, in whatever form it might take, this department will continue to play its part in the creation and the development of happy interrelations between peoples and individuals.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House always listen to the hon. the Deputy Minister with great interest because, he has a perceptivity of mind that is denied many of his colleagues. Today I want to reply only indirectly to what he has said because he was not really speaking to this side of the House; he was speaking to that side of the House. In fact, it is surprising that he was not sitting here in order to read them a lecture. But with the rapt attention they listened to him, I would like to think that his message went home.

I want to refer only to one aspect of what this hon. Deputy Minister has said, viz. that we on this side had no policy. You know that we have difficulty in keeping ahead on policy because that Government is continually taking over our policies. They are not only taking our policies, they are now also taking over our personnel to apply them. Every day they tell us how bankrupt we are, that we have no personnel, that we have no manpower, and that we have nobody of any consequence. Yet every time any man from this side steps to that side, within a year he finds himself in the Cabinet. Is that indicative of the wealth of human material that is available on the other side? … [Interjections.] To me this signifies the exact opposite.

This hon. Deputy Minister told us some of the things that he was going to do, things that he had in mind. I want to take this line of thinking a little further, because I want to suggest to him what he will have to do. When I came to this hon. House nine years ago I took as the theme for my first little effort the challenge of change and tried to indicate that probably the most characteristic feature of the age in which we live was change—rapid, dramatic and accelerating change. And I tried to indicate how this change would be reflected in our way of life and in the world in which we live. Today I would like to return, with your permission, to this basic theme. But I would like to try to picture how this change is going to manifest itself in South Africa itself. I ask hon. members on that side of the House, and particularly the hon. Deputy Minister who has spoken and whose bona tides I accept, to do an experiment with me. Let us look at South Africa as we believe it will be in 10 years’ time; let us make this projection and try to visualize South Africa as it will be in 10 years’ time. [Interjections.] I am sorry, I want to know what the hon. member is saying.

You see. Sir, that kind of puerility which comes from that hon. Deputy Minister just highlights his ignorance and the fact that he does not know what we are talking about. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that we do this experiment and look 10 years ahead. I maintain that this is not very difficult to do, because 10 years is not a long period in time; 10 years is just around the corner; in fact, in 10 years’ time many of us ought to be around still and some of the ambitious ones over there will probably still be sitting in this House, although I believe that then they will be dealing with issues totally different from those with which we are dealing at the moment. It is not difficult to speculate about the future in this sense, because if change is going to come as a result of revolution, then the situation and end result becomes entirely unpredictable, but if change is going to come as a result of evolution, which we all hope will be the case, then on the national level and over a short period of time I believe the situation is entirely predictable. Because once you have a certain set of events, once you have certain factors that are operating, then the politician can influence it only in a marginal way. A classic situation that I have in mind is what this hon. gentleman has referred to. You know. Sir, a “hoeksteen” Nationalist Party philosophy is that the number of Black people in the so-called White areas must be reduced. For 25 years they promised the faithful how they were going to do this. They have had every single legal enactment that you could possibly think of to reduce the number of Black people in the so-called White areas, and what do you have today? You have a straight-line relationship—they have been unable to change this because the politician can only change this situation in a marginal way.

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with change here, and to my mind the amazing situation so far as that side of the House is concerned is that they do not anticipate change and go out to meet it. They are continually resisting change. They accept change when it is forced upon them and they do change, but they do not do it willingly and voluntarily; they do it reluctantly; they walk forward, but they walk forward like a man in borrowed shoes, because superimposed upon their whole system is indoctrination. They have indoctrinated their people over the years not only not to accept change but to resist change. Sir, that is why today they are being hoist by their own petard; that is why today these “Kafferboetie” chickens are coming home to roost with a vengeance. Just look at this silly situation, Sir: We are supposed to be an enlightened society; we are living in 1975; we have a Prime Minister who has more power than any Prime Minister has ever had before; he is hailed as ‘‘the man of Africa, the man of the moment”.

Hear, hear!

He receives adulation that has crippled many a bigger man than he is. But then a situation arises where the French say, “We want to come and play rugby here and we want to play against a mixed team”, and what happens with this enlightened Government under this powerful Prime Minister? They have a Cabinet meeting. I can conjure up the scene as they sit there, each one saying what he feels the effect will be on the “volk daarbuite”, and then a pronouncement is made; they say, “No, they cannot play against a mixed team”. Mr. Speaker, have you ever in your life heard of a situation where so many grown-up men, so highly paid, sit for hours at a meeting to debate such a silly issue, and have you ever heard of an instance anywhere in the world where a Cabinet has arrived at such a stupid decision? You see, Sir, they dare not move in this matter because they cannot make changes; they cannot move forward with enthusiasm and yet remain plausible. You see, Sir, they are in effect very fortunate, because here they have an Opposition which is not hindering them at all. This Opposition is blazing the way and showing them what to do. We are the pacesetters. We set the policies which they take over. Mr. Speaker, could you imagine what would happen if our roles were reversed? Could you imagine what would happen in South Africa if we had to do what they are doing at the present time? Sir, there would not have been a single member over there. They would have been holding protest meetings throughout South Africa, and the kind of propaganda they would have given forth would have made Albert Hertzog look like a liberal. [Interjections.] Sir, we are setting the tone for them all the time. Let me give an example. We said that if you want to live in Africa you will have to have Black diplomats. We said that if you want to sell separate freedoms at the U.N., you cannot conceivably find anybody better qualified than Chief Kaiser Matanzima to do so. We were told that this was nonsense. We were told that this was unnecessary. We had the classical rejoinder from the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who said he would conduct his diplomacy by means of a telephone. And what happened? It got to the stage where he realized he was wrong. He was wrong all along. Now, of course, we must have Black diplomats. But think of the time we have lost. Now we have the situation after 25 years of government by that side, where the three ex-Protectorates, part of Southern Africa, part of our customs system, part of our monetary system, do not even have diplomatic representation here, and over the whole of Africa we have diplomatic relations with only one State. Now that the hon. the Prime Minister has been cast in the role of a Dr. Kissinger and is floating around all over Africa, he must operate in a vacuum because there is not a single African State apart from Malawi where we have diplomatic representation. Mr. Speaker, I have tried to indicate how that Government does change, and I have tried to indicate how they do it with great reluctance. How tragic for South Africa that they always do it when it is too late.

But, Sir, let us return to this experiment I want to do, and that is to look at South Africa in 10 years’ time. Certain issues are predictable. Hon. gentlemen can tell me where I am wrong. In 10 years’ time South Africa will have a total population of about 30 million people. Of those 15 approximately will be White, 15% will be Coloured and Asian, and the remaining 70% to 75% will be Black. But the important element is this, of the 23 million to 25 million Black people we will have in South Africa in 10 years’ time, some 15 million of them will be living outside the homelands. Our economy in 10 years’ time ought to be strong. We will probably earn from gold something in the region of R5 000 million a year. Our GNP in real terms, which is now in the region of R11 000 million, will probably have doubled by then and will be in the region of R22 000 million, which is a massive amount. But, more important than anything else, the buying power of the non-White people in this country will in 10 years’ time be in the region of R20 million a day. This will give us a completely new dimension, because it will make them a force of immense potency in the South African set-up. It will mean that their economic and their political bargaining power will be vastly greater than it is at the present time. In 10 years’ time to the north of us we will have either dictatorships or we will have majority Governments, which in most cases probably means the same thing. We will still have a tenuous foothold in the U.N., but the influence from overseas will be vastly greater than it is at the present time. For years we said to the Government that they must do away with the master and servant legislation because it is archaic. They would not do so, until the Americans refused to buy our coal. And what happened then? They changed this legislation within a week. That is the kind of influence that we are going to have from overseas in the future. Against this sort of background, what is the situation then likely to be in South Africa in the main fields in which we are interested, the social, the economic and political fields? Against this setting it is very easy to predict what the situation is going to be.

I want to deal first briefly with the social field. In the social field this edifice, this compulsory apartheid, this vast network of legislation that the Government has built up over so many years will have to be dismantled. For years this Government, particularly under the influence of the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development who is the ideologue in the Nationalist Party, the Suslov of the Communist Party, has built up this network of walls between people. The most important thing over the next 10 years in the social field is that we shall have to break down the walls and that we shall have to build bridges. However, you can only build a bridge if you can get two firm perches, one on either side of the gap, and so much goodwill has been eroded away over the last quarter of a century that we may well have difficulty in finding suitable footholds on the other side to build those bridges. We shall need bridges because they will probably be our only method of escape. This Government reminds me always—I say it without any disrespect—of the occasion when I went to the feeble-minded institution at Potchefstroom to look at the inmates there. I went one day and they had about 100 of them out on a sportsfield. Half of them were in front and they were erecting benches around the sportsfield that people could sit on. They were very happy. Everybody was fully active; they were all building seats. However, some half an hour later came another group, another contingent, which set about breaking all these up again. Everybody was very happy; half of them building up and the other half breaking down.

The game was then over.

This is precisely what will happen here. That hon. gentleman has broken already; he is not even with us any more.

This illustrates it so clearly and I am so pleased that the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration and Education is back with us. He understands this. He understands the need for breaking down walls and building bridges. Recently when he spoke at His Majesty’s in Johannesburg he said with an emotion-charged voice: “How many of you have ever visited a Black home?” Then came the voice from the audience that said: “We cannot because we require a permit”.

Does that stop them from going?

This is a permit-ridden Government. This is an era of permits, but I say that in the next period of 10 years this whole era of permits will be behind us and nobody will mourn the passing thereof. In 10 years’ time we shall still have separation. You have separation all over the world. However, that separation in 10 years’ time will be voluntary; it will not be entrenched in law. This is the great disservice that this Government has done South Africa: What ought to have been voluntary they made mandatory; what ought to have been a question of personal choice, they sanctified in law. In 10 years’ time people will not be talking about Black people being temporary permanent sojourners or permanent temporary sojourners and if they did so, one would know that they were mad. This is what we really ought to know at the present time. In 10 years’ time it will be understood that they are permanently settled here in White South Africa. From this will follow a number of things. If these people are here permanently they will be entitled to citizenship rights. This means that they will have the opportunity of freehold title to the homes that they occupy. Nobody who sits on that side will be able to deny that. I say that this will come as assuredly as I stand here. There will be mixed areas or open areas and there will be exclusive areas. There will be residential areas where Black people will live as they do now and areas where Whites live, but there will also be open or mixed areas as we have at the present time. Exactly the same will happen to our schools and universities. For years the Afrikaans-medium universities in this country said that they did not want Black students. That will change in 10 years’ time. Pretoria and Potchefstroom would be happy to have them as RAU has already indicated. RAU has said they will be very happy to take Black students. Who is going to stop them? Is the hon. the Minister of National Education going to stop them? In 10 years’ time we shall have 100 Nico Malan theatres throughout South Africa where people of all races will enjoy theatre and the arts and will be rubbing shoulders with one another.

In 10 years’ time we shall have mixed sport, whether the hon. the Minister calls it multinational or multiracial sport. It will be accepted by everybody except by a small group of bittereinders who, under the spiritual guidance of the hon. member for Waterberg, will be starting on the second Great Trek, this time heading back for the bush! You will be doing away with petty apartheid in all your urban areas. Mr. Speaker, you might recollect a year ago when the hon. member for Westdene—he was the fall guy—had to put a question to the Government. It was after the Johannesburg city council had decided to open their parks and their libraries. He put the question to the Government: “Has your attention been drawn to this, and what are you going to do about it?” The Government thought it so important that the hon. the Prime Minister responded. He in turn thought it so important that he not only gave his answer in Afrikaans, but also gave it to us in English. We were treated to a wonderful example of kragdadigheid. The things that he was going to do to the Johannesburg city council! You have no idea! What has happened to all that? Pretoria has thrown its parks open and everybody will be doing it. There is nothing that the Government can do to stop it. What I have tried to indicate in the social field is that there will be all these changes which are entirely predictable. We can take the steps to meet them now. Why resist what is inevitable?

Let us look for a moment at the economic field. South Africa will develop economically not because of this Government, but despite it, because we have all the ingredients for natural growth. The most important features in the economic field over the next ten years will be to give all our people to an increasing degree an equal opportunity to share in the revenue potential of our country and to develop a solid and prosperous Black middle class, because that will be our only protection against revolution. Every time we talk about a greater sharing of wealth, the hon. the Prime Minister gets highly excited, but all it means is that there is an unequal distribution of earning capacity today. The latest figures suggest—I give it in dollars so that one can relate it to other figures—that the per capita income of the White man in this country today is $3 150 per year. The per capita income for the Coloured and the Asian is only $350, one-tenth of what the White man gets. The per capita income for the Black man is $185, only half of what the Coloured and the Indian get. But this is not discrimination, this is differentiation, they tell us. If I were on the receiving end, I certainly would not call it differentiation. The latest market research exercise by the University of South Africa has shown that 23% of the Black people in this country live under the MSL, the minimum subsistence level. They suggest that 10% of the Coloureds also fall into this category. Less than 1 % of the Whites in this country are under the MSL. But this is not discrimination, it is differentiation. The ILO has recently calculated that in the field of industrial workers, where you are dealing with a highly specialized category, the Black people receive 19% of the wages that the White people receive. Then we have all these pious protestations from the Government that they will close the wage gap. The recent surveys done by the Financial Mail show that that wage gap, in absolute terms, is not shrinking or contracting, but is in fact getting bigger all the time. In ten years’ time nobody will be talking about job reservation any more. In fact, you have these little exercises, the Ripley believe-it-or-not exercises, and the question will be: “In which country did you have job reservation, that strange form of medieval guildism?” Bright little boys will say: “In South Africa”, and the guy who said “It will be removed over my dead body” is Marais Viljoen, who is not with us now and will not be with us then. The Physical Planning Act will be gone. Where else in the world can one develop an economic system on racial ratios? My information is that even now 80% or more of the applications are passed summarily provided they are reasonably fully motivated. In 10 years’ time we shall be in the midst of a crash training programme, and if anybody mentions this then, there will be no sneering from that side because in South Africa at present 40% of the workers are entirely unskilled. We are at a comparable stage of development with Australia, where 6% of their workers are unskilled, and that is the target we shall have to aim at. The migratory system will be in the process of being phased out. You have migratory workers all over the world, but we must all realize that South Africa is the only country in the world where we have them in those large numbers. South Africa is the only country in the world applying the migratory label to its own people, and South Africa is the only country in the world where migratory workers do not arise spontaneously but where you manufacture them in law. In 10 years’ time we shall have trade unions. If we are wise and take the right steps now, those trade unions will be mixed and there will then be a chance of stability, but if we follow the stupidity of the present Minister, in 10 years’ time many of the trade unions will be Black and we shall then be facing a torrid time. In the economic field it is vitally important for us to ensure that everyone has a greater opportunity to share the revenue potential in our country, and as I said what is vitally important is that the Blacks should be turned into a prosperous, stable middle class. This is our only protection and our only defence against revolution.

Then we come to the political field, and unfortunately my time is so very limited. Here we will really have massive change. In the political field in 10 years’ time we will probably have one independent Bantustan and it will be there as a monument. People from overseas will go and look at it as they do now. However, it will stand there as a monument to the political folly of that side of the House. The whole concept of separate development at that stage would be rejected by the Black people because, as they have already said, they are not prepared to forfeit their portion of South Africa’s wealth. It will also be rejected by the White people because economic factors at that stage will have made it completely obsolete. It is true that we will have a form of regionalism. It is true that we will have homeland Governments which will enjoy a great degree of autonomy. They will be using this as a form of leverage in order to bargain for increased rights. By that stage the Indians and Coloureds will have moved, politically speaking, very close to the Whites because the fallacy of separate development and a separate future for them will have become apparent even to those who are politically absolutely obtuse. However, in 10 years’ time the political destiny of South Africa will be in the hands of some 15 million non-homeland Black people, and they will be fully integrated in our economic system, in our defence services and in our Police. I also want to suggest that they will constitute nearly 50% of our Civil Service. Those Black people will be making political demands that any Government in this country will find impossible to resist. At that stage the unitary system would have served its purpose. It will have become apparent to everyone that it cannot meet South Africa’s requirements. I think one of the most prominent economists in this country is Prof. Viljoen. Years ago I had the opportunity of studying under him at the University of Pretoria. Here is a man who does not support this side of the House, yet he said at a recent congress that economic factors in South Africa point to the fact that the only conceivable solution to our political problems is a federal system. This Parliament which symbolizes the unitary system in South Africa will in ten years’ time be busy devolving many of its existing powers to subsidiary units. Everybody will in ten years time accept it that there must be some constitutional agency where men of all colours can meet together in order to plan the future of this country.

Phasing out?

This hon. Minister is the Minister of National Education. Really, we expect more from him than that kind of remark. This is the sort of thing that will be happening locally. Once we have dealt with these things and once we have rid ourselves of some of our political hang-ups we have at the present time, we shall be able to turn our minds to the important issues beyond our borders to which my hon. leader has referred. With a bit of luck we shall probably be a member of a Southern African Economic Union within 10 years’ time. With a bit of luck we might even be a member of a trade bloc for the southern hemisphere in 10 years’ time. But with our particular skills and with our particular know-how and with the immense capacity which we have we could be playing the role in Southern Africa which I believe we are destined for. At this stage we shall find that regionalism will be extended to the whole of Southern Africa and we shall have this unique form of symbiosis—an alliance of free and independent nations in Southern Africa joining with one another in purposeful endeavour to ensure their own stability and to generate further progress. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, for the past half hour the hon. member for Hillbrow has treated us to a vision he saw in the crystal ball into which Madam Rose normally gazes. He visualized all manner of things concerning South Africa’s position in ten years’ time. I am pleased that the hon. member was realistic enough not to try to see in the crystal ball what the future of his party will be in ten years’ time. [Interjections.] He did not even venture to say what his own position in his party would be for the hon. member finally realized that, in view of what is happening in his party at the moment, those of them remaining after that period has elapsed will be only a tiny nonentity in the political history of South Africa. The hon. member’s problem is that he not only gazed into a crystal ball, he also gazed at a mirror in which he saw himself and the weakness of his own party reflected. This is the hon. member’s greatest problem. In the course of my speech I will in fact deal with a few of the points the hon. member discussed.

I should just like to return for a moment …

Tell us about “Last Tango in Paris”.

Order!

If that hon. member opposite had resigned his seat to accommodate his leader, there would have been no need for him to speak nonsense in this House.

I want to return for a few moments to the history made in the United Party caucus yesterday when the hon. member for Randburg was suspended from that caucus. The hon. member for Pretoria Central referred to the matter, but I want to address myself on another level to my United Party counterpart in the Transvaal, and put a few questions to him, questions which should also be put to his own people. I come now to the first question which I want to put to the hon. member for Yeoville, the leader of the United Party in the Transvaal. The hon. member for Randburg has been suspended from the caucus of his party. Therefore he no longer enjoys the confidence of his colleagues in this House; therefore he is no longer deemed good enough to sit in this House as a representative of that party. I want to be very honest with the hon. member for Yeoville and ask him in all earnest to tell me what his position is now in respect of that hon. member. Is it not his obvious course as the leader of his party in the Transvaal to summon the executive committee of his party in the Transvaal and get rid of that hon. member as a member of the United Party? How can that hon. member remain a member of the party in the Transvaal if he is not a member of the caucus? That is my first question. I think that is logical. In terms of any party's disciplinary code it would go without saying. In our party, in any event, it would go without saying, i.e. that the moment someone is suspended from the caucus, for whatever reason, the party executive of the province in which he is a member would take immediate action. Therefore, I want to put this question to the hon. member very pertinently, and I think he owes the House a reply in regard to this matter.

Why does he owe it to the House?

That is the fact of the matter. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is very well aware of this. At the time he was suspended from the caucus of the National Party the party in South West Africa expelled him from the party.

But only long afterwards.

Yes, but you were nevertheless expelled. I think it is necessary that this should be the case. That is why I would like to know from the hon. member for Yeoville what his next step will be.

There is a second question I should like to put to the hon. member for Yeoville, and I think it is necessary for us to discuss this as well. What I want to ask is this: What exactly is the position of the hon. member for Yeoville himself? Where do his sympathies lie?

Ask Mr. Marais Steyn.

Do his sympathies lie with his leader here in the House or do they lie with his political protégé, the hon. member for Randburg? Let me put it the other way round: Do his sympathies lie with the person who made him in politics, i.e. the hon. member for Randburg? According to our information the member for Randburg was the master-mind behind the entire organization to have him chosen as party leader in the Transvaal. I think specific replies should be given to these questions. I think these are questions in regard to which the United Party should adopt a standpoint quite apart from the standpoint of the kindred spirits who, from the nature of the case, are concerned in it. One thing is, in fact, a responsibility the hon. member has which he cannot evade, and that is the responsibility he as party leader in the Transvaal has to act decisively so that discipline will be maintained in that party. I hone that, when it suits him, the hon. member will in fact reply to it.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. the Minister? Would he tell me what was discussed between him and the Prime Minister when he was forbidden to go to Rhodesia? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is a postmaster at extricating himself from a situation. The position between the Prime Minister and myself in respect of Rhodesia will still become as clear as daylight in the course of this debate. The hon. member need not concern himself about that. We have nothing to hide since there was nothing wrong with it.

It is quite wrong. I did not forbid him.

The facts are very clear. The hon. the Prime Minister will discuss the matter himself. The visit was originally approved, but he did not forbid me to go.

He defends you very well.

Let me explain to the hon. member: I am not asking him to divulge caucus secrets: I am just inquiring what any normal political party, which has discipline in its ranks, would do.

What has it to do with you?

It has a great deal to do with us. We must know how you as a party act. It is necessary for one to know this. [Interjections.] If nothing is done it means that there is as little discipline in that party in the Transvaal as there is in the party as a whole. [Interjections.]

I want to return to the debate which has been conducted here over the past few days.

Hear, hear!

I want to say at the outset that we are living in a world of instability and insecurity. There are smouldering situations in the Middle East; there is unrest in Cyprus: there are bomb attacks in England and Ireland; there is economic stagnation and insecurity everywhere. All nine of the signatories to the EEC two years ago have already been changed and superseded. There are problems in Portugal and Angola and over a period of twelve years there have been 32 coup d’états in Africa. In that atmosphere and against that background South Africa stands out as a tower of strength and stability because South Africa has the power, the policy, the leaders, the economic stability, the raw materials, everything, and with these things it can face the world as the strongest State in Africa, as the most stable state in Africa, and also as regards a large part of the world. I want to give you a single figure: We need only consider that our present Prime Minister is only the seventh Prime Minister of South Africa over a period of 65 years, compared with the fact that Italy has already had 33 governments since 1945. This, then, indicates the stability and the success of a country such as South Africa. The reason for this is clear. It is because the National Party of South Africa has the principles and the policy in accordance with which it can absorb and handle, in an evolutionary way, the developments which are taking place in the world as well as in its own country without any problems arising, because we have the ability to adjust within the framework of the broad principles and policy of our party. That is also why we are going from strength to strength.

Let us take an example. Let us take the example which is under discussion at present, i.e. liaison with Africa, and the role which South Africa has to play in this regard under the present circumstances. The fact simply is that we form an indissoluble part of Africa. I think we should all realize and accept that Africa has been good to us for many years, that we chose Africa as our only fatherland more than two centuries ago, that we have been calling ourselves Africans for many years, that a section of our White people call themselves Afrikaners, children of Africa. These are all signs that we have gradually dissolved the ties with Europe in all spheres. We have in fact maintained the necessary contacts, but we threw in our lot indissolubly with that of Africa because we are from Africa and of Africa and want to remain so. The future of Africa will be determined by the inhabitants of Africa, by the White and Black Africans jointly. It is true that we are now being reproached because for many years we made no effort to liaise with Africa. In this regard I want to quote from Hansard, just to illustrate how clearly the position was in fact received by leaders in South Africa many years ago. I am quoting from Hansard of 2 May 1957, column 5219. This is what the then Prime Minister, the late Advocate J. G. Strydom, said—

This was a wise, prophetic look at the future from the year 1957 by the then Leader of the National Party. It was stated as part of the policy which might possibly have been executed.

The next passage I want to quote is from a speech by the late Dr. Verwoerd. I am quoting from Hansard of 24 April 1964, column 4900—

In column 4901 he went on to say—

These standpoints, as they were stated by these two leaders I have just mentioned here, were seen and spelt out as a distant prospect. That which was envisaged has now been realized during the period of government of the present Prime Minister. This Prime Minister had the necessary vision; he saw the opening; he saw the opportunity; he saw that the time was ripe for the opportunity, and he had the courage of his convictions to seize the opportunity and utilize it in spite of criticism, and for this South Africa as a whole wants to pay tribute to him and thank him. He had the courage of his convictions to liaise with Malawi at the very outset of his period of government and to effect an exchange of diplomats with Malawi, an arrangement which has so far worked perfectly and without any problems, and this was in due course followed up by various other announcements of work that had to be done in this continent. In October last year the Prime Minister delivered his now very well-known speech in the Senate in which he expressed his standpoint very clearly. I quote it as the hon. the Prime Minister himself summarized it in his Nigel speech (translation)—

This was the message of the Prime Minister last year in September. After how many years, then, was there a positive reaction from Africa? On the following Saturday, at a ceremony during the course of which he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Lusaka, President Kaunda made a speech in which he said the following—

He went on to say—

We have read all that.

I know the hon. member has already read it here, but I am quoting it again because, with reference to the speeches made here by the hon. member’s leaders, it seems to me as though they do not realize what has happened here. That is my problem. Mr. Speaker, after everything that has been done here, after all this preparatory work, which eventually led to the success in the form in which it has been achieved so far, an article appeared in a British publication published by the Institute for the Study of Conflict in which the writer, Peter Janke, analysed the entire position in Southern Africa and arrived at the following conclusion—

This is how an outsider sees our present Prime Minister and the task he is at present performing in Africa and the role he is playing here. Mr. Speaker, I am deliberately sketching this background at length in order to bring me to the attitude of the present Opposition in regard to this entire matter. Typically, in the spirit manifested by the United Party during the past years, their attitude is: “That is all very well, but ...” they always come up with a “but”. The Leader of the United Party says that they would have done it better; that they would have done it more effectively and more rapidly; that they would have done it immediately and would have done it better in all respects. The Leader of the Progressive Party said: “We will make no progress unless we change our domestic policy—no progress”, and the hon. member for Houghton also emphasized today that we would make no progress unless we changed our domestic policy.

When did I use those words?

In the debate yesterday.

“Make no progress”?

Yes.

I said that détente would collapse unless we changed our internal policies.

The hon. member for Mooi River said that Africa was waiting for our leadership, but that the South African Government could not cross the threshold because we were shackled to our political ideologies. I think I am interpreting them correctly. In other words, what we actually have before us here is this: You have in fact achieved a small measure of success, but we want to warn you that if, in your internal policy in South Africa, you do not run away, panickstricken, from every form of control which exists at present, if you are not going to do away with all the things the hon. members for Hillbrow and Edenvale spelt out here this afternoon, there is going to be no progress of any kind. In other words, the demand is being made on us that this Government, which received a mandate on 24 April to implement a particular policy, should immediately violate that policy and implement the policy of the Progressive Party and the United Party. This is the request; this is the assertion which is now being made here; this is the standpoint you are now putting to us here. The argument is that if we do not do so, we will not make any progress; we will not cross the threshold. [Interjections.]

I want to begin by saying what this policy of détente does not entail—for it seems to me the Opposition is under the wrong impression. My problem with the hon. member for Hillbrow in particular is that, as a result of a few developments to the north of us here in Africa, and a few minor problems in Mozambique, and a few changes here in Africa, he has had the fright of his life, has seized the bit between his teeth and has run away as quickly as possible to get away from everything he has himself been advocating all these years.

We shall see in ten years’ time.

We shall not run away. We shall deal with the matter. But I want to say what detente is not. In the first place I want to say that the Government of South Africa is not conducting these discussions and is not engaged in these things which are in progress at the moment from a position of weakness or fear. We are acting from a position of strength. This is the last standpoint I want to state at once, South Africa’s economy is sound. The inflation which is afflicting all the countries of the world is afflicting South Africa as well, but nevertheless South Africa is economically sound, among the soundest on the entire continent of Africa and among the soundest in the outside world. South Africa is militarily prepared for any eventuality. Our military strength is not being applied for the purpose of launching attacks or for any imperialistic ideas, but for the purposes of defence we are prepared, and everyone knows this. In the third place, South Africa is politically strong, with a Government which has been in power for 26 years and has now received a new mandate with a firmer instruction than ever before to continue with its task. In the fourth place, the inhabitants, the people of South Africa, are a resolute people who know exactly what they will or will not permit and who, as Africans, will, from the nature of the case, defend what is their own with body and soul. From the nature of the case, the Opposition wants to evade and run away at once from any pressure, from whatever source, wants to abandon everything immediately and run away. Sir, the world has taught us that no one has respect for a weakling who succumbs at the first sign of trouble.

Who said that? It is nonsense.

Every speech issuing from the opposite side says we should abandon everything and run away. I want to take another argument. There is the entire question of making progress with the concept of co-operation and a standpoint of better understanding among countries in Africa. Agreement in respect of one another’s internal policies, one another’s internal situations, is certainly not a requirement or a condition for discussions and cooperation with other countries. Surely it cannot be a condition. After all, the U.S.A, does not for one single moment approve of the internal policy of Russia, but they can nevertheless achieve a détente and co-operate in the space programme. The U.S.A, does not for a single moment agree with the policy of Red China and yet reciprocal visits and discussions can take place and they can even compete with each other in the field of sport and play table tennis in Peking. In regard to this matter, I want to say again what détente is not. The South African Government will not allow itself to be dictated to in respect of its domestic policy, just as we do not wish to dictate to other countries what their domestic policy should be. We will not allow ourselves to be dictated to. We want to be accepted as we are, and the changes which have to be effected in South Africa will be effected by us on the basis of our own decisions, in our own way and in our own time. We will not allow ourselves to be pushed into anything or threatened by anyone, not by the Opposition or by any outsiders either. We will carry on as we see fit, according to our own judgment. I want to concede at once that society in South Africa and our conditions here are by no means perfect. Which society is perfect? Mention one to me. We made mistakes in the past and we will make mistakes again in the future because we are human, and people are fallible and make mistakes. This is also the case in other countries. Who are the Opposition to adopt a righteous attitude here, particularly when they speak about discrimination, while their entire policy, the political dispensation they are seeking to achieve, their handling of politics in South Africa, is the worst form of discrimination one could ever hope to find? Where could one find a greater degree of discrimination in the political sphere than in the federal policy of the United Party in which people obtain the franchise or do not obtain it, according to the contribution they make towards the welfare of the State?

That is not so.

Is this not the worst form of discrimination? [Interjections.] Evidently the hon. members have changed their policy since last week. After all, this was previously the case.

This happens at UN too.

What is it now?

Yes, I wonder what it is now. The hon. member is referring to UN. but just look as the state they are in! The fact remains that the whole approach of the United Party is that their communal councils, or whatever they may be called, will be constituted on a basis according to which the non-Whites will not be represented according to their numbers. This is a cunning way—it makes no difference what it is called—in which the United Party, if I may use the student expression, wants to do the non-Whites out of their rights on the basis of their numbers. If one is not prepared to share political power, one must share territory. If one is not prepared to share territory, one must share political power, and if one shares political power, one must carry it through to the full consequences of one’s policy, i.e. that one will share on a basis of one man, one vote, in other words, according to the numerical strength of the various population groups in the country. If you do anything other than that, it is discrimination. [Interjections.] The hon. Leader of the Opposition knows that they are not prepared in any way to move away from discrimination, as they call it, in respect of schools. At this juncture I should like to put a question to the hon. member for Hillbrow. Is separation in itself discrimination?

Not necessarily.

Is enforced separation discrimination?

Usually, I think, yes.

Enforced separation is discrimination?

As it applied at the Nico Malan, yes.

I am simply putting a question: Is enforced separation discrimination while ordinary separation is not discrimination?

If people do it voluntarily, it is their own affair.

I want to mention an obvious example. In this House we sit on this side and the Opposition sits on that side, in other words, we are separated. Separation is forced upon us.

No, That is voluntary separation. [Interjections]

Those hon. members are not permitted to sit here, even if they should want to; they have to sit there.

And what did Marais Steyn do?

As long as that party is sitting there, they are sitting there and not here. That is enforced separation.

That is a very poor example.

I will take another example. Just take the case of the hon. member for Randburg. He is not permitted to sit among those hon. members. [Interjections.] Hon. members know full well that they will not enforce mixed primary and high schools in education in South Africa. [Interjections.] Therefore, hon. members are not prepared to carry that policy through to its logical conclusion. There is very clear proof as to why this cannot be done. Even in the most liberal states in the U.S.A., Massachusetts and Boston, there are problems with mixed schools. The hon. members of the Opposition will not allow mixed residential areas either. In fact, there are a number of things they will not allow. The political hypocrisy inherent in this is, therefore, that while they accuse us of discrimination, they themselves are not prepared to get away from discrimination, according to the same definition they attach to discrimination, i.e. separation in this manner.

But we give them a choice.

I also want to get at the Progressive Party, for they also proclaim the same story, i.e. that we should get away from all forms of discrimination, whereas exactly the same discrimination is built into their policy; in fact, in a far worse form. It is embodied in the form which my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs, analysed, i.e. qualified franchise. The Progressive Party has not yet told us, do not wish to and will not tell us, whether they are in favour of qualified franchise or unqualified franchise. As long as they advocate qualified franchise, they are discriminating against people on the basis of their possessions and qualifications.

You even discriminate against people on the basis of their age.

The people who point an accusing finger at others in regard to discrimination should first set their own house in order. Hon. members discriminate in their party politics. Why do they place such heavy emphasis on race discrimination? What about discrimination between men and women? Is this less dangerous or less ugly than race discrimination? In many countries of the world today men and women do not earn the same salaries. In many countries the women’s status is not the same as that of the men. That is discrimination. Why do you not feel as strongly about that as you do about race discrimination? In certain Moslem countries non-Moslems are treated differently from Moslems. That is discrimination. Why do you not make a fuss about that?

I am interested in South Africa.

The hon. member places emphasis on this one single concept, that of race discrimination, while you have made the discrimination concept an integral part of your own policy throughout. The fact remains that this party will set its own house in order as it becomes necessary to do so from time to time. However, there are certain basic principles which will have to be and will be maintained for the sake of the practical approach in politics. There are three basic concepts which will remain in this party’s policy in spite of what the outside world says. The first the question of the maintenance of identity, which is a foundation stone of the policy. Those laws which are concerned with the maintenance of the identity of the various peoples will remain, no matter who exerts pressure. Secondly, the laws dealing with the elimination of areas of friction, will also remain. As circumstances develop, we decide on that from time to time. These laws which are necessary to obviate or reduce areas of friction will remain and where they are no longer necessary they will disappear because they are no longer practically necessary. This, therefore, is a practical and realistic approach. The third aspect which will remain under all circumstances, according to our standpoint, is that the political power of the White man in this Parliament will not be shared, for the moment one shares political power one can never again remove it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by putting a very serious question to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. [Interjection.] In any case, he seems to have been appointed as such, because he acted here this afternoon as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The hon. the Minister is the leader of the Nationalist Party in the Transvaal and he is loyal to his leader. The hon. the Prime Minister had to send a member of this House on to a siding by making him a Railway commissioner when he had to be considered for a Cabinet post. A vacancy then occurred in the constituency of Pietersburg. Now, my question to the hon. the Minister is the following: How serious is the hon. the Minister in his repeated professions of loyalty to his leader while he allows a person to stand as official Nationalist Party candidate notwithstanding the fact that that person has given money to the HNP, was a shareholder in the HNP newspaper, Die Afrikaner, who thanked the speakers at an HNP meeting and now says that he is a good member of the Nationalist Party and supports the verligte Prime Minister? I think we are entitled to an answer, because the hon. leader of the Transvaal questions us on our domestic affairs. Therefore he should also be prepared to reply to questions on his party’s domestic affairs. We want to know how he is now able to say that he is a good Nationalist, while appointing HNP shareholders in the HNP newspaper as official Nationalist Party candidates.

I want to go still further. I see all the aspirants sitting there: The four hon. Deputy Ministers who have been overlooked, as well as the hon. member for Potchefstroom, who has been waiting for promotion for a long time. They are sitting there and what has happened? The hon. the Prime Minister has had to come and look for a person from this side of the House ti fill the vacancy in the Cabinet because there is not a single person among all his loyal supporters and among his Deputy Ministers whom he regards as competent enough to fill the vacancy. This is the party we are dealing with.

†I want to say that they need not worry about the United Party and any problems we may have. We shall deal with our problems in our own way as we have always done. Let them try to sort out some of their problems on that side of the House. I might just mention in passing that I understand that the latest count gives the hon. member for Waterberg, when he splits off, 37 followers that he will take with him. When the vacancy in Pietersburg is filled that figure will increase to 38 members. But I have already wasted enough time …

Hear, hear!

… having been misled by the bad example of the hon. the Minister of Information, a Minister of this Government who at a time such as this in the affairs of Africa, stood up this afternoon and played the fool trying to score cheap political points. I deliberately tried to reciprocate to show just how irresponsible that is, particularly on the part of a Minister.

Let us look now at some of the things the hon. Minister said this afternoon. Apart from the history lesson he tried to give us —it was obviously prepared for him— which he himself did not seem to understand, he took us to task for talking about discrimination. We did not make a speech at the United Nations on behalf of the South African Government. We did not talk about removing discrimination. It was the Government’s representative who did so, who stood up at the United Nations and said: “Discrimination based on colour is indefensible and we are working to remove it.” Now, when we simply draw it to the Government’s attention, there is a hullabaloo, as though we initiated the discussion. His Government did so. He as a Minister must accept joint Cabinet responsibility for that decision. That hon. Minister is as committed as the Prime Minister, as committed as anyone else, to their policy of abolishing discrimination based on colour. The hon. Minister nods his head. He is committed to a policy of eliminating discrimination based on colour, but what did he do for ten or 15 minutes this afternoon? He attacked us for saying that discrimination based on colour should go.

For political dishonesty.

For political dishonesty? I want to see the political honesty of that party illustrated by deeds and not by words in the United Nations! They have the power to remove discrimination. They say it is their policy. Why do they not get on and do something instead of trying to make out that we in the United Party are putting forward impossible ideas? They have given an undertaking to the world and to South Africa. They have condemned a practice which is the essence, the whole philosophy of that Government’s existence. Discrimination is the essence of the existence of that party. All they can do is come along and say: “We are prepared to give to the homelands what we demand for ourselves.” However, the hon. the Prime Minister is not prepared to give to the Coloureds what he demands for himself.

He is not prepared to give to the Indians what he demands for himself. The Government is not prepared to give to the urban Bantu who are divorced, some for generations, from their tribes, what we demand for ourselves. Where is the political honesty about which that hon. Minister has so much to say?

On the aspect of discrimination, may I ask you a question?

Certainly.

The law says that there should be different schools for White children, for Black children, for Coloured children and for Indian children. The parents have no choice. Do you want that law to be abolished?

No, Mr. Speaker, our policy is quite clear. Our policy in the United Party recognizes the existence of racial community groups, racial groups and racial communities. In that recognition, it accepts that these communities have separate identities and separate interests controlled by their own legislative assemblies. The legislative assemblies under our policy will control the education for those communities.

You do not consider that as discrimination—that the law should compel different children to go to different schools?

Discrimination which you apply to yourself is your own choice. [Interjections.] Can’t the hon. the Prime Minister understand that the whole essence of federation is the decentralization of authority and power to communities? Each one of those communities will run its own affairs in its own way. If one community, the White community, says that it will have its own schools because it is its right to do so, that is not discrimination based on colour. It is the right of the Whites to do so if they should wish to do so in the same way as it is the right of a private school to refuse admission to one White child and accept another White child. It is their right to discriminate between two applicants who wish to go to the school. It is the choice of the community. What we are getting at is that this Government is committed to a policy of removing discrimination based on colour. Now we want to see them get on with carrying it out; it must be done.

We on this side of the House have never advocated and do not advocate a social revolution in South Africa. What we are advocating is an evolutionary policy in which human rights will be recognized and in which individuals, within their communities, will have the opportunity of participating in governing themselves, and in which there will be a Federal Assembly, a central point, where all communities can be represented. We have never stood and never will stand for one man one vote. That is why this party has said openly and publicly, and I repeat it now, that we will not be part of any left wing united front with the Progressive Party or with any other party. We of the United Party stand on our own feet, on our policy, on our principles. We will have nothing to do with any contrived front with any other opposition party, because we believe that its policy is as dangerous for South Africa as the policy of this Government. They are equally dangerous because both are based on a unitary system.

Let me ask the members of the Progressive Party a question. How is their commission getting on, their glamour-boy commission?

Better than your caucus, I promise you.

They have a caucus of seven and they split three ways. We want to know about that commission because we would like to know whether they still stand for a qualified franchise. We will never get an answer from them. Mr. Speaker, but that is the whole basis of their existence. That is the fraud on which they were elected to Parliament. Within months of their coming to Parliament, elected on the fraud of a qualified franchise, they appointed a glamour-boy commission to think up a new policy. That is just as dangerous as the Government is because both are blinded by the unitary Westminster concept.

However, I did not rise to talk about our policy this afternoon. I want to talk on the motion which is before the House and which, I believe, is of vital importance. My leader talked of a flare path, of lighting the way. Unfortunately, the only member on that side who understands what a flare path is, is the one who was shunted into a Railway commissionership. I believe that the responsibility now resting on South Africa could well affect the destiny of the world because Southern Africa could hold the balance of power between the East and the West. In this debate we have had to listen to a vision of the potential of this region which is frightening in its smallness. I want to deal with two aspects with which I am particularly concerned. The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs tried to belittle the leader of the Opposition and asked: “Do you not know that a transport treaty involving the countries in Southern Africa has been signed and already exists?” I thought that perhaps I had slipped up since I had not heard of it, so I looked up the reference he gave. I have it here and I want to deal with it. The reference is to the BSL Countries Customs Agreement. This is the treaty, the depth and breadth of the vision of this Government concerning détente in Southern Africa. Article 15 of this Agreement provides that there will be tariffs for goods in transit equal to those applied to domestic traffic, and it ensures that there will be equal opportunities for publicly owned road transport in transit. Article 16 deals with the freedom of transit and what you may and may not take through a country. These two clauses are held up as a “transport treaty” whose total…

Now you are talking nonsense.

It is in Hansard. Check it. The scope of this treaty as a whole encompasses rail tariffs, road transport rights and free transit of goods through countries which are members of this customs union.

But that is all you can expect in the customs union.

Yes, but then one does not call it a transport treaty or transport agreement. This is a customs agreement. I want to contrast my vision of this region of Southern Africa. If only this Government had tried years ago to bring together —this is not détente but a part of normal life—all the countries linked by common transport systems. I know we have a Mozambique Convention, but if one has a treal understanding of the potential of this area, one will realize that the one thing that links us all and crosses national boundaries is communications: Rail, road, telephone and air. That is the thing that binds us together and links us with our neighbouring countries. I would have expected that somewhere from the Government benches there would have come some thought, some vision, of an agreement which would co-ordinate the transport of all our countries, but it is left to my leader to light the way. It is left to my leader to give even an elementary concept such as this to the Government. Imagine if, with the planning of roads and railways lines, we had had a plan for the whole of Southern Africa instead of spider-webs within each country! There would not have been a Tan-Zam railway line, built and run by Chinese communists. This would have been part of the network of Southern Africa communications. Once one has communications linking countries, they are linked by common interests and the sabotage of a railway line in one country affects all the members who are concerned in that transit system. This is the sort of vision we have, a vision looking beyond a piffling little customs agreement. We envisage an agreement that does not only deal with tariff rates on goods, but one that is also aimed at establishing common interests between countries and people.

Once you have a common interest, once you have linked countries together, you will have given them a common security consciousness, a common desire to ensure the protection of the security of the whole region. Common interest is the overriding factor which leads to friendship. We have now—which is something we agree with— attempts to bring people together, to talk to people so as to bring about peace in Southern Africa. However, the whole motion of my leader is aimed at trying to lift the Government out of the narrow trough in which they seem to be wallowing. Theirs is a question of thinking small. My leader is trying to make them think big, to think beyond the minor things like rail tariffs, to see the bigger vision, the bigger picture. The hon. the Minister of Transport knows what happens when a foreign harbour closes and the effect that this has on the harbours of this country. He knows what happens when a boundary is closed to international traffic, and the effect it has had on the passage of our railways through various countries. However, if we had had a Southern Africa treaty linking the transport needs of all the adjoining countries of this region, we would not experience the closing of boundaries, we would not experience a breakdown in regard to ports because everyone would be linked together working according to a planned and co-ordinated transport system.

We are, however, unable to give the lead in this regard unless we are able to handle our own problems in South Africa. When we have 45 ships lined up outside Durban harbour we cannot say: We are going to give you leadership; we are going to offer gateways to the world.

In this motion of ours the two problems facing the Government have been highlighted. Firstly, there is the lack of vision outwards and secondly, the failure in South Africa to provide the infrastructure upon which that vision can be built. Let us imagine countries that are linked by common interests with a common transport system and let us imagine what this would mean to the hon. the Minister of Defence. If we had access to airfields throughout Southern Africa which were available for the purpose of common security, we would find this fact of inestimable value. I accept what the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs says, namely, that one does not start with a defence treaty but that it comes at the end of the road of friendship when one has established mutual confidence. But just imagine what the position would be in the sphere of defence if we had a common agreement which removed the need for heavy expenditure in regard to the manpower and material resources required by each individual country. Let us imagine, for instance, that in such an agreement there was a ban on terrorist camps. What a difference this would make to the whole Southern Africa scene. While we admit that we have to move towards these things gradually, the thing that worries us is the lack of foresight. In this field again the most we have had has been the offer of non-aggression pacts. In other words, the vision is limited to a non-aggression pact. What about our communications, the part we could play with Silvermine? We would have a common interest in the security of Southern Africa as a whole and we would have a common effort and a common endeavour in this regard. Then we could have Cactus instead of Sam missiles throughout the region; then we could have the interests of South Africa and of Southern Africa linked in such a way that it would become a bulwark of the West and of civilization. These things, Sir, are all reality; they are all possible. The big problem is that the Government has never thought them possible, and now that it has suddenly awakened to the need to do something to create peace, it finds itself unable to catch up with the era in which it is living, and so it is fiddling; it is thinking small and fiddling with problems instead of thinking big and doing something imaginative about it, and the reason is the constant fear of this Government, the phobia that we have heard over and over in this debate: “We are not prepared to share power with Black people in South Africa.” The hon. the Deputy Minister talked of a heritage, the heritage that we have received from our forefathers. Surely part of that heritage is South Africa. Surely we inherited a Republic of South Africa, an entity, from our forefathers. Sir, how can you talk of a heritage when you are busy destroying it, when you are busy cutting bonds which should be binding us? Sir, that Government, excluding those to whom I referred, the 35 who support the hon. member for Waterberg …

Thirty-seven.

There may be 37, or 38 but after Pietersburg, I am allowing for the fact that there are some who may get cold feet; in fact, they all have cold feet, but apart from that hard core of verkrampte HNPs, the thinking members on that side of the House know in their hearts that they have got to take steps in South Africa, that they have got to do things which they cannot do alone, and they cannot do it because their own party will not let them. I am sure the hon. the Minister of Defence would like to take steps to solve some of our problems; I am sure the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations and Rehoboth Affairs would like to take steps to solve our problems; he would like to take giant strides forward, but he cannot do so because of this fear of the elements in their own party who will not allow them to move fast enough. Sir, I want to forecast that when the break comes in that party, they will have to look to us to help them to save South Africa, because without us, without our concepts, without our idea of decentralisation of power, without our federal policy, which can take the friction out of racial communication and which can create a framework in which peoples of different colour can live together, that Government cannot survive; it is in a “doodlooppad” (cul de sac), and it has reached the point now where even the Prime Minister admits that he has got to have areas of common administration, where he is going to appoint people of different races to serve on the same board, something that we proposed in respect of universities and all sorts of bodies. That was regarded as heretical, as the end of the world, as the end of White civilization. But now they are going to do it because they have found that we were right all along; and so, Mr. Speaker, on issue after issue they are going to find that we were right all along. They are going to find that there are areas of common interest where one cannot create a foreign State and say that is the end of the problem, because these people, the Coloureds and Indians, will be with us in “White” South Africa for ever.

I want to conclude with this one thought. At the end of the 30 years of which the hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration spoke, there will be some 50 million people in South Africa. He talked as though we have a lifetime to move slowly, step by step, forward, but if the pace is slower than the growth of our population, a solution will never be found because the population will grow faster than the capacity to cater for it. It frightens me when I hear a Minister talking as though time is immaterial, talking of 10 and 20 and 30 years of slowly building up economically independent homelands. After 30 years it will be too late, and in the failure of the policy of this Government will lie the end of the Western standards which the White man has brought to this country. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I have always regarded the hon. member for Durban Point as a reasonably absorbing and very interesting speaker, but I am sorry to tell him that his display this afternoon was probably one of his poorest displays in this House. Sir, this afternoon he made me think of the clergyman who wrote in the margin of his manuscript: “Shout loud, argument is weak”. I want to tell the hon. member that he really had very few arguments. He said that we should not worry about the United Party; they would solve their problems themselves. Sir, we accept that they will solve their problems themselves, but I also want to tell them that they have been struggling for many years now to solve their problems, and if they are not even able to solve the problems of their little party, what chance do they have of ever solving South Africa’s problems? Sir, then we also heard here about a survey which the hon. member made. We have been hearing a great deal, these days, about a Pegasus survey, and it was interesting to be able to listen to the Vause Raw survey of the National Party this afternoon. But I want to give the hon. member this assurance: On this side of the House there are only Nationalists, people who stand steadfastly by their party and will follow that party through thick and thin. The hon. member had a very difficult task today. He had to build up an image of the United Party here this afternoon, and in order to build up that image, he again had to resort to the federal policy of his party. Now I want to put this question to the hon. member: If they supposedly have such a good policy, if they supposedly have the answers to the problems of South Africa, why can they not sell their policy? After all, in April last year they had a very good opportunity to sell that policy to the voters. Subsequently we had by-elections, and there are more ahead. After all, this is the opportunity for that party to offer that policy to the voters of South Africa. Now the hon. member states that under their federal policy, each community will preside over its own affairs and will have its own schools. Now I want to ask the hon. member this: If a specific community states that it does not want its own schools, but would prefer to send its children to the other community’s schools, what are we going to do then? In other words, you must agree that the policy of the National Party is a policy offering a solution to the problems of South Africa. The hon. member said that his party recognizes the rights of people. But why does he not tell us in what respect we have deprived people of rights? Is it not true, Sir, that this party has given the people of South Africa more opportunities in the quarter century in which it has been in power than they had ever had in all previous years in South Africa? Sir, I am convinced that the United Party has lost contact with the pulse and the heart-beat of South Africa and its people. As a young man I want to tell the United Party that the youth of South Africa is sick and tired of all the problems and internal struggles of the United Party. If the hon. members want to make a contribution in the interests of South Africa, they must solve those problems and behead those who must be beheaded and suspend those who must be suspended. After that the hon. members must come up with positive action in the interests of South Africa. When I ask myself the question whether the United Party is capable of making a contribution in South Africa, there is only one answer, namely no. That is what the voters in South Africa say, too, and that is why they do not trust the United Party and that is why they will never put the Government of this country in the hands of the United Party. The United Party does not have a contribution to make.

Yesterday we heard a master of his trade speaking when the former Minister of Finance made his last speech in the House. It was very clear to us from that speech that the world is plunged into an economic crisis and that there are many countries in the world that are struggling with economic problems. However it is also very clear to us—it became clear to us from that speech —that in this very economic crisis, South Africa is coming through, that in this very time it is well established in the economic sphere and compares with the best in the world. Why has South Africa achieved this? We were able to achieve it by effecting measures, economic measures which, possibly, have not always been so popular. If we consider the fuel crisis, we must all acknowledge that some of the measures have often caused one to grumble while driving through the Karoo on a summer’s day. On the other hand, however, we also know that those measures were necessary in the interests of South Africa in order to establish South Africa economically.

The world is not only plunged into an economic crisis. I believe that the major problem facing the world is that of relations between people and that of relations between nations. If South Africa can become a leader in the economic sphere, I want to make the statement that in the sphere of relations, too, South Africa can become a leader in the world. I personally have the necessary confidence in South Africa to believe that it can in fact become that. In order to prove this, one only has to go back a little. I should not like to go scratching in the past, but after the Second World War, South Africa was a country which did not reflect a good image abroad. After the war, we in South Africa had virtual chaos in many spheres. I want to make the statement—the hon. member for Maitland knows it—that if we had continued in that fashion, we in this country would have experienced one disaster after another in the sphere of relations. I do not believe that we would have existed this afternoon as we do in fact exist. Could we have gone on in that way? No! That is why Providence decreed that the National Party come to power in 1948. As a religious person I accept and I shall always defend the viewpoint that it was by dispensation of Providence that this party was entrusted with the government of the country. What has this party done in the quarter century of its rule? Has this Government only acted in a negative way? Has it, as the Opposition maintains, only deprived people of their rights? Do the hon. members not want to be positive too, for a change, do they not want to be grateful, too, for a change? Do they not want to admit that in this quarter century of government in South Africa we have had an ordering, an ordering of people in their areas, an ordering of people to enable them to realize themselves among and together with their own people? Do the hon. members not want to admit and concede that in this quarter century we have achieved orderliness in South Africa and that we have eliminated friction in innumerable spheres? Do the hon. members not want to admit that in this quarter century we have made people aware of their identity? Every people in South Africa is proud of its identity today. Hon. members will not change a Xhosa into a Zulu. He is proud of his identity, and he wants to maintain that identity. I can claim this on behalf of the National Party and the Government: That we have taught people to be proud of their identity. Hon. members will concede, if they want to be honest, that in this quarter century of government the National Party has made people become established, economically and otherwise. What was the situation after the war? In many instances there was poverty, but we do not want to go back to those times. In South Africa today we are faring well economically and we are thriving. In this quarter century we have granted people participation in the political sphere. Hon. members would do well to commission another survey, namely on how many people had the right to cast their vote in the field of politics before 1948 and how many people there are in South Africa today who do not have the franchise and who have no share in the political set-up. I want to concede that there was sacrifice when the National Party with its policy, came to power, sacrifice not only on the part of the non-White, as is always maintained, but sacrifice, too, on the part of the White. I want to concede that there were rightist extremists, and there still are today, who thought that one need only put up a sign board at every entrance saying “non-Whites only” and “Whites only” and that one would then have heaven on earth. I want to concede that there are still such people today. I want to concede that there are leftist extremists; we still have some of them in this House today. They are people who move in a liberal direction and who then believe that we in South Africa would have the best possible life. There were people who expected wonders after 1948, but that is not how the National Party went to work. It went to work in an orderly and stable way and what happened? We had the crystallizing out of an orderly, established and economically sound South Africa, a South Africa which can take its place in the world today, a South Africa that is respected today and a South Africa whose voice is listened to. We managed to get one basic principle established in this time, namely political control over one’s own people and not the pre- 1948 confusion, not the chaos which would have continued and worsened, but an orderly South Africa which today can move beyond and over its borders and which can play an important role in all terrains in this world. I should not like to refer to other countries, but there are many countries that have failed as far as the relations question is concerned. There are countries in this world that refuse to face this fact and that are therefore heading for a crisis. South Africa has risen above this. South Africa has risen above all this and will rise further, but then everyone’s contribution is necessary now and scoring political points will get us nowhere. It will get us nowhere to try and outwit each other with discrimination, differentiation and all these things. If we want to make South Africa a leader in the field of relations—it can become that —we must now come up with positive actions and with positive contributions. We must look ahead and work with the future in mind. In this connection there are a few important matters that are necessary and I should like to mention them here. This is how I, as a young man, see South Africa and should like to see the future. The first will be that we shall have to realize that it is possible to exist together in South Africa as different peoples without domination and without interference. One thing must be very clear to us, namely that the White nation will not tolerate interference with its affairs or domination in the political field. In the same way there are the Black peoples in South Africa, too, who will not tolerate this. Now, there are people who want to make it difficult for peoples to coexist in South Africa. I want to refer to the Progressive Party in particular, because I think that their contribution is to make this road to be followed by South Africa, extremely difficult. What they are really doing is trying to cause South Africa to come to grief. What we need in these times is for White, Brown and Black people with the right attitude to come to the fore to further develop the stability, the peace and the order of South Africa and to make it possible for us in this country to live together, and go to meet a happy future, so that we may be an example, to the whole world, of people who have found each other and understand each other, people who have proffered each other the hand of friendship and have accepted it from each other and co-operate and do not dominate or have the wish to interfere.

A second thing is necessary, namely that each national group in this country should work at its own affairs with dedication, and there is a great deal of work to be done. Each people in South Africa has fences it must put up and mend. My people have them. I am not ashamed to say so this afternoon. In addition there is still an enormous amount of work to be done in respect of the White nation. This afternoon I want to refer in particular to our Coloured population, and I do so because I had the privilege of working among these people for eight years, of entering their houses and standing with them. I do this because I have sympathy for those people. There is an enormous amount of upliftment work which must be done. There is a task for every Coloured leader to perform. Each of them has the task of going to his people with a positive message, to take their hand and to say: “Let us stand up, let us build ourselves up, let us mend the broken fences in the life of our people.” It will be of no avail always to lay the problems of the Coloureds at the door of the Whites and to accuse the Whites and hold them responsible for all the Coloureds’ problems. I believe that these people are responsible for many of their own problems, just as my people are responsible for my people’s problems. That is why each will have to look to its own domestic affairs in this country, and when we do this we will have less time to run around saying irresponsible things. We shall then be able to create a South Africa which will be an example to this world.

There is another thing we must do. We must have mutual respect and esteem for each other. I want to say that I as a White man have great respect for a man with a brown or a black skin. I also expect that same respect and esteem from him. Too many hurtful things are still being said in South Africa by Whites and non-Whites. We derive no benefit from these things that are said and done. They cannot build us up as a country. All of us, whoever we may be, have the task of co-operating to eradicate these things. However, we should not then lay the blame for everything that occurs outside, at the door of the Government, and hold the Government responsible for it. If something occurs to cause friction between White and non-White we must not run to the Government and say: “You are guilty, you are responsible for this. You come along with this legislation and that is why these things occur”. We need the co-operation of the general public of South Africa to build up these relationships and to have mutual respect and esteem for each other. I want to mention a very small thing to you. Recently I was standing in a place of business in Oudtshoorn and a non-White offered the White person behind the counter a cup of tea. The White person was an English speaking person, but that is just in passing. That White person did not even say “thank you” for the cup of tea that was offered to him. I mention this minor matter as an example of the things we must eradicate. If we can eradicate them, we shall find each other and we shall be able to live together.

I want to mention yet another matter. Leaders must be positive and must act positively. It will get us nowhere to speak about bloodshed and confrontation because in my opinion it is a leader’s task to lead his people to every opportunity created for it and to utilize that opportunity. It is easy to denigrate the National Party and the Government and not tell the public at large what has already been done or tell them about the opportunities that have already been created. It is a great pity that so many opportunities lie unutilized by the wayside. For that reason there is a task for every leader in South Africa to be so minded as to be able to take his people along with him. There are too many leaders who have no followers left and who say things every day which only cause friction.

I also want to point out that things do not occur overnight. It is in the interests of South Africa, its people and its nations that we should adopt a mature approach. It will get us nowhere to say, as the hon. members on that side of the House do, that we must remove this and that and that we must open this door and that, because this will only cause us great distress. This side of the House, this Government, this party will continue in a mature way to do things in South Africa in such a fashion as to take its people with it and it will act in such a way as to be able to take the whole of South Africa, Black, White and Brown, with it. We have a message we must disseminate abroad. If we love South Africa, if we love our country we must all disseminate the message abroad and we must all exert ourselves to bind people together and to have them live together.

I want to conclude by saying that South Africa could provide a powerful illustration of sound relations, but then we must not try to outwit each other politically. We must realize that it will be the deliberations in this House that will be decisive and that it is here that the matter of our survival will be settled. May all of us, White, Brown and Black, have the courage to do what must be done and to live and act in such a way as to promote South Africa’s name and cause its image to shine out into the world.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Oudtshoorn expressed sentiments towards the end of his speech with which, I think, every one of us in this House will agree, but at the beginning of his speech he made a series of contentious and totally unfounded assertions. The suggestion which I think caps everything is the one that South Africa’s international image in 1948 was not a good one. Where was the hon. member at that time? He says he was still a young man at that time, but I do not believe he could have been that young. It is a well-known fact that, in 1948, South Africa was a respected country in the world comity. Take, for example, the number of State visits paid by Prime Ministers to other countries during the sixties and at the beginning of the seventies.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. member?

No. As far as I know, the hon. the Prime Minister has, during the number of years …

Order! Is the hon. member prepared to answer a question?

No, Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to answer a question now. Except for the visits to Africa which, as we have been told, took place in secrecy, the hon. the Prime Minister suddenly disappeared from South Africa two or three years ago to show his face in Portugal and Switzerland. Surely, the hon. member knows only too well that, in 1948, South Africa’s international image was a good one. The hon. member asked with some surprise which rights had been taken away, especially in the case of the Coloured people whom he knows well. Is he not aware of the fact that all this Government has been doing for a number of years was to take away the rights of people and that the Coloured people, for example, suffered most on account of that? What happened to their original franchise, their right of representation in this House, the right of their students to attend certain universities and the right of the universities to admit them? They also had certain rights on municipal level, but all those rights have been taken away. Let us consider the other population groups. In 1948 there were a great many settled Bantu who were exempt from the pass laws. There were about 40 000 or 50 000 such Bantu. Are those not rights which have been taken away by this Government? [Interjections.] Yes, they said that the Indians would be repatriated, but they did not do so after all; therefore I do not know whether it is a right that has been taken away from them. Let us say that the right of the Indians to be repatriated free of charge was taken away, for this is the way the hon. member wants to argue.

†I believe that all members of this House with the single exception, perhaps, of the hon. the Minister of Information, accept the fact that, for the sake of peace and security, many changes must come about in South Africa. The fact that changes must come is something that need not be debated. What concerns me and what I would like to know is whether the White people, our people, are sufficiently motivated and prepared to assist whichever Government is in power to bring about those changes. Naturally, the Government is placed in the best situation to bring about changes and to prepare and motivate people to accept those changes. This particular Government has been in power for a period of a quarter of a century. Why I do not hesitate to support the motion of no-confidence is that, instead of using its long period of being in office to prepare the people for the situation in which we find ourselves, the Government has gone out of its way to create a false sense of security in the minds of the White people of South Africa. The Government has been hampered by its policy and political philosophy which—I want to state it again here—is of course based on prejudice and discrimination. As a result of this, this attitude, an antipathy towards change has been built up amongst the Whites in South Africa. I see that the hon. member for Vereeniging is back in the House. He spoke a lot about differentiation and discrimination. Let me just mention a matter such as job reservation. Has that got anything to do with the maintenance of the identity of the White man?

Of course it has.

Of course not, Sir; it is just blatant discrimination; and this is a cornerstone, let us say, of National Party policy. All of a sudden the Government is forced to bring about changes. I immediately concede that it has brought about certain changes and perhaps is in the process of making others, but what concerns me is that in bringing about those changes, it fails miserably to use opportunity to break down the deep-seated prejudice which exists in the minds of so many of its supporters. The Government is always busy finding excuses for bringing about changes and adjustments. People are inevitably told that outside circumstances are in fact forcing the Government to do so. It is true that the majority of the White people accept this. They look upon the changes as being concessions.

Unwittingly they regard the changes which are being made as sacrifices that the White people have made. It is as a result of this that there has developed an attitude which I can only describe as a false sense of security amongst our people. Such an attitude also results in changes being made rather reluctantly and with no definite will to expedite matters or, in fact, to make them worthwhile.

The Government must also accept responsibility for another attitude which it has cultivated in the minds of the people of South Africa, an attitude which I believe is very dangerous in the climate in which we find ourselves today. That is that when changes are being made many of the White people adopt a paternalistic attitude towards those changes. Their approach is paternalistic. With the prevailing attitude among the non-White groups in South Africa being what it is, I believe that there is no room left for this paternalistic attitude. Even where the Government is engaged in perfecting changes which are in accordance with the philosophies of the Nationalist Party’s own policy, it is guilty of this approach. When the late Dr. Verwoerd announced his vision of independent Bantustans, he adopted very much the same attitude. Hon. members may remember that at the time he in fact made great play of it. He said it was not something that he would have liked to see but something that had been forced upon us. I believe that from that very moment the Bantustan project or experiment, call it what you like, became, rather a reluctant, experiment or project of the exponents and supporters of that particular policy.

I want to mention something else which I believe is closely related to the success of the Government’s own policy. I am referring to the question of the acquisition of land. In terms of its own declared policy in regard to the acquisition of land, adequate and sufficient land is a vital prerequisite for the successful implementation of the Government’s policy. Instead of giving their own supporters a proper lead and motivating them in favour of the proper and valid reasons for the acquisition or purchase of land, viz. that it is right that the Government purchase land for the Africans in order to establish these Bantustans, we have witnessed something else. A rather futile attempt is being made to put the blame on somebody else. Great stress is always placed on the fact that all that the Government in fact is doing is fulfilling the 1936 land settlement agreement. In other words, they are not motivating the people in respect of their own policy. It is somebody else’s.

May I put a question?

No, I am sorry, I am busy at the moment.

We have heard from Nationalist commentators that it is wrong to draw an analogy between what is happening in Rhodesia at the present moment and the position in South Africa. The most common explanation is that in as far as it is true that South Africa is, let us say, twisting Rhodesia’s arm, it is only doing so or prodding it along in order to make Rhodesia face up to the consequence, the logical consequence, of its own policy which is, if we are to believe that Afrikaans Press, the handing over of power to a Black majority. If we are to believe the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, the logical consequence of its policy is, of course, civilized rule. I do not want to deal with that matter. The fact remains, however, that we are being told that in as far as South Africa is making an effort in this regard, it is doing so in order to make Rhodesia accept the logical consequences of its policy. If that argument is correct, then surely the time has come for this Nationalist Government also to accept the logical consequences of its policy, a policy which we know is one of geographical separation. If this policy of geographical separation is to be a success the Government must within the shortest possible time establish separate states which are large enough to give the inhabitants of those states a chance to become viable and independent. As far as the position of land is concerned, it must at this stage be known to the Government that the 1936 land settlement agreement is inadequate for this purpose. When will the Government start giving a lead to its own people in this regard? If it is going to exceed the 1936 quota, if it is its intention to exceed that quota—I believe it has no option but to do so in order to accommodate the logical consequences of its policy—then the time has come for the Government to come out into the open and give a definite lead to its supporters in this regard because there are changes that must take place in the attitude even of its own followers in order to make its policy successful. It is also quite clear to me that the Government has failed to prepare and to motivate its own supporters sufficiently to make a success of its policy. But this is only part of the story. The majority of changes that must come will be changes which are really contrary to the basic policies of the Government and contrary to basic Nationalist Party philosophy. Judging from its past performance, the Government is prepared to do so from time to time. Unfortunately the Government never reaps the full benefit of these changes because of its obsession in pretending that these changes or adjustments are not really changes but that they form part of its own policy and philosophy. One invariably finds that precious time is wasted —and we cannot afford to lose that precious time—while the Government racks its brains to find out how to camouflage these changes to its own supporters. Invariably it falls back on the old formula of creating the illusion that these are not really changes but rather exceptions which are then regarded as concessions which of course are then looked upon as sacrifices made by the Whites. What is so wrong with the Government, with hon. members opposite, is that they do not do enough to cultivate the right attitude in the minds of their own supporters. I believe that the attitude which they should adopt in the first place is that these are changes which are brought about because they are fair, right and just and, secondly, that not to do so would be gross discrimination.

In the field of sport the Government has been engaged for a few years in gradually implementing some of the aspects of United Party policy, and we are grateful for that; I am not going to attack them about that. But once again it unfortunately neglects to give the people a proper lead. It fails to motivate them to bring about changes for the right reasons.

About three years ago the hon. the Prime Minister announced the Government’s sports policy. He very ably read out his statement here in this House although in fact it had been drafted by the Broederbond —but that is purely incidental—after they had had a look at our policy. But instead of using the opportunity at that time, instead of using his considerable influence and telling his supporters that the changes were being made because the Government was convinced that it was right and just to give all sportsmen of South Africa, irrespective of their colour and race, the opportunity to represent the country of their birth, purely as an acknowledgment of the inherent right of a person to represent on merit the country of his birth at international level, the Prime Minister made it quite clear that South Africa was acting only in terms of the conditions laid down by world governing bodies such as those controlling the Olympic Games and the Davis Cup and the Federation Cup. Here again the attitude was that this was not something that we would like to see, but that this was something which had been forced on us by some outside force. The tragedy of this approach and this attitude is that it opens up the way for further pressure. The moment you concede that outside forces are forcing you to change, then of course more pressure is put on you in the hope that more changes will come. But what is most important is that the White people look upon these changes as concessions instead of accepting that they are just doing their duty by removing discrimination in a particular field, however small that field may be.

In the field of labour many changes and adjustments have been made lately and over the years. Unfortunately again the same attitude and approach is evident When job reservation is relaxed and adjustments in certain categories of labour are made—we had in the building industry quite a number of changes being made recently, where Blacks were allowed to do jobs previously done by Whites—the Government fails to motivate its own supporters and the people of South Africa correctly. The most famous excuse is always that they have opened up this job or this category of work because there are no Whites to do it. What are the consequences of this in so far as the non-Whites are concerned? They surely must look upon it in this way: “If this is our only avenue of advancement, when there are no Whites to do a particular job, it will be far better for us not to have any Whites.” It is true that in certain fields there are not enough Whites to do the work, but surely our attitude should not be that their advancement is subject to the condition that they can only advance and do certain jobs because there are not enough Whites to do it. I believe that the attitude which the Government must adopt, if they are serious in bringing about successful change in South Africa, is that they have opened up certain jobs in the field of labour not because they have been forced to do so but because they have recognized that it is right and just to eliminate discrimination. If the Government is prepared to adopt that sort of attitude towards its own people, it will in fact be giving a certain lead to them.

We recently had the case of the Nico Malan theatre. When it was opened last week we heard from some Nationalist commentators and politicians about the “vergunning aan Kleurlinge”. The opening up of the Nico Malan theatre to other race groups was not a “vergunning”; it was not a favour. This is not a sacrifice. What was done was that the Nationalist Party, at the level of the provinces, was merely rectifying a gross injustice. How can we have confidence in a Government which has demonstrated that even when it is bringing about changes, and when you can get it so far as to bring about changes which require the undivided support of all the White people in South Africa, it fails to derive the full benefit for South Africa, whether these changes are being made in accordance with its policy or contrary to its policy? But whether hon. members agree with this or not, whether they want to agree with it or not, the fact remains that the Government in future will be increasingly forced to bring about changes which are in line with the basic policy and the philosophy of the United Party. Although it is true that as an Opposition we do not command the support of the majority of the Whites—and I say this to show how relevant we are—we as a party have cultivated through the years in the minds of our supporters certain attitudes and we have adopted certain approaches which I believe will make change in South Africa less painful. This has been our great contribution over the last 26 years during which we have been in opposition. We have done that by preparing our people and inculcating in them different attitudes which will in fact assist in bringing about the changes which we so desperately need. Let us consider some of the concepts on which we have spent time.

First of all, we have the concept of the sharing of power and responsibility. These are concepts which go together; you cannot have the one without the other. Above all, these are concepts which are based on a deep conviction that all of us, irrespective of colour and race, share a common fatherland and a common destiny. Now let us leave for the moment the Bantustans on one side and let us look at this concept of a common fatherland and a common destiny. That concept will at all times be valid in respect of the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians and the permanent urban African population. If need be, and for the sake of argument, I am even prepared to exclude, among the urban Africans, the genuine migrant labourer who comes from the homelands. If we accept the concept of a common fatherland for those four groups of people with a common destiny, our assumption will of course be valid. It is valid in our policy and it has also been valid in the policy of the Nationalist Party. Because we have adopted this approach, because we have spent all our time in getting our people to accept that we have a common fatherland and a common destiny, we have motivated and prepared our supporters on these lines and they are therefore better equipped to bring about the essential changes which must come in order to remove discrimination. I just want to mention one fact. This whole argument about freehold title to the urban African and the right of the urban African to an undisturbed family life, reveals discrimination which cannot be justified under any circumstances. Once one has a people who can accept, as our supporters do, that we have a common fatherland and a common destiny, then there is no difficulty in putting that policy into practice. However, because the Government has inculcated different attitudes, it is in this difficulty.

Secondly, there is the concept that the wealth and the riches of South Africa do not belong to any particular group. As far as our party is concerned we accept that South Africa has been brought economically to its present position as a result of the mutual efforts of all the various race groups in South Africa. All the peoples in South Africa have made a contribution, no matter how small, to building up the country to its present position. Therefore, I believe that any attempt to trick one group or other into forfeiting its legitimate share of the wealth and prosperity of South Africa will be an unforgivable sin. Our philosophy is, in fact, free of restrictions, and this means that we do not have to waste time on uneconomic projects. We and our people are better equipped to build up South Africa economically in order to provide a better living for all of us, so that we can take our place as the unrivalled economic leader in Capricorn Africa, as my hon. leader called it.

In the last instance I want to come to the most important concept of all. Although hon. members opposite are not even prepared to accept the word in their political vocabulary, the concept I want to deal with is that of “federalism”. We have definite evidence that this concept is increasingly being accepted by the non-White race groups in South Africa. If we want peace and security in South Africa we must say farewell to the unitary system of government which has served us well over the years when, in the minds of the Whites, only the White communities really mattered. However, the most meaningful change which can be made will be a constitutional change, and it will have to be in a federal direction. We in the United Party have come to grips with that reality, but I am afraid that it is on this particular issue, on account of its policy and philosophy, that the Nationalist Party is completely out of court. The United Party with its policy and philosophy is not running the danger of becoming redundant and irrelevant in South Africa. It is the basic political philosophy of the Nationalist Party that is running that particular risk. It is only through the adoption of a federal constitution that South Africa can find a proper solution to the most pressing problems in our pluralistic society. What is the most pressing problem? I believe it is the real security and protection of minorities. Closely related to this is the execution of the principle that there should be no domination of one group by another in matters concerning the other group only. These are concepts which we are trying to sell to the people of South Africa and in which we are trying to educate our supporters. These are concepts which will be of worth to South Africa when we eventually have to face up to the real challenge.

Finally, the Government can experiment, if it so wishes, with Cabinet committees for the Coloureds and the Indians and to link those race groups to the Cabinet of this Parliament, but the fact remains that when it comes to Indians and to Coloureds they will never be accommodated within the concept of multi-national States. In the end South Africa will have to have a multiracial federal assembly where the representation of the people will be not on the basis of race or colour, but upon another objective criterion. Whether this is to be done by us as a party or whether it is to be done by the Nationalist Party, historians will still record that we in the United Party, although we were in the Opposition, we in fact cultivated the right attitudes and provided the right type of leadership to our own supporters and set the right example for change in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to the speech made by the hon. member for Durban Central and now I just want to ask him whether he remained neutral last night or whether he voted for or against Dick. I shall come back to the hon. member, but in the light of the motion proposed by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, I want to suggest and ask whether he would not make a few minor changes. I thought it would be a good thing if we changed the motion as follows—

1. (a) encourage regional and provincial leadership initiatives with the object of achieving agreements between the provincial leaders in respect of—
   1. (i) migrant labour by one provincial leader in another province without a visa at Mahlabatini, cf. Yeoville v. Zululand;
   2. (ii) the protection of the rights of minorities through a convention of membership rights, cf. Grow and Growths v. Hickman, Wiley and Streicher;
   3. (iii) improved communication between provincial leaders, cf. Schwarz v. Cadman;
   4. (iv) defence of existing leaders, of the Transvaal Rural Council Kobus Davel v. Schwarz;
   5. (v) mutual political, financial and propaganda aid and support, cf. Harry and the Young Turks v. Jakes;
   6. (vi) the use of the energy resources of the region, cf. Japie and the Sunday Times;
   7. (vii) strategic scheming, cf. Dick, Harry and Japie v. Jakes, Div and Myburgh;

To my mind section (b) of the motion should read as follows—

(c) to strengthen Sir Div’s own position more particularly in the field of concessions to Harry and the Young Turks, by—

1. (i) carrying out the United Party’s undertaking to its members in respect of the removal of all discrimination, based on membership of Grow alone;
2. (ii) adopting policies which will be more effective in bringing about co-operation between the Old Guard and the Young Turks; and
3. (iii) taking more effective steps to combat with military precision the crippling effect of internal quarrels, discord, viciousness, subversion, out-witting, doubletalk, lack of policy, lack of leadership and mutual hatred.

With reference to the point raised by the hon. member for Durban Central about the purchase of land in terms of the 1936 Act, I now want to ask the hon. member a question across the floor of the House. The hon. member says that too little land is being allocated in terms of the 1936 Act. He said we should buy more land. Will that hon. member tell me how much more land we should buy, and where?

I said in terms of your policy.

I am not discussing our policy now; I am using the hon. member’s own words and I am making him eat them. The hon. member said we should buy more land and I am now asking how much more land we should buy.

I am referring to your policy.

The hon. member has criticized us and said we should buy more land. He said he is the harbinger of public opinion. He did this so well that the better he prepares the way for public opinion the more the numbers on that side of the House are dwindling. Now I am asking: How much more land should we buy?

This is the answer

That hon. member will never answer my question. I shall tell you what they are doing, Mr. Speaker. At our meetings in the rural areas they and the H.N.P. out-do one another down in shouting that the National Party is giving South Africa away. There they put their arms round one another’s shoulders and try to be more verkramp than the members of the H.N.P. This is what that party sitting over there is doing. In the rural areas they make ultra right-wing statements and accuse us, the National Party, of being integrationists.

The hon. member said the National Party should change its policy. That hon. member and that party are the last people to talk of change. They do not have sufficient strength themselves to be able to change. This is their problem: They cannot adapt themselves; they are completely sterile and senile politically. It is not I who says this; it is the Transvaal leader of the United Party who says this. It is stated here: “Schwarz’s warning to the United Party: Change or Fail”. Because that party does not have the ability to adapt itself, they are completely irrelevant in respect of the political situation in South Africa today. They are no longer playing any role whatsoever. On the contrary. This internal quarrel and fight has reached such proportions now that they have even lost their publicity value in the present political setup here in South Africa. Allow me to quote again—

That party does not have the inner strength to be able to bring about changes. The meaningful changes which have taken place in South Africa since 1910, took place under the leadership of the National Party, and all meaningful changes which will take place in future will take place under the leadership of the National Party.