I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, the United Party are annoyed because they have nothing to complain about as far as this Budget is concerned. They are annoyed because the public is glad. If the public had been annoyed, they would have been pleased! They thought that in view of the fact that they would be given a terrible trouncing in this House if they confined themselves to a debate on the Budget, they should introduce another subject to steal the thunder in this debate. They then came along and violated every tradition that exists in South Africa with reference to Budget debates by getting the seconder, the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker), to make a speech here on a subject which is dynamite in the present political situation, namely the Poqo movement. But then they dropped it like a hot brick and referred to financial matters. But what happened there was precisely what we felt would happen. Sir, when one searches the newspapers of Tuesday for a report on the speeches of members of the United Party with regard to finance, one does find a report about the speech of the hon. member for Constantia although he made little reference to financial matters. He discussed many matters which have nothing to do with the Budget as such. In the Cape Times of yesterday morning one does not even find a brief report to the effect that “Mr. Plewman also spoke” or that “Mr. Moore also spoke” or that “Mr. Emdin also spoke”. They only gave a little publicity to the hon. member for Pinetown because he had also had something to say about Poqo.

I hope hon. members have learnt their lesson from what has happened on this occasion and that it will not happen again in the future. The Cape Argus was unable to conceal its wrath with regard to this matter, and this is what they said about the Opposition’s attitude—

Have you not had enough yet?

I want to say to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) that I will pay him the compliment of taking more notice of him than of either the Cape Times or the Cape Argus, not that he deserves it, but I shall nevertheless do so. Hon. members opposite carried on in this debate with their Poqo stories and they did ultimately come to the question of finance in a completely oblique way. The public is not even aware of the fact that they discussed financial matters, and when they did discuss financial matters we heard divergent points of view and a number of conflicting statements from the other side. I just want to mention a few of the hon. members concerned. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) revealed his typical bookkeeper’s mentality here. He only wants the profit and loss account to balance. He does not know that a Budget is something in which the whole of the country’s financial and economic planning is set out. Then we come to the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin) who sought to compare incomparable things. He says that in 1960-2 there was a surplus of R 10,000,000 more than the Minister anticipated; that for that reason the anticipated surplus for this year is also greater and that the surplus for 1963-4 will also be greater than the Minister tells us. Sir, I cannot understand the hon. member’s logic. Here we are dealing with three separate years, and the results achieved in one year have little to do with the results in other years. His logic is like that of a person who studied logic and who failed his examination because he had written: “Some dogs are white; my dog is a white dog, therefore my dog is some dog.” The hon. member went on to say that we should follow the American example in our budgetary policy, namely their policy of so-called deficit budgeting on the lines of the Budget that they are about to introduce and many other budgets that they have introduced before. Does the hon. member not know that in America there is not a separate Loan Account and a separate Revenue Account? No separate accounts are kept and if America has a surplus, then her revenue exceeds her capital expenditure plus her current expenditure. On that basis South Africa has never had a surplus budget either; on that basis we have always had a deficit budget throughout all the years since 1910. Then I want to remind the hon. member that people in America are being warned from day to day that this new Kennedy budgetary policy is going to lead to inflation and to an increase in the price of gold, something which we would welcome, of course, but about which the Americans go into a frenzy. Mr. Speaker, if we strip the argument of the United Party with regard to this Budget of all these little trimmings, their criticism boils down to two points, or rather one point together with another point that flows from the first. The one is that we are overtaxing the people and that we have systematically overtaxed them for a number of years, and the second is that the economy of the country is not being stimulated sufficiently. I shall come back to that point later on.

First of all I just want to say to the Minister that we want to congratulate him and the Government on a very fine and balanced Budget which serves its purpose excellently, and that is to stimulate private consumption and to combat cost inflation. This Budget is realistic and fully meets the requirements of present-day circumstances in South Africa. The Budget has been received very well in all circles except one and that is in the parliamentary front of the United Party, but their own constituents are highly satisfied with this Budget. I have numbers of quotations here from which I could prove that, but I do not propose to detain the House long by reading out quotations. I want to refer just briefly to one and that is Reuter’s financial editor, in London, who says—

I still have a great deal of other comment here on the Budget, but I leave it at that for the moment. Before I go on to deal with the United Party’s specific criticism I just want to add this. Financially South Africa is very strong. To some extent we are practically what one might call an oasis in the financial desert of the Western world. We have gold reserves amounting to 77 per cent and but for the fact that money is deliberately being sent out of this country to help along our short-term market and that other measures have been taken by the Reserve Bank to assist the shor-tterm market, this 77 per cent might very well have been 95 per cent or more, while in the Western world the average is only between 12 and 13 per cent. The fact that we are in this position to-day is a tremendous achievement. In the United States, for example, they only have 16,000,000,000 dollars in gold reserves as against foreign obligations amounting to 21,500,000,000,000 dollars. Actually it is a miracle that a country such as the U.S.A. which finds itself in this precarious position should be able to dictate to the whole of the Western world in matters such as the price of gold, for example, and I hope that at some time or other the world will be able to shake off the hold which the U.S.A. has on it. In passing I just want to ask the Minister if any attention has ever been given to the question of selling our gold here ourselves. Would it not pay us better to build up own own gold market here? Does our gold turnover hot justify such a step?

I have said that the United Party’s criticism amounts to two main points and a few subsidiary points. I want to summarize their criticism as follows: Their criticism in the first place is that in the present financial year revenue was deliberately underestimated in order to be able to show this surplus of R28,000,000; the second criticism is that revenue has again been underestimated for 1963-4 and that there will again be a big surplus, and the third is that in these circumstances much greater tax concessions should have been made because the concessions which in fact have been made will not stimulate our economy sufficiently. Let us consider these three points separately: As far as their first objection is concerned, namely that taxpayers have been overtaxed in the present financial year and that is why there is a surplus of R28,000,000; assuming that this figure is quite correct, it only represents a variation of less than 3 per cent in relation to the total budget. The hon. member for Constantia has levelled the reproach against us that we are unable to budget accurately enough, but when the United Party was in power the difference was as much as 10 per cent or higher. The estimates of the United Party Government were out by as much as 10 per cent both with regard to revenue and with regard to expenditure. It was a mixed up affair and nobody knew, even approximately, what the country’s revenue or expenditure was going to be. Hon. members of the United Party conveniently forget that for the year 1962-3 we budgeted for a total expenditure of R824,300,000, on which there was a saving of R26,349,000. When this amount is deducted from the surplus, practically no surplus remains. On Loan Account the saving was R21,300,000, and over and above that the Minister, in order to cope with the surplus on the short-term money market, caused more Treasury bills to be sold than it was necessary to do, and that is why we have a surplus.

However, I do not want to worry about the Loan Account at this stage; I want to refer more particularly to the current account. Instead of criticizing this surplus of R28,000000 hon. members ought to congratulate the Government and the various Departments on having saved R26,000,000 on Current Account. The hon. member for Parktown says that if money is given to Government Departments they are inclined to spend all of it. Here the contrary is proved. The officials had the power to spend R26,000,000 more than they did spend, but they did not do so, and this amount is being re-deposited into the Treasury. That is why we have this surplus of R28,000,000 this year. Sir, the hon. member for Constantia and other members of the Opposition have been serving with me for many years on the Public Accounts Select Committee and they know just as well as I do that no Minister of Finance is able to work out his Budget precisely, because in every department there are certain factors every year which result in their spending either more or less than the amount voted. They give an account of it before the Select Committee every year, and the reasons advanced by them are usually acceptable. How can hon. members expect the Minister to know 12 months in advance about all these unknown factors that may arise in the course of the year? Every cent of the R824,000,000 that was voted was approved of unanimously by this House, and hon. members on that side cannot come and tell us now that more money was voted than they regarded as necessary. And if they thought that we were voting too much, since they now allege that R26,000,000, which it has been possible to save, should never have been voted, then I say that they were guilty of neglect of duty in not opposing it when the Estimates were before the House last year. No, neither the Government nor the Opposition is able to foresee precisely what is going to happen in the next financial year, just as little as they were able to foresee a year ago what happened in the past year. They cannot level their reproach against the Government therefore. No business undertaking that I know of is able to estimate precisely a year in advance what its income and its expenditure will be. How can one expect that from the State which handles much more money than an ordinary business undertaking? But let us assume the unreasonable; let us assume that the Minister ought to have known that there would be such a big saving. What is the actual revenue position? The estimate of revenue for 1962-3 was R790,000,000; the actual revenue, according to the Budget submitted to us by the Minister, was R809,000,000, a difference of R19,000,000. Hon. members opposite now raise a hullabaloo and say that the surplus was deliberately estimated on the low side. But how is this amount made up? The first item that has to be deducted from it immediately is the sum of R5,500,000, which represents an increase in departmental receipts which were in the nature of a windfall and which are of a non-recurrent nature. That leaves R 13,700,000 that has to be accounted for.

Mr. Speaker, last year the national product rose by an average of 7 per cent. The Minister, however, could not base his estimate on that because when he introduced his Budget, the rise in the national product was no more than 5 per cent at that stage. It was only in the second half of the year and in the first few months of this year that there was increase with the result that the average rose to 7 per cent. In other words, in the second half of the year the national product rose by more than 9 per cent in comparison with the previous year, and that is something which the Minister could not foresee when he framed his Budget a year ago, and if he had speculated on this rise he would have been extremely irresponsible. No. he based his Budget on the rise in the national product that he was able to foresee last year, namely 5 per cent, and it was because of this great increase in the second half of the year that a certain amount of revenue flowed to the Treasury which it would not otherwise have received— and I want to mention those sources of revenue. I say that we still have to account for R13,700,000. Unemployment, as hon. members are aware, decreased considerably in the second half of last year and in the first few months of this year, with the result that to-day the position is practically normal. That is a factor which is immediately reflected in items such as the consumption of beer, the consumption of cigarettes and tobacco and the purchase of motor-cars. The excise on beer is up by R1,000,000; on cigarettes and tobacco it is up by R2,000,000, and on motor-cars it is up by R3,400,000. It is only human nature for people to treat themselves to these little pleasures when they have the money to do so, and that is what happened in this case. Here we already have a total sum of R6,400,000. As far as income-tax is concerned, there was an increase of R3,900,000. The Minister could not foresee a year ago that in the last half of this financial year there would be such a great upsurge. He could not foresee that there would be a 9 per cent increase in the national product in comparison with the previous year. He could not speculate on the expectation that fewer people would ask for an extension of time to pay their income-tax, but that is precisely what happened. In the first place far fewer people asked for an extension of time for the payment of their income-tax, and in the second place taxpayers were assessed more quickly by the Receiver of Revenue in a special attempt to clear their desks before the commencement of the P.A.Y.E. system at the end of this month, and their effort in that connection met with greater success than it was possible to foresee a year ago. That accounts for the additional R3,900,000 that was derived from income-tax. To that must be added the increase of R3,000,000 in stamp duties and transfer dues because of the upsurge in the property market.

Under these few heads I have accounted for the total increase of R 19,000,000. I want to ask hon. members opposite whether it is reasonable to expect that the Minister should have foreseen these things in advance. It would be extremely unreasonable on their part to expect that. The Minister would have been an adventurer and a gambler if he had speculated on this type of revenue a year in advance.

Now I come to the financial year of 1963-4. The Opposition say that there will again be a big surplus. Mr. Speaker, the Government has at its disposal the expert advice of public servants in the various Government Departments who advise it as to the likely trend of events during the next 12 months, and it is on that basis that the Minister’s estimates are framed. He has at his disposal the experts of the Departments and he can also consult the Reserve Bank which practically holds the reins in the whole of our financial system. These are all people who not only advise him but who practically help him to frame the estimates. But the Opposition suggest that they know better than those experts. I wonder whose advice they followed when they were in power in framing their Budgets. I wonder whether the fact that their estimates differed so materially from the actual figures is not due to the fact that they refused to listen to their departmental experts.

Let us look at the actual position. The Revenue Account for the forthcoming financial year stands at R26,000,000 higher than the figure for the present financial year based on the scales of taxation that applied before the introduction of this new Budget. The Minister is budgeting for an increase of R26,000,000. There are certain factors that I can see immediately which hon. members opposite deliberately refuse to see and which would make it dangerous to budget for an unduly high increase. The first factor that I want to mention is the crippling drought which, in the Northern Transvaal particularly, is assuming disastrous proportions, with the result that people who were taxpayers in the past will perhaps have to be given a great deal of assistance by the State this year. We noticed that after the Budget had already been drafted but before it was introduced, the figure at which the maize crop had been estimated a month or two earlier was suddenly reduced by 20,000,000 bags as the result of droughts, and the maize crop may even be smaller than the present estimate. A third factor, which the Minister also mentioned in his Budget speech, is the uncertainty with regard to the collection of taxes under the P.A.Y.E. system. If all goes well with the collection of taxes, then the revenue derived from income-tax may be a good deal more than the estimated figure, but if things do not go well it may be considerably lower than the amount budgeted for. The Minister cannot take the risk of gambling that the maximum that can be collected will be collected. We know that the people who work in the offices of the Receiver of Revenue are only human; they are not perfect, and what disturbs us particularly is the fact that the very people who, according to the United Party, are mainly represented by them, are not complying with the requirements of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. They are not registering and they are not submitting their returns, and this may still cause a great deal of trouble before the new system operates smoothly. Let the United Party rather encourage their supporters to see that they comply with the requirements of the law and the requirements of the office of the Receiver of Revenue; the position may be very much better then. We cannot gamble with this experiment and that is why the Minister has to be conservative in framing his estimates.

Then there is another factor. The gold-mining industry expanded enormously in recent years, but at the moment there is a decline in the rate of expansion, and in the future we can no longer expect our revenue to be augmented to the same extent from this source. Perhaps I might just say this in passing: Hon. members on that side had a great deal to say about gold mines which should have been assisted and which are getting very little out of this Budget. I notice that four new gold mines will start operations as the result of last week’s Budget. A fifth factor is that as a direct result of this prosperity, some of our richest people will have a smaller income. I refer to those who live on their interest. Rates of interest have dropped. The result is that the tax collected from them will be much less than it used to be.

I say that any Government that framed a Budget without taking these factors into account would indeed be shortsighted and would gamble with our finances, and I am pleased that the hon. the Minister has taken into account at least these factors and perhaps a good many others which I have not mentioned here. It is very easy for the United Party to criticize. They do not care what happens; if things go wrong, it is the Government’s responsibility. They want the Minister to count his chickens before they are hatched and that is simply not the way the Nationalist Party does things. It does not count its chickens before they are hatched.

We are satisfied that taking everything into consideration the Minister’s estimate of revenue is fair and reasonable. The public is also satisfied. The only people who are not satisfied with it are the members of the United Party. It has been their ardent desire for 15 years to lead us into a trap in connection with our budgeting, but they will not succeed in doing so, because we know what the reaction of the electorate would be if we came along with a policy of deficit budgeting. The cry would immediately be raised that the country is going insolvent; that the Government is ruining the country economically, and that is what the United Party would like to do. But none of their prophecies of doom has ever proved true. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that they have come here year after year over the past 15 years with all sorts of prophecies of doom. This is the first year that they say that we are going to have prosperity. In June 1961 they made dire prophecies to the effect that we were going to ruin the country and that devaluation would practically be unavoidable. As usual, however, their vociferous predictions all collapsed like a pack of cards. Three months later we had a general election, and even United Party supporters took so little notice of their party’s dire prophecies as to how badly we were going to fare in this country, that 50 of us sitting here were not even opposed and we were returned to power with a greater majority than ever before.

Mr. Speaker, I have said that it is easy for the United Party to criticize. If the United Party is so certain that the Minister has underestimated his revenue and that there is again going to be a big surplus, I challenge them to mention the relevant heads where they contend that our estimate is too low, and to give us their own estimates under those heads together with their reasons. We shall then be able to test the position in a year’s time in the light of the actual facts. It takes us no further just to prophesy generally that we shall find that we have underestimated revenue. We are not prepared to take any notice of that sort of thing. I shall be only too grateful if the hon. the Minister’s revenue proves to be R30,000,000 or R40,000,000 more than the amount for which he is budgeting, because that will mean that the effect of this Budget in promoting prosperity will be much greater than even we are able to foresee at the moment and that this Budget will create greater prosperity than the Minister himself anticipates at this stage. It will also contradict the United Party’s own argument that this Budget will not stimulate our economy sufficiently. If the revenue exceeds the amount for which we are budgeting by R 30,000,000 or R40,000,000, we shall be pleased, of course, and so will the United Party, but they cannot predict on the one hand that revenue is going to be higher and then say on the other hand that this Budget is not going to stimulate our economy sufficiently. I am convinced that even if the Minister had been able to foresee at this stage that revenue is going to be R30,000,000 or R40,000,000 higher, he would not have given this money back to the taxpayers in the form of reduced taxation. I think it would have been irresponsible to do so because it would have promoted inflation. I want to ask the hon. the Minister at this stage already, if he does have the surplus which the United Party predicts and which we hope we will have, to deposit that money into the Loan Account to compensate for the services which are now being transferred from Revenue Account to Loan Account. Mr. Speaker, a Budget must have the necessary elasticity. This Budget has elasticity and we welcome that fact. We feel that if within the limits of this elasticity the Minister is able to strengthen the Loan Account then he should do so. I hope therefore that if the Minister gets the extra revenue prophesied by the United Party, he will deposit it into Loan Account towards the end of the financial year which commences on 1 April.

Thanks to this Government, our unproductive debt has been wiped out entirely over the past 15 years during which we have been in power. We welcome that very much, but I just want to point out to the House that our public debt is still very high. Our public debt stands at R2,700,000,000, and we are still paying out R13,000,000 per annum more in interest than we receive by way of interest and dividends. We still have a number of Government investments which do not pay, investments for which we do have assets, but not revenue-producing assets. I feel, therefore, that hon. members should not view this matter with such equanimity and adopt the attitude that we have sufficient money in our Loan Account and that we can play about with it. Our public debt is high and we should make use of every opportunity that presents itself to reduce this burden on posterity. I am convinced that what I have predicted here in connection with next year’s Budget will prove to be true if we have the necessary surplus. Our attitude in the Nationalist Party in this connection is perfectly clear and we make no apology for it; our attitude is that we should build up permanent assets which in due course can replace wasting assets such as the gold mines.

That brings me to the third point of criticism of the United Party, and that is that there should have been a greater reduction of taxation because, in their opinion, this Budget does not stimulate our economy sufficiently. It is altogether untrue that only R 13,400,000 is being handed back to the public. There is also the R20,000,000 which is being given to railwaymen by way of wage increases; there is an increase of R24,000,000 in the amount which is going to be devoted to the Public Service, of which approximately R10,000,000 is going to be paid in the form of increased salaries. In the fourth place there is the repayment of the loan levy amounting to almost R20,000,000, a total therefore of R73,000,000 that will go into the pockets of the consumers. But that is not all. On Loan Account the expenditure is being increased by R81,000,000, and on Revenue Account, apart from what goes into the pockets of the public servants, there is a further increase of R30,000,000. This sum of R110,000,000 is not going to be locked in a glass case; it will go into circulation, and it will have an enormous cumulative effect on both production and consumption in this country. But even that is not all; a very important factor is that, as a result of salary increases in the Public Service and in the Railway Service, the whole private sector of the economy is revising salaries in an upward direction. I am directly concerned with businesses which feel that they are obliged to do so. I am in a position to state that this is taking place on such a scale that it is practically spreading like wild-fire throughout the country. Many extra millions of rand are going to be paid out in salaries because of these increases, and the cumulative effect of that, although we cannot determine it precisely, will be enormous. I say that the cumulative effect of all these factors taken together is going to be so enormous that we run a very grave risk of getting inflation. This Budget is going to reveal inflationary trends, and I hope that the Government will be wide awake in guarding against inflation. What the United Party is asking for here is nothing but deliberate inflation. If we have made a number of additional concessions, as asked for by them, we would undoubtedly have set in motion an inflationary process which we would not have been able to check. We would have regretted such a step because it would have brought about instability, a state of prosperity on paper, where people would have had to pay so much more for their requirements that they would have lost all the benefits that they derive from their increased salaries, and even much more than that. A number of our gold mines would have had to close, and our exports of South African products, which have to compete on the world market to-day and which are of vital importance to us, would have been dealt a deathblow.

Hon. members opposite talk so glibly about this, but I have just read a magazine from America in which the American Government is warned against the inflation that they are creating with their budgetary policy. This morning I read an article in the Statist, in which the British Government is warned about the budget which is to be introduced next week. The British Government is warned that if they grant tax concessions amounting to £400,000,000 as advocated, they are going to promote inflation to such an extent that they are going to make a mess of things in England.

Do you want to help them?

They can look after their own affairs. I am merely mentioning what thinking people say about these matters. I am talking about people overseas who make a study of this type of thing. I am not mentioning the people of our own country as an example in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is an extremely irresponsible proposal on the part of the United Party that we should have placed so many millions more in the hands of the private sector so as to stimulate consumption and production, more particularly consumption. They put forward these proposals because they know that the responsibility is not theirs. If their proposals led to inflation, the Government would be blamed, and the people who would make the greatest fuss would be the United Party. They would say immediately: “Look at the way they govern; look at the inflation that they are causing; our gold mines have to close; our export trade is being ruined!” That is what they would say, in spite of all their clever talk to-day. They have been trying to do this for 15 years; for 15 years we have had to tell them that our economy is a planned economy; that we always have to guard against inflation. We always have to guard against inflation if we want to stimulate our economy. Unless that is done, the country is going to lose much more eventually than it stands to gain.

I want to repeat that if the Minister anticipates an increase in his revenue, in view of what I have just said, there is only one thing that he can do. If he finds at the end of the financial year that he has more revenue than he budgeted for, that amount should be deposited into Loan Account. I want to point out to hon. members that their criticism of the Budget, their allegation that it is a weak Budget, and that it allegedly gives little to the public, was published in all the newspapers of the United Party. The financial correspondent of the Cape Argus realized that these people were on the wrong track. He went even further than I have gone. He says that he was convinced that the Budget had inflationary tendencies. This is his considered comment on the Budget in the Argus of Saturday evening—

Some critics think that Dr. Dönges has not gone far enough. I am inclined to think that he has probably gone too far, that the Budget may later this year turn out to be inflationary, to have encouraged attempts to expand the limits of the country’s resources of skilled labour, and that the authorities may then have to apply a damper.

Here we have the opinion of a person who is certainly not a Nationalist, but he knows that he has a responsibility towards his readers who make investments and who may rely on his opinion in doing so. He therefore gives a responsible opinion. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the wine industry, I want to convey our very hearty thanks to the hon. the Minister of Finance this afternoon for the concession which he has made in regard to excise duties. If the hon. Minister will imagine himself for a moment in the role of a mixed farmer and not only that of a gardener, I should like to take his analogy further and tell him that he will very soon discover that this little extra feed that he has given to the goose that lays the golden eggs will not have been in vain. He will find that it will lay more golden eggs. We need have no qualms therefore about having given it a little extra feed.

Mr. Speaker, economically South Africa is faring very well, notwithstanding all the tales of woe that we so often hear from the other side of the House. As the hon. the Minister indicated in a short résumé of his Budget, things are going particularly well in many sectors of our economic life. I want to refer to a few of them in particular. There has been an increase of 5.9 per cent over the past year in factory production and there has also been an increase in our exports to a new record level of R944,000,000. I still recall very vividly that two years ago as well as last year the other side of the House derived a certain amount of malicious pleasure from saying that as a result of our policy more and more countries in the world wanted to boycott us. But thanks to the vigilance of this Government and thanks to the steps taken by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs in sending three economic missions overseas 18 months ago our exports have risen to a new record level of R 944,000,000. Our unemployment figure has also fallen sharply. In the case of Whites, Asiatics and Coloureds, it has fallen by 34 per cent over the past 12 months. In the case of Whites alone the number of unemployed fell from 16,095 in December 1961 to 9,390 in December 1962, which is a tremendous improvement.

But the most sensitive barometer of our economy still remains the stock market. It is also a very sensitive barometer as far as the political position in the country is concerned. We know of the steep rise which has taken place in share price indices over the past year and I want to mention a few of them to show that this very sensitive barometer in our economy does indicate that things are going very well in this country. Industrial shares rose from 98.2 to 151.5 from January 1962 to January 1963 (taking 100 for the figure for the year 1952-3). Commercial shares rose from 118.5 to 181.5 during the same period of 12 months. Gold shares rose from 97.0 to 110.4. I could go on quoting a whole series of indices but I think the few that I have mentioned will suffice to indicate that economically we are doing very well.

At the same time the gap between share prices on the London Market and the Johannesburg Market has also closed considerably over the past few months. For example, the difference between the prices of gold shares in London and Johannesburg, which a few months ago was still 20 per cent, has closed to between 6 per cent and 7 per cent. This gap may even disappear altogether within a short time. I notice from overseas financial periodicals that the Americans are buying more and more gold shares as a sort of protective measure against the possibility of dollar and sterling devaluation. Unfortunately, I also notice that the picture that is being screened on the television network in Britain (“ Sabotage in South Africa”) has already had an adverse effect on gold share prices on the London Market but I expect this to be merely of a temporary nature. The investor in Britain has sources of information at his disposal other than this television picture.

Mr. Speaker, this more buoyant economy has not come about of its own accord. It has not come about by chance. It is the direct result of economic planning by this Government. Here I want to pay particular tribute to the hon. the Prime Minister whose Economic Planning Council has already had such a very good effect upon the economy of our country. When private enterprise in South Africa was left completely in the lurch after Sharpeville, it was this Government which again showed its confidence in the future of our country by immediately announcing plans for a vast expansion of State and semi-State institutions such as Iscor with its R600,000,000 expansion plan over ten years, the Electricity Supply Commission with its expansion plans totalling R400,000,000, Sasol with its R75,000,000 plans and Phalaborwa with its R70,000,000 plan, besides the Orange River Scheme and other irrigation projects. These projects all stimulate our economy and they serve as examples to the private sector of the confidence that the Government has in the future of the economy of our country.

Our Minister of Finance has shown every year over the past five years that by way of tax concessions and economic and financial planning and a wise fiscal policy he has been able to stimulate our economy where stimulation is needed most. For example, in 1959 he announced a 2 per cent per annum depreciation allowance on factory buildings. The initial reduction on machinery was raised from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. In 1960 a further 10 per cent cost allowance was granted in respect of factory buildings; machinery allowances were further increased from 20 per cent to 35 per cent. He also included hotels in this category with the result that the hotel trade which seemed to be struggling to keep its head above water was stimulated. In 1961 the investment allowance and the initial allowance were extended to service industries such as dry-cleaners in order to give them the necessary stimulus. In 1962 and 1963 there was a further extension of the periods during which this investment allowance would be applicable.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) referred contemptuously to the fact that this was the fifth year in which the hon. the Minister of Finance has tried to stimulate our economy in this way, but without success. What the hon. Minister of Finance did succeed in doing was to maintain the very delicate balance between inflation on the one hand and stagnation or retrogression on the other hand. It is very easy, as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van der Heever) indicated, to give a great boost to our economy by way of very large taxation concessions, but that is a direct cause of inflation. In my opinion this Minister has been very successful in maintaining this very delicate balance and we are very grateful to him in this regard. Mr. Speaker, is the rate of growth of our economy as slow as hon. members on that side of the House seek to suggest? We find that in the United States of America factory production has increased by 20 per cent over the past six years, while here, according to the latest figures, it has increased by 29.8 per cent over the last five years. For the last quarter of 1962 this figure was even 40 per cent higher than it was in 1957. When I see this increase in our factory production I have no reason to feel concerned that our economy is being stimulated sufficiently.

A wise financial policy encourages and promotes our economy. Our economy is also stimulated by direct intervention. I have already mentioned examples of this—Iscor, Escom, Sasol and so forth. That is why I have no reason to be concerned about the further expansion of our economy.

As I see it there is one bottle-neck that limits further expansion and I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance to give his kind attention to this matter. The bottle-neck to which I refer is the shortage of trained manpower. Dr. Frikkie Meyer of Iscor said recently—

There is a very great disproportion between skilled labour particularly in regard to supervisors, organizers, managers and technicians on the one hand and unskilled labour on the other hand. Experience teaches us that as a country develops economically the percentage of supervisors and organizers always grows. I see for example in the latest annual report of the Dutch Chemical Industry Farkenfabriken Bayer that after they had made an analysis of the numbers and groups of their employees over the 10-year period from 1951 to 1961, they found that over that period the number of daily-paid employees had increased by 73 per cent in that growing organization. In contrast to this, however, the number of their salaried employees had increased by 121 per cent. Official figures of the American Government indicate that between 1947 and 1957 the total number of production workers in the manufacturing industries of the U.S.A. only rose by 1 per cent. During that same period the non-producing workers, the manager class and so forth, rose by 55 per cent as against 1 per cent in the case of daily-paid workers. In South Africa only about 9 per cent of our economically active people are classified as employers, administrative employees, managers, professionals, semi-professionals and technical employees. The corresponding figure in the U.S.A. is 23 per cent. Besides this we have the very serious problem that so many of our promising young students who go overseas to study are snatched up there by overseas institutions and are thus lost to South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, if South Africa is faced with a crisis, it is a technical manpower crisis. Indeed, this is the problem of all industrial countries in this age of mechanization and automation. For example, the number of factory workers dropped by 1,000,000 in the United States of America over the past six years, while production increased by 20 per cent. But this is small comfort to us, Sir. It merely emphasizes the fact that we cannot recruit that technical and scientific staff overseas and that we are compelled to train our own industrial leaders.

Here I want to return to the hon. the Minister of Finance who has already come forward with so many bright ideas to encourage and stimulate our economy. He will also have a number of good ideas for the training of industrial leaders. Indeed, he put forward a very good idea in 1960 when he exempted donations to universities for scientific and technical research from tax. He has now extended the period of the grant. If we want to avoid this crisis we will have to take more drastic action. We will have to make radical plans to make it possible for our promising young men and women to qualify as industrial leaders. One method is to allow study expenses to be deducted for income-tax purposes. This is only one method, Mr. Speaker, which I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister for Finance for his consideration. It is noticeable that so many of our brilliant men come from homes in our middle and lower income groups. The families in these groups are usually larger and it is difficult for the parents to bear the expense of giving their children the necessary higher education. It may well happen that one of these promising young men may find himself in a clerical position where he will virtually be lost to South Africa. This matter is of the most vital importance. If we do not make it possible for our clever young men and women to be trained as industrial leaders, we are inevitably heading for a manpower crisis in South Africa. We dare not continue in this way. The higher education of our promising young men and women must be regarded as a long-term investment.

About 10 years ago Sir Ewart Smith referred Britain to the proportion which exists in any country between the rate of increase in productivity and the rate of increase in the number of trained persons produced. This proportion was accepted in a White Paper in 1956 and a minimum was at the same time laid down for the future in respect of both figures if Britain wished to avoid ruin as an industrial nation. From time to time we are told that Russia is already training more than 50,000 engineers, scientists and technicians each year while the United States of America only produces 30,000 and Britain not quite 20,000. We in South Africa have made it our aim to produce 1,500 but we have not even reached that goal yet. And in any case this figure is still hopelessly inadequate.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to say that we should follow the Russian method of making higher education free to all. I just want to advocate that we must consider it as a long-term investment, a necessary and indispensable investment, and that we should therefore deal with it as other capital expenditure is already being dealt with by the hon. the Minister of Finance. I want to point out respectfully that from the point of view of the hon. the Minister of Finance and his Budget, this will also be an investment. I want to refer to a study that was made recently by the American Department of Commerce in which they tried to ascertain how various groups of heads of families fared in economic life according to their academic training. They discovered the following—

In this sphere, too, the hon. the Minister of Finance will discover that if he feeds this goose better, if he feeds it very much better, it will lay golden eggs for him.

The hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) covered a lot of ground most of which, I believe, will be dealt with by my colleagues following me. He did say that this Budget reflected that there had been planning of the whole economic structure of the country and that it was a complete success. I will show how in one instance at least the planning has been bad. He also mentioned, so did the previous speaker, the question of the increase in our foreign exchange reserves and in the normal manner congratulated the Minister on his great success in this respect. I should just like to point out to these hon. members that if you refuse to allow your people to spend money and if you produce gold which is the means of exchange and the measure of value, you must of necessity increase your reserves. That is automatic and no cleverness or ability is needed to attain that increase. I would prefer to see that increase come from a real increase in productivity and an increase in the businesses established in this country. But for this Government we would not have had to worry about the causes of this increase in our reserves.

During this Session I put certain questions to the Minister of Finance. One was: “Whether the American South African Investment Trust Company has repatriated any of its capital under its special agreement with the Government? (2) What amount in respect of this company is at present covered under Reserve Bank guarantee in regard to repatriation of capital?” The reply was: “No, it had not repatriated any of its capital.” And (2) “The Reserve Bank guarantee is R35,000,000 at present.” The Financial Mail of 1 February says that the guarantee of the Reserve Bank covers up to R42,000,000. On the same day I asked the hon. the Minister from what amount of tax on its share dealings has the American South African Investment Trust Company been exempted, and the reply was that he could not give the information, and he hid behind the preservation of secrecy clause in the Income Tax Act. A few days earlier I had asked whether any companies, other than the American South African Investment Trust Company had applied for exemptions from taxation on income received from buying and selling shares, and (2) whether exemption had been granted to any other company. The answer in each instance was “No”.

Now I want to take the House back to the Budget speech delivered in 1958, and I am quoting from it. The then Minister of Finance said—

He went on to say later—

Still later on he said—

He went on later—

We told the hon. the Minister at the time that this was a most ill-conceived concession. The hon. Minister admits that the scheme has failed to bring any more American capital to our country, but he refuses to divulge what tax has been lost to the country. Now this company, as the Minister knows, would be paying tax only on interest received on any idle capital that it put away for a little while. Most of its money was intended to be invested in shares and is invested in shares, or will be invested in gold if they see the chance of gold increasing in price. Had it been a similar company, not falling under this special provision, the tax it would have paid would have been approximately R6,600,000. It brought in R20,000,000, and now has the right to take out R42,000,000. They can only exercise that right if they have made the profits and the money or the assets are available for conversion into gold—they have the right to buy gold—and remove it from the country. So they have had a present of over R6,000,000.

I want to compare this gift of R6,600,000 with the niggardly concessions—I can call them nothing else—made to taxpayers this year by the hon. the Minister, niggardly concessions that have been greeted with such acclamation from his own supporters. He has given the gold mines R200,000. He has given the farmers R 100,000. I am not a farmer, but my information is that the farmers in many districts are in dire distress. He increased the social pensions by R4,100,000, and he gave us back half of the 10 per cent extra tax he took from us last year, this amounts to R5,000,000 in respect of individual taxation. Now to get this miserable R20,000,000—one cannot call it anything else—he has given away R6,600,000 in taxation. I appreciate that a bargain was struck and the promise must be kept; the company must be allowed to repatriate its funds in any manner, even in gold, as promised. With this I have no quarrel. But the hon. the Minister must admit that the scheme has failed, that this special concession of freedom from taxation paid by every other normal company in the same line of business in this country, has failed to bring the American capital which he expected would come in. I say, and I am sure the hon. the Minister will listen to my plea, that after due notice—you cannot cancel it at a moment’s notice—this concession must be cancelled, and then the Minister, I hope, will find himself in the position to add something considerable to the pensions of the aged and others who need it so badly. Mr. Speaker, South Africa is not Cuba. We are not a tuppenny h’penny state. We do not have to buy money at rates like this. The Minister thought that our standing at that time was so poor that it was essential to buy R20,000,000 worth of foreign currency at this price. Things have changed now. Through the Reserve Bank he has allowed the banks to invest R60,000,000 outside this country, three times as much as this American South African Investment Trust Company has brought in. We have sent the money out—I do not know what it is earning elsewhere, but being bank investments they will not be earning very much—and here we are giving this company this extraordinarily generous treatment. I want to compare the treatment given in respect of this R20,000,000 brought into this country with the treatment meted out to our gold-mining industry.

In this recent Budget statement, the Minister say this—

That would be lost if costs increased a miserable 25c per ton milled. He also said that the Government had appointed a Cabinet subcommittee to examine the problem of extending the life of gold mines having reserves of gold-bearing ore but working at a slender profit or even at a loss. I repeat, concessions to this great industry are going to cost R200,000 under this Budget. Here you have R287,500,000 worth of gold which is in jeopardy as far as the production of this amount is concerned.

By seeing that there is no inflation!

I have been told that my time is very limited, but if I have the time, I will deal with the question of inflation, and I am afraid the Minister’s ideas and mine are not the same in that regard.

I am dealing with your argument that an extra R287,500,000 can be obtained if there is no rise in the cost structure.

You said “if the cost structure rises by 25c, R287,500,000 worth of gold is in jeopardy”.

That is correct.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken year after year about a round-table conference which sat in 1956 to consider the problem of the low-grade mines, which is one of the greatest problems facing us. We brought this matter up every year under the Mines Vote and we have got nowhere. I want to give a few figures from the Report of the Round-Table Conference, a very fine report, and I quote this paragraph—

I will not give them in detail, they can be found in Hansard 98, Col. 3021, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will have that round-table conference report dug out from under the heaps of dust covering it and give it to the Cabinet sub-committee that has been appointed. In that report there is some talk of help being given to low-grade mines through pneumoconiosis charges. Well, that is no concession on the part of the Government. The pneumoconiosis money was contributed by the industry. In any event that has been dealt with and has gone back to the industiy. But while this round-table conference was sitting to consider this problem of the low-grade mines, railway rates were increased in 1957, and in the one case, one mine I know of, it meant an increase in costs of 1.9d. per ton; and, again, whilst this conference was sitting the Electricity Supply Commission increased its charges to these mines by 6½ per cent, and this increase meant a rise in cost by .4d. to 2d. per ton, with an average of 1.4d. per ton. You see how easy it is, if this problem is not taken in hand, for the process of attrition to take place, gradually to erode and remove every chance of carrying on these low-grade mines. In Canada they subsidize these mines, but of course subsidization is a very wide question. I take it this is a question that will be considered by the committee. I want to quote to the hon. Minister certain figures which I have in my possession relating to two low-grade mines on the Reef. I have used these figures before. In the one case the increasing railage on coal from 1958 to 1962 has amounted to R7,476 a year; the railage on lime has increased by R2,350, a total increase in railage costs for that mine being R9,700, and it is making practically no profit. I have another example here in which the rail transport charges increased from 9.4d. per ton milled to 12.7d. per ton milled from 1958 to 1961, although as far as this particular mine is concerned the tonnage milled dropped from 1,000,035 tons to 854,000 tons. I am giving these figures because I want to stress the tremendous importance of the task that will have to be undertaken by the sub-committee to be appointed. During the last few years, as I said, we hammered away on this question on the Vote of various Ministers of Mines, and we got no further. We gave them details and details of the danger in which this very valuable portion of our valuable mining industry stood and we got nowhere. We battled and battled, and this year we switched our attack deliberately to the Minister of Transport. He admitted the problem. At last we got an admission, but he said: “This is not my pigeon; this is a Cabinet matter,” and we know from that has arisen the appointment of this Cabinet sub-committee. I want to stress that this problem is urgent. This sub-committee will have the round-table conference to work on. The report of that conference is a masterpiece as far as the industry is concerned; it represents the views of the Department, the unions, the industry; it has gone into the matter thoroughly, and it will not be necessary to spend months on new investigations because they have a ready-made report on which to work; there is no need for delay; quick decisions are demanded.

I want to come back to the American South African Investment Trust Company for a moment and I want to repeat that we sacrificed R6,600,000 in taxation to get R20,000,000 in foreign currency. I want to repeat that an increase—and I think it is an underestimate— of 25c in cost will jeopardize R287,500,000 in gold, as the Minister has stated, and that gold is convertible to any currency. And I also want to remind you again, Mr. Speaker, that the estimated cost of the concessions to the gold-mining industry this year amount to R200,000.

The Minister says that it is a problem and not an easy one. I admit that it is not easy, but it is certainly not insuperable. But we have got to remember that the heads of the gold-mining industry have stated publicly—they have no axe to grind in this; they are working in the interest of the country as well of the industry—that the production of gold will start to dwindle from 1971. We therefore find ourselves in the position, as was mentioned by the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) that, unless we can replace our gold-mining industry by other industries in due course, our future is certainly bleak. Owing to the policies of this Government, our natural markets, the countries to the north of us, are now closed to us, and because of that we have to nurse our gold-mining industry to the limit. I want to remind the Minister of one thing: When the Steyn Commission was appointed to go into the Income Tax Act some years ago, the commission was told by the late Mr. Havenga, the then Minister of Finance, that they were not to give any consideration to taxation on the gold-mining industry, as he intended to have a special investigation into that to see what should be done. I can remember that in 1932, when there was a big increase in the price of gold, debates were held and arguments were used in regard to the new method of taxation that was brought in by the late Mr. Havenga—the new method of taxation for gold mines. The formula as it was then encouraged the mining of low-grade ore; the lower the grade of ore, the lower the rate of taxation. In my opinion, in spite of much having been said against it, that was a sound principle. But it is 30 years ago since we went off gold in 1932, and much has happened. The importance of the industry to the country has not dwindled, and it has become more necessary than ever at this stage to look after it. Thirty years is a long time, and something has got to be done urgently. The hon. Minister has made certain concessions in his Budget in regard to prospecting expenses and deep-level costs, but I repeat that they are niggardly. There is no shadow of doubt that if the rates on mining taxation are eased, that will be a far better inducement for people to spend money on prospecting than simply to say that all the prospecting costs are chargeable under certain conditions, in this manner and the other manner. You do not prospect just for the sake of prospecting. You prospect with the idea of finding a proposition that will give a profit later, and the question of taxation on the profit you make subsequently counts more with you than an allowance in respect of taxation on the immediate prospecting costs.

I hope that the hon. Minister will listen to this plea of mine. It is a plea. I deliberately chose the American South African Investment Trust Company to show how things can go wrong. It was brought in in all fairness, after due consideration. We did not think the proposal would work, and we said so, and it did not work. I brought this up to show that it does not make sense to encourage people to bring money into the country on conditions like that when you will not go flat out to encourage the industry which produces gold, which, after all, is the complete backbone of your economy. I ask the Minister, too, to extend the duties of this Cabinet sub-committee beyond the question of investigating the cost of low-grade mines, to include an investigation of the system and methods of taxation on the gold-mining industry. I must support the amendment.

When the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) started the financial debate this afternoon, a great sigh of relief arose from the members of the United Party. I have never realized how popular the financial speakers on this side of the House have been since last Monday because, since the hon. the Minister of Justice replied to the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker), we have been approached repeatedly to try and get us to participate in the financial debate. It was a great relief to the United Party when we brought the debate into the financial sphere, but I hope it will be a lesson to the United Party not to depart from the traditional, established practice of confining ourselves to purely financial matters on the first day of the Budget debate.

Who departed from that practice?

Hon. members wanted to set a trap for us last Monday. They thought that if the hon. member for Springs seconded the amendment and spoke about Poqo, we would reply to him by putting up one of our financial speakers. We are too experienced in politics to fall into such an obvious trap, and I hope that this action of the United Party will be a sound lesson to them.

In connection with what the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) said, I must say that he hopped from one branch to another like a cock robin, pecked here and fluttered there and raised so many matters that, with the best will in the world, in the time at my disposal I will not be able to deal with all the points that he raised. Other speakers opposite also branded this Budget as a “haphazard Budget” and as “patch-work”, and the hon. member for Benoni spoke about “niggardly concessions to taxpayers I will come to this later. I do not know whether I understood him correctly, but it appeared to me that he was asking for a further increase in pensions. May I remind the hon. member that since the present Minister of Finance took over this portfolio he has made an additional amount of more than R 17,000,000 available for pensions per annum. I believe that the hon. the Minister has done more for pensions than any other Minister before him.

We are, of course, just as concerned as the hon. member about the marginal mines. We, who are the representatives of the Witwatersrand, know what a serious problem this is. I do not think that it will be worth while to carry on a debate on this point, in view of the fact that the hon. the Minister stated in his Budget speech that a special committee was going to be entrusted with the task of investigating this important matter. I cannot at all agree with the hon. member in his criticism of the concessions made in respect of prospecting for mines. As has been announced everywhere in the Press, this concession has been very well received. It is precisely in this sphere that we must stimulate the development of the industry—the sphere of further prospecting.

I want to start by saying that the criticism that we have experienced from the United Party thus far both in the House, as well as through the medium of statements which they have made, has clearly indicated that the United Party do not have the interests of our general economy at heart, but are still striving to gain some small political advantage. I cannot get away from this impression. This was the case in the past, and it has again been apparent. May I remind you that not so very long ago—in March 1961—our reserves reached a new low. The reserves then stood at about R170,000,000, a considerable amount of which consisted of short-term loans. The position was very critical indeed. This amount was scarcely adequate to cover imports for one month. Because of that critical position we had to resort to drastic measures and, on 16 June 1961, the hon. the Minister introduced his currency control measures. The reaction of the United Party immediately we discussed the Appropriation Bill in June 1961 was to protest vociferously against these measures and, like prophets of doom, they predicted that this would be the end of our economic upsurge in South Africa.

Even after this, when the hon. the Minister gave us some relief in this regard, they were still not satisfied, and they still adopt the viewpoint to-day that these measures must be removed completely, when, so they say, capital will flow into the country. The policy that the Government followed was a sound policy which contributed in no small way towards creating stability, but in their view these measures should be suspended for a doubtful and imaginary profit, and they want to subject our entire economy to the whims of international politics and to the advantage of the speculator. The interests of our whole country, as far as economy is concerned, must be sacrificed for a small amount of doubtful popularity which may perhaps be gained abroad in this regard. That is why I say that their criticism is not aimed at the promotion of our national economy, but at temporary political profit.

Let me mention another example. Since 1948 we have followed the deliberate policy of financing Loan Account from Revenue. I will come back to this shortly, because this is one of the important points of criticism on the part of the United Party. They have consistently accused us of putting our hands deep into the pockets of the taxpayers and of overtaxing the people. A letter recently appeared in the Argus from a person who asked—

With undoubted pleasure the Argus then supplied the full list—astronomical figures. I did not have an adding machine with me so I could not add up the surpluses budgeted for and the actual surpluses from 1948 to 1962. I say that we make no apology for the policy that we have followed because we know that in this way we have made our economy very sound indeed and we know that the electorate certainly support that policy because in the successive elections which have taken place since 1948, we have won with steadily increasing majorities. The public realizes that through our efforts we have made ourselves less dependent upon foreign capital. That is what the United Party does not want. I do not say that we have become completely independent of foreign capital but we have become less dependent upon it. To my mind, however, there is an even more important aspect in this regard and that is the fact that by this policy which we have followed over the years, we have made ourselves less dependent upon foreign capital and we are now enjoying the fruits of this policy. We can imagine the tremendous pressure that would be brought to bear upon us in the financial sphere under the present world conditions of hostility towards South Africa if we owed vast sums of money to foreign countries. I say that this policy was a very far-sighted policy and if we had not followed this policy we would perhaps have run the risk of having one of our strongest assets, our sound economy, destroyed. We are in the fortunate position today where we can cover all our foreign debts with less than four months’ gold production and our national debt is only R175 per capita in comparison with R964 in America. But we are also enjoying the fruits of that policy because of what the hon. the Minister did this year of partially financing the Defence programme from Loan Account, as well as part of the Bantu development programme which is justified as a result of the enormous amounts which were made available to Loan Account from Revenue in the past. I say that this year we are plucking the fruits of this policy. I do not think that I am going too far when I say that the hon. the Minister could perhaps have taken a far larger amount from Loan Account for the local manufacture of arms. But we still have the criticism of the United Party that this policy is one of over-taxation. The important aim that we set ourselves—of protecting ourselves for the future and making ourselves less dependent on foreign capital and saving the interest on the very big loans—is completely rejected by them and their criticism is overtaxation and once more taxation. This is only aimed at one thing—to try to collect a few votes by means of this criticism. Can you blame me if I come to the conclusion that their criticism is not aimed at the promotion of our economy but that it is aimed at petty party political gain?

I want now to make a few remarks about the accusations that were hurled at us in the statement which they issued after the Budget—the statement in regard to underestimating and the resultant over-taxation. In this case it was of course aimed at the surplus of R28,000,000. When I listen to them, I cannot but be strongly impressed by the fact that my hon. friends on the other side are very disappointed that we have had a surplus. They would have rejoiced if there had been a deficit, but the fact that we have a surplus sticks in their crop. And what is their reaction to it? In their official criticism which they have announced to the world they state—

hear, hear!

Then the hon. member still says “Hear, hear!” Let us see whether he will still say “Hear, hear!” when we go further. Apart from increased allowances to pensioners costing R4,700,000, the repayment of the loan levy of 1958-9 costing R 19,900,000, the reduction in taxation costing R 13,600,000 and the increase in the salaries of public servants and the Railway officials amounting to R31,000,000, the United Party still want the difference between the reduction in taxation of R13,600,000 and the surplus of R28,000,000, an amount of no less than R 14,400,000, to be spent, and this we must do in the light of reports that we read in the Financial Times in which it is stated most clearly that we must also combat inflation here—

It appears to me that notwithstanding the fact that we are more prone to inflation than perhaps any other country because of our gold-mining industry, hon. members still do not appreciate the dangers of inflation because over and above all these concessions that I have mentioned, still to advocate the expenditure of R 14,400,000 and say that this is a sound financial policy is something we cannot understand.

But where is this leading to? It is the same old idea; not the economy as a whole or the national economy as a whole, but that petty political gain that they may perhaps derive in this way by getting the vote of persons like the person who wrote here under the pseudonym of “Fleeced”—by means of criticism of this nature. In their statement they do not state this clearly. They hide their purpose with these words—

And then we have the statement from the great propagandist of the United Party who has suddenly emerged as the financial critic of the party in the article that he wrote last Friday evening the in Argus, “Patchwork Budget”, which ends with the words that this whole amount of R28,000,000 should be spent. Propaganda, yes, for petty political gain, but that is certainly not the financial policy for a sound economy. I think that this was adequately replied to by the financial editor of the Argus, the article which was quoted by my colleague, in which he stated most clearly that the Minister was accused of not having gone far enough but that in his view (the editor’s) the Minister was going too far because later we might have to deal with inflationary tendencies during the year; and he based that argument on one point—the possible shortage of skilled labour and technicians and managers. I want to associate myself with that criticism and I also want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Paarl (Mr.W. C. Malan) said. I think that it will be the task, particularly of our universities, to see to this. It is not necessary for me to emphasize this point. Dr. Meyer, the chairman of the National Development Foundation, has repeatedly mentioned the figures of people who are still required in our industries. But our universities must establish commercial courses that are of a more practical nature and less academic. Not that I object to theoretical training because it is necessary, but there must be something more skilled on the lines of the Harvard Business School where a large and important part of the training of those managers of the future in the industrial and financial world is practical training. I associate myself completely in that respect with the leading article in the latest issue of Volkshandel in which this particular point is emphasized. Whether the Central Government can do anything in this direction I do not know, but I believe that if there is one direction in which we in South Africa must develop in order to maintain the rate of our development and in order to adequately absorb the increase in our population in our economy, it is that from now on we have to give the closest attention to the training of technicians and artisans, but particularly to the training of capable managers who will have to perform this necessary task in our country in future.

But notwithstanding this sound view of the financial editor of the Argus, the United Party still advocates, over and above all the concessions that have been made, all of which I have not even mentioned, further spending of R 14,400,000. Where this will stop I do not know, but the people of South Africa do not allow their votes to be bought. The people of South Africa are obsessed with one thing and that is their survival in this country and the defence of our White civilization. This is the test which they set in respect of any party and the United Party will not win one seat from us by means of this cheap propaganda.

I want now to go a little further in regard to the so-called underestimating of Revenue. I must do so because one gains the impression that when the United Party talks about the underestimating of Revenue, they have a suspicion at the back of their mind that everything is not above board and that by this means we are doing nothing else but taking money out of the pockets of the taxpayers. That is why we must reply to these points, because that is not so. In his reply to the little budget, the hon. the Minister pointed out—and my hon. friend repeated it this afternoon—that if mention is made of underestimating as far as the Budget is concerned, then the United Party were actually master underestimators when they were in power. I do not want to take this argument any further. I just want to go further with this underestimate which has so far produced a surplus of R28,000,000.

We must remember that we still had a period of uncertainty in the business world last year. A rate of growth of 4 per cent was allowed for and I do not think that this was in any way unreasonable. In last year’s Budget, revenue amounted to R769,000,000, and revenue of R797,000,000 was estimated for the year 1962-3. But in reality there was a stronger upsurge in the property market, more motor vehicles were assembled and placed on the market and the profits of companies increased considerably. These factors all contributed to the fact that there was an underestimate but the United Party do not take these facts into consideration. They simply want to create the impression outside that we have no system and that we deliberately try to underestimate in order by so doing to pull a rabbit out of a hat when the Budget comes round and so that we can show a very big surplus.

We now come to the next aspect in regard to which the United Party states that the Minister should have made larger concessions last year. The chief propagandist of the United Party says in the article that I have already mentioned—

He goes on to say—and the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) also supports this view—

It will certainly be a fateful day for us if we accept any suggestion from the United Party in regard to our economy. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) goes on to say—

They find a strong point of agreement in the criticism of the hon. the Minister expressed by the Economic Planning Council in August of last year and they say—

That is their point of contact and then they say in the introduction of their published criticism that the hon. the Minister took no notice of the Planning Council and increased certain taxes last year. The hon. the Minister made it very clear in the face of that criticism of the Planning Council why he did not make any tax concessions last year. This runs from page 10 to page 12 and up to page 15. I cannot deal with it here in the short time at my disposal but the Minister pointed out that the loan levy had to be repaid and that there would be a tax-free period on the introduction of the P.A.Y.E. system. But apart from the fact that the hon. the Minister mentioned, we still have the following facts. There can be no doubt that personal incomes increased last year. Statistics prove this. In 1959 personal income amounted to R3,928,000,000. In 1960 it amounted to R4,138,000,000. In 1961 it amounted to R4,298,000,000 and in 1962 it amounted to R4,630,000,000. Personal income has risen year after year but now we have a most important fact, and that is that personal consumption has not risen but has fallen. In the Budget the hon. the Minister states clearly that “it is estimated that the real consumption per head in 1962 was not higher than in 1959 for the whole population”. Only now have we again reached that stage. Personal consumption has not increased but income has increased.

The other aspect in this connection that we must mention is the fact that more was saved in that period. Savings increased. In 1960 savings amounted to R263,000,000; in 1961 to R454,000,000 and in 1962 to R598,000,000. In other words, income went into savings and not into consumption. What reason have we for assuming that if the hon. the Minister had made tax concessions last year, as the United Party suggested, those concessions would also not have gone into savings? If the hon. the Minister had made concessions amounting to R28,000,000 last year, it should be obvious that he would not be able to do the same thing again this year. But now comes the point that the Opposition cannot see and that is that where he is making concessions this year they have this effect that at the moment there is a more optimistic spirit generally and therefore the tax relief this year is being given at a more suitable time. There is an increase in consumption at this stage. If I may be permitted to use a metaphor of the hon. the Minister, I would like to say that this little seed of personal consumption that has now started to germinate would not have been there if he had made these tax concessions last year. Personal consumption increased from R3,606,000,000 in 1961 to R3,812,000,000 in 1962, and it is therefore to be understood, based on these facts of the increase in consumption, that the concessions which have been made this year will stimulate consumption, as was the aim of the hon. the Minister with this Budget. The United Party was completely wrong in saying that the hon. the Minister should have made these tax concessions last year. This would have had a fatal result and it would not have had the effect that we envisaged of generally boosting our economy.

We must also not forget that we had a great deal of unemployment last year and that this was a factor which caused the population as a whole to save more than they consumed. But the unemployment problem has been solved by means of greater production and greater investments and to-day—and we are grateful for it—we are experiencing a period of full employment. It is for this reason that I say that psychologically the right time to come along with tax concessions is this year and it would have been completely wrong to have made these concessions last year.

I can mention another factor to prove this point. An important reason for the slow rate of investment was that we had over-capacity last year. We dealt with this last year in the Budget. But all the indications are that that over-capacity is now disappearing. But the slowness of investment—and I want to direct this particularly to the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje)—is certainly not due to poor profit yields. Capital income increased from 40.4 per cent in 1958-9 to 42.4 in 1962. Generally speaking we are not opposed to profits, but the question arises as to whether one cannot make the best contribution towards increased consumption in the private sector by lowering profit margins which in its turn will ensure greater consumption, increased production, more investment and eventually larger profits.

I come now to the next point of criticism of the United Party. The hon. member for Constantia emphasized this point very strongly. It is that we made no concessions in respect of mining taxation this year, and the hon. member said that if we wanted to stimulate our economic growth which would increase consumption, we should have lowered mining taxation. Let me point out in the first place that there is no question of there being any lack of profits in regard to companies. The facts prove this. Commercial manufacturing profits increased by 6.1 per cent in the short period of one year and if one takes manufacturing profits alone, there was an increase of 7.8 per cent. The profits on food products rose by 30 per cent, by 29 per cent in regard to clothing and textiles and by 13 per cent in regard to paper and packaging. But what is of importance to remember is that the profits of companies distributed by means of dividends go chiefly to the richer section of the population, and if one increases their income by means of higher dividends and reduced taxation, one does not succeed in stimulating consumption at all. It is clear therefore that this plea of the United Party that at this stage we should have reduced mining taxation would not at all have had the effect of stimulating consumption. They said that we should stimulate it more. The headlines in their newspapers were: “To little, too late”. But as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) has already indicated, in choosing the third of the three directions we could follow which are powerful injections, less powerful injections, and perhaps a little less injection still, we have done so because we realize that in a country like South Africa we must be continually on our guard against the dangers of inflation. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, 1963 will probably be recorded in the history of South Africa as the year in which this Government presented its best and finest Budget but it will also go down in the annals of our history as the year of the greatest stampede in the history of the United Party. It is tragic that the hon. member for Benoni should stand up each time to plead for the marginal mines. All of us who know the Witwatersrand are concerned about the closing of the marginal mines but I want to put this question to the hon. member in all seriousness. Has he been successful in achieving anything in his parliamentary career up to the present by carrying on a debate across the floor of this House? Has much more not been done for the marginal mines on the East Rand or the Witwatersrand by means of negotiations with the Minister? [Interjection.] Let us leave this matter, which is a serious matter, in the hands of the Cabinet. Let us leave it in the hands of the hon. the Minister of Mines and the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs in co-operation with the Cabinet. I am convinced of the fact that neither the hon. member for Benoni nor I will be disappointed at the results achieved. But we will not achieve anything in this way. We are only sowing suspicion and we are only making our own people in our own constituency despondent and causing distrust by making a political football of the marginal mines. We are grateful to the hon. the Minister of Finance for the concessions that he has made regarding propecting. We are grateful for the concessions that he has made with regard to deep-level mining. We appreciate the value of it because we who represent the Witwatersrand and who are dependent upon the mines know what the value of deep-level mining is, and we are convinced that research has never been done in this connection. We hope and trust that research will be done into deep-level mining and that we will very soon enjoy the benefits of that research. But there is another matter that worries me much more. We find that mines are closing down in the Witwatersrand-Pretoria-Vereeniging complex to-day. There is another important matter that worries me. We find that a far greater problem has arisen in that area and that is the tremendous Black stream that has flowed to our cities. When we look at the census of 1960, we find that the influx of Natives into that area has increased to such an extent that to-day there are 1,115,000 Natives in our cities. We find that the vast majority of these non-Whites are concentrated in this complex. When we notice that some mines are closing down, we ask ourselves why the Natives are not removed from that area. These Natives are in our White area to-day because of the implementation of the policy of National Party Government, to give them better housing and better health services. The result is that they are attracted to our industrial complex to a very large extent.

Is that a good thing?

It is certainly a very good thing to stimulate our industry but it holds a very great danger for the future of our country, the future of White South Africa, and that is why I want to raise this matter very earnestly to-day. Sneering references have been made here to-day to the Western Cape, from which we are removing the Natives but I want to ask that the test and the methods that are applied here in the Western Cape should also be applied in the Witwatersand complex. The Western Cape has set us an example how to keep South Africa White but we cannot keep South Africa White if we do not have the co-operation of all the bodies concerned. I want to ask to-day that the Government should give us that co-operation. Since we have that large concentration of non-Whites on the Witwatersrand, we cannot expect them to be removed systematically to the Bantu homelands, nor can we expect them all to be removed to the border areas, and I want to ask to-day that that Black stream which is flowing so strongly to our cities to-day should be halted and that these Bantu should be returned to their homelands. The solution that I want to suggest to solve this problem….

Have you a solution?

Yes, we have a solution to every problem in this country and the solution that I want to suggest is this: We find that all our State institutions and semi-State institutions are in Pretoria which is our administrative capital. We have the Police College there; we have our Army Headquarters there; we have all the various State Departments there. We cannot expect only the East Rand or the West Rand or the Witwatersrand or the Port Elizabeth complex or Durban or the Western Cape to make the sacrifices which are called for in terms of our policy to establish industries in the border areas. I am in favour of the proposition that industries which use only Native labour should be moved to the border areas, but I also want to ask the Government to-day not to concentrate all the State institutions at Pretoria. I want to ask the Government to take the lead in moving some of those State institutions to our smaller towns. Why, for example, should the Police College and Police Headquarters not be established at Brakpan?

What about Parliament?

As far as Parliament is concerned I want to make myself very clear. One does not change one’s family doctor or attorney or bank every day and the same thing holds good for Parliament. Cape Town is our mother city and Cape Town has conducted herself with dignity. One does not discard one’s mother every day, and as far as I am concerned Parliament can stay in Cape Town indefinitely. But I want to go further: If Parliament does remain here, a better attitude should be adopted towards us as members of Parliament by the Cape Town City Council. I come back to my plea that the State Departments should not all be concentrated in Pretoria. Why should all the State Departments be in the Pretoria complex? Why should the Meat Board be in Pretoria? Why should the Meat Board not be established in Pietersburg or Vryburg?

Or at Upington.

Why should it not be established at Upington? Why should the Banana Board be in Pretoria? Why should it not be established at Nelspruit?

In Natal.

Yes, as far as I am concerned Natal can have the Banana Board. Hon. members on the other side are merely trying to make political capital out of this matter once again. The matter that I am advocating to-day is a very serious one. When we think of decentralization, we should also consider the question of decentralization of our White population; we must not group them all together. Pretoria is the only city in the Republic today where there are more Whites than non-Whites and we wish Pretoria good luck, but the State is our largest employer to-day and the largest lessee of fixed property. Why should one city derive all those benefits? Mr. Speaker, we are all prepared to make the necessary sacrifices but then I want to ask the Government to reassure the people of the East Rand and the West Rand by saying: “If you have a majority of non-Whites in your constituency, we as the State are prepared to cooperate to turn the flow of Natives back to the non-White areas.” But then we ask the State to ensure that it is not those taxpayers alone who are asked to make sacrifices; those sacrifices should be shared by everyone. If we can apply a policy of this nature throughout the whole country I am convinced that we will be in a better position in this country. We must all co-operate in returning the non-Whites to their homelands. We will then be a very happy country. [Interjection.] This is a very serious matter; it is not a matter that the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) and I can resolve across the floor of the House. It is a matter that can only be tackled by people who can think clearly, people who are able to consider this matter, people who are prepared to make a study of it, and here we want to tell the Western Cape that they have taken the lead in this matter. I want to tell the North that they should not be mere spectators in regard to this matter. If we do not turn this stream of non-Whites back to the reserves, back to their homelands, it will mean the ruin of the White man in this country. We must make a start somewhere and that start must be made on the Witwatersrand because that is where we have the largest concentration of non-Whites. I ask the State to make those sacrifices with us and to make its contribution in this regard.

The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) who has just sat down is concerned with the Black stream of Natives who are coming into the towns in larger and larger numbers. I would like to remind the hon. member that they are there to provide the labour for the mines and for industry and that without their labour in the Western Province, from which it is the policy of the Government to remove the Natives, industry would come to a standstill. Would he wish that to happen in South Africa?

The most striking feature of the hon. the Minister’s Budget is the tremendous increase in expenditure on armaments. The expenditure on armaments now totals R157,000,000. While the policy of this Government to-day is to meet brute force with brute force, the threat to the country and to the Government is not only brute force; in fact, the most dangerous threat of all may not be physical attack from abroad but invisible ideologies inside the country acting on the state of mind of the people of South Africa. That danger is increased through ignorance and through lack of education and with consequent lack of judgment coupled with bitter feelings, which produce hotbeds ripe for extremist propaganda, which is directed not only against the present Government but against all the Europeans in this country. History has demonstrated that guns cannot stop thoughts. They can admittedly suppress physical violence, but the root causes of unhappiness and dissatisfaction and embittered thinking cannot be touched by bullets. What we need is a Government that will not only look after our physical welfare but will also recognize that education is the only means by which the masses can be lifted out of their ignorance and by which they can also achieve higher standards of living and better conditions for coming generations. Through such education the influence of agitators and troublemakers could be eliminated. But better education is not only a crying need for the non-European; it is also the cornerstone as far as the future of the European population in South Africa is concerned. Sir, there is no division on this issue. We have heard the hon. member for Mayfair (Dr. H. G. Luttig) and the hon. member for Paarl (Mr. W. C. Malan) pleading for betterment in various aspects of secondary and university education, and yet the hon. Minister of Finance in his gardening Budget last week, with great adroitness, conjured up the analogy of a peaceful garden. But a careful observer will recognize that the blooms in his garden are merely red herrings, and they include that hardy annual the “surplus”. The Minister is a magician; he turns the red herrings into blooms and behind this peaceful picture of a flowery garden are camouflaged guns and other armaments, which represent the most important item in this Budget. The amount of money devoted to education in this Budget is dwarfed by this huge sum earmarked for armaments. Sir, I sometimes feel that the hon. the Minister looks on science and technology as a rose garden, a rose garden in which a bloom appears here and there with very little effort on his part. May I remind him that science is not a garden of roses; it is a kind of fertilizer that you have to put into the ground in order to make things grow and if the Government is not prepared to spend more money on this fertilizer the garden will not grow, and if production should fall behind in South Africa, then the lack of scientific work would be one of the main causes.

Sir, in these historic times in which we live, we also live in a revolutionary era, and we have in our hands powerful means for mass dissemination of knowledge. By that I do not mean the sort of superficial propaganda conducted by a former rugby expert. These powers for fast communication and mass production can and should be used for enlightenment and for raising the standard of living for all sections of the community and education should be given generous funds to achieve this end because armaments are only temporary necessities. Armaments cannot develop minds; armaments cannot improve relations between countries and between social sections, and armaments cannot in the long run save the State, while education can. The Minister’s Budget demonstrates to my mind the shortsightedness of the present Government in spending the country’s hard-earned financial resources on armaments and giving only a pittance to education. It seems to me that the South African Government becomes, if I may use an American slang expression, suckers of the world’s armaments firms. The only comparable attitude that I can quote is that of the new British leader of the Labour Party because he is naive enough to think that South African armaments can be stopped by boycotts. The poor man has not learned at university or later on in life that the armaments industry is a ruthless machine. Not all the armies and navy and air force of France was able to prevent armaments from reaching Algeria, and when the armaments dealers of the world pick on a victim, these vultures of death pick their bones and armament firms are nourished by strife; they promote strife. The issue is not guns or butter. The issue is guns or education and a united South African nation. While the defence of the State is a duty of the Government, expenditure on such defence can be justified, but expenditure on education must be increased. I would like to say to the hon. the Minister that we have very grave problems facing us here in South Africa, and in higher education the Government has barred the non-Europeans from White universities. If the Bantu are going to develop under the Government’s policy in their own homelands, then the first requisites are trained medical experts, a trained judiciary, trained engineers, trained scientists and technicians. And who can train this group of Bantu? Where are the teachers? They have to be trained also. Where are the institutes for this training and where is the money that is needed for such teaching? There is only the slightest sign in this Budget of a hesitant advance forward in Bantu education that was mentioned earlier by the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson).

To-day there is a universal need for better education, for better productivity, for better human relations, and we have to face the fact that in this modern nuclear age, this age of automation, we are up against competition in industrial production in which the former advantage that we had of abundant, cheap labour is lost or may be lost in many instances as they turn more and more to automation. We know that Russia and the U.S.A. have a vast potential of population on which to draw for their needs, while in South Africa we have only 3,000,000 from which to draw. However able our European population may be, we have to realize that not only is our scientific and technical education poorer than that of the U.S.A. or Russia or Britain or Europe, but the smaller number of our European population in South Africa makes our position even worse. On the basis of higher education, the conclusion must be that there is an urgent need for reorganization of our higher educational system. The limited space for higher education in our eight universities is lowered by the wastage of over 50 per cent at the Witwatersrand University as far as first-and second-year students are concerned; it is further lowered by a 95 per cent failure rate in chemistry at the Natal University in the first year, and an over 70 per cent failure rate in engineering of all types at that same university. All this leads to the type of situation that has developed over the Orange River Development Scheme where we have advertised for engineers in South Africa, and the Minister himself in a reply to a question of mine last week said that they were waiting to see what the response is going to be to those advertisements. Sir, we have here the reason for this wastage. The reasons are to be found in the low standard of science training in our Afrikaans-medium and English-medium schools. We have to organize special classes in science teaching at high schools; we have to attract fully qualified teachers; we have to import such teachers, if necessary; we have to pay special salaries to science and mathematics teachers and centralize science training in special science institutes and colleges for special students taught by special teachers. Sir, Canada has been doing this since 1928, and we could well follow Canada’s example. By doing this we would bring together the ablest students under the ablest science teachers, and furthermore I suggest that such special science colleges should have both English-and Afrikaans-speaking students and a mixed staff of Afrikaans-and English-speaking teachers, because this is the unity of science. In university training scientists should be awarded post-graduate research fellowships in special research foundations, headed by research professors who will be free from the responsibilities of administration and available only for lectures. In these research institutes that I advocate, those of us who have been in touch with universities all over the world, with the universities of the U.S.A., of Britain and France, know that much of the development of the students takes place through the exchange of ideas, through sharing quarters, through sharing hostels and sharing in community of life. They learn as much from each other that way as they learn from lectures from their professors. In South Africa we have until now been separating the youth into language and political camps. We should now reverse this policy and concentrate on education, because we cannot splinter our economic resources by separating the two groups. It must be considered that scientific efficiency in South Africa is not only needed in our industries; it is needed for our national safety to-day. We also depend on highly trained men and women in our defence organization, and therefore an appropriate amount should be allocated in the Defence Budget to higher scientific and technological training. Sir, South Africa’s greatest asset is the talent of its youth. This is an asset which is as great as any of our natural resources. In fact the country’s natural resources cannot be exploited without training talented youth in science and technology, yet this Budget as well as the Government’s planning shows little signs of appreciating this important issue. The organization in Britain for Economic Co-operation and Development says—

In view of the fact that all these arguments have been accepted by spokesmen on the Government side of the House, it is difficult to understand why the hon. the Minister fails to face this issue of national importance. Sir, I have here a leading article which appeared in the Transvaler last year and it says this—

At the annual meeting of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in Bloemfontein last year, Professor C. B. van Wyk said—

I feel that these are reasonable arguments. The total sum which is allocated in this Budget for Government financial assistance to universities including bursaries is only R 11,000,000. The grand total of the revenue of the White universities is about R14,000,000, including the financial assistance which the universities receive from the Government. The Government’s argument in past debates in this House has been that they contribute a higher percentage towards universities than is done by countries such as Britain which contributes only 70 per cent whereas we contribute 73 per cent. But whatever the percentage may be this money is insufficient for the purpose of mobilizing and training all the available talent for university education, thereby providing more men and women for much-needed scientific and technological research. Sir, we have about 37,000 university students, and taking R800 per head per annum as the cost of maintaining students at the university we arrive at a round figure of R30,000,000 which is spent by the students and their parents on university education, and yet the Government’s allocation for bursaries to students is R110,000; that is all. This contribution amounts to one-third of 1 per cent. In other words, the Government flatly refuses to help financially except for this very small measure of assistance. Sir, if I may say so with respect, this close-fisted hard-hearted, short-sighted attitude is especially damaging to the talented children of many of the parents and classes from whom this Government derives its strongest support, and it is time perhaps that the Nationalist university students and their parents realized how badly they are treated by this Government in the way of bursaries. One can compare this attitude with the attitude of Australia. In 1937 Australia had a commission appointed and this commission advocated a twelve-fold increase in subsidies and in the money spent on education at universities. This was accepted immediately by the Australian Government. A quick approximate estimate which the Government should give in the form of bursaries to help and to encourage students will be gauged from the following: Assuming that about R4,000,000 is wasted annually of this R30,000,000 which I have mentioned on first and second year failures, you get a figure of R26,000,000; and assuming that at least one-quarter of the remaining students need financial support, it brings us to the sum of R6,500,000; if industry is to come in equally with the Government to share in this, it will mean that the Minister will have to provide for R3,000,000 in his Budget.

Last year when we had a debate in this House the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), in a private motion debate, stressed the need for scientific and technological higher education. He pointed out many well-known facts, amongst others, that the community had to bear the financial burden. This is precisely my point. The extra burden of providing the future leaders of this country has to be borne by the community and by this Government. We cannot see this reflected at all in this Budget before us. We all agree that university training, and the full use of all the talent of our 3,000,000 White people, is the most important national requisite for maintaining and improving the standard of all sections of the population, European and non-European. The training of trained scientists and technologists is a national service and the cost should be shared by the whole nation. The hon. Minister knows that in Defence the State trains and feeds and clothes the trainees, the State houses them and pays for their equipment. In other words, the taxpayers of the whole country share this cost. That is what I am asking the hon. the Minister to do in this regard. Finally, I should like to quote from what Dr. Professor Selye said at the University of Montreal. He said—

If we wish to be included in such an era, as we must, then I would ask the Government to step out of its granite age and provide the necessary money.

The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) confined herself in particular to the educational policy of the Minister of Finance. I thought that it was the Minister of Education, Arts and Science who was saddled with that particular task. I can very well understand that she also wanted to say something, which was not much, and that she consequently raised something in the main debate which she should raise when the various Votes come up for discussion. I suggest to her that she would have made a far greater impression had she said: “This University asked for so much and the Minister did not see his way clear to give it; he has cut the Budget of the university with so much”. The fact of the matter is that the State is also bound by the Budgets submitted by the universities. As an ex-university man I am the last person to say that the universities roll in money but when you make an allocation to a university you must also bear in mind what your expenses connected with universities are within the social services which the State as a whole provide. I think it is very important that the balance should be maintained there.

The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) spoke about the wastage which is supposed to be caused by the high percentage of failures. Is it the fault of the Minister of Finance that there are so many failures? Is it not perhaps the fault of the Administrators of the provinces which control secondary education and who deliver candidates to the universities who are unable to follow the university courses? Is it not also due to the fact that there are students at university who should not really be there? There is an important reason why there are so many failures in the natural science courses. It may be that the aptitude is lacking, but to blame the Minister of Finance for the high percentage of failures in chemistry at the various universities is not a fitting remark, and it ill-behoves the hon. member for Johannesburg (North).

She made great play of the fact that enough bursaries were not available to certain people. Does she want everyone who goes to a university or high school to be provided with a bursary? Does she want that? Why did she not suggest that?

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) should rather keep quiet. He can take part in the debate when he wants to. I want to put a question to the hon. member for Johannesburg (North). She completely ignores the fact that there is general prosperity in the country and that it is much easier to-day for parents to send their children to university because they are much more assured of their income as a result of the good Government which this country has. [Interjections.] When hon. members opposite hear a striking truth they try to laugh it away. Let me tell them this: To laugh sneeringly at the credit which is due to this Government will not detract from that credit in the eyes of the country.

May I ask a question? Does the hon. member think that the amount to be voted by this Government is sufficient to enable the children of the lower income groups to go to university?

I want to throw that question back at the hon. member. What is the amount in the Estimates for that purpose? He does not even know what that amount is.

How much is necessary?

The hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) has asked him the second question. How much is necessary? The universities themselves estimate what they require. I think if we ask the Secretary of Education and the Minister of Education they will be better able to answer those questions than I am because I have not had insight into the estimates of the various universities. As an ex-university man, however, I know that in respect of the university with which I was concerned, that was the last item which was cut by the various officials of the Department of Education. It may be that the University of the Witwatersrand which is entrusted to the special care of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) has made such extravagant demands that the Department of Education thought that that amount should be cut. I was waiting for the hon. member to say that the University of the Witwatersrand or the Pretoria University or any other university had asked for a certain amount and did not get it. Had she done that there would have been substance in her argument but merely to make a statement the way she did is absolutely devoid of substance.

The hon. member is not really concerned about the higher education of the Whites. She is really concerned about the education of the Bantu [Interjections.] Of course; She started her speech by referring to the Bantu and she ended it by referring to the Whites. I did not get the impression that she concluded on a climax; but I did get the impression when she started with the Bantu that that was something which she was more concerned about than that with which she concluded.

Let us just analyse the position in regard to Bantu education. As far as the primary schools are concerned—these are figures which come to my mind from previous debates; I have not had the opportunity of checking them because I did not think any hon. member would have the temerity to talk about this—there were 800,000 Bantu children at school when we took over. To-day that figure has been doubled viz. 1,600,000. We also achieve much more with the funds at our disposal than the previous regime was able to achieve. If that is not an achievement I should like to know what hon. members opposite regard as an achievement. The hon. member conveniently forgets about that. Why she forgets that I do not know unless it is perhaps that she hopes an obliging Press will publicize it overseas that we are neglecting that part of Bantu education so that we can better exploit our Black fellow citizens. I think it is a disgrace.

But let us go further. We have established three university colleges for our fellow Native citizens. She may hold those colleges in great contempt. I can assure her, however, that I know that she does not even know the people who work there. She does not know what their academic qualifications are. She does not knows what their academic achievements are. Like the rest of the United Party she has simply written them off as “tribal colleges”.

How many science courses do they offer?

Let me say this to the hon. member for Johannesburg (North): If she counts the number of Native students who attended the universities of Cape Town. Witwatersrand, Grahamstown and the Natal University three years ago she will find that there are twice as many students at the university colleges to-day than there were at the White Universities at that time. In other words, we are to-day providing higher education to twice the number of Native students who have a need for it than the former regime. Why? Because the Natives themselves, with a few exceptions, feel that they belong to these colleges; they are more their own. They make better progress there. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) asked me how many science students there were. Mr. Speaker, we are not mad; we do not lose sight of the needs of that national group. In the first instance those university colleges are staffed by lecturers on those subjects which the Bantu need most. Those are the facts of the matter and that is the policy of the colleges and of the Government in this respect. [Interjections.] The hon. member does not even know that we are discussing universities. It is a great pity, Sir, that there are some people in this House who are really never present although they are here in the flesh.

I want to repeat what I said for the education of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) namely that those university colleges which we have established for the Bantu provide more and better education to a greater number of students than when the doors of the White universities were open to them.

I am sorry that I have to be so harsh with the hon. member for Johannesburg (North). I want to return to her argument and her reproach that the number of failures in natural science courses, namely chemistry, was too high. If the Minister of Education were to enquire at the University of the Witwatersrand why the number of failures was so high, do you know what will happen, Sir? They will tell him that he is poking his nose into the affairs of an autonomous university. That is what they will say. They will say it is the thin end of the wedge; that he wants to interfere in their curriculum. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) will be the advocate for those universities. And not only those universities, Cape Town will also say that. And I imagine that the other universities will say the same; probably Pretoria and Potchefstroom as well. It is not the function of the Minister to lay down the syllabuses of the Universities. It would also be wrong of him to do so.

I want to leave the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) at that. Let her consult her conscience as to the propriety of her attack. I leave her to her conscience which will prick her in this respect.

The hon. members for Kensington (Mr. Moore) and Benoni (Mr. Ross) pleaded ardently for tax relief for the mines. They may have a case or they may not, but in order to place the matter in its right perspective I want to say this: We must distinguish between marginal mines and those mines which operate profitably. I do not even think they need refer to the marginal mines because the Cabinet has appointed a committee to investigate the question as to whether tax relief can be granted to those mines. The Government is already dealing with that. It ill becomes them, when we are already dealing with that, to say that we should do it now. I think the only reason why they have made that plea is so that they can claim the credit for themselves if the Government should one day decide to make a concession to those mines. I do not think, therefore, that this is a point about which we ought to argue. This is more particularly à propos the remarks made by the hon. member for Benoni.

The hon. member for Kensington pleaded ardently for general relief for the gold mines. What he omitted to do was to tell us what the taxation policy of this Government was in respect of mines. The taxation policy is this: Every new mine, before the State receives a penny in taxation, can, if it wants to, refund every cent of capital that has been invested to its shareholders. That is a great concession. Therefore if a mine is producing and it is on the point of paying dividends you must know that it has recouped all the capital it has invested. It ill behoves the hon. member for Kensington to suggest that the position of those mines is that they are simply being mulcted by the State and that the money which is invested in them is subject to a greater risk than money invested elsewhere. What is more, Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member omitted to tell us was that all the social services connected with the development of a new mine were already provided by the State. When I say that I know what I am talking about because I have a so-called new mine in my constituency. I think of housing; I think of water, light, electricity, etc., which are provided by the State. The House must realize that in the meantime the taxpayers as a whole have developed that area in which the mine is situated so as to make it habitable for the workers and so that the mine owners can operate successfully. Without labour he cannot do anything. All the services which are required where you have a great concentration of people are already financed by the taxpayers. The mines in the Free State are only now starting to pay taxes. That means that the State is only to-day getting something back of all the money it has spent on the development of those parts. It built railway lines, roads; it erected power stations; it provided water, and so forth.

I think it will be a good thing if those gentlemen who plead for the gold-mining industry bear these things in mind, and for the sake of their own plea reckon out for themselves how much the State has spent before they plead for certain concessions to those mines.

I just want to say something in general about the ghost towns. I do not quite follow where these ghost towns are; I do not know them. It is not really fitting that I should talk about this because my knowledge of the Witwatersrand is limited. It really falls more in the territory of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Bezuidenhout) who has already referred to it. I do know, however, that there are more labourers in industry to-day than in the mines. What is more, I know that industry absorbs many more workers to-day than the number who become unemployed on the mines. When you get that position you get industrial expansion and the town, as big as it, has already been financed. I want to say this to the House that when we are told by mayors and city councils in what a bad position they are, that should be taken with a pinch of salt for this reason: Every one of them wants to expand and he advances every argument he can think of to prove why he should receive special attention. You can never advance a better argument than the human argument. It is a very fine and human argument to say that the houses are there, they are empty, there is nobody to occupy them; it is going to become a ghost town like Dominion Reefs. That is the only ghost town that I know of. I know industrialists are already standing in a queue to occupy that town if they can only start an industry there which will be profitable. They are looking for it. We had the case where a number of businessmen wanted to extract petrol from mealies and Dominion Reefs was ready for them. But the Minister of Economic Affairs discovered that they wanted to start the industry on a basis which would not have been profitable to the State. That is the reason why Dominion Reefs remains a ghost town but that is the only ghost town that I know of. If it were argued that mine workers can only work in the mines and nowhere else I wish to draw attention to the fact that there is the prospect of new mines opening. It was only yesterday that I read the following report in the Vaderland—

I do not know why hon. members are concerned about employment for those people who can only work in that section of our industrial life.

This Budget is one of the best, one of the most conservative Budgets we have ever had. Why? Because the Minister is not a prophet and he has to be careful. Hon. members opposite who spoke on financial matters—unfortunately very few of them did—all said the same thing namely that the State took too much money from the taxpayer in the past and that its liquid funds in the banks were too high and that that was wrong. Because we had surpluses in the past they conclude that there will again be a surplus. When we look at the economic picture and make a prognosis the future is in any case very rosy. It is possible that, no matter how conservative the Minister has been in his estimates, he will again have a surplus. You must remember, however, Sir, that we are living in an uncertain world. If you think, for example, how America’s national debt is growing and what their unemployment figure is, if you think what the unemployment figure is in Britain, if you think what their tax problems are, it is very possible that if that country is not heading for a depression they are at least heading for a recession. The question that arises is what influence a depression in those parts of the world will have on our economy. Only a fool will maintain that it will not influence us at all. Nobody knows to what extent it will influence us but everybody knows that it will influence us. I think the Minister acted wisely when he only made a 5 per cent reduction in income tax and when he made other concessions and said: Let us see what happens. He was wise in being extremely conservative.

Mr. Speaker, I have disposed of the speech of the hon. member for Johannesburg (North). I pointed out that her criticism on the Budget as far as education was concerned was not justified; I pointed out that the plea made by those people who spoke on behalf of the gold-mining industry was incomplete and did not reflect the whole picture; I said that it would be wrong to paint a pessimistic picture of the ghost towns and in conclusion I maintained that it was very sound and right on the part of the Minister of Finance once again to have introduced a conservative Budget.

I agree with the hon. member for Mayfair (Dr. Luttig) who is not in the House at present, that it is difficult for hon. members opposite to criticize these Estimates. They dare not see the Estimates as a whole. That is why they are now concentrating on minor sub-divisions and carefully avoid dealing with the Estimates as a whole. Hon. members who spoke from this side of the House, such as the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, dealt quite effectively with the speakers who expressed their views on the Estimates, particularly in regard to the minor matters dealt with by hon. members opposite.

The country is grateful to the hon. the Minister of Finance for these Estimates. Since the Minister introduced the Estimates he has received many congratulations from all sides, and in the Press also. I think the hon. the Minister will be the last person who would state that a Budget could be completely perfect and to the satisfaction of all. No such thing exists. I should Like to congratulate the hon. the Minister for having managed in these Estimates, having regard to the forces ranged against South Africa at the present time, nevertheless to create so much confidence by means of these Estimates, to maintain the balance in the economy in this way, and to encroach in the various sectors (the private as well as the public sector) in such a way that everybody will agree that he has done the one and not neglected the other. It is a National Government that has so much confidence in the country and in the future of the White man that its Minister of Finance can think and plan and draft estimates for a concept of a greater South Africa. That is what the hon. the Minister has done, not only now, but during the past few sessions. He has budgeted for the concept of a greater South Africa. You will permit me to make only a few remarks. It has not always been so that a State has encroached upon the whole life of a country and a nation. That is a modern tendency. Nor has it always been the case that Estimates have been drawn with a view to the future. Indeed, not many years ago it was customary for a Budget to be a thing that fulfilled a certain basic function only, namely to budget for what the State for the time being required. It is really a modern development to do what this Government has done, namely not to think of the trivial things, but to consider the whole future and all the things in connection with a nation’s life, and to be prepared to encroach upon the national life at all levels. In this regard I should like to say also that it is this Government, and previous National Governments, that have felt themselves called upon to help in our country where it is necessary to give assistance, and also to stimulate where stimulation is needed.

If we refer back to the past few years, we find that it was this National Government and its predecessors who started to tackle such things as, e.g., pension schemes, the Reserve Bank, assistance to farmers, research and all those things that came its way. Years ago these things were not done by a State. But I should like to go further and say that it was National Governments, and this Government too, that stepped in in the socio-political sphere of national life, and also set afoot economic action, as it has done, to lead the country to self-sufficiency and absolute independence. If that were not so, many of the undertakings of which hon. members opposite are proud with us to-day, would not have been there. But to that I wish to add that it has been the United Party that throughout the years has constantly opposed the economic action as developed by the National Governments through the years, in connection with this whole concept. I should like to mention a few. I should like to mention Iscor and Sasol, and I should like to remind you of what happened in the course of this Session when the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) remarked that he did not agree at all that there should have been such a thing as Sasol. The hon. member actually argued against the existence thereof. But I should like to point out that all these great semi-State undertakings were born of this concept I have referred to, and all these semi-State undertakings are there as monuments, and now I should like to tell hon. members that if the Government had done in the past what the United Party had asked, where would the Republic of South Africa have been to-day? I want to go further; not only in respect of this matter of socio-economic action, but also in the sphere of socioeconomic planning, the Government has taken the lead; and then I shall mention quite a number of things. I refer, e.g., to housing, with the concomitant removal of Black spots, and the border area development with the concomitant development of Bantu areas. That also was action on a broad field that was essential. And there also we have to ask ourselves again: If the Government had not done it, and had not budgeted for this action, where would the Republic of South Africa have been to-day if we had not started it 15 years ago? I therefore wish to say that State finance in relation to national income is becoming increasingly important because the Budget in our country is to an increasing extent becoming a State financial and State economic instrument of policy, and the Minister of Finance has also used it as an instrument of policy in these Estimates. I should like to mention a few examples of how he did it. I should like to mention, e.g., that the hon. the Minister in his Budget is also assisting border area development by encouraging industrialists to establish themselves where it is in the national interest they should establish themselves, although their personal interests and their personal feelings were not adjusted to that at that stage. I should like to mention the example of where the Estimates have been drawn with a view to the development of Bantu homelands. I mention the example of how the Government has taken a hand in the flow of capital with its monetary and fiscal policy, for the very reason that it wishes to apply its policy there also. The White Paper before us indicates that also, because 39.2 per cent of the gross capital formation in the year 1962, has been formed with a view to the development of the semi-State undertakings. Now I should like to say that in order to achieve a national objective—and our national objective is the development of a greater South Africa—it is essential that we should have a basic policy, and that the basic policy should be given effect to the Estimates. I should like to say that our basic policy is twofold, and in this regard I differ from hon. members opposite where they apparently adopt the attitude that one merely budgets in order to see how things fit in financially for the time being. No, one considers how it will fit in as broad policy for the whole nation, and our broad policy that has also to be served by the Estimates, is in the first place, the permanent preservation of the White man in this country of ours, and in the second place, to achieve economic stability and independence as soon as possible. Now I should like to say furthermore, that within this basic policy, and also with this basic policy as limit, it is necessary that certain major aims of policy should be aspired to, and I should like to mention four instances of how that has been done and pursued. In the first place, I should like to mention that it has been within the policy of the National Governments to develop a pattern of greater economic development and independence. And because it has had such a policy, they could create a Sasol and a Foscor and all these undertakings within that policy. I wish to go further and say that because they have had a basic policy, they were able, as an adjunct to that, to create by means of selective tariff protection, import control and valuta control, a climate, and circumstances in which it was possible for the industries of the country to develop to independence. And I want to say further that because they have had such a basic policy, they also could develop Bantu homelands. May I refer here to what one of the hon. members opposite has said? The hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) stated here that as regards the Orange River scheme, they believe that the Orange scheme must come now and that it is a very ambitious scheme, but, the hon. member said, it must not be politically bound; the entire Orange scheme must be taken out like a Tennessee Valley Authority and then it will just have to take its course. I want to differ from him. I should like to mention this Orange scheme also as an example that should fit into a basic policy, and if it is the basic policy that so much will be spent to create a place here where the White man may develop, as announced also, then the Orange scheme should create a White homeland. That is why I repeat that with this Budget the hon. the Minister has managed to set up this aim and also to carry out that policy thus. For that also the country is grateful to him.

But in my opinion the country is also grateful to the hon. the Minister for something else, namely that he could pursue the objectives of a sound economy so well. For to pursue a sound economy, a balance should be found between three elements that are not always capable of being balanced. The one is stable prices, the other is maximum rate of growth, and the third is full employment. These three elements are not always reconcilable, but now I should like to say that the hon. the Minister has managed to do so in spite of the fact that particular elements were against him. It is very easy for any country to join in discussions on balance in the economy, but to try to maintain this balance in its economy as the Republic of South Africa has done, as regards these three elements, having regard to the circumstances that were against this Minister, and then to manage it the way he has done, speaks volumes. Now I should like to mention the next thing, namely that it has been the Republic of South Africa that has been singled out by hostile foreign countries to make things as difficult as they can be for it, and to interfere in its domestic matters, and to create a negative atmosphere, which has an influence upon the balance of economy. But apart from this threat from outside, we in South Africa have another very important factor against us that other countries do not have, and that is that the Republic of South Africa, as compared with other countries, has a non-White population comprising four-fifths of the total population, and who are in a very backward state, and who make demands upon the economy of South Africa that are far beyond the contributions made by themselves. It would have been a good comparison if America had also been in the position of having a non-White population of four times the present American population. It would then have been comparable. That is why I should like to make the point that the hon. the Minister not only has to cope with hostile foreign countries that wish to interfere, but also with this important factor which he has to take into account, but in spite of that he could maintain the balance. I should like to tell you further, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. the Minister in respect of this Budget, as in the previous ones, also had against him a hostile Press that tried to prevent internal and foreign capital to play a role in the development of the country. That is a further important factor he had against him. There has been reference in this House to-day from both sides, to the backlog we have in the executive sector and the scientific sector. I should also like to mention this as a very important factor, that South Africa, having regard to its total population, has to date had a very important shortage of executives and artisans, as well as of scientists and technologists. However, I should like to add to that that we are rapidly overtaking this backlog. But the Minister had to do one thing: he had to maintain a balance against all these factors, and I would say that no country in the world has managed to maintain such a balance. Indeed, there is no country in the world that has against it these factors that we have against us. That the Minister could balance the economy, as he has done, I think deserves the congratulations of our whole country.

Let me just tell you why I say the Minister has succeeded. Because, in the first place, he has a determined and strong Government; because he has a resourceful and purposeful people behind him; and because he could exploit the factors of production at his disposal in the interests of the country as he has done. I said at the outset that the hon. the Minister had a very difficult task to try and balance these various elements, and now I should like to refer to stability of prices. In the course of the debate we have had all kinds of speculative ideas from that side of the House in regard to stability, but I should like to state at once that in comparison with other comparable countries, the Republic of South Africa has managed to bring about greater stability in South Africa during the past years, in spite of all the talk on that side. As regards the cost of living index, for instance, in South Africa it has increased by 23 per cent, and the only other country that could do it to the same extent, was Australia with 22.7 per cent. But the United Kingdom, which is constantly thrown at us as an example, shows a much higher increase, and so does New Zealand too, with 26.8 per cent and 28.2 per cent respectively. If then we refer to stable prices, I should like to say also that it is not so easy merely to permit capital flow to South Africa to continue throughout the year as in the past, and then just to use all the money offering and try to fit it into the national economy, for that could very easily have inflationary results, and then price stability would have gone by the board. Now hon. members know also that the Government, when making use of capital, could have done so in various ways, but it has tried to avoid two ways; it has tried to avoid the creation of bank credit unless it was absolutely necessary, and it has also tried to avoid importing unneeded capital from outside, and preferred rather to borrow internally, and then to make supplementary loans from outside, and then further to transfer from current account to capital account. During this debate and in previous debates there have been numerous complaints about the practice of using funds of the Revenue Account for loan purposes, but may I tell hon. members opposite that it is not such a strange thing. The two countries that have made the greatest progress at the present time, America and England, to-day produce a very simple budget in a certain sense. These countries do not have a similar demarcation between Revenue Account and Capital Account. In America the basic point of view is that you Estimate and you borrow the deficit, and what is over, you return to the Treasury. Therefore this is not such an out of step matter at all. And as regards the rate of growth, I should like to say further that we admit that there has been a slowing down of the rate of growth. Now I should like to say also that the picture that has been painted here of the rate of growth, was not quite balanced or correct. Hon. members opposite very easily used figures and very easily came along with the charge that the rate of growth in South Africa is lower. But I should like to say to them that it is very easy to use a figure to suit your purposes. If we have regard to the national income, I should like to say that after the elimination of price influences, we are not out of proportion to other countries at all. Let me quote some interesting figures. Hon. members have referred to the rate of growth increase per capita of the population. But I should like to say that is not a fair comparison. I submit you have to take the aggregate. Let us look at the other countries. I am now taking the two last years for which statistics are available, namely 1960 and 1961, because the slowing down has taken place during these years particularly. As regards Canada, the growth in 1960 in the aggregate was 1.8 per cent; in the United States the increase was 2.9 per cent; South Africa the increase was 3.7 per cent; the United Kingdom with 5.2 per cent. Now I take the following year, 1960-1. In Canada it increased by 1.7 per cent; the United Kingdom 2.4 per cent; the United States 1.9 per cent; Australia with 3 per cent, and South Africa, more than any of the others, with 3.7 per cent. I think we have to see the rate of growth in perspective. Now I should also like to point out the unfairness of the arguments that are sometimes adduced rapidly. Hon. members opposite, and I am thinking particularly of the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Hopewell) have mentioned figures in regard to West Germany, and the hon. member has said that West Germany has grown by 6.8 per cent. But if any country in the world had been destroyed to the extent that West Germany was destroyed during the war, it is easier of course to grow from nothing to a certain level, than to grow to the next point after you have already reached a certain level. That is why it is unrealistic to use a destroyed country for your comparisons, and hon. members ought not to compare us with West Germany. I want to go further, and say that if the rate of growth in South Africa had been greater, it would mean that we would have balance of payments difficulties, but we would eventually also have other snags. For surely you cannot grow economically if you do not employ people! How can you go on growing at a high rate when you have virtually full employment, as the hon. the Minister of Labour can confirm? If you want to grow further, you have to start doing certain things. If you want to grow at a faster rate, you have to start employing non-Whites in executive and other positions. If not, you are going to stay put. Now I should like to submit that it would not be possible to grow at a faster rate than that at which we have been growing, unless we wanted to come to that snag. I said at the outset that one should have a policy, and that your financial and economic policy should fit into the whole pattern. Now I should like to accept readily that if we had come to the same point, we would have said: “Rather slow down a little in the interests of South Africa But hon. members opposite will adopt the point of view that if we grew to that point, and if we did not have any more people for the executive positions, they would then bring in the non-Whites also. That is where we are at variance as regards policy, and that is why I mentioned the point, of policy at the outset.

Generally as regards the Estimates, I think it will not be out of place if on this occasion I were also to say a few words on some other matters. I should like to refer to building societies. Commercial banks usually follow the bank rate fluctuations of the Reserve Bank, and they adapt their pattern of interest rates to that. Building societies, on the other hand, who have approximately 50 per cent of their investments in the form of interest-earning share capital, that is to say subscription capital and paid-up shares, need not take notice of these rates of interest. As regards the extent of their business building societies in South Africa are as important as all the commercial banks together. And now one can say also that they exert as great an influence. Is it desirable that these institutions should be permitted to carry on on their own without taking notice of the lead given by the Reserve Bank? Perhaps the solution to this is to be found in restrictive legislation in respect of their rates of interest; perhaps the solution may be that they should be restricted as regards their activities; or maybe the solution lies in quite the opposite direction—perhaps the solution may be that we should give the building societies greater powers also to enter the risk field. I do not know, but I should like to say to the Minister that in my view it is a very real problem, and I am wondering whether the hon. the Minister could make a statement in this regard, for I know the matter has been inquired into. In my opinion too great a percentage of the people’s savings is invested in building societies; considerably more than in other countries, and more of the savings ought to become available for the risk field. My point therefore is that too much of the savings is withdrawn from the risk field.

There is a second matter to which I should like to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention, and that concerns a more flexible fiscal policy. At the present time we are bound by legislation to collect taxes as set forth in the Estimates. We cannot collect more taxes or deviate from the pattern of taxation of the Estimates. I think there ought to be great flexibility and freedom of action between budgets. A long time passes between one budget and another, as things are with us. May I mention the examples. The hon. the Minister has now tried to stimulate the economy by means of his taxation relief. Suppose now that the attempt to stimulate the economy should lead to inflation and that production facilities are subject to excessive strain. Then it means that we shall have inflation in the country. The Minister then cannot suspend the stimulant he has given before the next year. But conversely: If there is an anticipated acceleration of the rate of growth, and it does not come about, the Minister has no means of encouraging this rate of growth. He cannot administer a stimulant timeously in order to cause this acceleration to take place. If for instance the Minister had had the power to administer such a stimulant in August last year, we probably would have progressed more rapidly. He could then have intervened in the interests of the country. I should like to point out that we are living in dangerous times as regards our internal and external relations. Indeed, the world as a whole is living in dangerous times at present. It may become necessary for the Minister to consider extra expenditure in the national interest, and it may be that to wait for seven months, from luly until we meet again next year, may be too long a time when security is at stake. That is why I should like to urge elasticity in the actions of the Minister. I believe that he should have an opportunity within wide limits, to impose direct and indirect taxation, for instance as regards customs and excise, and also income tax. in between sessions of Parliament. Of course Parliament would have to approve it subsequently, and such a step would have to be taken with full Cabinet responsibility. I do not know whether the Minister could come forward with something of this nature, but I am asking whether the hon. the Minister could perhaps say a few words on this matter.

There is one final point I should like to mention in regard to what hon. members on both sides have said regarding mines. I should like to say that as regards mining development, we are on the threshold of great things, not only in terms of gold mines. Let us consider the whole series of minerals in our soil; our economic growth will in future depend very much on the development of our mines. With our wealth here we are one of the most prominent countries in the world as regards mining development, and mining development is going to be increasingly important in our country. Now we have the Office of the Government Mining Engineer and also the Division of Geological Surveys. But what is lacking here is a body, and I should like to call it an institute, that will concern itself with basic research for the mines. At the moment every mine does its own research, but it is of a commercial nature. Great mines are employing their geologists and research workers to extend the knowledge they have already, and not much is done regarding basic research. And when a mine has certain information at its disposal, they will keep it to themselves for their specific purposes, and not always permit the information to become available to another mine. That is why it has become necessary—because mining is so important to us and because it is going to become so important to our whole economy in the future, and because there is such a dire need for it at the moment—that we should consider the establishment of a Mining Research Institute with the necessary capital, to tackle this on a large scale. I know the hon. the Minister will not be unsympathetically disposed to this, for he has already in the past opened his hand where it was necessary in other spheres for the same purpose. That is why I should like to express the idea that as regards mining also we should consider research for mining as a whole, and basic research is necessary for that. In the sphere of agriculture we have our agricultural technical services, basic research that is carried on. You cannot progress in practice unless you have the people doing basic research behind you. That is why I think that basic research on an ambitious scale as regards mining development is urgently necessary to make available the information to the persons who require it, so that they can cause the full development that our country requires to take place. I hope the hon. the Minister will give his attention to the last few points, and that he will perhaps be willing to say a few words in that regard.

I am sorry to break into the continuity of the trend of this debate, but my colleagues and I would like to make some observations on behalf of the people that we represent in this House.

Mr. Speaker, everyone who has the welfare of South Africa at heart must feel alarmed at the unfortunate trend of events in our country. Despite the assurances given by the hon. the Prime Minister himself and by the hon. Minister of Justice that peace and order exist in South Africa to-day, there is no gainsaying the fact that there is an alarming undercurrent of uneasiness in the minds of most of the people of this country. The hon. the Prime Minister has told us that peace and order exist in South Africa to-day because of the Government’s actions in establishing a strong Defence Force and a strong Police Force. I have no doubt that the hon. the Prime Minister is correct. Those reasons probably are the reasons for this so-called peace and order existing in this country to-day. On the other hand, however, the hon. the Prime Minister himself has admitted that it could not be denied that a crisis existed in South Africa, and he went on to palliate the position by emphasizing that all over the world there was a crisis. Mr. Speaker, we have been told in this debate that a great deal of the responsibility for the uneasy position which prevails in South Africa to-day can be laid at the door of agitators who have the ulterior object of disseminating among our people Communism in its most virulent forms. I am not at all doubting that that is correct. I am sure that there is not a single member of this House who would not do everything possible to assist the Government in eliminating these agitators from our midst. I am sure that the Government can rely on the whole-hearted support of everyone in this regard. I am sure that the Government can rely on the wholehearted support and co-operation of every well-disposed citizen of this country, irrespective of his party affiliation, to combat Communism and agitators. Having said that, I am constrained to say, that combating Communism and agitators by strong-arm methods, by having a strong police force and a strong defence force, will not solve our problems.

I think it is necessary for the Government to take immediate action to establish new bonds of understanding and cooperation between the Coloured people and the Whites. Enough has been said in this debate and in previous debates with regard to the steps which could be taken by the Government to establish new bonds of understanding with the Bantu. Very little has been said, however, in regard to the Government doing something tangible to restore the bonds of understanding and co-operation between the Whites and the Coloureds. There has never been a time in the history of South Africa when the position of the Coloured people has been more important than it is to-day. One must surely be impressed by the fact that despite the presence of agitators among them the Coloured people as a whole have continued to display the political moderation and levelheadedness which at all times has distinguished them from other population groups in South Africa. Surely the Government must be struck forcibly by the fact that in these critical times of ferment and agitation to which the Prime Minister referred, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the Coloureds to have joined ranks with the communist agitators and to have wrought more chaos in this country. Instead of that, and despite the fact that there are agitators among them, our Coloured people have gone about their business and have performed their daily duties and they have helped to keep the wheels of commerce and industry turning, which is a credit to them and an inspiring example to many others. Surely this moderation on the part of the Coloureds could not have escaped the notice of the Prime Minister. Surely in this period of crisis we are entitled to ask the Government to take some imaginative action to re-establish on a permanent basis the bonds of understanding and co-operation between the Whites and the Coloureds. I repeat that never in our history has the position of the Coloured people been more important than it is to-day. In my view, in the critical days that lie ahead, it is absolutely necessary that a new bond of understanding be established between the Whites and the Coloureds.

I know that I will be told, in answer to this appeal, by Government speakers, that the Government has in recent years done much for the Coloureds. I want to say immediately that I appreciate the fact that in the last year or two something has been done in that direction. I will be told, e.g., that the Government has established technical schools for them which they did not have before, and a university college which will ultimately vie with the White universities, and that the Government intends developing the Coloured rural areas and that it has established the Coloured Development Corporation, etc. All these things, to my mind, do not compensate the Coloureds for the treatment they are receiving in other respects from the Government, with which I will deal presently. Despite all these improvements, there is no doubt that the Coloureds to-day are living in complete despair with regard to their future and one cannot blame them for it when one remembers how hard they were hit by the policy of apartheid. Surely the time has come for us to review that policy of apartheid as it applies to the Coloureds. The full impact and the consequences of apartheid have now become apparent to the Coloureds, as well as to the Whites. We can now see where the full logic of the Government’s apartheid policy is leading. The Government has been in power for nearly 15 years. It came into power on the policy of apartheid and has remained in power by continuing to apply that policy. No section of our population has been more harmed by that policy than the Coloureds. We know that they have lost their right to vote on the Common Roll and that they have suffered grievously under the application of the Group Areas Act, and at the moment they are under threat of losing their direct representation in many of the major municipalities of the Cape in exchange for their own petty village management boards. They live under perpetual fear of being thrown out of trades because of job reservation. They exist under the perpetual fear of the Government interfering with their jobs and livelihood. It is in their daily lives that the Coloureds come face to face with the unnecessary hardships and the humiliations brought about by apartheid. In the category of what has aptly been described as petty apartheid, our Coloured people are confronted with the most humiliating circumstances in their daily lives. In the transport system, the Railways and the buses which they have to use to get to their work, they find this petty apartheid being applied. In public places, in buses and taxis and on the suburban train services, we find the unfortunate Coloureds being crowded together with a total disregard of their feelings and their comfort. One often wonders how the Coloureds can exercise such immense restraint under those circumstances. One admires the moderation the Coloureds are showing in the face of all the discriminatory measures applied to them. Surely in these critical days it is necessary for some positive action to be taken by the Government to remove those irritations and to re-establish the bonds of understanding and co-operation with the Coloureds.

Some time ago an appeal was made for some constructive action by the Government’s official organ, the Burger, to forge new links of understanding and co-operation between the Whites and the Coloureds. The leading article concluded with an earnest appeal to the Government for some imaginative action to be taken, and this was the final exhortation in that article—

In the light of what has been told us by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice, in the light of what the near future may bring forward, are we justified in wasting another day in removing everything which the agitator may seize on? Are we justified in delaying this matter any longer? Can you imagine, Sir, any circumstances justifying speedy action, more than the conditions prevailing to-day?

One read with a great deal of interest the announcement made by the hon. the Minister of Defence with regard to the re-establishment of the Cape Corps as a permanent military unit. One appreciates the decision of the Government to arm the Cape Corps. One realizes that this is a sensible and necessary step in view of the dangers confronting South Africa from within and without. The revelations made in the Snyman Report are sufficient justification for the Government to take every possible step to protect our citizens and to maintain law and order. There can be no doubt that dangers threaten this country both internally and externally, and that the Government has taken the right step at long last in re-establishing the Cape Corps. Our Coloured people have shown in no uncertain manner their loyalty to this country. Their history has proved that in the time of their country’s peril they have always stood by the side of the White people as loyal citizens and they have played their part in all our struggles. It is quite obvious that the White people need their help to-day. If our Coloured men have to fight side by side with our White citizens to maintain law and order, is it not right that they should be given something to fight for? Is it not right that all the things which the agitator can seize on should be removed by the Government as fast as possible? Has the time not come for the Government to give immediate attention to the removal of the irritations and stigmas which have been inflicted on the Coloureds? I repeat that they have been the worst sufferers from the policy of apartheid. The time has come for the Government to declare that there will be no further discriminatory laws inflicted on the Coloureds and that the petty irritations which have been their lot for so many years will be removed as fast as possible. The word “apartheid” has caused, and I am afraid is causing, South Africa incalculable harm. It has inflicted upon the Coloureds tremendous humiliations and embarrassment. I say that the continuation of this policy can only be the means of further separating the Coloureds from the Whites and forcing them against their will and against their natural inclinations into the hands of the Bantu. In this hour of crisis the Government quite rightly has re-established the Cape Corps. I think we can expect and will receive the utmost loyalty from that Corps. But one is constrained to ask how we can reasonably expect to receive undivided loyalty from the Coloureds when we, by our laws, are estranging them and driving them to join forces with the Bantu? The continuance of this petty apartheid policy can only alienate the Coloureds. It cannot help to establish this new bond of understanding which is so vitally necessary for our co-existence in this country. Has not the time come for the Government to take a realistic view of the position and to declare that it will give favourable consideration in the near future to the restoration of political rights to these people, rights which were taken away from them in the most humiliating circumstances? Is it not necessary for the notices which appear practically in every public place, drawing attention to the fact that Coloured people are precluded from those areas, to be removed? Is it necessary for the Government to continue with its policy of job reservation, which has had the effect of excluding Coloureds from certain trades? I want to remind the Government that as the result of its apartheid policy the social, economic and political worth of the Coloureds has depreciated during the past 12 years beyond all conception. Their opportunities of earning a decent living have shrunk from year to year, as more and more restrictions are imposed upon them. It has become increasingly difficult for Coloured youths to become apprentices, and for them to become apprenticed even in those trades which traditionally were reserved for the Coloureds. All in all, the plight of the Coloured man to-day is a very grim one. Are we justified in carrying on with this policy at a time when we ourselves are confronted with great danger and need as never before in our history the Coloured man to remain our ally and to stand staunchly by us?

Just as an example of how this petty apartheid is affecting the Coloureds, I would briefly like to mention something which appeared in the local Press a few days ago with regard to the enforcement of taxi apartheid in Cape Town. We had a public statement made by a responsible Coloured man, the father of seven children, who has been a non-White taxi-driver here for many years. He draws attention to the fact that the local Road Transportation Board has instructed the police to take immediate steps to prosecute Coloured taxi-drivers who convey all classes of passengers. He appealed on behalf of more than 150 Coloured drivers whose livelihood was threatened. The local Transportation Board, he said, had acted sensibly and leniently over the past ten years by not enforcing the apartheid regulations in multi-racial Cape Town and its suburbs. Now, as the result of pressure which was brought to bear on the board, they have asked the police to take steps to prosecute these taxi-drivers. He says this—

He goes on to say that over 75 per cent of the passengers on the Bellville and Wynberg buses are non-Whites, but these buses are driven by European drivers with European conductors, and he asks whether that is apartheid. I mention this as one of the petty irritations from which the Coloured people suffer. Surely if we seriously intend to establish a new bond of understanding and co-operation between the Whites and the Coloureds, this type of irritation to which I have referred, and which is only one of many, must be stopped as quickly as possible. I say that it would be disastrous for us to allow this position to continue, in the light of the warning the Prime Minister has given us as to what lies ahead. It would be disastrous to alienate further these law-abiding Coloured citizens from the White people. It would be a calamity to the country if we allowed the Coloureds to be led to mob action by extremists and agitators. The Government is to-day facing its toughest problem. In overcoming that problem, the Government will have to win over the help of every law-abiding citizen. They have a wonderful opportunity of establishing a new basis of understanding and co-operation with the Coloured people. The remedy lies in the hands of the Government itself. If the Government is prepared to relax its rigid policy of apartheid in favour of a more human approach, I am sure it will get a willing response from the vast majority of Coloureds and it will also receive the approbation of the vast majority of Whites. Time is running out on us and something must be done urgently if we want to win back the goodwill of the Coloureds.

I would like to refer to another leading article in the Burger with regard to the changes that should be made as soon as possible. The Burger said this—

This article expresses the feelings of the White people to-day. Do not wait until these concessions are forced upon us; this is the time to make them. The Burger goes on to say this—

I think even that may be an exaggeration. I agree absolutely with what the Burger said, that time is running out fast on us and that if we are going to eliminate these petty grievances and irritations, let us do it immediately while we still have time and before the agitators can seize upon them. Any delay in making these adjustments may well be disastrous to all of us. I would remind this House that as long ago as 11 April 1960 the then the Minister of the Interior made this statement in this House, as reported in Hansard, Vol. 104, Col. 5371—

This promise was made in April 1960, by the Government, but what has happened since then? We find that session after session since that time this House has been confronted with legislation which has caused more irritation and more grievances and more despondency on the part of the Coloureds. In the light of what the Prime Minister has told us, are we justified in delaying to do something tangible to win their goodwill? I say again that to-day we are confronted with even greater danger than in 1960. The Government must not think that the Coloureds will be satisfied again by these empty promises which were never carried out. I am afraid the Coloured people will expect, and rightly so, the fulfilment of the assurances the Government gave them in 1960. The Government has a glorious opportunity of winning back the confidence and goodwill of the Coloureds by doing something on the lines I have indicated, and of winning back some of the favour of the outside world which it has lost over the years. I appeal to the Government not to dissipate these opportunities. The time to act is now.

I conclude by asking the Government, while there is still time, to establish a new bond of understanding and co-operation with the Coloured people so as to overcome the dastardly agitation of extremists who are hard at work amongst the Coloureds. The remedy lies entirely in the hands of the Government.

This Budget debate has given the Opposition an opportunity to criticize, inter alia the financial and economic policy and achievements of the Government. Thus far they have merely scratched around and scraped around without effecting anything and that for one obvious reason only, namely because the country is experiencing a period of economic growth and prosperity. That is why they are struggling like that. Not only this side of the House says that we are experiencing economic growth and prosperity; the indices bear out also that this growth is taking place; our production of coal, our production of iron, our production of cement, building plans, real estate transactions, Railways, our imports and exports, the money in circulation—all these indices, which are a good barometer of our economic development, corroborate this statement. We are also supported in that by bank reports which appear regularly; we are supported in reports of chairmen of companies at their annual meetings; and in the messages that are usually issued at the beginning of a new year by the leaders of commerce and industry, the same optimistic spirit is noticeable. The Stock Exchange indicates the strength of our economy; our unemployment has reached a lower level than four years ago; the announcements in the daily Press of new industrial developments and expansions—all these things point to the rapid pace of our economy.

But the latest Budget of the Minister of Finance reflects the same spirit also. Now, it is clear that when things go well with our country, the United Party have a difficult time. When we experience setbacks, or when there are conditions of recession, there is rejoicing among the members of the United Party for then they have to prey upon that situation. When things are going badly, when there is a measure of recession or setback, the United Party derive joy from it, and it is immaterial what the cause of the setbacks may be—it may be in consequence of recession conditions overseas; it may be in consequence of the problems of balance of payments of oversea countries, and which are having an adverse effect upon their purchasing power; it may be because the prices of raw materials have dropped as was the case since 1958 when they dropped by 13 per cent; it may be because we are concerned with world surpluses; or that our exports are affected by an extension of our uranium contracts; or because the Federation has imposed tariffs to stimulate their own industrial development there; or because our flow of capital is affected by events in Africa that are completely beyond our control, etc. It is immaterial what the causes may be, but whenever a setback is experienced, it is always the fault of the National Party, and it is more particularly attributed to our policy of apartheid. Whenever we experience the same setbacks here that other countries also experience, when the Stock Exchange slumps here as in other countries—even more in other countries than here as proved by the slump this year in Britain and New York—it has nothing to do with apartheid, but it is the result of ordinary economic factors we find throughout the world in economics. However, when it happens here, it is the Government’s fault, and it is the result of our policy of apartheid. When there is prosperity, their point of view is that they had predicted it and then they try to make us believe that the prosperity would have been so much greater if there had been a United Party Government in power. That is their attitude throughout. Just consider how they tried to play our economy off against every crisis. When we had the referendum, when we left the Commonwealth of Nations, and when we became a Republic, they predicted what a difficult time lay ahead for South Africa, and how dark the future would be; we were on the threshold of a recession according to them; there even were rumours of devaluation.

That is the policy pursued by that party. Now we are finding that the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) still says that the Government approaches its task without vision and without imagination. We cannot allow them to get away with it that easily. We could quote much proof to show how very little confidence that same party had in our future. In the days that have passed, they were the people who were the Jeremiahs. I need not even look for that proof immediately after the National Party came into power in 1948. I recall 1953. What was the vision and the imagination of the hon. member for Constantia at that time? He then said that South Africa until recently had been a land flowing with milk and honey, but that South Africa had now become a country of locusts and castor oil. They have adopted that attitude consistently. Just refer to the words of the Leader of the Opposition himself. As recently as 1958 still, he said this—

Who were the Jeremiahs then? They were on that side of the House and not on this side. Even shortly before the election of 1958, the Leader of the Opposition said this—

But during that election the people did indeed get rid of the Jeremiahs. But even last year still we could find the same attitude among the Opposition—the same lack of vision and realism. And that in spite of the indications at the end of the year that we had reached a turning-point in our economy. Share prices soared; our reserves exceeded the nadir of 1961 by far; our exports were higher than in the past; we had even become liberal with our imports; our internal production indices had risen; in November last year our incidence of unemployment was smaller than four years previously; the carrying capacity of our Railways had expanded; there was great formation of capital and we experienced great liquidity, etc. It was clear then that we were on the threshold of a revival, but in spite of that the Leader of the Opposition in September 1962 according to the Sunday Times, said this—

The same attitude was adopted by the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) also. According to the Cape Times of October 1961, he said this—

Even in September 1962 still the Leader of the Opposition had this to say—

So you see that on every occasion it is brought back to apartheid. When in the course of last year, steps were taken to stimulate our economy by way of a reduction of the bank rate—which is a monetary step taken throughout the world generally—and when South Africa in consequence of its increased liquidity and with a view to accelerating its economy, reduced the rate of interest, the Leader of the Opposition said this—

You see, therefore, that everything is carried back to the policy of this Government. The hon. member for Jeppes held the same view. When in January 1962 he returned from a visit to the United States of America, he said this in a Press interview—

Those were “well-informed Americans” and not just any man in the street. Surely it is very clear to any person who has any knowledge of Africa, that the Republic has for a long time already been the most stable country in Africa. Now the hon. member comes along and says that informed people think that we can become that if we were to alter our policy. The hon. member continued—

Did the hon. member inform those people what political rights the United Party wants to grant? Even during the no confidence debate at the beginning of this year, one speaker after another was asked by the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark and others whether they were prepared to admit the non-Whites to this Parliament. They were unable to give a single answer to that—they could not say yes and they could not say no. Even now they are unable to reply to that. Does the hon. member believe for one moment that they could satisfy those people with their policy of federation, of “White leadership with justice”? Does he think they will satisfy the Black states in Africa with that? No, Mr. Speaker, that is only a dream.

At the close of last year, the Consul-General of America in South Africa pointed out that more than half the American investments in Africa were concentrated in South Africa. That is the country now which the hon. member says they think is not the most stable country in Africa. This Consul-General went further and said this—

So in spite of our policy of apartheid, we have these investments. Mr. Banghart, vice-president of the “Newmont Mining Corporation” said this—

Mr. Randall recently made a similar statement. But even an official organ of the American Government, the International Commerce, recently referred to—

While in Whitehall and Westminster, in Washington and at UNO they were advocating a policy of granting political rights in Africa, to give them greater freedom which would in turn result in greater growth and civilization, the private investors of Throgmorton Street and Wall Street withdrew their investments from Africa. Thus we know that the Lombard Bank, one of the great banks in Britain, last year decided to withdraw completely from the African continent.

I should like to refer to another very interesting statement that appeared in Business World, a very well-known American periodical in which some very scathing articles against South Africa and the Government appeared in the past. In December 1962 the editor wrote as follows—

From this you can see they know we have stability here. Now the hon. member for Jeppes comes along and says they only want to go a little way, they want to give them only a few representatives, well, let it be Whites then; they cannot in any case say whether it must be non-Whites—then everything will be calm; then there will be peace; and then everything will be accepted. Let me just refer the hon. member to the conference held in February at Moshi by some of the African states. This was the attitude there—

So they will not be satisfied with the offer to introduce six or eight representatives. They will not accept things until there is absolute equality and “one man, one vote” has been accepted in principle. Therefore it is not necessary for the United Party to speculate on such a trivial scale. The Leader of the Opposition on a certain occasion said there is only one solution for South Africa, and that is this—

The Opposition has been trying since 1948 to get into power. But they have been unable to succeed. On the contrary. At the first election after 1948, they said: “We want to reverse the reverse.” But they could not succeed. They are still on the road backwards. As recently as the latest election, the hon. member for Wynberg said this—

What hope has he got, Mr. Speaker!

Here in South Africa we have progress because we have a strong and stable Government in power. That is the reason why overseas investors are investing here. That is why we have progress here, in comparison with the rest of Africa. Every investor knows that we have a stable Government here. Furthermore: At the present time we have a much stabler Government with more continuity of policy than in the case of most of the Commonwealth countries who were in it with us. Since the conference at which we left the Commonwealth. there has been a change of Government in New Zealand; at the latest elections in Australia Mr. Menzies was returned with a majority of one. It cannot be said that in these two countries there is great political stability and continuity of policy. In Canada there is an election on the go at the moment, after Mr. Diefenbaker, the previous Prime Minister did not even have a majority. Here also it cannot be said that there is political stability. And who can say that there is great political stability in the United Kingdom at the present time? But here in South Africa there is political stability and every investor knows that is so. So it is not only we who say that. I have here a report of a speech by the president of the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce—note, it is not the Chamber of Industries. He said this—

Here is the testimonial of a man who does not belong to our party. He nevertheless agreees that we have stability and a strong Government. Stability of government is one of the greatest factors for the existence of economic stability in our country. We can say this, that as long as that party over there shows an inability to think South African, and to grip the imagination of the electorate with it, for so long they will always be doomed to remain in the Opposition.

I pointed out earlier that when things go well with us, then the United Party says things can go better; then they are the optimists and no longer the Jeremiahs. When things go well, in their eyes we become the Jeremiahs. When this Budget was introduced and it became evident that things were going so well that we could even reduce taxation, the hon. member for Wynberg said this: Yes, but we have not gone far enough. And also: All these tax reductions the Minister was able to give, have been advocated by them in previous years. That is a very easy attitude to adopt, for there cannot be any reduction of taxation which has not been urged by that side at one stage or another, for instance during elections. And what about all the promises they have made? All that costs money. They want to abolish income-tax and promise all the services in the world, but they never say what it will cost, of where the funds will come from.

The Government cannot act so recklessly. We would also like to see further reductions in taxation; we would also like to see increases of salaries, in common with the hon. member for Constantia. In the amendment he has moved on behalf of his party, he says that we should take steps to increase the rate of growth of our economy and thereby the standard of living. In addition he said that we should increase salaries. But salaries have already been increased. Consider, in this connection, the salary increases granted to the railway personnel during the past year; think of the increases in the salaries of officials in the Public Service; the increases in the salaries of teachers; the increased minimum introduced by the Wage Board etc. It is a generally known fact that there has been an increase of our general purchasing power.

In a speech at Goodwood I recently referred to the purchasing power of the Bantu. I obtained information about it from a bank report—and our bank reports on the whole are very accurate. But my attention has been drawn to the fact that the purchasing power of the Bantu as set forth in that report might have been put too low, namely at R800,000,000 per annum. I then requested Census and Statistics to get data for me. From that it appeared that the total earnings, in other words, salaries, wages, payment in kind and the income from businesses, in 1961-2 amounted to R1,250,000,000. For 1956 it was R850,000,000 as against the R800,000,000 I mentioned. So we find there has been a tremendous increase in the purchasing power of the Bantu. But in the case of the Whites too, it is estimated that from 1956 to 1962, the purchasing power has increased from R2,770,000,000 to R3,754,000,000. Thus we see that during these years there has been an enormous increase in the purchasing power of the Bantu as well as the Whites.

However, it has always been the point of view of the Government that increases of salaries etc. should be accompanied by a corresponding increase in productivity. The latest data in this respect show that in the Republic there has been a rapid increase. In the 11 months of 1962, the volume of our industrial production increased by 5.9 per cent. Towards the end of the year the increase was still more rapid. However, the average increase for the 11 months was 5.9 per cent. During the same period the increase in employment was 2.6 per cent. This is an indication to us at once that there has been an increase in production.

But apart from this increase in wages during recent times, for which provision has also been made in these estimates, there are the other steps also that have been taken to increase our purchasing power and to stimulate our economy. For instance, there were the reductions in income tax and excise on petrol and diesel oil, increased pensions, tax concessions to the mines, to farmers and to exporters; greater rebates for insurance and contributions to pension funds; there was an arrangement for the repayment of savings levies; I have already referred to salary increases, etc. All these things have been done with a view to stimulating our economy. The hon. member for Wynberg says we should go further, and that we should also reduce taxation in order to create greater purchasing power. Attention has been given to this particular aspect. The hon. member said, inter alia, that we should reduce taxation on companies. The position in this regard, however, is that South Africa is one of the countries where company taxation is of the lowest in the world. According to a report of the First City Bank this tax is much higher in France, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, U.S.A., Canada, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Japan and others than in South Africa. There are only three countries where it is approximately 30 per cent, namely Norway and South Africa with 30 per cent and Italy with 26 per cent. But when we take into consideration that there is an exemption of one-third on dividends, it becomes clear that our company tax, as it ultimately comes into the hands of the Receiver, is by far the lowest in the world.

When we compare our taxation with our national income, South Africa’s position is very favourable. When we take into consideration the concessions that have been made now, it appears that the taxation paid to the Central Government, in proportion to our national income, is 13.9 per cent, that of the U.S.A. 18 per cent and that of the United Kingdom 21 per cent. So we could go on. However, it is clear that South Africa is one of those countries where the general rate of taxation is much lower than in most of the other countries.

But in this Budget concessions have not only been made with a view to the stimulation of our economy and our purchasing power; provision has also been made for irrigation, for housing, telecommunications, expansion of Escom etc. This infra-structure, which is a necessary basis for industrial expansion, is one of the factors to which particular attention has been directed in recent times. That is why there are great schemes for expansion of Escom. It is estimated that during the past year the megawatt has been increased by 100 and 465 during this year. There are the new extensions at Campden. The expansion for this year has been estimated at R58,000,000. Of that amount R42,000,000 will be spent in the country. Let me also refer to the expansion of our iron and steel industries. I do not want to go into detail now, to indicate how rapidly we are progressing with these projects. However, it is anticipated that in the calendar year 1963 R37,000,000 will be spent on contracts. We know that the bulk of that will be spent in this country. This iron and steel industry which was established as the result of the struggle between Nationalism and Imperialism, laid the foundation for the contribution at the present day of R781,000,000 to our national income by the iron and steel and allied industries, that is to say, much more already than that of our gold-mining industry. Furthermore, we know that it also forms the basis for expansion of our South African Railways, our defence, our motor vehicle industry, our tractor and shipbuilding industries, etc.

Then there is also the expansion of Sasol which according to the Estimates will cost R43,000,000 of which 60 per cent will be spent in this country. But that does not apply only to Iscor and Sasol and other State corporations. Around them private initiative is building up a colossal industry. Consider merely the expansion of the fertilizer industries of Sasol, artificial rubber, of detergents, etc. On this alone R34,000,000 will be spent in the ensuing few years. According to an estimate that appeared in a newspaper during the past week, it is estimated that in the so-called Vaal triangle, that is to say, Vereeniging-Vanderbijl-Sasol, R700,000,000 will be spent during the next five years. That shows how private enterprise is building up industries around the State corporations. I could also refer to the expansions at Foscor. There has been purposeful expansion to provide our own fertilizer requirements. However, it does not end with the Government undertaking. It is clear that at Phalaborwa private enterprise will flourish much more than in the case of the State corporations. There is the copper scheme that will cost R75,000,000 with a refinery added to it, which will be the greatest copper producer in the southern hemisphere. There is the fertilizer consortium that will very likely start there; there is the possibility of processing magnetite. During last week I saw an announcement that it is not excluded that aluminium also will be processed there. Around the nucleus that has been created by State corporations, therefore, a much broader and wider field for private enterprise has arisen.

And the Government has purposefully headed in the direction that these undertakings should play an important role in the expansion of our economy. The Government has realized that by so doing not only opportunities for employment will be created, that it would not only foster capital growth and thus increase the standard of living, but that the institutions that will come into being there will form the basis for a much broader expansion of private enterprise.

Now the hon. member for Constantia comes along and says that we are without imagination and without courage. As against that I should like to say that in these times—and there have been setbacks, that I shall admit— it is not the United Party that has had courage, but the Government has had confidence in the future of the country, and has shown courage not only in its Estimates, not only by schemes for the provision of basic services, but also by its action in tackling iron and steel industries as well as other industries and placing them on a firm foundation. And we believe that it is this action which has largely contributed to rendering the possible economic revival that we are now experiencing. That is the only way in which we can increase the standard of living of White and non-White in this country. It is in this way only that we can obtain the co-operation of all, to make us economically strong. We know that a strong South Africa, an economically strong and stable South Africa, is the only and the most effective answer to the forces that are threatening us from Africa.

Mr. Speaker, four fronts are opened up in the amendment of the Opposition. The first front is the economic front, which has just been replied to so clearly and satisfactorily by my hon. colleague. The second front is the defence front. The third front is the international front, which has been linked with the old charge that we stand isolated. The fourth front is the agricultural front. On all these fronts the National Party has taken the initiative from the very beginning of this debate. I recall clearly how the Opposition began with Poqo the other day. But they dropped it like a hot potato, as the Cape Argus said. We have taken the initiative firmly into our hands. Yesterday the hon. the Leader of the Opposition tried to stage a come-back, and the hon. the Prime Minister completely flattened him. They dropped Poqo just like that. I should like to make this prediction: With the legislation to subdue Poqo we shall be as successful and effective as with all the legislation initiated by the National Party. Their conduct is unpredictable, because the ideas among their members are as manifold as the multi-racial state they stand for.

What have they produced on the economic front they opened for discussion? Here my hon. friend, the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, gave a reply that is well-founded and sound. They know the position as as he sketched it. What has become of the other two fronts? I ask the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan), the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher), the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker), and I ask the hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren): What has become of the agricultural front? I ask the hon. member for East London (City) (Dr. Moolman): What has become of those fronts? We are nearing the end of this debate: to-morrow afternoon the Minister has to reply. Not a single word has been said in this debate on agriculture. On the most important matter, defence, they have not said a word either.

They are on the defensive.

I was about to say that. The hon. the Chief Whip reads our thoughts well. I was about to say that they did not discuss defence, because they themselves are on the defensive. Time is running short, but we are waiting for them. We are prepared for them. Raise the matter of agriculture; come along with defence! there is no choice left to me. Faithful to the methods of the National Party, I now have to take the initiative to-night on the matter of defence. [Laughter.] Yes, we always have to set the framework for the debate. How often have we not heard that hollow laughter?

May I ask a question?

They had to burn down a school to get that hon. member out of Std. I. He will just have to wait a little while. You may laugh, but I shall take the initiative in respect of defence. I should like to say a couple of things on defence this evening that will prove irrefutably that the National Party, under the leadership of the present Minister of Defence, is doing the same thing on the defence front that the National Party is doing in our country on all the other fronts. I should like to begin by stating a few propositions that are incontrovertible. My first proposition is this: Among the people of South Africa there has never yet been so much loyalty and confidence in our defence as at this moment. I should like to state a second proposition: The morale of our defence forces has never been as high as at present. I should like to state a third proposition: Our defence forces have never been so closely interwoven with our people as at the present time. My proof is this: Have an air force demonstration; let the defence force just organize some military day, and you will see how they flock there in their 10, 20, 50 thousands. Our public has become intensely integrated and interwoven into our defence forces as a result of the confidence that exists between the people and the defence force. I should like to state another proposition: South Africa has never yet been compelled to be so independent, as regards its defence, as she is to-day. I should like to tell the hon. member who is laughing over there, that he does not know what is going on. During the last few years radical changes have taken place in respect of our ideas on our defence. In the past the South African defence force was a sub-division of the British Army for tactical purposes. We had to adapt ourselves to the British Army. Since South Africa has been freed from the Commonwealth ties, and South Africa started becoming independent on all fronts, it brought about a truly substantial change in our concept of our defence forces. All of us must realize that. Nobody can deny it. In this new order, outside the framework of the Commonwealth, with full recognition of our ties with the Commonwealth as a fellow Western state, South Africa is standing on its own feet in respect of defence, with a greater striking power than it has ever had in its history, thanks to the National Party.

If that were not so, it would have been as this English newspaper wrote last week. It wrote—

There they sit. There they sit over there. And they continue—

Yes, we are calm and dispassionate on this side; we are merely being harassed in our calm discussion by the laughter over there. I cannot find better evidence of what is going on in our defence forces and defence than the words of Lord Selkirk, when in 1957 he attended a banquet here, and afterwards spoke on defence. He said this—

That is precisely what is going on in our defence force. The hon. member for Johannesburg North (Mrs. Weiss) attacked the Minister in a very subtle manner to-day, and said he should not spend the money on the defence of our country, he should rather take that money and educate the people. What a splendid ideal! All of us desire that. But I should like to answer her, and I do not think I can give her a better reply than to quote the famous Clausewitz, who said—

My reply to the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) is this: This Minister of Defence has to formulate and implement his policy in regard to the defence of the State according to the dictation of realities. That is the answer, and not the dream pictures the hon. member for Johannesburg North, with all her idealism, wishes to hang up. The study of our defence has become a very difficult matter. Warfare has become increasingly difficult, particularly in respect of the type of defence we are engaged on, namely, our own defence, not for aggression. It has become more difficult because after the Nassau agreement, during the last few months and the emphasis that has been laid on the use of the Polaris submarine, a complete change has come about in world strategy, a change that affects us profoundly. With this change in the use of weapons of war, and the rapid changes armaments have undergone, a number of new fronts have opened up for us simultaneously, to which our Minister of Defence must have regard. The whole Africa front has been opened up, with the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean and the north, but the latest front that has been opened up lately is space, which will be of very great importance in future in the military sphere.

Because from our experience during the Second World War we learned that a war is decided with the weapons with which it did not begin, it has become a matter of vital importance to us that we shall have to harness science and the most modern knowledge and research in order to keep pace with the ever increasing and rapidly changing exigencies of modern military techniques. Owing to the development of dangerous things, research and observation are extremely important to us. Because the latest invented scientific facts are to-day woven into the mechanical and electronic and chemical and thermic techniques that are already known, and can be applied productively for the manufacture of armaments, it is necessary that South Africa, as regards its defence, should not only resort to the training of people to use the weapons, but that South Africa and any country in the world should man the first front, and that is the front of science, to defend its country against aggression from within or without. The work of a modern defence force has become interwoven so closely with science in all its branches. and with scientific resources and methods, that it is completely impossible to maintain it on a proper level if it cannot rely upon a separate defence research department.

Thus operational research was born of the Second World War. South Africa also has become profoundly involved in this whole new concept, this new pattern that has evolved in the sphere of militarism and war. I should like to mention some respects in which we have become involved in that. I say that with us warfare and the concept of defence have changed radically. In the past we were adapted to the British Army. In view of the new Wilson statement in particular, it has become absolutely necessary for us to develop wholly new ideas in connection with our defence. We should remember that South Africa is a power base in Africa, that South Africa overshadows all countries in Africa. The poor Africa is a poor country in comparison with South Africa. We occupy a special position because we are the only country in Africa that has never yet asked a single cent from any country in the world as a gift. When Mr. Soapy Williams recently referred to the $210,000,000 America has allocated to Africa, apart from the agricultural commodities they distributed gratis, South Africa did not get one cent of that. We stood on our own legs, and that creates a particularly unique position for us. But South Africa is something else too. We do not play off the West against the East like the rest of Africa. We have irrevocably compromised ourselves on the side of the Western world. We do not play to the right nor to the left. Because this is so, I should like to say that a vote of any Western country against South Africa is a vote of more significance against their own security and safety than it would have been had they cast it against any other country in Africa. If it should come to pass that we should lose control of the sea communications around the Cape, it will be a catastrophe for the Western nations, for America and mainly and specifically for Australia too. That creates a necessity for us to have a specific approach to our defence. But, Mr. Speaker, I should like to add that if this tremendous industrial machine and our industrial potential were to be lost to us in this power struggle in Africa, and if it were to fall into the hands or under the influence of the enemy camp outside the Western freedom camp, that self-same industrial power and potential in Africa, as brought about in South Africa, will be used to prepare the funeral of America and the Western world.

Important as we are, with our strategic value, with our great industrial potential, with our importance and with our irrevocable ties with the West, we are in spite of that the most maligned country and nation on earth, as we have once again seen in this film “Sabotage in South Africa.” [Interjections.] All right, you rejoice about everything that is bad for South Africa. Because South Africa has the key to the future of a confused Africa, and wishes to retain it, because South Africa is the only power in Africa that can talk to the rest of the Western world on an equal footing and with an equal language, because South Africa will be able to deliver food in case of conflicts when food will be necessary, because we have the sources, because we have a settled civilization here and a proper parliamentary institution and a virile philosophy of life founded on the Christian faith of the European civilizations with which we are integrated; because South Africa has many fifth columns in its midst; because we know that our enemies have modern arms at their disposal; because we know that many of them are being provided with modern scientific equipment, not only from behind the Iron Curtain but from other countries too; and because we do not know whence our aid will come from the modern States; for these reasons it is essential that we shall build up our own pattern in respect of defence. We have limited manpower, Mr. Speaker. We have to prepare ourselves for one of the most difficult kinds of wars, and that is the defensive war. Because with the latest additions of science and technique to warfare, we have to deal with the destruction of all geographic boundaries, and because there has been a breakthrough by speed and because we shall not have much say in any global war, that is why it is essential that South Africa should have its own approach in respect of defence, and should prepare itself to protect its own boundaries against aggression. We say this, Mr. Speaker, we are grateful to say that our Minister of Defence—I shall like to pay high tribute to him for it—in 1961 established the Council for Defence Research. It is unique in the world, nowhere in the world is there such a position where the Minister himself occupies the Chair. It is the first time in history that the militarist and the scientist has been interwoven, for without science we shall go under as surely as we are sitting here to-day. If we are not going to harness science to the fullest extent to prepare our defence and related problems, for the purposes of our defence, we shall go under. I repeat this: We can do so only by means of science and by means of research. That is why I think the Minister deserves the thanks of every citizen of the country for having taken this initiative. It is unique. This Minister satisfies himself personally on the problems in respect of defence research. I repeat: He has knitted together the militarist and the scientist. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that America spends 80 per cent of its entire research expenditure on defence research? England spends 75 per cent; France spends 62 per cent. Australia has 4,400 people in its Weapons’ Research Establishment in respect of defence research that costs it nearly R40,000,000 per annum. And South Africa? We have to become aware of one fact, and that is that we shall not be able to stay on our feet if we do not take science with us most closely in respect of defence.

This conflict in the world is not the conflict the hon. member for North East Rand (Brig. Bronkhorst) knows. The phase in which he was living has long since passed. To-day it is a conflict of ingenuity; it is not a conflict of brute force. I should like to prove that. World War II and subsequent events amply demonstrated in a most fearful manner the role science plays in the destiny of mankind. Apart from the awesome nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the war was largely decided by the battle of ingenuity between the scientists of the belligerent parties. Historians writing the history of the Second World War are unanimous that in 1940 England was saved from defeat because in 1935 already she had started to prepare herself for the scientific defence of her land. I should like to suggest to the hon. member who laughed like that just now, that he should go and read this history in the book of C. P. Snow “Science and Government”. By the intensive harnessing of science, the Allies won the battle against the German U-boats as well as against the Luftwaffe. Without going into details, I should like to quote from a letter written by Admiral Doenitz on 14 December 1943 to Dr. Karl Küpfmüler. He instructed him to establish a corps of scientists for the German Naval Forces as soon as possible, and here are his words:

A study of the Second World War reveals clearly how the battle in the Atlantic Ocean was won by science; how Britain won the Battle of Britain by the application of science, how the Allies smashed Germany only after they had summoned the scientists to come and help them. I should like to conclude by giving some figures. The great Battle of the Atlantic was won by science. The U-boat danger to the Allies was overcome by science. The onslaught of the German U-boats against Allied shipping during the Second World War was vanquished by science. When Germany sent its V.I. projectiles across to London—it is interesting to see the data—England would have lost that battle had it not been that they had harnessed science and combined a proximity tube, as they called it, plus radar plus an electronic predictor. Here I have the data. In the first week 24 per cent of the projectiles were destroyed. They gave Britain a hard knock. In the second week 46 per cent were destroyed; in the third week 67 per cent; in the fourth week the British anti-projectile men succeeded in destroying 79 per cent of the projectiles, and during the last day only four projectiles out of 104 reached Britain. And Britain was saved. I could also quote similar figures in respect of shipping.

In the interests of all of us, Mr. Speaker, I should like to urge here to-night, that where South Africa has entered a new era that is irrevocable, where South Africa is irrevocably compromised on the side of the Western world, where South Africa is irrevocably committed to defend its boundaries against aggression on its own, the people of South Africa should become aware once and for all of how important science is to our defence. Scientists are internationally marketable commodities. That is the reason why many of our scientists are resident overseas. They are there because they are receiving more remuneration.

You cannot expect of the scientist that his patriotism should always keep him in South Africa. He is internationally saleable on the market. Therefore I should like to plead tonight that all of us should come to realize fully the great task of the Minister of Defence. We should like to congratulate him for having taken the lead in bringing the militarist and the scientist together, and for having emphasized by the establishment of this Defence Research Council, how important science is. We would express the hope that the people of South Africa will be prepared to give much more in future to pay the scientists much more for they are fighting in the front line. Without their aid we shall lose this struggle as surely as we are sitting here to-night. I am pleading for the scientist; I am pleading for better remuneration for him; I am pleading for recognition. In the same way that I am pleading that we should provide the soldier with the very best training, I am pleading that we should give the Minister of Defence his front line, and that is his scientists. The modern and military techniques and modern warfare is no longer the affair of the layman; it is no longer a matter of brute force or physical strength; it has become a matter of ingenuity, of shrewd planning and research. It has become closely interwoven with knowledge. Because the intelligence associated with scientists is normally so frugally conferred upon any nation—there is only a very small source from which that intelligence may be drawn— it will not help us to send more and more people to the universities. That will not produce the scientist. The scientist will be produced by enabling him to utilize all the related branches of science, and to concentrate on that particular task and to develop the required arms that will provide us with the striking power to defend our country against those who will have the courage to dare attack us. May our people become aware of this necessity, and may we give our Minister of Defence the support he truly deserves for having giving South Africa his guidance. That is why I say, as I began, that I have never seen so much confidence, such a morale, such a profound interwovenness between our people and our Defence Force, as in the year 1963, and with such a Defence Force and with such an approach and with such a realization we shall be able to face all these swaggering braggarts who are challenging us and provoking us every day, and we shall be able to hold our own. May it be so.

We have in this House become accustomed to the hon. the Minister of Finance adopting various roles when he presents his Budget, but I must say that it is a new experience for me to listen to the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling) who has the voice of a sergeant-major, assuming unto himself the role of a military strategist and the rank of a field-marshal. Since my experience of the army is about as non-existent as is that of the hon. member for Ventersdorp, and since he is in the habit of making very loud, very dogmatic and very inaccurate statements in this House, I do not intend to waste any of my precious time in replying to the hon. member for Ventersdorp.

I want to address a remark or two to the hon. Minister of Finance. The first is that I want to congratulate him in a very small measure on at last showing some understanding of modern economics, of budgeting as far as growth-planning is concerned. There are some indications in this Budget that the hon. Minister is at last coming round to that type of budgeting; secondly, I want to say that I am pleased to see that in this Budget he has given some cognizance to suggestions I made last year about the incentive that has to be given to the gold-mining industry, firstly, to go in for new prospecting and secondly, to encourage mining of medium grade ore at deep levels. Those are the two small bouquets which I would like to hand to the hon. the Minister of Finance. But I am afraid that that is where my small tribute ends. I have no further floral tributes to offer to the hon. the Minister. I do not share the sentiments of members such as the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark (Dr. de Wet), who went into ecstasies over the fact that not only are we able to make small concessions to the taxpayers but we are also able to go in for this larger-scale expenditure on national security.

I did not say “small concessions”.

I hope the hon. Minister is not basking too much in the plaudits of the populace for these concessions that have been granted, because it is customary for taxpayers to heave a large sigh of relief when the Minister of Finance does not impose any further taxes on them, and that sigh of relief turns of course into a smile of appreciation when a few concessions are granted at the same time.

But the hon. Minister really has not been enjoying the role that he should have been enjoying in this debate as Minister of Finance. He should have been the star turn as Minister of Finance, but in fact most of the discussions in this debate have been of course on other matters. To some extent, the hon. the Minister is himself to blame for this because his own Budget with its large new expenditure on defence, on national security, a 33½ per cent increase on last year’s amount, raising it to the unprecedented level of R 157,000,000 this year, together with an additional R5,000,000 for police, I think depicts this Budget as a Budget of fear. It also depicts the hon. Minister’s frame of mind and the frame of mind of the entire Government and is as far as I am concerned, a clear admission of failure that Bantustans are not going to engender a feeling of good neighbourliness in South Africa. If you are undertaking a policy such as the Government is doing at the present stage of “good neighbourliness”, which is the Prime Minister’s phrase, then, Sir, it is not necessary to buy guns with which to face your new good neighbours. As far as I am concerned, this Budget is a Budget of fear and it is a Budget which admits that the Bantustan plan is doomed to failure as a method of inducing harmonious race relations in South Africa.

The hon. Minister has in fact realized that and his additional expenditure for defence and police has got a financial aspect to it. He knows that there is a feeling of uneasiness about South Africa despite its wonderful resources, resources, for which I may say, the National Government and indeed this evening the hon. Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, takes personal credit. In fact, those resources are there whether the Nationalist Government is there or not. Whether the efficient exploitation of those resources will ever take place under this Government is of course another matter. The hon. Minister realizes that despite our wonderful resources, despite the fact that South Africa should be poised on the brink of its third great economic expansion, he knows that investors both abroad and in South Africa are nervous of this country. Therefore he says to them in effect: Invest your money in our wonderful resources and I will provide the security. This is the key to the additional 33⅓ per cent that the hon. the Minister wants us to vote for internal security together with the R5,000,000 additional for the Police Vote. As I said, the hon. the Minister has not been enjoying the role that he should have been enjoying in this Budget, and to a large extent this additional expenditure on internal security is of course one of the reasons why the debate has gone the way that it has gone over the last 24 hours.

I want to come back to the subject that was raised yesterday, because it is tied up so strongly with this question of internal security, about which a great deal has been said, but about which a great deal as yet been left unsaid. I want to come back to the Snyman Report and the Poqo trouble in South Africa. To me the only surprising thing about this is that anybody should have been surprised that it happened. Three years ago when I and my colleagues in the Progressive Party were the only people to oppose the Unlawful Organizations Act, the banning of A.N.C. and P.A.C., we warned the country and we warned this House that if we banned organizations, open political organizations, they would be replaced by underground subversive organizations. We warned this House and we warned the country that if non-violent political protests were banned, they would be replaced by other organizations and violent political protests. I want to warn again that no matter how drastic the measures that are taken against the sort of organization such as have appeared recently, no matter how drastic those provisions are, such organizations will reappear in ever greater strength in South Africa, unless certain additional steps are taken as well. I do not think that the official Opposition should boast that it supported the passage of the Unlawful Organizations Act through Parliament a few years ago. I believe that if the official Opposition had acted strongly at that time, if it had not given the green light to the Government to go ahead and believe that all that was needed were strongarm methods, the country would have been in a much better position to-day. I believe that the very least that the official Opposition should have done at that time was to get an undertaking from the Government that not only would it put down subversive activities, but that at the same time it would take all the necessary steps to do something about the root causes of the then emergency state in South Africa. Yet, when the Government of the day took the one sensible step that it took during the emergency, which was to relax the pass laws, it was the United Party that immediately accused the Government of an act of weakness, and so, Sir, immediately the Government reimposed the pass laws and tensions were as great in South Africa again as they had been before. To my mind, far too much time has been devoted in this House to attacking the Minister of Justice for not taking stronger action against Poqo, and not merely enough attention has been devoted to the positive evidence that has been given at the Paarl inquiry about conditions in the Paarl location, conditions about corruption of officials, the grinding poverty and the frustration of the people—the real cause for the emergence of organizations like Poqo. I want to quote a few of the statements in the submissions of the advocate who appeared on behalf of the Institute of Race Relations at that inquiry, Mr. King. He says—

He goes on to say—

These are the things that should have been receiving the major attention of this Parliament, because the important thing is to me that Paarl is not an exception—to some extent or another, wherever the Bantu Urban Areas Act is being administered, the same conditions apply. There may not be as much corruption in other areas as there is in Paarl. In Johannesburg, for instance, I do not believe there is such corruption, but the same underlying causes of frustration and grievance exist in every single urban area throughout the whole of South Africa. One has only to look at the Riots Commission’s report of 1958, a commission consisting of Judge Centlivres, Judge Roper and Judge Greenberg, three of our great judicial men. Those men in framing their report came to very much the same sort of conclusion as the submissions that have been made at the Paarl inquiry. The hon. member for Yeoville was quite right yesterday when he pointed out that it is in Langa that Poqo is at its strongest, and that it is in Langa that the Government’s policies are being most strictly administered. Paragraph 13 of the Snyman Report says this. The hon. member over there shakes his head. Two days ago he was lauding the Snyman Report. But if he will look at paragraph 13 of the Snyman Report, he will see that the report points to the fact that it is in Langa that this organization is at its strongest. It does not require a trained sociologist to realize the correlation between the fact that Poqo is at its strongest in Langa Location and that it is in the Western Cape that endorsements-out are being conducted on the greatest scale, that following the Eisselen Line, 26,000 people have been endorsed out of this area over the past three years and that in Langa of the 18,311 men housed in bachelor quarters two-thirds, or over 12,000 are actually married men. So this is a correlation which cannot be ignored. It is all very well for the Government to say that they accept the Snyman Report. But in the very next breath the Government should promise to do something about the underlying causes of grievances. Then I believe there would be a ray of hope throughout South Africa immediately. But not one single member of the Government side has so much as breathed a word of hope to the African people in this regard. What have we had indeed in this country since 1950, since the first oppressive measure was passed which was, and I quote “to guarantee the security of the state and its citizens”? One oppressive measure has followed the other, from the Anti-Communist Act. to the Whipping Bills, from the Whipping Bills to the Banning of Unlawful Organizations Act, from there to states of emergency, to the banning of persons, and finally, to the pièce de résistance, the Sabotage Act with all its vast powers of house arrests and restrictions. And what else have we had? At the same time as these oppressive measures have been introduced we have had further restrictions on the ordinary every-day life of the African people and the non-Europeans. We have had removals under the Group Areas Act, we have had the loss of the few remaining freehold rights of Africans in urban areas, we have had the removal of their representatives from Parliament, heavier taxes, and hardly anything done about the crushing burden of poverty under which the Africans live, the break-up of their trade unions, the introduction of job reservation, and finally, ever more burdens and restrictions under influx control and the pass laws. And these laws I say are inhuman laws, and what is more, they dehumanize the officials that have to administer them. Because unless these officials can forget that they are dealing with human beings, that they are wrecking the lives of human beings, they are unable to carry out their jobs. I challenge any member of this House who has got a grain of compassion in him to go and spend a morning in the Bantu Commissioner’s court, to go and spend a morning in a pass office and watch the expressions of pure hopelessness on the faces of hundreds and hundreds of Africans whose entire life has been changed and ruined by the application of influx control and pass laws and not feel moved by this sight. Sir, I want to say that two days ago, a letter arrived which completely, as far as I am concerned, highlights this whole attitude of officialdom, of inability to yield, of determination to carry out apartheid, to bow to this holy cow of apartheid, irrespective of the circumstances of the case. Sir, I have a letter from a man called Samuel Manjati. This letter arrived a few days ago and he begged me to take up his case, because he says he has been trying for many months now to get permission for his wife to stay with him in Cape Town. Now Manjati himself, I might say, is only allowed in Cape Town by the tenuous thread of official permission because he has lost his qualification to stay here. He came to this town in 1947, a long time ago, but, Sir, he committed the cardinal sin of breaking his continuous residence by going back to the reserve, back to Umtata, and when he returned, he found that he had lost his qualification; he no longer qualified for permanent residence, but he was allowed to stay here as long as he continues to hold his job with his present employer, which so far he has been able to do. But it is his wife who has been with him since 1957 who is now being endorsed out of the area, on whose behalf that he pleads. This is the letter, or part of it—

A woman whose child was shot dead on her back during the 1960 Langa disturbances. This woman is being endorsed out of the area and is not allowed to remain with her husband. The letter goes on to say—

Do you know that for three years she did not go to the hospital?

The hon. Deputy Minister is incorrect. He laughs. This is the usual reaction. But he is incorrect. I have checked on this. She is once again receiving treatment and she has been receiving treatment from private doctors. I have here a letter from the Minister’s Department, turning down this request, and it ends by saying—

including the one that she has not been for treatment, not for three years incidentally, but since July 1961, and I have proof of that—

I want to tell the hon. Minister that at the moment this woman has been given an extension of time until Friday. She should have left on Monday. She has got an extension until Friday because an official in the Minister’s Department is waiting for the medical certificates to be produced to show that she is still under treatment and requires treatment here. I sincerely hope that permission will be further extended. But this is not the point. I only raised this medical point because it is a factor which is being used by people who are trying to help this woman. But surely the main point is that this is a case of unbelievable callousness, and whether this woman requires medical treatment or not, surely the least that the Government can do, after the woman has gone through this experience, and apart from the bonus which they have given her, some R560 to compensate for suffering and pain and expenses, etc., surely this was a case in point where the granite front could have cracked a little, where this woman could have been given permission to stay with her husband? I think, Sir, this is a case of sheer lack of compassion and humanity and that is why I say even to administer inhuman laws, means that eventually those who have to administer the laws become inhuman themselves because they are unable to carry on with such a job if they realize that they are dealing with human beings. I say that the least the Government could do in a case like this is to cut the red-tape and allow this woman to stay with her husband, whether she requires extended medical treatment or not. I make this plea across the floor of the House to the hon. Deputy Minister, and I say: At least let the Government emerge from this with some semblance of compassion and understanding, and let them at least in this case grant some respite from these dreadful pass laws. I want to say that whilst I am asking for special exemption in this particular case, not for a moment do I believe that the granting exemptions under the pass laws is the answer to this problem. I believe the pass laws must be scrapped completely. I believe that they are the greatest single cause of racial friction in South Africa A thousand people a day, in 1961 (the last figures available), were convicted under the pass laws. A thousand people a day went to gaol or paid fines under the pass laws. I say that granting exemptions is no answer, because for every 100 exemptions granted, hundreds of thousands of people still suffer under the pass laws. People are convicted for what? What is the crime? The crime is moving freely around the country of one’s birth, seeking to sell one’s labour in the market that will pay the highest price. As far as I am concerned, that is no crime at all. It is a fundamental right. And amending the pass laws will not help either, because you cannot maintain pass laws and influx control unless all these restrictions still obtain. The hon. member for Yeoville talks about the shanty town conditions that came about in Johannesburg during the war. He knows that we could not have sustained the war effort without those thousands of Africans coming into the urban areas, and he also knows or should know, that the City Council of Johannesburg did not spend a penny on housing the Africans who came to those areas, and that is why shanty towns developed.

And you opposed us when we tried to remove those shanty towns.

The hon. member is confusing two completely different issues, and I advise him to keep his temper and to try and think logically for once. The Western Areas Removal scheme had nothing to do with the shanty towns that already existed in Orlando Township. The Western Areas provided in fact better houses than many of the shanty towns, such as Moroka. The hon. member also knows that the major principle behind the Western Areas removal scheme was the deprivation of the few remaining freehold rights that urban Africans enjoyed. He knows that perfectly well.

That is not true.

I want to ask this House what a White man would say if he lost his job, was removed from his residence and told that he could no longer stay in the city and if he were deprived of his family life. What would a White man say? What would a White woman in this country say if, because her husband is not qualified by virtue of being born in this town or by virtue of continuous residence for 15 years, or continuous employment with one employer for ten years. (Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act), what would a White woman say married to a husband by Christian rights in this Christian country, if she were not allowed to live with her husband under those conditions? What would any White woman say in this country, and what would any White man say?

At the risk of being repetitious, I want to say again for the umpteenth time in this House that people will only consent to laws if they believe that they are just laws. That is why I really believe it is a mistake to bracket together “law” and “order”. It is a mistake, because very often the worst disorders stem from unjust laws. This was said a long time ago in the British House of Commons, but it is equally true in South Africa to-day. Sir, one can rule by force for a long time, but one cannot rule by force for ever. And while it lasts, that rule by force, life becomes increasingly uncomfortable for everyone, for those who rule and for those who are ruled.

I say again that unless a sincere attempt is made to remove the underlying grievances that lay behind the disturbances at Paarl, that lay behind the formation of an organization like Poqo, we are going to have a repetition over and over again in this House of more and more legislation in connection with more and more violent organizations being formed, the Minister taking more and more drastic measures to control them. In the end we will be living in a state of siege, in a White laager.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) is the last one who should talk about the clearing up of slums and shanty towns, because during her entire political career in Johannesburg she welcomed having slums and shanty towns for her contemptible political purposes. When we wanted to clear up that terrible breeding ground of crime and disease, when the poor Bantu about whom she is now so concerned became ill and died by the thousands, she was the one who opposed us most, together with the United Party, she and the whole City Council of Johannesburg. She ought to be ashamed to talk about shanty towns. I suspect her of being one of the people who welcome that type of thing. She welcomes it for one of two reasons. Some people welcome it because they make money out of it. I have no knowledge of her business transactions. But one reason why she welcomes it is because she wants to make political capital out of it.

South Africa has been terribly shocked during the past day or two by this television film. “Sabotage in South Africa”. It is a shockingly false distortion of what goes on in South Africa. I saw only part of that film this morning, but I have quite a good idea of what it is about, and I now say without fear of contradiction that that film does not contain half the distortions in regard to conditions in South Africa that that hon. member would like to tell the world about. But I do not stop with her. I say that that film, “Sabotage in South Africa”, is based on the type of speech to which we have just been listening, and it is based on the type of propaganda made by the United Party. I say there is absolutely nothing which appeared in that film which has not been said by that hon. member from time to time, and by the Opposition.

What did you say before?

But I first want to deal with one of the most scandalous speeches to which we have ever listened in this House, the speech made last night by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman). The hon. member said that we were angry and the Minister of Information was angry because the Opposition says that we do too much for the Bantu, and then the hon. member added this: “You are now angry because we say that you do too much for the Bantu. Do you want us to say that you do too little for the Bantu?”. No, that is not what we want. All we want is that they should not paint such a false picture in regard to what is done for the Bantu. All we want is that they should not paint such a false picture as the one depicted in this film, “Sabotage in South Africa”. Mr. Speaker, I tell you now that the United Party and the hon. member for Zululand and his minions have painted a picture of South Africa equally as false as the one painted by that despicable American. I want to prove it by reading what was said by him. I have here a speech made by the hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell), in which he set out the position in South Africa, and said the following—

That is precisely what this American said. And precisely the same incitement contained in that false American film. Then he said in regard to a request for a conference—

I now ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Germiston (District): Is there anything in that film worse than what their member for Wynberg said? Then he continues—

Is that not precisely what Patrick Duncan said in that film? I say that film is based on the statements of the hon. member for Wynberg, or the statements of the United Party and on the propaganda which they falsely made against the Government.

When was that speech made?

It is reported in the Cape Times and I am glad to see that the hon. member feels ashamed, that he still has a little shame in him, because these things are said against one’s own country, things which are quite clearly untrue.

Who said that?

Mr. Hamilton Russell, according to a report in the Cape Times of a speech he made at Claremont on 4 May 1961. But listen to what that hon. member said further. and that is contained in an article he wrote in the Cape Times. Listen to what he says about conditions in South Africa. I say this is almost twice as bad as the film “Sabotage in South Africa”. If they had just photographed half and shown half of what the hon. member for Wynberg as well as other hon. members opposite had said, that film would have been even worse than it actually is. This is what the hon. member for Wynberg says—

Surely that is a lie; surely it is a false statement. There is not a single word about the universities established for them, and not a single word about the fact that those who are still at the universities may remain there. No, he tells the world that people with Black and Brown skins have been banished from our universities. “Sabotage in South Africa” does not contain anything as shocking as the words of the hon. member for Wynberg. But he goes on and says the following—just listen. Then we are surprised that the Americans hate us and that the British hate us and that the outside world hates us. What I am going to read now was not said by that lying American. It was not said by the so-called open enemies of South Africa, but it was said by one of the leading figures in the United Party—

I ask the hon. member for Germiston (District) whether he agrees with that? Does he think this is the type of thing to tell the world, that all Blacks are untouchables in South Africa? Does it surprise him then that this American has made the film he did, a film which is now arousing enmity towards our country? He says, further—

This is an infamous lie and a total untruth—

That is what the hon. member for Wynberg says. He is a man who will become one of their leading Cabinet Ministers if they should ever come into power. If this is the truth, then I say that nobody can blame America and UN if they say they can no longer tolerate such a state of affairs. I say they are now reaping the dragon’s teeth they sowed in South Africa. They are now reaping the hatred they sowed, not by means of truths, not by means of fair criticism, but by means of what the Opposition to-day admits is a distorted, false and shocking representation of the position in South Africa.

I want to tell the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) this. They say we do too much for the Bantu. I do not care about that. They can say what they like, but what I find so immoral and indefensible, and what revolts me to the soul, is this. Those hon. members, particularly the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) and others, want to make political capital and they say: “You do too much for the Bantu and neglect the White man,” in order to catch a few miserable votes.

Where did I say that?

I will point out what the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) said. But in the same breath they tell the outside world that we oppress the Bantu. Mr. Speaker, I do not blame the hon. member for Germiston (District) for walking out now, because he is far too decent to remain sitting in that party any longer. But then they tell the outside world, not that we do too much for the Bantu, but that we oppress them to such an extent that it can only lead to a blood-bath. What do they say about the Transkei? I just want to mention it in passing; I do not want to discuss it. They say it is complete independence with all the attendant dangers, and then they try to incite the public by telling them of the dangers which immediate independence will lead to. But then the hon. member for Wynberg writes articles which are cabled overseas and in which he says there is no talk of independence; it is only a bluff on the part of the Government. Sir, I say that is sabotage such as we have never before had in this country.

I should now like to have the attention of the hon. member for Zululand if he would stop writing Hansard. Surely there are other people here to write Hansard. I do not want to do the hon. member an injustice. I want to ask him whether he said last night that he is opposed to job reservation? He was very brave when he spoke last night, and I ask him now to show some courage and to reply to a very simple question. Did he say that he was opposed to job reservation? [Interjections.] Very well, then I will ask the hon. member for Pinelands (Mr. Thompson). Is he against job reservation? [Interjections.]

Say yes or no, man.

No, now they do not have the courage to reply, and the hon. member for Zululand continues writing because he is ashamed of what he said, because he knows that it is untrue that they are opposed to job reservation. While he is looking me in the face now I want to ask him again whether he said that he was opposed to job reservation? [Interjections.] I ask that of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes). Is he against job reservation?

Make your own speech.

I shall make my own speech, but they have not the courage to reply to that question. When one talks to them as man to man, they do not have the courage to say what they have in their hearts. When the Minister of Information asked the hon. member for Zululand whether he did not believe in job reservation, he replied, “Of course not”, and when he said that he was telling an untruth. Is he in favour of the abolition of job reservation in the mines? Of course he is. But he is not the most cowardly member opposite. They are all the same.

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

I withdraw it, and say we have never seen so much courage. I ask them whether they are in favour of job reservation in the mines, or are they opposed to it? No, he will not reply. But, Sir, someone who has a lot of courage has just entered the Chamber, the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw). In politics he can give as good as he can take. He has not yet received instructions from his Whips not to reply to anything I say, and therefore I want to ask him whether he is against job reservation?

Surely you know our policy.

Then I take it that the hon. member for Durban (Point) agrees with the hon. member for Zululand and that they are opposed to all job reservation. But are they opposed to job reservation in the mines? He has not the courage to reply. I ask: Are they in favour of job reservation in this House? Of course. [Interjection.] They say that these troubles we have with Poqo are the result of job reservation, but I tell them they are just as much in favour of job reservation as we are. It is in terms of their written policy that there should be job reservation in the mines and job reservation in this House, so that, in terms of their policy, Luthuli will not take over Vause Raw’s job in this House. There is job reservation here. There is job reservation in the municipalities and in the Provincial Councils and everywhere. There is job reservation in education, because they will not allow a Black man to educate their children. They are as much in favour of job reservation as we are, but their whole accusation against the Government is that Poqo is the result of job reservation. Are they not ashamed of themselves? It is a pity the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) is not here, but last night he said the primary reason for the existence of Poqo was the fact that the families of the Bantu workers could not live with them. He says it is our policy, but if it is our policy I want to ask any of the members over there: Is it their policy that the families of the Bantu should live with them? Is it their policy that every Bantu worker who is employed here should be able to bring his wife and children with him?

Ask Graaff.

Ah, there is the Leader of the Opposition. I am sure he will not reveal the same lack of courage as the hon. member for Durban (Point). I am disappointed in him. I asked the Leader of the Opposition, seeing that his deputy leader said last night that the reason for Poqo was because Bantu women were not allowed to live with their husbands in the cities, is it the policy of his party that Bantu women and their children should be able to live with their husbands in the urban areas? No, he will not reply. He is also starting to write Hansard now. No, they do not know what their policy is. They just say this when it suits them. Mr. Speaker, the whole of the mining industry is based on migratory labour. Mr. Harry Oppenheimer asked permission to build townships in the Free State goldfields so that the Bantu could live there with their families, but this Government refused, and it had the full support of the United Party. In other words, they themselves said that the things which they consider to be the cause of Poqo should take place. But they tell the world that it is not the inciters, not the intimidators, not the saboteurs, not the criminals, who cause these things; it is these poor frustrated people, because there is job reservation, and because they cannot keep their families with them. That is the reason for the murder and the manslaughter and the sabotage. When they live in this country and say such things, can one be angry with such a vile American who makes a film such as “Sabotage in South Africa”? He need only film half of what they say and propagate to have a much worse film than the one he has. Sir, look at this shocking situation. They dare not say what their policy is, but they say this is the cause of the murders and of Poqo. Those hon. members know it is not true. The greatest peace we had in South Africa was in the single quarters in the mine compounds, where almost 500,000 Bantu are employed, who all live in the single quarters. But the greatest violence we have had in the history of South Africa came from those quarters where the Bantu were living together with their wives, such as Cato Manor and Sharpeville. But the world is told that the agitators are not responsible for those murders; it is the Government’s fault, through not allowing the Bantu women to live with the men. whilst they know that just the opposite is the truth.

Then the hon. member for Zululand made this shocking statement last night that the great majority of the Bantu support Poqo. He went so far as to say that the Bantu police support Poqo. Mr. Speaker, I want to say this frankly, and I hope you will not order me to withdraw it, that in so far as the Bantu police are concerned I am sure they have as much loyalty as one could find on the part of the Opposition. It was a shocking allegation which was made by the hon. member for Zululand, that 80 per cent of the Bantu police in South Africa support Poqo. The hon. member for Zululand keeps on writing because he is ashamed of himself, and because he is afraid of answering a single question in regard to that speech of his, because he knows that what he said is not true. He did not care what he said to undermine this country, as long as he could just make a little miserable political propaganda. [Interjection.] The Opposition dragged Judge Snyman’s Report into this debate with the sole object of making propaganda out of it. I repeat what was said by the Prime Minister, that when the Leader of the Opposition said that they were willing to assist the Government to suppress this thing, he did not speak the truth because they do not intend assisting the Government and they will not help it. They will oppose every step taken by the Government to deal with Poqo, as we will still see during this Session. They pretend that all these things which Judge Snyman mentioned in his report, Poqo and this sabotage, murder and arson, are all attempts to right the wrongs in South Africa. The hon. member for Yeoville said so in so many words. He said: Let the women come here. The hon. member for Zululand said: Abolish job reservation. The Leader of the Opposition said: Give these people the opportunity to buy their own sites in the Bantu residential areas and then there will be an end to all this violence. In other words, make concessions to them. But I say to them: Do all those things and you will not even have touched the fringe of this matter, because their whole diagnosis is wrong. Their diagnosis would have been correct if the aim of Poqo was to right supposed wrongs, but that is not their object: they are there for a different purpose, and even though all those grievances are eliminated they will still carry on in the same way. We can test it very easily. They say: Put us in power. That is what the hon. member for Yeoville said last night. Sir, I almost thought I had said something wrong again! [Laughter.] They say: Put us in power and this sabotage and the murders and Poqo will cease. I want to ask: How far are they prepared to go? We have the instance of Southern Rhodesia. I am not talking about the north. Southern Rhodesia said: Let your women come and live here; all job reservation is abolished and you can swim in our swimming-baths and sit in our hotels and drink tea in our cafés. Southern Rhodesia said there would be not only eight Bantu members in the central Parliament, but 15. But did that put a stop to the demands of those people? Did that put an end to the violence? So little did it put a stop to it that after they had made all those concessions, after the swimming-baths had been opened to them and all job reservation had been abolished, and after they had been granted equal political and social rights with the Whites, then the throwing of petrol bombs took place on such a scale that they passed àn Act in the Southern Rhodesian Parliament providing for the compulsory death sentence to be imposed on anyone throwing a petrol bomb.

And that was not in the single quarters.

Yes. All that murder and arson and the throwing of petrol bombs took place after the Southern Rhodesian Parliament had made 200 per cent more concessions than the Opposition is willing to make.

Mr. Speaker, why do they not realize what is going on in this country? The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) said that these things were the result of the injustice committed against the Bantu, and this is merely an attempt to set right those grievances. Mr. Speaker, Southern Rhodesia went further than even she wants to go, and it is no use her saying, “nonsense She is an intellectually honest person. But notwithstanding all those concessions, these things are happening. Can these people not realize that this is not an attempt on the part of the Black people to remedy grievances? Only one thing is happening here, and it is an attempt, not to overthrow this Government, but to make it impossible to have any White Government in South Africa. It is precisely the same sort of thing which went on in Kenya and in Nyasaland and in Northern Rhodesia and in Southern Rhodesia. It is not an attempt to remedy grievances. They do not want to remedy grievances. They want to take over the country and the Government.

[Inaudible.]

I shall argue with the hon. member on that point next week. The hon. member may not know it, but there is a Bill on the Order Paper which, in his language, makes provision for Bantustans, and therefore I am not allowed to discuss it. But he is still a young member and in ten years’ time he may perhaps know the rules of this House. I am just saying that those hon. members should realize that this is the position, and they admit that the position is dangerous, but they are not prepared to say whether they will do something to help this Government to put a stop to this attempt which is being made, not to overthrow this Government, but to make any White Government in South Africa impossible, and to give the Government the powers to do so.

I do not think anyone will deny that this is the problem with which we are faced—not the elimination of grievances, but the bloodthirsty, inexorable and ruthless attempt on the part of Mandela, on the part of Luthuli, on the part of Sobukwe, to put an end to the White man in South Africa, with the assistance of the Opposition. If the Leader of the Opposition were sincere in the offer he made to the Prime Minister and had said: We will assist you in combating this attempt to overthrow the White Government by violence—if he were sincere that there was only one way open to him, then he should have done just one thing, and that was to tell the Prime Minister: Here we have murder and manslaughter; here we have sabotage of the worst kind, and here we have an attempt to overthrow the Whites, so therefore you must take all the powers you consider necessary, and we as an Opposition will see to it that you do not abuse those powers. But what does history teach us? And it will happen again during this Session. Every time we take powers to combat these fiendish forces, these devilish things about which the hon. member for Germiston (District) is so concerned, they tell the outside world that this is a police state, that it is a fascist state, a state in which there is no longer any freedom. Sir, I am afraid that whatever the protestations of the Opposition are—and I have never been more convinced of it than when I saw that film to-day—they are prepared to sacrifice the safety of the Whites in South Africa in the pious hope that it will gain them votes and that they will be able to take over the Government.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

I now challenge that hon. member to deny the things said by the hon. member for Wynberg. Is it not a fact that that hon. member’s party said that we are a police state? Is it not the truth that they said that there is no freedom of speech in South Africa? Did his leader not say that in terms of the church clause there is no freedom of religion in this country? Does he want to deny it? Then he still says I ought to be ashamed of myself. Yes, I should be ashamed of myself because we do not reveal these things to the public and to the world to a greater extent. That is the only reason why I am ashamed.

Mr. Speaker, I am now going to resume my seat. You will not have to put up with me much longer. I say that is the role they played and which they now play in regard to the Snyrnan Report, and that is the role they will play when we try to safeguard the position of the White man. I have reluctantly come to this sad conclusion, that the hon. members opposite, and amongst them I must include the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Germiston (District), would very much like to see a state of affairs in this country which would lead to chaos, on the wave of which they would come into power, and on that note I conclude. That is why the people despise them. That is why the people reject them increasingly. That is why the people will no longer listen to them, because they see through these things. They now want to make use of the Snyman Report—and that proved it to me conclusively—but they made not the slightest attempt to tell the Government: Let us leave all politics aside now, let us leave aside all this nonsense and let us stand together. No, then they put up their most exemplary member to make a plea, and they said that this was not the fault of the saboteurs or of the intimidators or of the murderers or of the arsonists, but the fault of Hendrik Verwoerd and his followers, so carry on. That is why I have come to this conclusion. They said that this was the parting of the ways. Yes, it is really the parting of the ways. We cannot expect any assistance from that side of the House in this crisis. But the people will hear of it. We will not settle accounts with them; the people of South Africa will settle accounts with them.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee), who has just sat down, will not expect me to deal with his speech.

Heavens, no!

From the statements made by Ministers and the more responsible members opposite, we have had a constant stressing of the serious state of affairs developing in this country, and one can gauge the depth of despair to which the Government side has sunk as the result of the hammering they have received when they put the hon. member for Vereeniging in to try to restore the morale of their party. The hon. member is well known for his synthetic display of indignation, but that is not the sort of speech we want at a time like this. We do not want appeals to the blood; we want appeals to the head. That is what a country needs at the moment, and therefore I do not want to answer the hon. member at all because it is not worth it. I am sorry, also, that I am not able to reply at length to the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Greyling), because our time in this debate is limited and I want to deal with a particular subject, but I want to tell him that I am sorry I cannot follow him in his orbital flight through space. I am sure the hon. the Minister of Defence was delighted to find this new technical expert backing up his defence system. But one thing he did mention about the morale to-day in the Defence Force I accept, but I will add this to it, that this Minister would have found it very hard to have done anything at all for the Defence Force he inherited without improving it. But it has been improved. But I will leave the hon. member there.

We have come to a point in this debate where it is not possible to treat the matter with levity. There are serious matters affecting the security of the country which have to be discussed, and I want to deal with a matter of defence, not a new matter, but a matter which has been raised by this side of the House before, in the hope that some effective action will be taken, and to consider our proposals and if possible to meet them.

One of the most important aspects of the parliamentary control of defence expenditure has been raised by this party time and again. I refer to the aspect of the information available to Parliament to enable it to fulfil its responsibilities as the watchdog over expenditure, which Parliament itself has to approve of. Over the last 12 years this Parliament has voted approximately R1,000,000,000 towards the defence of this country. We have to accept that probably an equivalent amount has been involved in the hidden costs to the country of defence, in its effect on the general economy, the expenditure in cash, men and material, on which no money value can be placed. That is no small amount for a small country like ours. Following on last year’s record defence budget of R120,000,000, the hon. the Minister of Finance has asked us this year to put up another record by voting R157,000,000, and the Minister of Finance asked us to accept that as the minimum price of protection against the foreign aggressor. These are two important statements which have to be followed up. This side of the House is not going to hold up the provision of that expenditure. The Minister has asked for it and we are in that parlous state where we have to be prepared, and it is not our intention to hold up the granting of the money, but there are questions we want to ask. We are not only going to repeat and emphasize our request that Parliament be given considerably more information about this expenditure, as well as much more information about what South Africa has received for the money spent last year, but we are going to put forward what we believe is a perfectly reasonable proposal as to how this can be done with substantial benefit to the country and its defence. Two of the most powerful Western nations who are fighting Communism, which is the basis of our own defence problem, and whose defence expenditure runs into most astronomical figures, are Great Britain and the U.S.A., yet both those nations keep their respective Parliaments fully informed not only in regard to the amount of money and men required, but also in regard to the armaments, the amount of defence assets to be provided for the expenditure of that money, the reason why that particular equipment has been decided on, and in the bigger defence projects and training programmes, their effects both on the local and the national economy of those nations, both directly and indirectly.