Mr. Victor, it is my pleasant privilege to move—

Mr. Loots became the member of the House of Assembly for Queenstown on 18 October 1961, and has therefore been a member of this House for more than 14 years. For the sake of interest I could mention that if Mr. Loots is elected Speaker, he will be the second Speaker the electoral division of Queenstown has produced, for one of his predecessors, Mr. C. M. van Coller, held the office of Speaker between 1944 and 1948.

As an ordinary member of the House of Assembly Mr. Loots was interested inter alia in economic and financial matters and he became a member, and subsequently chairman, of the very important Select Committee on Public Accounts. He was also a member of the Select Committee on Coinage which was appointed in 1964 to institute an investigation into a new monetary system for South Africa.

On 12 August 1968 Mr. Loots was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, and on 18 May 1970 he was included in the Cabinet as Minister of Planning, of Coloured Affairs, of Rehoboth Affairs and of Statistics. He was in charge of the portfolios of Coloured Affairs and Rehoboth Affairs until 1972, and until the present of the portfolios of Planning and the Environment and of Statistics. Mr. Loots has already proved himself conclusively to be a proficient parliamentarian and this, coupled with his law training, makes him eminently suited, in my opinion, to hold the high office of Speaker.

Hon. members will agree with me that over the decades an exceptionally proud tradition was been built up around the office of Speaker by a succession of extremely competent and respected men who have held this illustrious office. I am convinced that Mr. Loots possesses the capabilities and qualities to continue that proud tradition with honour and dignity and, in due course, to leave his own mark on this office. Over the years Mr. Loots has shown that he likes the atmosphere in this House, and the Whips can testify that he was one of the members whose attendance of debates was most regular. In this respect he consequently set a very commendable example, which I as Whip wish to praise very emphatically.

We came to know Mr. Loots as a calm, friendly person with a balanced judgment. As Minister he showed that he was approachable and had a sound sense of justice. As person this makes him suited, in the first place, to act as servant of the House of Assembly and to ensure that justice is done at all times so that the interests of each member of this House may be protected regardless of party context. It is also the task of the Speaker to maintain order during the discussions in this House and to ensure that the great dignity of this institution is protected. This can sometimes be an unenviable task, but I am convinced that Mr. Loots, with his good-natured, unprejudiced yet firm conduct will be able to rely on the support of every member of the House.

In moving that Mr. Loots hold this high office, I am confident that he will always be worthy of the great expectations and confidence which is being placed in him today.

Mr. Victor, I second the motion of the hon. member for Parow.

There being no other proposal, the Secretary called upon Mr. Loots to indicate whether he accepted the nomination.

Mr. Victor, I submit in all humility to the choice of the House of Assembly.

Thereupon the Secretary declared the hon. member duly elected.

Hon. members of the House of Assembly, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the hon. member for Parow, who proposed me as candidate for the high office which I have now accepted, for the kind words he expressed on this occasion, and at the same time I also want to thank the hon. member for Mariental for his support, as well as each one of you for the confidence you place in me. I appreciate it all the more because I am deeply aware of the fact that I shall only be able to carry out my new duties in this illustrious House successfully with your full confidence, respect and support. I am deeply aware of the responsibility resting upon me as a result of the honour you have bestowed upon me by electing me to the Chair of the House of Assembly. As has already been said, I am the second Member of the House of Assembly for Queenstown to be elected to this office. It is my sincere hope that I shall serve the House with the same dignity and competence as was the case with one of my predecessors, Speaker C. M. van Coller, who held this office from 1944 to 1948.

†My nine illustrious predecessors in the office of Speaker since 1910 have set an example of tact and dedication to duty which I shall try to emulate to the best of my ability. In this regard I wish to pay homage to my immediate predecessor in office, the Hon. A. L. Schlebusch. During his term as Speaker he commanded the respect and enjoyed the esteem of the members of all parties in this House. He and his predecessors will be an inspiration to me in the service of the highest legislative body in the Republic. I now submit myself, in all humility, to this House. I realize that in accepting the appointment to the Chair, I have also become the servant of the House. I therefore earnestly request all members to assist me in carrying out the onerous task entrusted to me.

Mr. S. F. KOTZÉ and Mr. P. C. ROUX conducted Mr. Loots to the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, with your permission I gladly avail myself of the opportunity to congratulate you very sincerely on behalf of all of us gathered here on your unanimous election as Speaker. The fact that you were unanimously elected, demonstrates how highly you are regarded by all sides of the House. It therefore gives me great pleasure to congratulate you very sincerely on your unanimous election.

You are not only the servant of this House, but also the protector of all the members of the House, regardless of their party affiliations and the positions they occupy. Consequently you are the protector of both the Prime Minister as well as the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the second Opposition, and perhaps it is those very three leaders, in reversed order, who require your protection! [Interjections.] I do not know precisely what difficulties the others have, but if you look at me, you see Bothas on my left and Mullers on my right. [Interjections.]

Your proposer and you were correct in referring to the high traditions which were not only established but also maintained by successive Speakers in this House. I, on my part, have no doubt at all that you are adequately equipped, that you possess the necessary insight, in fact, all the qualities which are necessary to become a good and a great Speaker. Tradition has it that Speaker Jansen was one of the great Speakers that South Africa had, and you will permit me to say that you remind us of Speaker Jansen: You are gentle by nature, but you are nevertheless able to take firm disciplinary action when you have to. You have insight, you have a pleasant personality and, thank heaven, you have a marvellous sense of humour. For my part—I do so very gladly on behalf of all of us—I want to give you the assurance that, since we have in you a person whom we know will take particular care that the privileges of the House are most strictly respected and who will not only in your own person ensure that the dignity of the House is held in high esteem at all times, but who will also ensure that we all do so, we humbly offer you our assistance to this end. We should like to convey to you and your family our most sincere congratulations and our best wishes for a long and pleasant career in your new capacity.

You will also permit me to express a brief word of thanks to the hon. the Minister of Public Works and of Immigration. Admittedly he only occupied the Chair for a short period, but nevertheless, within that short period of time, he rendered great services to this House and demonstrated that if he had been allowed a longer term of office, he would have been able to gain a very honoured position in the array of Speakers. We therefore convey our thanks and appreciation to him for the way in which he performed his duties in that short period. We learnt, in that short period, to appreciate him, and we wish him everything of the best in the new career which now awaits him.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House would like to identify ourselves with the words just expressed by the Prime Minister. We should like to welcome you to the Chair and congratulate you on your appointment. We have known you for many years, I personally even before you were a member of the House of Assembly, and we know that you have the ability, competence and training to make a success of this high office. I am glad you mentioned that you were the second Speaker from the constituency of Queenstown, because if it should be necessary for you to go and look for advice somewhere, you would not have to go very far. Speaker Van Coller, although he is now 99 years old, was one of the great Speakers, and his brain is as clear as ever. Of course, it will be a new experience for you, after having been a champion of the Government for many years, to find that you will now to a large extent be a champion of the rights of the minorities in this House. The Prime Minister referred to his difficulties. We all have difficulties. As a matter of fact, I do not know whether the Prime Minister’s difficulties are not greater than mine.

†In that charitable spirit, Mr. Speaker, I would say I believe you will guard the privileges of this House as they have traditionally been guarded by Speakers of this House. If you would allow me, I would also like to say that in so far as you guard those privileges and observe our traditions, you will have the full support of every member in this House, particularly those from the Opposition side.

I should now like to say a word about your immediate predecessor, Speaker Schlebusch. To him I want to say that although he was only in the Chair a short time, we very soon got to know him. He also got to know us very soon, and if there was one thing, above all, that we appreciated about him, it was the manner in which he managed to get agreement between the warring groups behind the scenes. He was a mediator and an arbitrator of the highest quality and had that invaluable asset, a knowledge of humanity. This is the one asset a Speaker needs if he is to succeed. When I say of a man who has been Speaker that he has a knowledge of humanity, I say it sincerely because I think that the most difficult human beings in the world are members of Parliament and members of the Other Place.

Some more than others.

Mr. Speaker, it remains only for me, on behalf of the members on these benches, to associate myself with the words which have already been uttered about your appointment and to wish you a very successful term of office. We have no doubt that you will maintain the best traditions of this House in being an objective Speaker and in protecting, more particularly, the rights of the minority groups in this House.

May I also add my appreciation for the objective way in which Mr. Speaker Schlebusch carried out his duties vis-à-vis the members on these benches.

Mr. Speaker, allow me to congratulate you and to express the conviction that you have at your disposal the knowledge, ability and equilibrium to continue the tradition established by great Speakers who preceded you and me. I express my sincere gratitude to the hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Houghton for the many kind words addressed to me. In particular, I wish to thank the hon. the Prime Minister for his constant encouragement when I was hesitant to occupy the Chair initially.

†I also wish to thank hon. Ministers, the hon. Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Sea Point, Chief Whips, Whips, all hon. members and the parliamentary staff for their kind and courteous co-operation during my term of office. Mr. Speaker, I discovered one outstanding truth whilst in the Chair, i.e. that if one tries to be sincere and impartial, interspersed with touches of humour, hon. members will forgive one many other mistakes.

*In conclusion, may I say in a lighter vein that I am very nervous now that I am back on the floor of the House. For 18 months I was able to silence hon. members at will without their being able to criticize me. Mr. Speaker, you will not believe it, but I sometimes succeeded in having the last word after the hon. member for Houghton. Possibly there are hon. members who are now waiting to get their own back, and, subject to your favour, I feel myself a little unprotected. In conclusion, I therefore want to ask politely whether it would not be possible to introduce a moratorium of, for example, two sessions during which no one be allowed to criticize the former Speaker.

I thank the hon. the Prime Minister, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. the Minister of Public Works and of Immigration for their congratulatory remarks on this occasion. I should like to assure them that I sincerely appreciate those remarks. I thank all members of this House for the trust reposed in me, and I undertake to be a servant of this House and of all its members to the best of my ability.

Proceedings suspended at 10h55 and resumed at 14h15.

I have to report that after the House had suspended proceedings this morning, I proceeded to Tuynhuys, accompanied by Ministers, the Leader of the Opposition and other honourable members, where we were received by the State President, to whom I presented myself pursuant to the Standing Orders of this House. The State President then congratulated me on my election.

Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Agreed to.

MR. Speaker, I move the motion of no confidence as it appears in my name on the Order Paper as follows—

1. (a) to take the public into its confidence, and to motivate it adequately, in regard to the Government’s actions and objectives in Angola;
2. (b) to maintain economic growth, and to combat inflation in particular, in a manner consistent with increasing defence and other demands on our resources; and
3. (c) to improve race relations by making more rapid progress towards a system that will unite South Africans of all races in a common loyalty.

This motion deals with the effects on security of the failure of the Government to take the public into its confidence in respect of certain matters, with the economy and with the Government’s failure to move in the direction of policies ensuring a common loyalty amongst all our people in South Africa.

The three matters emphasized by me in the motion are not only vital to the security of our own country, but are also of ever-growing concern to all sections of our population—White, Black and Brown. Because we in South Africa have a parliamentary recess which extends from June to January, these matters have in fact been handled, or shall I say mishandled, by the Cabinet for the past seven months without any restraint or guidance from Parliament. I believe that these issues have become so serious and involve such dangers for our people that today they have to be discussed frankly and fearlessly in the true interests of South Africa.

The position in Angola is, of course, uppermost in the minds of most people as an area of immediate danger. For that reason alone it is obviously essential that in discussing it in this House nothing should be said that will jeopardize the safety or morale of our troops, or which will expose our defences to those who may wish to do us harm. I shall accordingly choose my words with care. However, I want to put very clearly to the Prime Minister right at the outset that this House and the people of South Africa look to him for the fullest possible disclosure of information consistent with the considerations I have mentioned. Few things could be more destructive of the morale and firm resolution of the public than to conceal from them the nature and purpose of any military action beyond our borders and then have them discover from other sources that things are in fact not as they were led to believe. At present there are sharp contradictions between information locally released and that which is freely available in and from many other countries, from their Press, their radio and their television. Rumour is rife and confusion and concern are growing, particularly amongst parents, wives, girl friends and relatives of servicemen, simply because statements made by or on behalf of the Minister of Defence and others cannot be reconciled with facts which appear to be obvious.

I believe that South Africans are a brave and steadfast people who, in times of danger, are prepared to give their confident support to their elected leaders. However, they are also an independent and stubborn people and believe that one confidence deserves another. They will give their support, but they do want to know where they are being led and why. This information the Government has deliberately and systematically denied them by the use of certain powers under the Defence Act, among others, and the situation is made more humiliating by the fact that the involvement of South Africa is, as I have said, being openly published and discussed in the Press, the radio and television of the rest of the world. And now South Africa has to hear of a possible disengagement from sources outside South Africa.

What has made a particularly deep impression upon the people has been the publication in our Press and on our television services of the photographs of certain young South African servicemen taken prisoner by the MPLA movement in Angola and paraded before the Press and television services of the world as evidence of South Africa’s involvement in Angola, in areas many hundreds of kilometres north of the frontier. Foreign news media claim that these young men have themselves identified to them the areas in which they were captured. What South Africa wants to know is how they got there, under whose command they were—South Africa’s or that of someone else—and whether there are other South African servicemen exposed to similar dangers. If this is so, South Africa would like to know what the strategical objectives are which have caused involvement in far-flung areas north of our border.

There are a host of other questions they want answered. I think that the overriding ones are: If we have been involved beyond our borders, are we still so involved? Was such intervention unilateral or at the request or with the tacit approval of any other countries or organizations, either African or Western? What does the hon. the Minister of Defence mean when he states that South Africa’s involvement in Angola is part of the involvement of the free world? The people want to know if we are withdrawing and if so, what changed considerations there are which have led to this reversal of tactics. They want to know what the hon. the Minister of Defence means when he says that South Africa is not prepared to fight alone on behalf of the free world. Has the hon. the Minister been let down by someone, and if so, by whom?

At this point, I want to digress for a few moments to discuss the position of the young South Africans who are being held as prisoners by the MPLA and to register my public protest at, and my condemnation of, the manner in which they have been paraded manacled in various capital cities of Africa, contrary to the provisions of every international convention in respect of the treatment of prisoners of war.

Hear, hear!

I believe that when I say that, I am speaking for every citizen of South Africa and for the majority of the civilized world. I hope that the strongest possible representations have been made both to the International Red Cross and to friendly States in Africa and elsewhere to intervene on their behalf. I myself know something of the agony of a prisoner of war.

If we are only involved on the border in protecting the workers and installations at Calueque and Ruacana and the hot pursuit of terrorists, I can only say that the Government has completely failed to reconcile this situation convincingly with the evidence to the contrary that is being published daily around the world. If we are more deeply involved, as it seems obvious we were, then surely it was the Government’s first duty to inform the country of the essential circumstances that may have justified such a radical departure from our declared policies and to gain the country’s support for such a crucial action. The Government cannot seriously expect to enjoy the unqualified support of the people if, by stealth, it commits them to war. Military defence of our borders and the extended actions which are necessary to protect Ruacana and Calueque, the hot pursuit and even action by way of reprisal against terrorists, has my full support. I know there are tactical arguments—and I have heard some that are most persuasive—to justify a calculated degree of support to the groups that are resisting the assault on their freedom to determine their own future by forces assisted by Cuban soldiers and Russian arms and advice. It may even be true that our failure to provide urgent assistance could give such encouragement to foreign communist interventionists that it could expose the whole of the sub-continent to further aggressions. It must never be forgotten that Russian determination to obtain a foothold in Africa is a long standing one.

It may well be that we are engaged in no more than a holding operation in order that the immediate threat may be checked until the simultaneous withdrawal of all foreign forces in Angola, including our own, can be negotiated. If these, or some of these, are the military appreciation then let us hear about them. Let us evaluate their merits in order that we may weigh the military needs against the enormous political issues that are at stake in the maintenance of our peaceful relations with the continent of Africa. I have in mind here not only the Prime Minister’s détente efforts which have the full support of this side of the House, but also attempts at settlement in South West Africa and elsewhere. I want to say quite categorically that we for our part are convinced that no settlement reached in Angola, South West Africa or indeed any other part of Africa can long survive unless it is reached with the consent of all the peoples concerned without foreign intervention. I think that in this regard it is time to assess the relative priorities between the short and the long term, between the expedient and the essential and between the popular illusions and the hard realities.

Let us begin then with a frank examination of our presence in Angola. Let us proceed to try to strike a balance between the credits and the debits. Let us consider the advantages on the one hand of a temporary intervention with the limited objective of defending ourselves and sustaining a situation that can lead to the expulsion of the Russians and the Cubans. Against that let us set the alternative of maintaining an entirely defensive operation on our own frontiers coupled with vigorous new diplomatic moves for detente in Africa and in Southern Africa in particular. We have to strike a balance between militarily sterilizing the dangers of foreign intervention and diplomatically maintaining the credibility of our peaceful initiatives for détente in Africa. Unfortunately, the two concepts impinge upon one another. In reasoning this out, I think we can all agree that South Africa cannot ignore the military intervention of a foreign communist-spearheaded consortium in Southern Africa whose declared intention it is to take Angola and to use it as a springboard for further aggression. I think we can also agree, as we have agreed before, that South Africa cannot depart from its fundamental principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other States in Africa. We rigorously applied that principle in Mozambique. We were right and the world said we were right. Are these two things irreconcilable? I believe that they are not, and I believe that the essential weakness of the Government’s conduct of affairs in Angola has been its inability to make it clear to people at home and abroad that there is no real contradiction.

From the outset it was hardly a military secret, neither was it difficult to justify the measures taken to secure our own defensive position on the frontier, namely, to deal with terrorist incursions and to protect the international consortium that was building an irrigation and hydro-electric project for the agreed benefit of people on both sides of the border. This was something we had been asked to do by the existing governments of Owambo, Kavango and Okavango. That much could be justified and, if that much could be justified, then in my view there was also military justification—I stress the word “military”—for certain other consequential actions that were consistent with an essentially defensive purpose. In the category of such further actions could legitimately be included a limited degree of assistance to other threatened groups in the area who had a common interest in maintaining their defences against the Cuban spearheads and accepted and approved our actions on the Cunene. Whether there was political justification is another matter. In evaluating this, we must remember that for Russia the time for this operation was particularly well chosen. It is the presidential election year in the United States of America, Sir, and Ford and Kissinger were quarrelling with Congress. The CIA is under a cloud, it is being investigated and it is virtually hamstrung. Russian and Cuban support for other African movements as, for instance, in Guinea-Bissau passed off without comment. There was virtually no reaction at all. It gave Russia a chance to undermine the position of China in Africa. It gave them a chance to show that déntente did not mean that everything remained as it was and that there could be no changes. In other words, they could show the world that they were still in business. If South Africa took any action they could use it as propaganda to justify a Cuban presence. This, of course, they have done.

The Cubans were also very well chosen; the fact that they chose Cubans to do it.

I accept that entirely. There is, of course, the other side of the coin. The other side of the coin was mentioned in an article in Pravda only a few days ago in which they pointed out the dangers of a continued Russian presence in Africa, because of the unpopularity it would cause, as has already been evidenced at the meeting of the Organization of African Unity.

We have also to consider the effect of our action on our immediate neighbours and those close to us, Zambia, Zaire, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and others. These are but a few of the matters to be considered in deciding whether there was a political justification. That, Sir, is the case for the hon. the Prime Minister to make. What was not justifiable and what in my opinion cannot be justifiable was to pretend at home, when evidence to the contrary was widely known and published throughout the rest of the world, that we were engaged in the first type of operation but not in the other, unless that overseas information was totally incorrect, which does not seem possible now in view of the news revealed over the week-end. That is why it is now essential for the hon. the Prime Minister to reveal what can be revealed in order to put an end to this uncertainty, confusion and ill-informed controversy that prevails.

As I have indicated, he need not fear that he will be revealing fundamental facts of which the rest of the world is unaware. It is the South African public that have been kept uninformed and confused. What has been lacking in both cases, both at home and abroad, is reasoned justification for what he is doing. I was interested to note Dr. Savimbi saying on television last night that public opinion in the West had not been mobilized. I believe that it is not only an injustice to the people of South Africa to keep them uninformed, unmotivated and a prey to the confusion created by partially informed and partially suppressed news media—however honest their motives—and to the growing tide of alarmist rumour. It is more than that. It is also an injustice to our servicemen. I have had many first-hand reports and I have heard nothing but praise for the conduct of our military forces in these difficult conditions. They deserve the gratitude and recognition of all South Africans for maintaining the standards of conduct which, even in the eyes of the most critical observers, are exemplary in every respect. I believe the Government has done them a disservice in not informing the people of South Africa of the nature of what they are doing and the reasons why they are doing it. Their conditions of service deserve our constant attention and will be dealt with by the hon. member for Durban Point. I just at this stage want to tender the sympathy of myself and of my party to those who have been bereaved as a result of these operations.

Having said that, it would be idle to deny that physical intervention by South Africa beyond its own borders is fraught with grave politico-strategic problems. Such action can arouse bitter suspicions of territorial ambitions and of aggressive intentions towards the peoples of Africa, despite the continual denials by the hon. the Minister and the Prime Minister. It can give rise to even greater hostility than that which we have sought so hard to allay by the policies of détente. We know only too well how open-ended and dangerously unpredictable the consequences of any intervention, requested or otherwise, across international frontiers can be, and there can be no doubt in my mind that our fundamental Africa policy of generous cooperation coupled with genuine political restraint is in the long run the only one which can succeed. In view of what is being said and published abroad I think it is timely for the hon. the Prime Minister to take this opportunity to reaffirm that fundamental policy and to draw it pertinently to the attention of our more immediate neighbours. And to the extent that further action against foreign communist intervention in our Southern African sub-continent may be essential, I believe that we should make it clear beyond any misunderstanding that such action is undertaken not only on our own behalf but to help maintain the peace and freedom of the entire region. It is undertaken on behalf of Blacks as well as Whites, and probably more on the part of the Blacks than the Whites, as is the case in Angola. I believe it should be a major objective of our diplomacy to secure the open acknowledgment of that majority of Southern African countries that are opposed to foreign communist intervention than that is the case. I think that events in Angola have dramatically demonstrated that agreements for greater co-operation and inter-dependence in Southern Africa cannot be limited to economic and technical matters only. Angola must have made our neighbours and our partners in the whole region urgently aware of the fact that we seem to be approaching an era of escalating violence. The majority of them showed at Addis Ababa that they were aware of this and were also aware from where the real danger stemmed. We must therefore seek, I believe, to include in our agreements for regional co-operation clear and visible arrangements for mutual support in the defence of our indivisible interest in peace. So far as even Angola and South West Africa are concerned, I believe that every country in Southern Africa could and should agree that in the process of self-determination it must be accepted that this is a matter for the inhabitants of those territories themselves. They cannot exercise that fundamental right unless they are safeguarded from foreign intervention.

It is the Prime Minister’s responsibility to make out his own case for his Government’s actions and objectives in regard to Angola. What we cannot condone, for the evidence is plain to see, is this Government’s clumsy failure to gain the confidence and the full support of the people of South Africa through failing to take them into its confidence in a matter that so deeply and so dangerously affects their security. Mr. Speaker, there is always a next time. What will the people of South Africa believe next time?

Before I leave the subject of Angola I want to deal briefly with the question of refugees. Large numbers of civilians have already been killed or threatened and their livelihood destroyed by the ebb and flow of the factional strife in Angola. Whatever the outcome of the present military actions by the three main antagonists, it must be taken as certain that there will be death, loss of life and destruction of property on a very large scale before, as we hope, the final solution is reached. They are swept almost like leaves before the wind, thousands and even hundreds of thousands of helpless people, and they are fleeing from the areas of violence. It is reported that some of the armed groups in Angola take no prisoners. The people of Angola, Sir, know what they are afraid of. There is a black trail of murder and burning and arson and destruction. The tide of refugees is seeking safety and is moving down towards our northern borders. Already there are large numbers in the frontier area which is under South Africa’s protection. Those numbers will continue to grow. The recent arrival of crowded ships and fishing boats at Walvis Bay is but one small though dramatic indication of the desperation of the non-combatants, both Black and White, who find themselves trapped by the ebb and flow of warfare. The assistance given by the South African authorities at Walvis Bay was a practical attempt to deal with a localized emergency situation in terms of our immigration and other peacetime laws, coupled with the administrative and material aid that was essential. The details of this operation, Sir, we can perhaps discuss later under the Vote of the Minister of the Interior, but it must be recognized that the provision of asylum for refugees has nothing to do with immigration, as is so popularly believed. It involves far greater numbers than our immigration laws were designed to deal with and it is entirely a different matter. It is required for reasons of common humanity. The intention is not permanent immigration, but eventual resettlement and rehabilitation. The point I want to make now, Sir, is that this kind of reaction will almost certainly prove to be inadequate if the trickle becomes a flood, as it is threatening to do. I am well aware of the enormous difficulties of dealing with a situation of this kind. We saw appalling examples after World War II, when hundreds of thousand of refugees fled from Eastern Europe as their lands were brutally occupied by the Soviet Union, and they fled to the West and were given asylum, mostly in Austria, Switzerland and in Italy. Many years passed before it was possible, with the aid of international organizations, to re-absorb them into a viable economic and social existence and to offer them and their children a new future. We should not underestimate this problem, nor should we assume that the camp at Walvis Bay and that mentioned on the radio this morning, at Canaille, will be the end of it. I believe we should now be preparing for what could be an impending tragedy by planning, in co-operation with the international organizations concerned, safe places of asylum for these people until order is eventually restored in Angola. The problem needs to be very carefully studied. It may be that a safe zone, possibly coinciding with the area on the South West African border that is now under our military protection, should be established under international recognition and with international aid. Whatever form in which this is agreed, we must stand ready to uphold the civilized right of asylum and to provide essential humanitarian aid. Sir, we cannot afford to delay. I want to say that we on this side of the House will give our full support to any initiatives taken by the Government in this direction at the United Nations and in co-operation with the Red Cross and other appropriate organizations. I believe that we must prove to the world that in matters affecting the welfare of our region, we are truly of Africa and that we do not shirk our responsibilities.

That, then, is my first reason for my motion of no-confidence in the Government, i.e. the failure of the Government to take the public into its confidence. The second reason is closely linked with that because the deplorable mismanagement of our economy is no separate matter to be dealt with in isolation. The national security of our country, particularly in the increasingly grave circumstances we must now be ready to face, is essentially dependent upon the strength of our economy. Without the financial resources, derived from the rapidly growing productivity of all our people, we shall not have the means to meet the high cost of ensuring our own safety. Courage and determination are splendid things, but in the conditions of modern conflict they are not enough. I was most interested, last night, to see Dr. Savimbi on television say that one has to have regard to the quantity and quality of the weapons with which we are faced. We may have the same problem. Whatever has been said—and no doubt will be said in defence of the Government—I believe that the year 1975 is a sorry tale of miscalculation and mismanagement of our financial and economic affairs. It is true of course that some of our problems, difficulties and disappointments were the products of external events, but it is equally true that much of the harm which could not effectively be combated or remedied during 1975, was the direct product of the Government’s failures in preceding years.

It is almost unbelievable that South Africa of all countries, one of the countries of the world most richly endowed with all the natural resources of which nature could conceive, should be prominent in that dismal list of countries whose currency has declined most in value, whose productivity is one of the lowest, whose inflationary rate remains one of the highest and whose Government is now viewing with the Third World for foreign loans and stand-by assistance. Rampant inflation has at last come to be recognized as a sickness that must be cured …

You did so well just now; why spoil it all now!

I am doing better now.

†I say that rampant inflation has at last come to be recognized as a sickness that must be cured if it is not to destroy all stability in our economy, all confidence in thrift and investment and all future prospects of healthy growth. I say “at last’’, for the pages of Hansard abound in the complacent replies of Ministers to the criticisms from this side of the House at the Government’s failure to deal with exactly this problem. So deep was my personal concern at what was happening that after the massive devaluation of the rand last year, I asked for an urgent recalling of Parliament so that the problem could be discussed at once instead of three or four months later when more damage had been done.

You were very stupid.

The hon. the Prime Minister has admitted before that he is no economist. His comment on that was that that made two of us. I can only say that I believe that I am better advised on this issue than the hon. the Prime Minister. [Interjections.] I believe that demand was justified because the state of our economy is intimately and essentially related to our national security in times of danger.

Now, the Government has recently sponsored an inflation manifesto, and we have publicly given it our support. What are its main features, stated and implied? Businessmen and workers earning more than a minimum, as yet undetermined, are asked to limit profits and wage demands to a level well below the inflationary rate. Borrowers must defer borrowing, but the Government’s foreign borrowings to finance the deficit on current account continue to be seen as essential. The consuming public is encouraged to wage war on high prices and consumer exploitation—in the private sector, that is—and with only a superficial degree of official guidance. It has been stated that the Government is taking measures to cut its own expenditure by R800 million this year. That is interesting, because during the first half of 1975 consumption expenditure by the Government sector was 35% higher than during the same period in 1974. What the financial repercussions of the Angolan adventure are going to be, I hesitate to contemplate. Recent figures show that the rate of inflation is running at over 12%, but the full effects of devaluation have not yet been felt because it has a time lag.

You missed out on that one.

The hon. the Minister is talking very big again. Let us see what happens when his budget comes. He has been wrong every time in his forecasts so far. We welcome his inflation manifesto. It has our full support. It is a joint assault on inflation and we sincerely hope it will be successful, but it would be wrong to suppose that it is anything more than a temporary remedy. It can only be a temporary remedy because if the immediate measures succeed they will inevitably have recessionary effects. They will reduce incentives, growth and productivity and cause a degree of unemployment that we cannot afford. Moreover the expectations of business and labour alike are going to build up, and there will eventually be a dammed up demand to be recompensed for the temporary sacrifices made. The problem of inflation, therefore, will be deferred and not solved by this campaign. For a true solution we must look elsewhere. If we are concerned to find that true solution, the name of the game is “productivity”.

In addition to what may be termed the negative aspect of the fight against inflation, that is, everyone from the housewife to the Minister of Finance working harder and demanding less and earning less for what they are doing, the fiery champion in this battle against inflation, the only St. George that can slay the dragon, is an increase in productivity which means producing more goods and more services more efficiently. Do you know, Sir, 60% of our workers in industry and construction today are Black. This is just over one million people out of a total of 1 700 000. How many of them have been trained in approved trade schools? How many of them have been through an apprenticeship or are in apprenticeship training? As far as those in the established industrial areas are concerned, and in the building trade in White areas, I think the answer is “so far, not one”. The hon. the Minister may give an exact figure later if he wishes. The Chairman of the Bantu Investment Corporation, Dr. S. P. du Toit Viljoen, reckons that South Africa will need 3,5 million skilled Blacks by the year 2000. Now what is a “skilled worker” in terms of modern production techniques and the efficiency of our sophisticated competitors in other countries? It is something beyond the dreams of any Black worker doing the so-called skilled work that he is allowed to do here in South Africa. In terms of the magnitude of our problem, the South African economy, as a result of the policy of this Government over a quarter of a century, enshrined as it is on the Statute Book, is in the most deplorable condition possible. In August last year the Government did announce a training scheme for Blacks. Ten centres will, in a few years, be in a position to turn out a maximum of 50 000 people a year. Its in-training scheme is practically a write-off at the moment. As the hon. the Minister of Finance will know, applications for tax relief under the scheme are reported to be dismally low. Thus, under 5% of our Black industrial work force will be entitled to training as a right by the year 1977. In a Press statement the Secretary for Bantu Education, announcing the new Bantu Employees’ In-service Training Bill, said—

Apparently job reservation is still on the Statute Book. Compared with what it is spending on the training of White youths, the Government is spending a niggardly amount on Black vocational training. Labour bureaux are still used more to prevent people, whom the Government regards as undesirable, from getting into the urban areas than as agencies to bring employees and employers together. In terms of Government policy, all Black urban dwellers are temporary sojourners with grossly restricted rights, and are almost totally deprived of incentives to work harder and earn more. After all, on what do they spend their money if they cannot invest it in real property for their children and their descendants? I was interested last night again to hear Dr. Savimbi say that if you could satisfy the material requirements of people, the political requirements tended to fall into line. These are the things that go to the heart of the economic ills in South Africa. The Government must tackle these first before it can expect us to believe that it is tackling inflation, that it seriously desires increasing productivity or that it has our national security at heart. We should now be channelling our energies into what is undeniably the most important task in the next 10 years, and that is ensuring that we have men and women capable of improving productivity and thus combating inflation and ensuring healthy economic growth in the country.

We know the problems. We recognize that the advent of Blacks, and Coloureds and Indians to a certain extent, into fields of employment hitherto closed to them, requires time for equitable adjustment. However, we believe it is the prime duty of the Government to make clear what its own attitude is so that people know where they stand, so that there will not be some old statute on the Statute Book or some new law that undoes everything that has been attempted or puts a spanner in the works. I think four things are necessary to remove the uncertainty. The first is that the Government should remove the job reservation clause from the Industrial Conciliation Act. [Interjections.] The second is that Blacks should be included in the definition of “employee” under the same Act. The third is that compulsory schooling for all races must be introduced and facilities for vocational and technical training established that make no discrimination in regard to the training offered on the basis of race, but are tailored to meet the demand of the economy for trained people in the number and with the standard of skills required. The fourth is that Blacks resident in the common area are accepted as permanently resident there. What will be the effect? The removal of job reservation will banish uncertainty about what job a man can do once he is trained. Including “Blacks” in the definition of “employee” will ensure that Blacks are involved in the disciplines and responsibilities of a single trade union movement and Whites freed of the fear of unfair outside competition. Once accepted as employees under the Act, the rate for the job as determined by negotiation, will apply equally to all races and eliminate undercutting. Standardized vocational training ensures the maintenance of acceptable and uniform standards of performance and aids the establishment of an equitable “rate for the job”. Accepting urban Blacks as permanently part of the common area gives them a state of self-advancement and in maintaining industrial peace and law and order.

When I saw the appointment of the two new Deputy Ministers of Bantu Administration and Bantu Development, the hon. members for Waterberg and Lichtenberg, I wondered whether the hon. the Prime Minister had appointed them with a view to achieving these four essentials or with a view to resisting these four essentials to the last ditch. [Interjections.] Time alone will show, but I must say that I have no confidence that these two appointments are going to lead to a more rapid dealing with these essential problems.

I believe that the unequivocal acceptance of these four basic principles would have introduced no element of compulsion, but merely clearly sign-posted the future and allowed employer and employee, as a result of negotiation, to determine their own rate of progress. May I say that whether oil prices go up or down, whether the bill for imported goods rises or falls, whether people spend more or earn less, South Africa’s basic problem is an insufficient number of skilled people. It is going to remain unchanged unless there is a drastic change in Government policy. That is the name of the game!

I believe that if we are serious about our national security, if we recognize that a vigorous economy is an indispensable element in our national defence in its real sense, that is what we must set about doing without further delay. Without doing those things, any talk of national security is merely empty words.

It may be that we in Southern Africa are on the threshold of a war of survival, a war for victory between the two dominant philosophies of our age: Communism on the one side and democracy on the other. Tragically, as was so well expressed by Dr. Leistner, Deputy Director of the Afrika-Institute and an expert on Africa—

Dr. Leistner is perfectly correct. That is why the difference in attitudes between this side of the House and the Government side in respect of race discrimination is so vitally important. Both of us speak about eliminating racial discrimination, but I believe only we in Opposition give it substance by accepting the full implications of its practical application.

When you speak of “we in Opposition” do you mean only yourself and not the others as well?

I mean the Official Opposition. Only the substance of racial justice can bring about harmony between Black, White and Brown in South Africa and only justice can ensure our security. The trouble is that the Government has failed to produce that substance and we have no confidence that it ever will.

That is the essence of the third leg of my motion before the House dealing with the necessity of establishing a common loyalty amongst all races to South Africa as a bulwark of our common security. This great objective cannot be achieved by the Nationalist Party; and its policies, although they have changed, are still moving only on the periphery of dedication to change and truly harmonious co-operation without which none of our ambitions will be achieved nor even our very security ensured. Once again I ask whether those two recent appointments to Deputy Ministerships constitute a move in this direction or away from it.

I think one example which immediately comes to mind is the deterioration in White/Coloured relations over the past year. There are many reasons for that deterioration. Some of them are bound up with the Government’s failure to react, year after year, to the requests and complaints lodged by the CRC on behalf of both parties in regard to the lack of job opportunities, discrimination in respect of wages, discrimination in respect of housing, equal pay for equal work and things of that nature. I think a further setback for the Government’s policy was the series of events which led to the dismissal of Mr. Leon from the chairmanship of the CRC and his replacement by a Government nominee member of the Council. Surely this series of events must re-affirm my own view, and the view of my party, that the Government plans for the Coloured people cannot work and that those plans are totally unacceptable to the Coloured people, dramatically reflecting as they do their utter frustration. I cannot say and I am not saying that Mr. Leon’s action was in the best interests of the Coloured people. However, I do say that the Government must accept that Mr. Leon is the duly elected leader of the Coloured people. His support stems essentially from the fact that he is articulating the needs and aspirations of the Coloured population. They approved his refusal to use the powers which the Minister bestowed on him to act on behalf of the CRC in respect of the Budget, and the drastic steps which the Minister has taken have further confirmed the suspicions of the Coloured people that the CRC is constitutionally a sterile institution. They have now rallied behind Mr. Leon in increasing numbers in his avowed intention of promoting confrontation with the Government at a time when South Africa can least afford this situation. I believe that this is a tragic state of affairs. I believe the former hon. Minister completely failed in the task allotted to him and that the new Minister will have to take a more realistic approach and come to terms with the realities of the situation. He will have to accept that this policy has failed and that it has failed because the Coloured people have come to realize that one cannot have two sovereign Parliaments within the framework of one State. I am convinced that the hon. the Minister will be forced more and more in the direction of the sort of federal proposals which the United Party suggests.

I want to stress, too, that whether or not he accepts the federal proposals of the United Party as a means of granting political rights to the Coloured people, he will never achieve racial harmony until full citizenship for the Coloured people is conceded. I wonder whether he is the man for the job.

In times of national danger, the people of any country attempt to settle differences and to find ways and means of co-operating for the national wellbeing. The present Government has been singularly unsuccessful in finding a basis for that co-operation with the Coloured people. Nevertheless there have been those, particularly in the Press, who have been trying to build up a psychological climate, fostering dreams of a close realignment between the United Party and the National Party. They forget that the furnace of the United Party opposition to Government policies has burnt steadily for many, many years. There is not one single facet of Government policy which infringes the dignity of human beings that the United Party has not fought unerringly. There is not one single instance of Government mismanagement that has not come under the whip of United Party attacks. The United Party has refused to compromise its principles or to adopt Government policy in place of its own. We have supported Government policy, but it has always been on those occasions when the Government has changed its policy and accepted our policy, or a great part of it.

If one subtracts instances where the Government has had a change of heart from the total mass of policy abhorrent to our thinking, one is still left with a mountainous obstruction between the two parties. There can be no alignment with the National Party so long as the mass of discriminatory legislation remains on the Statute Book, so long as practices such as job reservation are kept alive, so long as Blacks permanently resident in the so-called White areas are regarded as temporary sojourners, so long as there is no social or economic justice, and so long as, under conditions where equitable territorial separation is out of the question, political power and responsibility is not shared with all races. Under these conditions we will never deviate from our conviction that Government policy is fruitlessly and tragically attempting to divide the indivisible and that federation is the only practical means of meeting our special circumstances of interlocked dependence coupled with the desire for individual identity and the protection of the rights of minority groups. We remain convinced that the only road to real security in South Africa is that of United Party policy, not that of Government policy. That is why we have no confidence in this Government.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked a number of reasonable questions, questions which certainly deserve answers. In the course of my speech I shall most probably reply to most of them. Some of them he has already replied to himself.

I want to begin by saying that the intrinsic strategic value of the Republic of South Africa, a value which derives from its geographic situation, its developing economy, its established infrastructure, its harbours and its road and rail communications, its power network and water distribution, results in our becoming a target for any major aggressor that wishes to facilitate its endeavour to achieve world domination through control of the sea routes and through its presence in Africa. On the other hand the same factors also make us a possible force to be reckoned with for the free world. The Republic of South Africa is situated on the most important sea route on the face of the globe. We are an African state, and we cannot escape our responsibilities as an African state and as a State situated in this strategic place, on the most important sea route of the world, if we wish to retain our self-respect. In addition to everything which we may be doing and which we have to do today to ensure our economic strength and internal order, I think we as a Parliament also have another task to fulfil, and in this respect I consequently agree with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. In spite of existing and other possible differences it is under the present world circumstances the duty of Parliament, firstly, to elevate above petty differences and to help ensure at all times the unity, the high morale and effectiveness of the S.A. Defence Force; secondly, it is the duty of Parliament not to allow any confusion or any spirit of defeatism to be caused by the dissemination of rumours and other actions or by the creation of suspicion; and, thirdly, it is the duty of Parliament to refrain from undermining the upsurging and determined will of the South African public which we are experiencing at present.

Against this background and with this in mind, I should like to deal by way of survey in the limited time at my disposal with a series of events and circumstances which have demanded more and more of our attention during the past few years, and which preceded the present events. In the first place I have to refer to what the situation was a year, 18 months or two years ago, i.e. in 1974, but particularly at the beginning of 1975, when the Governments of Owambo and Kavango repeatedly pointed out how essential it was that their northern borders should be safeguarded. They requested the presence of the S.A. Defence Force and other security forces in the interests of peace and of their development. I shall quote only one such resolution, a resolution which was passed by the Owambo Cabinet on 9 April 1975 and presented to the Government—

The Prime Minister replied to this in the following words: “I want to make it clear that the Defence Force and the Police will remain in Owambo as long as the Government of Owambo regards their presence as being essential to the continuation of peaceful development.” In other words, the Prime Minister adopted the standpoint that if we were to give effect to those requests, which is what we did, it would have to be on condition that we would be present there with the approval and the goodwill of the Owambo Government. More or less the same happened in respect of the Kavango Government. That Government also addressed similar requests to the South African Government, and addressed repeated requests at private meetings with me and others, as well as through the Minister of Bantu Administration, that we should help to ensure their development and peaceful continued existence through our presence. Both nations also intimated that they would both like to participate in those steps that would have to be taken to safeguard their position. Such requests were also received from the Caprivi.

What steps followed on these requests, Mr. Speaker? In the first place deployment of South African Defence Force units occurred, and Police protection was afforded where necessary. An immediate start was made with the training of the future military units of the countries concerned. But in particular—and I want to emphasize this—a civil action programme was launched in co-operation with other Government departments, particularly those of my colleague to the left of me here, in which we sought the co-operation of all Government departments which could possibly be involved. We singled out and trained national servicemen specially for this purpose and sent them there with the knowledge at their disposal required to help facilitate and improve educational services, and encourage and improve health services. Project patrols were formed, which were placed at the disposal of the population throughout those countries, not only to help ensure their safety, but also to help render elementary services. This was done by national servicemen who were able to do so. In spite of this upliftment work, militant communist-inspired attacks from across the border on peaceful inhabitants still continued to occur from time to time. We arranged visits by prominent South Africans, including businessmen, members of professions, university lecturers, newspaper editors and members of Parliament to Owambo and Kavango, and we took them to see what was being done in practice in the service of peace on the northern borders of South West Africa. We received letters, which I have here in my possession, written to us by professional and businessmen stating that not only were examples worthy of emulation being set, but that they had been deeply impressed with the work which was being done there, and that in particular they were deeply impressed by the type of official to whom this work had been entrusted, and also with the guidance which was being given locally by the Defence Force.

In spite of all these things, terrorist attacks from across the border were made from time to time. The murder of Chief Minister Elifas followed shortly before he was to have commenced talks in South West Africa with other national representatives on the future of South West Africa. Tribal police who had been trained and stationed at strategic places were attacked and murdered from across the border. In the meantime a state of confusion began to develop across the border in Angola, a situation which steadily worsened. At Ruacana and Calueque, on and just beyond the border, South Africa helped to establish pumping stations at a great cost of millions of rands with which the water was conveyed for a hundred kilometres into Ovamboland to help ensure the development of the Ovambo people, and to make water available to men and animals in those areas in which there had previously been none. A start was made with a hydro-electric scheme which will be of inestimable value to the development of northern South West Africa, and in particular to this country, Owambo. In the meantime the chaos and confusion across the border was increasing. In April 1975 the Republic of South Africa made representations to the Portuguese High Commissioner in Luanda to help ensure the position of the workers at Calueque so that they could continue with their work and so that their safety could be guaranteed. Nothing much came of this. In August 1975 we received notice that workers at Calueque were being threatened by foreign soldiers and that the workers did not see their way clear to continuing with their work. Again the Portuguese authorities were immediately notified. In the meantime talks had been held, on which I do not wish to go into detail now except merely to say that the Portuguese authorities sent people here and that talks took place to see what steps could be taken to protect the interests of the workers, so that the work could continue. On 9 August after the workers had fled from Calueque, a small unit of South African troops, a platoon, under their commanding officer, went to Calueque to hold talks to ensure that order was restored so that the workers could continue with their work. Instead of talks being held, they were fired upon. The result was that they fired back, and in the process occupied Calueque. We immediately notified the Portuguese authorities of this event, and we immediately informed other governments as well of this event. On 27 August the following was reported to us.

They sought their safety in the situation of order which the South African troops had created there. No action from any other quarter, except our own, ensured the workers of safety and ensured that those schemes could continue. In this regard I want to repeat what I have already said in public: If proper order and control is established tomorrow, and protection afforded, the Republic of South Africa will immediately be prepared to withdraw from the area at once. It has always been our standpoint, and still is our standpoint, that South Africa has responsibilities which it cannot shirk. So much, then, as regards the first reason why events took the course they have done up to now.

I come now to the second reason. As a result of the confusion and chaos which prevailed across the border, a refugee problem arose in various parts of Angola. Some Angolans moved in the direction of Luanda, from where tens of thousands of them were taken elsewhere. Others moved southwards. On 18 September 1975 there were approximately 11 000 refugees in four camps in the Republic of South Africa and in South West Africa.

I have often heard the abuse, slander and calumny that is levelled at us from some parts of the word, but I have heard of little thanks for the humanitarian services South Africa has rendered in offering a refuge to 11 000 refugees and ensuring them of medical services and food supplies. The South African Defence Force alone had to draw equipment to the value of R1 million from our mobilization supplies. We dealt with these problems in conjunction with the Departments of Social Welfare and the Interior. Our officials, Defence Force officers and men, together with the other two departments, coped with this problem in a magnificent manner. The total cost incurred in this connection before we had solved this particular aspect of the problem amounted to almost R4 million.

In the meantime two camps were established at Chitado and Calais in Angola. If we had simply allowed the sluices to remain open, we would not have been saddled with only 11 000 refugees, but South West Africa would have been overrun by refugees and then South Africa would have been confronted with far greater problems. That is why the South African Defence Force proceeded to establish refugee camps across the border. The two camps I have just mentioned, are not only being supplied by the South African Defence Force with tents to afford the refugees shelter, but also with the food, medical services and everything else that a person who finds himself in such straits requires. I know of no thanks that South Africa has received for performing humanitarian services across its border by providing small, hungry children with food and affording protection to people exposed to the rigours of nature in the open air. I know of no thanks received by South Africa for this, I know only of curses meted out to it at a time when it was performing a humanitarian service.

But it was kept secret.

They are not only Whites or people of mixed descent, they are also Blacks. These people are not only Portuguese or former Portuguese citizens, they are also Angolans.

I want to emphasize today that if the Cubans should win the conflict for Russia with Russian weapons, it will give rise to a wild stampede, the magnitude of which we cannot foresee today. To a certain extent this has already begun. Rumours and wild tales which are being disseminated in this country which is dying before our eyes, are again causing Chitado and Calais to become overcrowded. This becomes the responsibility of the South African Defence Force, because no one else is attending to this matter.

I come now to the third reason. In the midst of the chaos and confusion across the border attacks were made on peaceful inhabitants of Owambo. I have already referred to this. An attack was made on Chief Minister Elifas, a peaceful man of gentle character who sought peace for his people. An attack was made on tribal police who were established to help ensure order in Owambo. They were cruelly murdered by murderers who fled back to seek shelter in the chaos and confusion which was prevailing in Angola. On various occasions the S.A. Defence Force had to pursue such gangs and clear away their camps. We did this with success.

Hear, hear!

On occasion we were also involved in other engagements. One cannot have such chaotic conditions across one’s border and operate there in order to protect one’s own borders without becoming involved in the confusion oneself. On occasion we were involved in engagements, and most of these engagements went off in our favour. I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that we were involved in these engagements under our own leadership. We did this to protect White and Black Angolans from extermination by Russian-Cuban forces. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition will understand that I cannot go into details on this point, for diplomatic and military reasons. But I do want to say that we did not act in a spirit of self-righteousness. History will subsequently prove that South Africa did not act in a spirit of self-righteousness, nor in conflict with its declared policy. Our involvement was and is today still part of the involvement which a free and independent Southern African community of nations wishes to see and maintain.

We participated in the operations with a limited objective and we achieved this objective. I want to inform the hon. the Leader of the Opposition who acted in a responsible manner today, as anyone would do who meant well with South Africa—for which I want to thank him—that the MPLA would not of its own accord have been able to achieve a victory over Angola. Everyone who knows Angola knows that Unita and FNLA represent the majority of the Angolan people. If peaceful methods had been employed and the people had been allowed to elect their governments without interference, South Africa would not have been interested in this matter other than in the role of an observer.

I dispute the statement that the actions of the Republic of South Africa have been prejudicial to us in Africa. On the contrary. Today we are being regarded in a different light in Africa. A large part of Africa is realizing to an ever-increasing extent that South Africa may be relied upon as an African State. If you asked me for proof I shall give you public proof, namely that which happened at the OAU conference. Those who wanted to nail South Africa to the cross were unable to succeed in getting such a resolution passed there. What is more, our immediate neighbours, to whom the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred, know that they have nothing to fear from South Africa. They have been living with us for many years, and although we have an effective Defence Force, not one of them has ever fallen victim to any self-righteous actions against them on the part of South Africa. In addition they also know that they can trust us because they, even more than we who are sitting here, are aware of what is happening in Angola.

In these engagements to which I referred, our units, small and limited in number, acted with great responsibility, and another proud military chapter has been added to our history. Our losses were relatively small. From 14 July 1975 to 23 January 1976 we lost 29 men killed in action, while 14 soldiers died in accidents during the same period. With this I do not want to minimize the grief and the pain suffered by parents who lost children. We are all parents, and we understand this. We can understand every parent’s problems. I want to thank each parent for the commendable manner in which they have so far acted towards the South African Defence Force and its leaders, as well as towards me as Minister. Sometimes they were under very great pressure to give expression to their raw feelings of grief, but up to now all of those parents have conducted themselves commendably.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the small number of prisoners of war. All I can tell him is that far more prisoners were taken on the other side than on our side, including Cubans. Of course we were all hurt to see young South African soldiers being paraded, as did in fact happen. On the basis of first hand knowledge I can tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that these prisoners of war conducted themselves in such a manner in Addis Ababa that they were, rather, an embarrassment to their captors and a credit to their country. I do not think we should say too much about them in public, but what this Government is able to do, through any means, to bring them back to South Africa we shall attempt. But then we should not parade them any further than our enemies have already done.

I want to furnish a fourth reason for our having become involved in these matters. With Russian-Cuban military assistance the MPLA had deployed up to our borders. Among them militant terrorists, inter alia, had found shelter. A large-scale build-up of arms and ammunition had occurred near the border. At one such dump was found inter alia: 1 000 PPSH automatic rifles, still packed in their cases; approximately 80 tons of small arms; approximately 90 tons of ammunition; 10 recoilless guns and 14 120 mm mortars. Ultimately it was the Cubans who fought while the MPLA sat back. Among the Russian-Cuban supplies which were captured were four 82 mm anti-tank guns, six 76 mm anti-tank guns and six single tube 122 mm rocket launchers. One of the latter is at present not far from Cape Town, and may be inspected. Photographs of it have been given to the Press. In addition 16 Sagger A.T. missiles were also captured. The question I now want to ask is whether such equipment was necessary to bring the people of Angola to a decision on the future of their own country. No. Angola and its people are being murdered. Its health services, its economy and its infrastructure are being destroyed in the process in order to enslave Southern Africa. According to the November edition of Conflict Studies, published by the Institute of Strategic Studies in London, the MPLA began in March 1975 to receive large-scale arms supplies from Russian-controlled sources. Previously this had happened on a smaller scale. In April 1975 alone 100 tons of arms were delivered to the MPLA. On 29 April a Yugoslavian ship laden with missiles and vehicles unloaded its cargo for them. Up to the present moment this process has been continued in various ways. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked me where we are at present, and I should like to tell him. At present we are in the border area to protect the borders and the interests for which we are responsible until we receive genuine guarantees in this regard. If it becomes necessary, and we are attacked, we shall strike back with effect. In the past we attacked with small forces, but if it becomes necessary we shall strike back from our borders with larger forces.

I come now to another few questions. There are some people in South Africa who never see anything good in what this Government is doing, whatever it may be. There are such people in South Africa, and they are tolerated. In those countries about which they criticize us, opposition is not tolerated, and such people end up against a wall. These people ask how the Republic’s actions differed in respect of Mozambique and Angola.

Now I wish to begin by saying that there is one point on which our attitude to them both is the same and that is that the Republic of South Africa makes no territorial demands on either of them. In fact, it makes no demands on any of its neighbours. It prefers and hopes that all its neighbours will live together in peace. But in Mozambique the Portuguese authorities handed over the power to another authority; this was not the case in Angola. In Angola a vacuum was left from which chaos and disorder developed and in which Russia and Cuba brought death to a country and its people. Must we allow this chaos, murder and disorder to spill over into the areas for which we are responsible? Must South Africa look on while that despair and disorder which is being built up in Angola flows over the borders of South West Africa and plunges the people of South West Africa into that same chaos, and will South Africa then still be trusted as an African state? The second question is: Have the Republic of South Africa and its people been told enough by us? Have they been informed and taken into our confidence? My answer is: “Yes.” Recently we have been hearing in certain circles, especially in certain circles of the Press, of the “right to know”; they want to know everything. But this Government has been elected to carry responsibilities, and who has placed some of those who talk about the “right to know” in the positions which they hold? To whom are they responsible? Sir, in the first place I say that the “right to know” may be recognized as long as the safety of the security forces is not threatened by it. In the second place, the “right to know” can be recognized as long as diplomatic responsibilities are not divulged. Sir, we cannot allow ourselves to be paralysed in the face of the enemy like the people in the greatest State in the West who are at present involved in tearing one another to shreds. A Cabinet Minister under the leadership of his Prime Minister has certain obligations and those obligations are imposed upon him in terms of section 20(5) of the Constitution Act of the Republic. That section of our Constitution expressly states that anything which has been entrusted to one in secret may not be directly or indirectly divulged. Furthermore, in the Republic of South Africa section 118 of the Defence Act is in force. It was laid down by Parliament. From that, an agreement with the South African Press Union developed. The South African Defence Force and I have fulfilled our obligations under that Press Union agreement. What did we do to give information? On 11 November we gave whatever information we possibly could to the military correspondents of all the newspapers which are accredited to us. On 20 November we met the Press Union of South Africa in Pretoria and informed them why certain things could not be revealed. On 1 December we had the military correspondents instructed by the South African Defence Force. On 9 December we met all newspaper editors together with senior officers in Cape Town for a period of three and a half hours, and we spelt these things out to them, except that which I have said that I could not tell them, that is, the details of the matter. On 17 and 18 December we took the military correspondents to the border, near Calueque and Ruacana. On 27 November we furnished the foreign correspondents with information and on 3 and 4 December we took them to Ruacana. I regret to say here today that most of the foreign representatives of newspapers in South Africa did less to violate our trust than some of South Africa’s own reporters. [Interjections.] On 5 and 7 December I appeared on television and answered questions. On 5 and 7 December I answered those questions which had to be answered on the radio network of South Africa. I am grateful to a large part of the Afrikaans and English-language Press in South Africa, and I do not make any distinctions here. I say that there were newspapers from both language groups which did not disappoint our trust in them, and which published what we had asked them to publish in a responsible manner, critical but yet responsible, and which did not spread rumours but tried to maintain order in South Africa. But, Sir, there were certain newspapers of both languages which made a mockery of the agreement between myself and the Press Union, and which did us a disservice.

Who were they?

I will tell you who they are. You need not try to trap me. My time is limited, but I will first give their names to the Press Union, because I want to tell you what I am going to do. I am going to make one more attempt to put this matter right with the Press Union and if this does not help—because there are newspapers that despise and ignore the Press Union—I am going to cause section 118 of the Defence Act to be applied. Sir, what can one do with newspapermen to whom we have explained that the South African Defence Force needs time before the names of those who have been killed on the border can be revealed? When someone has been killed on the border or in the course of operations, his remains must first be transferred. The Defence Force must make absolutely sure of all the circumstances. His parents and next-of-kin must be informed. Arrangements must be made for the funeral. There are a thousand things which the Defence Force must do, at the same time fulfilling all its other duties as well. We told them that after such a thing has happened, after somebody has been killed, we ask for 72 hours, a reasonable period of time, in which to do all these things. After this we will release the information. Sir, what can one do with newspapers which, having heard all this, and having been told by the chief of the Defence Force why this is necessary, nevertheless publish reports without our permission in which the names are mentioned of people who have not even been killed? What does one do with a newspaper which in spite of the agreement with the Press Union inserts blank spaces when it does not get its way? What does one do with a newspaper which publishes blatant lies about what the Minister said on the eve of the meeting of the OAU? What can one do with newspapermen who go to the parents of those who have been killed on the border and try to persuade them to make statements to the Press against the Minister of Defence and the Defence Force? These things have been brought to my attention; I have proof of them and I shall take this to the Press Union, and if this does not have satisfactory results we shall apply section 118 in future, and if this section is not sufficient we shall reinforce, it.

A further question which has been asked is whether we had the right to cross the border; whether our soldiers have been properly trained. Sir, I have legal advice at my disposal which convinces me that we were entitled to act as we have done. But if we had wanted to go further, if we had wanted to advance in large numbers, which we did not do, then our common sense and our reason would have told us that Parliament would have to be summoned. But this was not our aim. In the modern day the old differences between a declaration of war and a state of peace can no longer be applied. Today one can no longer draw a dividing line between times when there is a state of war and times of peace. The national servicemen were under the most effective leadership which South Africa can offer. In support of this I have the testimony of someone like Gen. Webster who said the following—

Why? Because they were under good leadership! Those national servicemen have been called up by this Parliament and not by me. This Parliament introduced national service, after all. This Parliament laid down how long they were to remain under arms. This Parliament said that should a problem arise, the national servicemen should be the first to deal with it, because they are the basis of the Force. I do not want to escape from my responsibilities, but is it right that a newspaper like The Cape Times should allow an article to be written under the name of Mr. Gerald Shaw? I mention him by name, because he is an unfair fellow. He should be on the border so that he can lose some of his fat. Is it right for him to say: “Vorster and his Government have been calling up youngsters”? This is not true. The Leader of the Opposition is over there. The Leader of the Opposition could tell him that in any war the best soldiers are the young trained soldiers. The chief of our Air Force was 19 years old when he fought in the Second World War. The Chief of the South African Defence Force was 24 years old when he captained a ship during the Second World War. But this man incites people, while we want to motivate our soldiers to maintain our safety and our responsibility. The utilization of members of the South African Defence Force took place in a regular manner and the national servicemen were under the competent leadership of the Permanent Force. To belittle them and refer to them as “youngsters” who cannot fulfil the task is to insult them. Therefore I must take up the cudgels for them and say: Until now they have fulfilled their task with great distinction.

A further question is why only White soldiers are used. There is another small group in this country which, when one speaks, must always insult the non-Whites first. It has been asked why non-White soldiers have not been used. Sir, this is not correct. A unit consisting of 190 non-White soldiers in the border area has actively assisted in defending the border until now. They have fought and have suffered losses. Moreover, two other units in the military area are at present undergoing training. Furthermore, the South African Coloured Corps has requested to help actively, and their request has been granted. I have already said that they give active assistance. Pamphlets are being circulated by the Hertzog party in order to promote their scandel-mongering in South Africa while other people are having to sacrifice their lives for South Africa. It is high time South Africa put this Hertzog clique in its place for its scandalous behaviour.

I do not have the self-reproach of not having tried over the years, as Minister of Defence, to prepare South Africa for the reality with which we are now dealing. I am not going to read now what I said, but on 19 February 1971 I issued a warning in this House on this very point. On 6 May 1971—it can be found in Hansard—on 18 February 1972, on 23 March 1973, and on several occasions outside the House, I suggested that the training of national servicemen be extended. I met with opposition. I said that one could not send them into these dangers unless they had been properly trained. I was told that I should train them in only six months. I asked for increased amounts for the South African Defence Force. Last year I asked for a large, increased amount, and where did the false note come from?

Japie!

On 10 November I spoke at Bellville. This was towards the end of last year. I said that Russia was not only developing its strategy throughout the world; it was also continuing its process of enslavement in Africa. It is doing this on our east coast and openly by proxy in Angola. I took these people into my confidence. What more could I have told them? During December the hon. Prime Minister spoke on two occasions and spelled these things out. The people were therefore informed in so far as we could inform them.

I want to conclude by quoting from Conflict Studies of November 1975. I just want to quote the following paragraph—

I put this further question: Will Zambia and Zaire escape if it succeeds? Now the hon. Leader of the Opposition asks me why I said that South Africa will not continue the struggle alone on behalf of the free world. My reply to him is that we cannot do it alone. The free world must help. He asks who has let us down. That is not the question. The hon. Leader of the Opposition knows what has happened in the greatest country of the free world. He knows that the American Senate has repudiated its own President. It is not necessary for me to spell it out.

The whole history of Angola may yet come to be known as the great lost opportunity of the free world, that is if there is no awakening. It is not yet too late. The peoples of Southern Africa can and must stand together so that through non-aggression pacts, as spelled out by our hon. Prime Minister, and by collective action, communism may be kept out of Southern Africa. We can unite to oppose Russia’s intervention in the affairs of Southern Africa. The free world can awake and shake off its sleep of death, but what is more important, the South African Parliament can declare in a loud, clear voice: We do not want to become the slaves of Russia or of any other great power; the time has come for small nations to move closer to one another; let us stop spreading rumours; let us show the will to be free and let us be prepared to pay for our security services, for better weapons, for better preparation; let us be prepared to pay, not in order to commit aggression, but because peace and freedom are expensive.

Mr. Speaker, I paused before rising because I would have expected that the party on our left would have wanted to enter this debate. I hope that after the anxiety with which they have called for special sessions and have tried to conduct the debate in the Press, they will soon enter it so that we may hear from them.

Before coming to the speech of the hon. the Minister, I want to deal with two matters which I wish to keep completely separate from what I then want to say. The first is to join with my hon. leader and the hon. the Minister of Defence in expressing sympathy to those who have been bereaved and to the bereaved and to the parents of prisoners, and then to pay a tribute to the forces. The hon. the Minister has done so, but I wish to do so from another angle. I want to say to the House and to South Africa that the quality of the leadership which I have been privileged to see in the field is of such a high nature that all South Africa can have the fullest confidence in them. The men in command in the field from generals down to the lower ranks are men who made a very deep impression on me and I believe it is right that South Africa should know, not by way of Government propaganda, that there are those of us who as South Africans want to pay tribute to their leadership and to the troops themselves, to their morale—and let me say this—to the willingness with which they volunteered for service when called upon to do so. I realize that there has been much criticism of the youthfulness of our forces. We on this side of the House called many years ago for the establishment of a permanent force brigade of trained fighting soldiers in South Africa, a brigade which would be ready to step in at any time to deal with an emergency with trained and experienced troops. It has been explained in reply that this was not practical and was not possible financially or from a manpower point of view. Therefore the two-year service volunteering system was to be the next best to a standing army; men who would have more than the basic training.

I think this doubt has arisen in every generation. In our generation I can remember the parents talking of the “softies”. They asked how we could fight a war. However, there are many in this House who at the age of 17 or 18 or 19 went to war, men who at 18 or 19 were officers and carried responsibility, heavy responsibility, fighting against the most professional, the most highly trained and the most powerful modern force that the world had then ever known—the Nazi armies. Thus in every generation the parents look to the youngsters and say “Ah, they are a crowd of softies and they could never fight”. Let us not lose confidence in our youth. I believe that these events have shown that our youth have proved that those who had confidence in them have had that confidence justified. Whilst we may think of them as being young, they are of the age that many of us were when we were called upon to do the same. They have shown that they are not lesser men than I believe those of a generation ago were.

Having said that, and perhaps it flows from it, I believe that Angola cuts across party lines in so far as the public outside are concerned. I believe that there are many Government supporters amongst whom there are divisions of opinion and doubts. I believe that there are many Progressives who are unhappy with the line which their party has taken, unhappy to find themselves following the same line,—if from diametrically opposite sides—but the same objective as that of the HNP. I believe that there are amongst our supporters outside people who have doubts, who are worried and who are concerned. I raise this not as a political issue, but because it is true. It is true that there is confusion and the reason was put clearly by my hon. leader. The reason is a failure to inform and motivate the people. Three times this century South Africa’s people have been divided by war or armed conflict, but each time the issues were known. The issues were clear, they were known to the people and each according to his lights made his decision either for or against that conflict. Now, with universal or almost universal opposition to communism, one would have thought that any conflict, any action to defend South Africa, if justifiable and correct, would have enjoyed the united support of all our people. Unfortunately it has not had the measure of support it should have had because people debated in a vacuum of ignorance of the facts; they reached conclusions without the facts which were necessary to reach proper decisions.

There are three requirements for real military success. The first is the military need, the strategic need, the necessity, the unavoidability of going into military action. The second is a proper appreciation followed by a motivation and an appreciation of the consequences of an action. The third is the need for the full support of the people behind that operation. The hon. the Minister of Defence has spoken here this afternoon against this background but I regret to say that I believe he has failed to give the motivation which was asked for by the people. I believe he had an opportunity this afternoon to take South Africa with him on a tide of patriotism and support by sweeping away the doubts, the questions and the concern that are in their minds. I believe that the people of South Africa were entitled to know as much as the rest of the world has seen and heard on television, over the radio and in the Press. I can understand that military security cannot be revealed. You cannot say that we sent this unit there, in that strength and with those weapons, and that they fought at that point, but that is not what South Africa is asking for. South Africa is asking for the motivation, the justification other than the clichés, other than the generalizations with which we all agree. Obviously we want to defend our borders. Obviously we must take action to protect our interests. I believe that my leader put up a better motivation, and I believe I could possibly put up a better motivation, for Calueque and Ruacana, because I think that South Africa understood that we should cross the border, that we should give protection to the workers, that we should protect our interests. I am convinced that throughout the country nobody but a fool or a traitor would oppose the action that was taken there. However, that support was given because they saw and understood what was going on. Perhaps the hon. the Prime Minister is still going to tell us more, but I do not believe that we have heard enough to create the same unanimity of support and loyalty in respect of the other actions to which the hon. the Minister referred. We know—the hon. the Minister said so himself—that our forces went in on limited actions with limited objectives. However, I do not think that that is enough. I think that one of the lessons we have learnt is, despite the overwhelming electoral support of the Government and despite the unquestioned standing of the hon. the Prime Minister as a person, that on the issue of armed conflict there is no blank cheque signed by the people of South Africa. This is one issue on which they do not give a blank cheque unless they have the knowledge that is necessary. I believe the hon. the Minister could have given that information which was available to him without disclosing military secrets. I believe he could have motivated those actions in a way that would not have endangered South Africa but would have strengthened her. The danger in war and conflict is the danger of rumours, rumours that grow and grow, rumours that start as a little whisper and then grow into some huge story because people do not know the truth. The hon. the Minister must know some of these stories doing the rounds. Some of those stories have now moved far from what I believe may possibly be the truth.

Such as?

Such as the stories of the “Bloody Triangle”, of our men being subjected to inhuman suffering and so on. The hon. the Minister must have heard some of it. I believe those stories are totally untrue. I refer also for instance to stories of our men having been placed under strain and of their coming home with shell-shock. There are also stories concerning hospitals. Such rumours are damaging and dangerous. The hon. the Minister challenged me to mention some of the stories, although I did not want to mention any. However, having mentioned them, I want to say at once that I do not believe that they are true. I believe the hon. the Minister could scotch that sort of rumour and I deliberately did not mention any of those rumours until the hon. the Minister challenged me to do so. I should not have responded to his challenge because merely by mentioning them, one lends credence to them. I want to say that I lend no credence to them and that I do not believe they are true. However, I believe that these rumours should be stopped. As I have said, the lesson we have learnt from the broad picture is that, if one wants to carry the people with one, one has to have more confidence in them than has been shown in them so far.

There are many more specific lessons to be learnt and I want to refer to one or two of them. I refer now to specific lessons learnt from the actual conflict. One is the question of informing the bereaved parents, a question to which the hon. the Minister has already referred. I regret that I cannot accept that the procedure is fully in order yet. There are still shortcomings, one being that Press statements have been issued before the parents themselves have heard the details appearing in the Press. I want to quote one instance—this was unforgiveable—where parents were informed that their son had died an accidental death. I was informed that, after that had been done, a Press report appeared giving the circumstances of the action in which that death occurred. The death was perhaps accidental in that it was due to a landmine exploding, but it was not accidental in the sense as it was understood by the parents. I think it is essential that when information is given to bereaved parents, firstly that information should be complete as far as militarily possible and secondly such notification should be followed up immediately. Even if the military authorities cannot give that information, someone should go to see the father and say: “We do not yet have a date on which we can arrange the funeral—it will take two or three days—but, please, we will let you know as soon as possible”. This is preferable to the parents being notified by a Chaplain or Padre and then waiting two, three or four days without hearing anything more. These are small matters but they are important. They are small as compared with the overall concept of war, but they are very important in the emotional atmosphere of bereavement and they are important for the morale of the people.

I agree with the hon. the Minister that our legislation has not been adjusted to meet the modern concept of an undeclared war. He has given notice of bills to deal with this. Consequently, I will not raise these matters in any detail now as we shall discuss them at greater length when the bills are before us. However, there are two matters which, although I assume they will be covered in the bills, are causing so much public concern that I think something should be said about them. The first is the question of territorial restriction and volunteering. I raise this question because there are many parents—literally dozens—who have raised this matter with me. I suppose other hon. members have had the same experience. Firstly, I accept the assurance given that every person who crossed the border first signed a volunteer form. Of all the reports I have received only one was to the contrary. Parents have then raised the question of parental consent. I think there is some confusion on this issue. In the last war when young men under 21 years of age signed up, the parents did not have to give their assent to the voluntary oath taken to cross the borders. That oath was taken by the individual in his own right. That oath was taken on two occasions: firstly, there was the Africa Oath and secondly the oath to serve anywhere in the world. I think it is important that it should be put beyond any shadow of doubt that parental assent was required for the contract to enter the Defence Force, but that once one has become a member of the Defence Force one volunteers in one’s own right without the need for parental consent. This should have been clearly stated as I have tried to do now. I have even issued a statement on this. However, I think the Government and the hon. the Minister too have failed in not making this information available so that it could be understood. It is not for the Opposition to have to raise such matters; it is for the Government to set out the facts so that they can be understood.

Similarly, there is the Moratorium Act. I shall not deal with it in this debate because that matter, too, will be debated next week. I believe that the soldiers fighting for South Africa deserve every possibly protection which Parliament and the Government can give them. When we debate this, we will raise these matters in detail. Then there is the question of the three-month call-up of the Citizen Force. This is a new departure from standard practice and brings with it other responsibilities. In the past a person either served for a long period of, say, a year or in wartime a number of years, or he could be called up for a short period of 19 days. In the latter instance, there is usually no problem. The person concerned can manage; he can stand the economic loss. If, on the other hand, they are called up for a year, they can make provision for it. However, a period of three months falls in between the two. It is too long to treat it as a three week camp and then be able to recover, and too short to make long-term plans such as giving up one’s home or flat and so on. The result has been that there are many cases of economic hardship such as do not occur in the other cases. If it does occur, it has to be dealt with on a more permanent basis. I think of the one-man business, the commission agent and persons who fall under the Law Society. I have come across the cases of two men who were within three months of their final articles. They have been called up and are now on the border. They are credited with only half the time they are on the border towards their articles. Both would have qualified in March. One of them had planned to go overseas and the other to move to a different firm. Because they have been called up, only half the time they serve on the border will be counted. Consequently, they will have to go back to their firms. The one will have to cancel his overseas trip and the other will have to cancel his transfer. Both will have to do another six weeks and then start all over again. These are things one does not think of until one is faced with them. One is faced with a different situation from that which normally applies. These, Mr. Speaker, are matters to which the Government must give full attention. You cannot just exempt everybody holus-bolus. It would be unfair if the privileged man, the one-man business, escaped responsibility while the employed man carried the whole burden of defence. But equally we should try to find a way of avoiding hardship on those other people who could perhaps be catered for by administrative or other action.

Then we come to the question of the postal chaos. It was indeed chaos. I believe that the Defence Force took too long to put this matter right. I raised it as early as November. It was public knowledge and everybody was discontented. Letters were taking from three to six weeks to travel either way. Parcels had been stopped and orders had been sent out to parents not to send further parcels. This, I believe, had a terribly adverse effect on the morale of parents at home and of the men in the field. Instead of saying: “You may not send a parcel”, surely it would have been possible to say: “You may send a parcel weighing more than one kilogram or two kilograms, or not bigger than a certain size.” Instead of some of the huge cartons which I saw filling a whole shelf of a military post office it would have been possible for 20 parcels which together equalled the size of each of those cartons to be sent. The answer which the parents received was not to send reasonable parcels, but to stop all parcels. I know that all parents received that order in the case of one unit. I think that more attention should be given to this sort of thing which affects morale, which affects the spirit and heart of the people and particularly the parents at home.

There is another cause for which we have pleaded for years and that is that the Defence Force, and the Police, for that matter, be removed from the control of the Public Service. I raised this matter for the first time four years ago, and it has been raised every year since then. The hon. member for Green Point has raised it, I have raised it and Brig. Bronkhorst raised it many times, but we were told that it was not necessary. The events of recent months, the escalation of operations, have proved that we were correct and that you cannot operate with a flexibility and with due regard to the differing requirements, the differing responsibilities of people in a military force as though it were an administrative office with regular hours, with its personnel working in an office and living at home and with all the privileges that go with it. A defence force must be treated differently from a Government department. I hope that one of the lessons learnt from Angola will be that at last the Government will act on this.

Another matter creating anger and bitterness is the evasion of service by non-citizens. People who are called up and say they do not intend to become South African citizens go off and pick the cream of the jobs available on the labour market while the South African boys go up to defend them at the front. I know the international problems involved but this is a matter creating deep resentment. One finds this evasion of responsibility for military service by foreign citizens who have grown up here, gone to school here, enjoyed the benefits of our schools, enjoyed the benefits of their parents’ incomes from South Africa, and when the time comes for them to serve South Africa they go off and find a “cushy job” while our boys have to go to the front to serve. I believe that the Government should give attention to this matter.

Mr. Speaker, there is another matter, a minor one, perhaps, which I want to raise now and not during the Defence Vote because this is happening now. I refer to the troop trains going up to the front. They take four to five days for the journey. This is unavoidable but they have, for instance, no dining saloons on the trains. I do not expect them to be served by waiters or stewards but my information is that there are 24 or 25 dining saloons with kitchens which are available and not being used by the Railways. The troops itself could at least have one hot meal a day, even if it is only skilly cooked by their own cooks, by attaching one of these out-of-service dining saloons to the train. There is not even a café on Windhoek station. The troops arrive there after many hours of travelling and on arriving at the station for a long stop there is not even a cafeteria, there is not even a window where they can buy a bar of chocolate. When you are moving large numbers of men for long distances, taking three to four days or even longer for a distance such as from Potchefstroom to Grootfontein, some facilities should be provided. Admittedly they get their bully beef, they get their cold rations, but surely some sort of arrangement could be made to make that part of their service, as opposed to the field service, more reasonable? When they get into the field—fair enough—they have got to take it as it comes. But where it is not necessary I do not see why you should add that sort of burden to what they already have to put up with.

Mr. Speaker, as my time is running out I shall not deal with other direct matters of administration. I want to conclude by coming back to the speech of the hon. the Minister of Defence. I think this House, and I am afraid South Africa, expect to be taken to a greater extent into the confidence of the Government than we have heard here this afternoon.

Hear, hear!

The hon. the Prime Minister will have to do more to remove the confusion, the questions and the doubts in the minds of the people than was possible from the military side as we listened to it from the Minister of Defence. I believe that it is still possible, it is not too late to give that motivation. I hope that we should get it. As the motion of my hon. leader states, this is one of three points on which we believe that the Government has failed to provide for the true security of South Africa. By failing to take the public with it on actions which might well have been justified—I will not say it is not. I am not one of the Progressive generals. I do not know which of their generals it was who came to the military conclusions that led to their decisions on whether we should or should not have been in Angola; I cannot take decisions without facts. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that we will get those facts before it is too late for those facts to take South Africa, united, behind actions in which the lives of our youth have been shed and which we would like to believe were undertaken in the interests and for the safety of our country. Until then the attitude as put forward by my hon. leader has not yet received the reply to which I believe it is entitled.

Mr. Speaker, before I reply to certain aspects of the speech by the hon. member for Durban Point, it is also my task to express sympathy towards those people who have died, towards those people who served their country’s cause and lost their lives in the process. I have in mind in particular the commanding officer of the Orange Free State Command, Brig. J. D. Potgieter, a person who undoubtedly possessed qualities which would have allowed him to attain great heights in the service of his country and in the service of the Defence Force in particular. We convey our deepest sympathy to the family of Brig. Potgieter and the next-of-kin of the others who have died. Mr. Speaker, it is also necessary to say that it is the task of this Parliament to ensure that it was not in vain that those people laid down their lives in the service of South Africa. Their deaths could be rendered fruitless through irresponsible conduct, through attempts to make political capital out of the deaths of these people. This could happen if the Opposition were to continue to adopt a “yes, but” attitude and fail to state very clearly to South Africa whether they are with us or not. Their deaths may have been in vain if people to the far right of the political spectrum were to be allowed to disseminate lies and attempt to demoralize our people serving in the Defence Force. It could also be the case if certain persons on the far left were to continue to call into question the legality of the actions of our Government.

I do not hesitate to give the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Durban Point credit for not having been guilty of this today. However, they were guilty of leaving their overall acceptance of the situation as it stands, open to question. It is all very well to support the operation in respect of Calueque and to say that they could have motivated it better themselves. However they then go on to request further information concerning our involvement to enable them to come to a final decision on whether or not to give it their approval. What do the hon. members expect?

So that the people can decide.

Do the hon. members want classified information which at this stage could be of an extremely delicate nature for ourselves and our men, as was indicated by both the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. the Minister of Defence? Do they want this information—yes or no? They have failed to spell out to us what information they require in order to enable them to throw their full weight behind us. It is true that they have supported us in certain respects, but otherwise they have failed dismally to spell out clearly to us what they want.

If there is confusion among the South African public, then I lay the blame for this at the door of the Opposition, because in recent years they have failed to accept unequivocally from the Government and this side of the House that South Africa is becoming involved in a world theatre of possible conflict. They have failed to distinguish unequivocally between military threats and our domestic problems. They have failed dismally to reprimand those members who have caused this doubt to arise and, by reprimanding them, to prevent doubt arising in the minds of the public concerning the serious nature of the matter and our ability to deal with it.

In this regard I refer specifically to the hon. member for Hillbrow. Last year this hon. member adopted an attitude in this House which we may identify as a “yes, but” attitude. I refer you to col. 3725 of Hansard. It is particularly the “but” part which caused confusion. This had repercussions in the Press throughout the Republic. The hon. member was reprimanded by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs, but he was supported in his action by his own side of the House. This was the speech which we could call the “tractors instead of tanks” speech, the speech in which the hon. member wanted to indicate to us that our military budget was disproportionately large in comparison with the other problems we have to deal with. There was the hint of a suggestion that the policy of the Government was responsible for the large military budget. That is the accusation which we level at the Opposition, namely that over the past five years they have continually compared the military threat against South Africa with our domestic situation. The attitude of these people has sown confusion. However we can excuse him this. In fact, they themselves have already dealt with him by not having made him leader in the Transvaal.

The poor man is really lost.

Something which we cannot overlook at this stage is what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout stated very clearly in a speech in 1973, namely that he did not approve of the defence budget. He called it “a budget of fear”. This was a budget in which we had already, at that stage, begun to spell out our military requirements. If confusion prevails among the South African public, this is ascribable to the fact that in recent years the hon. Opposition has not taken these matters into account. The hon. member states that they have not been informed. However, since 1970 motions have been proposed in the House by various members, inter alia, the hon. member for Stellenbosch and the hon. member for Algoa. Last year there was a motion before the House in which the threat to South Africa was spelt out and in which it was indicated that international communism with its imperialist aims was attempting to make Africa its theatre. We intended, by means of these motions, to warn the public timeously in regard to what could develop on our borders. We tried to prepare the public for the new role which South Africa would have to play in international politics. We tried to prepare them for the fact that we should have to live with the situation, but without developing a psychosis of fear and without misusing Parliament as an instrument with which to strike fear into everyone if something were to happen. By means of this gradual process we tried to prepare the public. The hon. the Minister of Defence identified the need on the basis of the fact that we would no longer have declared wars, but a situation in which irregular conflict could develop and which could be classed as terrorist activities. When the hon. the Minister of Defence introduced certain legal amendments, he spelt this out and left no room for doubt that unconventional action would dominate the situation in the future. The hon. the Minister of Defence left no room for doubt that he was streamlining the Defence Act in such a way as to ensure that it would be unnecessary to plunge our country into a situation in which a psychosis would take over. The hon. member for Durban Point and others served in the committees which endeavoured from time to time to streamline the Defence Act in such a way as to avoid the necessity for mobilization. It became possible to call our people up as the need arose and to the extent that it was necessary to deal with certain situations. We had the co-operation of the Opposition up to a point. Today, however, they are behaving as if they were unaware of the planning in regard to this matter.

It is being said that there is a lack of information, that there is a lack of information concerning possible threats. It is being said that the hon. the Minister of Defence has not taken us into his confidence. Is it not true that what has been developing in recent months has also been very clearly spelt out in the public Press? Is it not true that the Institute for Strategic Studies in London spelt it out for us that what was developing in Angola was a situation in which Russian imperialism aimed to dominate the scene entirely? The hon. the Minister quoted from this document. I want to go on to point out to hon. members that this study came to the further conclusion that the aims of Russian imperialism concern the oil-rich Cabinda area in particular. That is why it was necessary for them to ensure early in 1975 that they gained control over that area. The Cabinda factor can never be overlooked. Furthermore, Tass left no room for doubt concerning the impressive oil supplies of Cabinda and advocated an MPLA government for Cabinda.

It is being said and suggested that the Russian aspect of international communism and the Cuban presence only occurred subsequent to the South African involvement there. This, after all, is nonsense, absolute nonsense. The study shows a very clear pattern of aims on the basis of Russian actions and arming of the MPLA. In the first place they have established their doctrines there. They ensured that the Muscovian propaganda offensive would succeed there. They then began to deliver a stream of armaments. In July 1975 the Economist of London reported that two ships loaded with ammunition of Russian origin had found their way to the MPLA and that the Congo was being used as a terminus. At that stage the conflict in Angola was still limited solely to the three warring political factions there. At that stage they were still trying to bring the conflict to a conclusion by means of smaller arms. However, what was then delivered to them? What does this study have to say in this regard? Field artillery has been delivered to them, tanks, armoured vehicles, six-wheel-drive vehicles, antiaircraft missiles, missile carriers with their operators and anti-tank guided missiles. This was supposedly intended to assist the MPLA in that territory. In the light of these facts I ask whether it is unfair to deduce from this that from as far back as October 1974—when these things were delivered—it was their intention to assist one of the political factions against the other two? In March 1975—I want to emphasize that—between 25 and 30 Russian aircraft-loads of military equipment were delivered in the Congo. In April 1975 100 tons of arms were sent to Angola from Dar-es-Salaam. They also use foreign ships to transport these arms. It is as well to note that amphibious tanks also come into the picture. It is as well to note that at a stage at which the MPLA has already made great progress in Angola, additional arms are still being delivered to Angola. For what purpose? This study comes to the conclusion that these arms being delivered are intended for Southern Africa and are intended for the performance of certain tasks in Southern Africa.

I have mentioned certain dates to hon. members, and we must also consider the Cuban situation. We note that from as far back as May 1975—again this date is of great importance—the Cubans have been streaming into Angola. For what purpose? Even at that stage the MPLA was allegedly well dug in and there was talk of a settlement between the factions. It is also as well to note that at a later stage, when a settlement between these parties was in fact on the cards, the Soviet Union stepped in and caused the attempt to miscarry. Reports stated that they torpedoed the attempt. With what purpose? We note that the Cubans who have been flocking into Angola have increased in number. Shiploads of them have disembarked there and Russian technicians have been landed there to man these sophisticated arms. Then we received the extremely significant report that on 19 July 1975—according to the Weekend Argus—Dr. Agostino Neto stated that when his movement came to power it would range itself on the side of the people of South West Africa, of Namibia, and of those who wanted to overthrow and undermine the integrity of that territory. As far back as July 1975 he made this his stated aim. According to another report, Swapo and the MPLA are fraternizing with a will. This was in August 1975. Now this flow of arms begins to form a pattern, and we ask whether the Opposition have taken cognizance of this. The question arises whether the Opposition has not, then, taken cognizance of this flow of arms, which is far in excess of the requirements of the so-called Angolan civil war. If we are then forced to the inescapable conclusion that this flow of arms is aimed, not only at Angola, but at territory beyond her borders, then it becomes clear to us that the Russian objectives are in fact what we have been predicting over the years from as far back as 1970. It then becomes clear to us why it was necessary for our Minister of Defence and for the Government to take certain preventive measures; why it was necessary for them, when the MPLA began to build up on the border, to take certain steps. It then becomes very clear to us that when it was reported, as it was in Die Transvaler, that the Cubans wanted to attack South West, this was a real possibility which had to be guarded against. And this report did not appear in Die Transvaler alone; it also appeared in De Telegraaf of the Netherlands, and reporter Jan Heyten states that he can support it with information received from Cuba itself.

That is why we ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he thinks that if this information had reached him, he could still be in any doubt concerning the wisdom of the measures adopted by this Government at a time when they were necessary. Now the further question arises as to whether we should convene Parliament when an irregular conflict develops on the borders of a territory in which we have a responsibility, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly spelt it out, namely South West Africa, or should we accept that action of that kind has arrived in Southern Africa? And if it occurs a number of times, will it then be necessary to spell out the information available to us on each occasion, bearing in mind that it is general knowledge, or does the Opposition expect us to spell it out in detail? Now, we know what the attitude of the hon. member for Yeoville is. We know that when this situation arose, he came forward and on one occasion, as reported in The Argus of 19 November, asked for an “African Monroe Doctrine”. Sir, we appreciate this hon. member’s standpoint, because the aim of this “African Monroe Doctrine” is that the South African community deny a foothold to all foreign powers who seek one here. The hon. member agrees with that an endorses it when he recommends the “Monroe Doctrine” viz., that any foreign system of government should not be allowed to establish itself here. In other words, if the communists want to gain a foothold here, then it is the hon. member’s point of view that he wants to deny it them. We thank him for that, but now we should like to know from the hon. member for Rondebosch whether he agrees with the hon. member for Yeoville. I think he will have an opportunity to tell us that, and so will the hon. member for Sea Point. Does he agree with that?

We are all opposed to Russian communism.

I want to come back to the hon. member for Durban Point. He raised a few administrative matters to which I want to reply briefly. In my opinion it would have been suitable to deal with them under the Vote, but since he has raised them, we shall deal with them here. We want to thank the hon. the Minister for having arranged the facilities for our soldiers so quickly. Here I refer in particular to the postal situation. Whereas the hon. member for Durban Point levels criticism in this regard, we have both seen how a fully-fledged post office was established a very long way from here, to the benefit of these boys. As regards the next of kin of the casualties, I am aware, and we have great appreciation for this, that the hon. the Minister has gone out of his way to deal with the death of an individual as quickly and as delicately as possible. We are aware that the policy is that a senior officer and a chaplain pay a visit to those involved and afford comfort where necessary and try to make the necessary arrangements. We are aware, too, how speedily the Defence Force administration steps in to assist the next of kin of these people. It has been requested that the Defence Force be divorced from the Public Service Commission, but the hon. member for Durban Point ought to know that the Defence Force already has its own establishment and he ought to know that promotion takes place in accordance with that establishment and in accordance with the principles of the Defence Force. We should welcome any situation through which the conditions of service and the possibilities of service could be improved and we should endorse it. But the hon. member really should not create the impression here that this is an untenable situation which has to be rectified now.

In addition to the hon. member raised the issue of exemption here. Right away I want to pay tribute to and thank those firms which have seen fit to pay their national servicemen in full or at least pay the difference in salary while they have been serving in the interests of South Africa. We thank them for that. The percentage which will be prosecuted, as is apparent from recent newspaper reports, is absolutely minimal, about 0,001%. The number of persons dismissed owing to the fact that they have been called up for national service, is minimal, an insignificant percentage of the 5 0000 tested. We convey our sincere thanks to those employers for having acted in this way.

In conclusion, I want to say that we must accept that we have become involved together with the free world, in the maintenance of the balance of power in the world, the balance of power in the world which plays such a cardinal role in the politics of Dr. Kissinger. We can criticize it and we can condemn it, but it has become reality. We cannot escape it. Sir, we can maintain that balance of power by means of arms, we can maintain it by means of alliances, but there is one way in which the balance of power can be disturbed and that is through irresponsible conduct on the part of a Parliament. That irresponsible conduct has, for example, caused the balance of power in Europe to be disturbed in these times by certain parliaments which have restricted their governments in regard to defence. Sir, is that not what is happening at the moment in America too? Is it not this which has caused a government like Australia’s to fall and Mr. Fraser to come to the fore as Prime Minister, because he wanted to restore this balance of power by means of the responsible contribution of Parliament? The people accepted this as such.

I therefore want to request the Opposition not to disturb the contribution towards the maintenance of the balance of power which South Africa can make in the military and political spheres either by means of irresponsible conduct or by trying to make purely political capital out of a situation of this nature.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that the hon. member who has just sat down, should have seen fit to strike what I believe is a false note. It was entirely out of tune and at variance with the mood of the House. He simply could not resist the temptation to play small politics.

*It was just a party rally speech he could make in Bloemfontein against the Herstigtes. It is quite out of place here.

†He saw fit to criticize me. I just want to tell the hon. member that I have had a long association with the Permanent Force of this country, and I think I would be the last one to try to harm the needs and aspirations of our Services. All that I did at the time was to say: “Give the public the true facts and do not try to bluff them.” It was the hon. members on that side who said that, per capita, South Africa spent far less money than America on defence. I said that was a false approach to the matter. One must in fact indicate that, per taxpayer, South Africa spends more than America does. Give our people that sort of information and they will support you. Do not, however, hide the facts from them. [Interjections.] We have some difficulty in debating this issue with the hon. the Minister. The people to my left are obviously still trying to caucus; I do not know why they are so quiet. We have difficulty in discussing this matter because obviously the hon. the Minister has information at his disposal which we do not have. It is fairly easy for him to say that for diplomatic reasons or because of the national interest he cannot give us more than he has given. That may be so. On the other hand, it might be a stratagem for hiding certain sins of omission and commission. The hon. the Minister made out a good case for our military involvement there, we are not quarrelling about that. My hon. leader motivated that very adequately. The hon. the Minister has, however, not dealt with the political implications.

I must tell him right here and now that he has not allayed the fears that exist in the minds of the public. He says he has told the public enough, but that is not how the public see it. They feel they have been let down because practically all these items of information they have came from the outside world. Surely this is a situation the hon. the Minister should have foreseen. Surely he should have foreseen that this kind of information would be fed back to our public from the outside.

He has told us we were involved. My hon. leader asked him what has brought about the change in the Government’s strategy. If we were involved—and now, by inference, we appear not to be so involved—what has brought about this change? If we merely went in there and we have now come out, surely this is an admission that the whole exercise has been an abortive one. What have we achieved then? And what of the aftermath of our intervention. Certainly, if we have been in and have now come back, the situation could become infinitely worse. We went in to fill a vacuum, and now the vacuum might be infinitely greater by virtue of our withdrawing, if that is what we have done. We would then have lost all the diplomatic leverage we might have had. We will be faced with more and more refugees and there will be increased hostility from the other people involved, towards us particularly from the MPLA. These are all important issues. I think it is therefore right for this Parliament to ask the hon. the Minister: If there are factors that led to our involvement in the first instance, what has changed the situation to the extent that we are now no longer so involved? In fact, what have we achieved by going there? We are going to face a period of recriminations. Things are not going to stop there. Already I see in the Rand Daily Mail reports that a Dr. Sangumba, who is the Foreign Secretary for Unita, says that we withdrew because South Africa wanted relations with and acknowledgment by 22 African States as a reward for our help. Is this so? If this is so, it is a strange form of multilateral diplomacy that we have not been told about. I think it introduces a very dangerous element. If this is not the case, I think the Government should repudiate this at the very first opportunity.

You are on very dangerous ground now yourself.

Well, I might be, because you do not give me the information on which I can advance an argument. You create a vacuum and then expect us to debate this matter intelligently. I am merely asking whether this report is correct or not. If it is incorrect, surely the Government must repudiate it.

Angola, however, has far greater implications than we have heard up to this moment in time. Angola has very many lessons for us, lessons we would be stupid not to learn quickly. Angola has been a traumatic experience of immense consequence. It has jolted the national conscience to an extent that no single event has done for the last 20 years. This is so because for years we have thought we had time. Now we find that time is the one commodity we do not have. For years we thought we could take refuge and shelter behind the protective screen of Rhodesia and the two Portuguese territories. Now, all of a sudden, we find that that protective barrier has gone. For years we thought that Russia was 7 000 miles away. Now Russia is, as it were, in our back garden. This brings about a completely different situation to which we will have to react. [Interjections.] Judging by the kind of reaction I get from an hon. member over there, he has no idea what is really involved. Unless we can react to these developments with rapidity, and can do so with deftness, we face a future that will be a very dismal one indeed.

Mr. Speaker, if you will permit me, I want to place this matter against a broader panorama. We live in an epoch-making age. For nearly five centuries European influence and intrusion was observable in Asia and Africa, and since the last war there has been a complete reversal of this pattern. People are trying to reverse in one generation what took some 20 generations to establish. I have tried to indicate before that this movement of shifting influences started in the Far East and spread to Africa. It started in the equatorial regions and then moved north and south, so that today in Asia the White influence is still entrenched in Russia in the north and in Australasia in the south. In Africa the Northern movement was completed when the French withdrew from Algeria, and what we see in Angola at the moment is an attempt to complete this Gestalt.

I think history has also shown us that when one comes to this clash of interests, the clash can either be protracted or brief; either peaceful or bloody. I think it has been shown, too, that when there is stability amongst the indigenous peoples, the transfer of power need not cause great turmoil. This was the situation in Mozambique where Frelimo was sufficiently strongly entrenched, so that the transfer of power could be peaceful. This unfortunately was not the case in Angola where the scourge of Africa has manifested itself again. I am speaking here of intertribal conflict. What has been shown is that this change is inherent in the whole world situation, and whilst at the moment the final solutions may not be predetermined, in general the ultimate results are seemingly inevitable. In reacting to this situation there are two courses of action that we must avoid. The one is to go into a laager and say that there is nothing wrong and we will fight to the last round. This is the road of the masochist and martyr. The other approach is to hurl in and hand over. That is the road of the appeaser, and the appeaser will bring us as little joy as the “bittereinder”. However, in this sort of emotion-laden atmosphere we would be stupid if we could not see the underlying lessons of Angola, because if a change of direction is to come, it must come now because from here onwards we will have to go full steam ahead.

And what are the lessons to be learnt from Angola? I think there are a number of them. I shall just refer to some. The Angolan issue has shown up the hostility towards South Africa and some of its policies. Thirty years ago South African troops were all over Africa. Our men were in Addis Ababa and they were acclaimed there. Today our youngsters are led around in Addis Ababa, manacled in a way we have not seen since the hey-day of Rome. Admittedly conditions are different, but think of this immense change that has come about. There could not have been involvement by South Africa in Angola without the tacit understanding of other major powers, and yet when it came to the crunch they deserted us. They renegued on us, and we found that we had to stand completely alone. The outside world wants to save Angola from communism, but one is left with the impression that to do so with South Africa’s assistance is too high a price for them to pay. There are many countries in Africa that want our help, but this is the situation that has developed: They are prepared to accept aid under the counter, but when it comes to full-scale working together with South Africa, they only do so if it is under strictly circumscribed conditions, such as was the case in Rhodesia.

I think the third important lesson of Angola is that we stand isolated. Practically every little country in the world is taken up in some defence alliance or association, but as far as I know, we stand alone; there is not a single greater unity in which we can be absorbed. However, a third imperative lesson we learnt from Angola is that we will not survive unless we can have the loyalty of all South Africans. This must stand out for everybody to see. The outside world and our own people will not give us that loyalty as long as we uphold the system which they regard as racistic, as one which is based on discrimination. We do not have the remotest chance of facing the challenges of the future unless we can remove from our whole society those racistic elements. That places an immense responsibility upon the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. the Prime Minister’s shares are high and in the normal course of events they will probably not go higher; they will probably wane. However, he knows what must be done. He has the power; he has been around quite a lot and he must have got the message just as everybody else gets the message. He has an Opposition that is not worrying him or harassing him, but which is in fact supporting him when he takes these steps. For heaven’s sake then, why does he not act now!

At the root of the Government’s problems is still their basic doctrine of apartheid. [Interjections.] They came to power on that doctrine more than 25 years ago. It is true that they have made adaptations; it is true that there has been a great deal of patch-work, but I am going to suggest that that basic policy formulated more than 25 years ago and which might have served a useful purpose then, has now been overtaken by events. It has become completely obsolete; it has become dangerously obsolete. Unless we can change that basic policy and removed from our society those elements which are regarded by practically everybody in South Africa, except apparently members on that side of the House, as racistic, I believe that we are doomed. That is why it is so essential to do here what the Government is doing at the moment in South West Africa. For years we have asked for summit consultations, for national conventions—call them whatever you wish. We have asked that all the leaders of the various communities in South Africa should be brought together so that we could plan our future jointly, but we were told that it could not be done. However, now the Government is doing precisely that in South West Africa. If it is good enough for South West Africa, why is it not good enough for us? If it is needed there, then it is much more urgently needed here. Even before they do this, I shall tell them what they also have to do. They have appointed many commissions of enquiry, more commissions than any other Government we have had. However, there is one commission of enquiry which we need now and that is a multi-racial commission of enquiry, representing all the communities, to unravel this network, this web of apartheid legislation. We have promised the United Nations that we will eliminate discrimination in this country. However, you cannot even begin to tackle this mammoth task until you have an inventory of such legislative measures and of discrimination which exist at the present time.

This Government claims that it has never changed its policy. This, of course, is true. They say that whatever is happening now are just natural mutations evolving from this basic policy. They came to power on apartheid; surely nobody denies that. They say that they have never changed their policy, so obviously they are therefore still stuck with apartheid. This is the albatross round the neck of that side and that hon. Minister is obviously being weighed down by that albatross. It is true that they are shackled; they have this millstone round their neck and therefore they cannot make these basic adjustments which must be made.

Let me illustrate. Let us look at the field of sport. It is true that we have come a long way since the Loskop Dam era. It is true that the hon. the Minister has made many concessions—in fact, to the extent that he is losing popularity within his own party. After all, he was the heir apparent of that side. However, now we find that he has been beaten badly into second place by men who have only half his ability, but he still will not manage to keep us in the game, if I may use a pun, unless he can eliminate discrimination in sport, because sport, and in particular international sport, is colour blind. The hon. the Minister cannot succeed because nobody on that side is prepared to repudiate the Loskop Dam speech. [Interjections.] I ask now whether there is any hon. member on that side who is prepared to say that Dr. Verwoerd’s approach at Loskop Dam was wrong, disastrously wrong? [Interjections.] These interjections prove my point. The hon. members go through the motions but they cannot make the necessary adjustments because they are still wedded to the apartheid racist doctrine.

Let us look at another and even better example. I am referring to the position of the urban Black man. We know of the odd mental gymnastics we have had from that side starting off with Mr. Sampie Froneman, who said that they were temporary sojourners here, that they were superfluous appendages. Then we had the great Dr. Verwoerd and the hon. the Minister of National Education who said that they had come here to sell their skills and to work in our factories, but that they would never enjoy any rights in so-called White South Africa, because once they were finished with their work, they would have to get out. Thereafter we had a measure of flexibility from a man who is normally completely inflexible. I am referring to the Susloo of the National Party, the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. He was flexible to the extent that he said that the Black people were not here in a permanently temporary capacity; they were here in a temporary permanent capacity. [Interjections.] Yes, that is a major degree of flexibility. Later we had one gentleman who saw a ray of light. I refer to the hon. Deputy Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions. During his term of office as Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration he said that he could not see how we could do without them for many years to come. What has happened to him in the meantime? He has now been put on Social Welfare and Pensions. [Interjections.] I however ask this simple question: Is there any hon. member, including that vociferous one on the other side, who is prepared to say here and now that he accepts that the Black people are here permanently and irrevocably so for all time? Is there anybody who is prepared to say that? No, they dare not do it, because if they do they will also be put on pension.

Look at the terrible situation which this gets them into. We come to the problem: What do we do with these urban Blacks? In any other society you would have given them freehold title. However, that would clash too blatantly with the apartheid doctrine. Therefore in this case they are given leasehold title for 30 years, but on condition that they accept citizenship of another country, of a homeland. Ours must be the only country in the world where a man can only acquire a property if he signs his birth-right away and if he makes himself a foreigner in the country of his own birth.

Can one conceive of the distorted minds who dreamt up a scheme of this kind! Behind all this must have lurked the thought that one day they would wake up and by some magical process find themselves in a lily-white land in which they shall continue to enjoy the economic advantages which flow from being an élite group but in which they shall have none of the political problems which flow from a multiracial society. I say that history will ask and, indeed the country is beginning to ask, how the hon. the Prime Minister, who has pretentions to statesmanship, could have sanctioned so shabby a deal. A politician is one who thinks of the next election; a statesman is one who thinks of the next generation. I want to say to the hon. the Prime Minister: How can he take us into the difficult years ahead if he has this millstone, this albatross around his neck?

The field in which the Government’s failure to recognize the requirements of our time is most glaringly illustrated is, the field of finance and economic affairs. In this connection I want to say that that side has been poorly served over many years because they have never had an economist as the occupant of the finance portfolio except now and he is an importation from this side. For more than nine-tenths of his adult life he said precisely the opposite of what he is now expected to say. No wonder the poor man is so confused. A great credibility gap is also developing in regard to him. He no sooner came to power than he rushed in and said: “The rand is so strong, I will not devalue it.” Then within a couple of weeks he had to devalue it by a greater margin than anyone else has done in our history. Every time he professes his faith in gold, the bullion price begins to drop. People are beginning to say: “for heaven’s sake, can’t he just keep quiet?” However, let us be charitable about this. He was of course given an unenviable heritage. His predecessor, his financial instincts so lulled by his faith in gold, unleashed in this country a spending spree such as we have never seen: R28 000 million of mainly Government and quasi-Government development projects in the pipeline. Why, Sir, this would have crippled an economy twice as strong as our own. Again I ask the Cabinet, because surely the principle of collective responsibility still applies. What did they do about it when they saw that the situation got out of hand? How could they have condoned and supported a situation of this kind, because here we had an irresponsible frittering away of our national resources?

The Government is in a terrible mess and so is this hon. Minister. He faces this situation with practically the lowest productivity rates in the world. I want to quote the latest figures which express the national output as a value per head of population per year. I have related them all to the rand. In South Africa the figure is R1 200, in Japan R2 700, in New Zealand R3 600, in Australia R4 700, and in Norway R6 500. Because of Government policy, because of the restrictions they have placed on the employment of labour, we have one of the lowest productivity rates in the world. Because it is so necessary for the Government to control the whole financial and economic situation in order to apply their apartheid policy, we have in South Africa a system of corporate State socialism. This was what Mussolini introduced in Italy more than 30 years ago, and hon. members will all realize what a mess Italy is in even today. Now that the Government has created the situation of a high rate of inflation with practically no economic growth and a run on our foreign payments, as a result of which our balance of payments is deteriorating, it comes with its anti-inflationary Pretoria manifesto. The idea clearly is to create a sense of guilt in the minds of the public. What they are trying to say to the public is: “You are responsible for inflation.” Everybody knows however that under the conditions which obtain here, probably 80% of the inflation comes from the Government. It is the Government that manipulates the money supply, it is the Government that determines interest rates and it is the Government that has gone on a spending spree such as we have never seen before. Let them not blame anybody else; the Government is to blame. It is the Government that curtails the use of labour, too. More than two-thirds of our workers in this country are Black and they are subjected to job reservation and a host of restrictions. One cannot train them in the areas where the jobs are. That is why labour costs in this country have doubled over the last six years and why at the moment wages on the average increase at a rate that is 9% faster than the real output per worker.

Then the Government say their policy is one of self-determination for all people. I ask you to look for one moment at the position of our Coloured people and the CRC. Is that a manifestation of self-determination? Why, it makes a mockery of the whole concept. If the Government has learnt anything from Angola—I believe that some of them would wish to learn the necessary lessons from Angola—there must now be a radical change in their approach; they must now find a philosophy that will fit the facts of the situation and not the fancies. I could give them certain minimum requirements, and unless they accept these, we shall not even begin to move in the right direction. The first is that in social affairs we must eliminate statutory discrimination. It is possible for individuals to discriminate against one another and they do so all over the world, but it is not permissible for a Government to discriminate, and certainly not against its own subjects. Accept the principle in social affairs of freedom of choice so that you and I and everyone in this country can associate with whoever we wish to, and half your problem will be solved. In economic affairs, decide once and for all whether we are a free enterprise capitalist society or not. If we decide that we are, eliminate the kind of State competition we have at the present time and let free enterprise be given its full rein. Diminish all these controls that exist and leave it to normal market mechanisms. Give our businessmen the tools, and they will deliver the goods. In the labour field, accept the simple principle that it is necessary for South Africa to make full use of whatever human potential we might have and reward them accordingly. Beyond that the Government must keep out of the labour field because hon. members will have seen what happened in Britain where the Labour Party has continually interfered in the labour situation there. Just look at the mess they are in now. In the political field, decentralization of decision making is necessary. To graft independent units onto a substructure that is indivisible is not a solution and will never be one. It is a futile escape from reality. Let us share the decision making. Once one has taken that small step, one must realize that the only system under which there is protection for every group and under which there is not a counting of heads, is the federal system.

Lastly, our men are fighting now, they will be required to fight more, and many of us will also be required to fight. Speaking for myself—and in doing so I am sure I am speaking for most South Africans—I do not want to fight to uphold apartheid; I do not want to fight for job reservation, immorality laws, group areas and border industries. However, give our people something that is worth fighting for, tell them we want to create a just society, tell them that privilege will not be entrenched in future and that we will create a society in which each man will have a share in decision making, and these will be objectives—that I shall be prepared to defend and most South Africans will want to defend and will be prepared to die for.

Mr. Speaker, one always awaits with interest the contribution to the debate of the hon. member for Hillbrow, because he is an eloquent man who knows how to conjure with words. His contribution this afternoon was, however, extraordinary for a United Party member.

He hurt.

Yes, he hurt, that is quite right. He tried to conceal the confusion in his own mind with a torrent of words, with numerous examples of verbosity. He said things which are unworthy of him and of his party and his leacer after the conduct this afternoon of his leader in this House. He used Angola and the problems of Angola to advocate petty political points and to apply them against that background in an attempt to weaken the patriotism of our people at this juncture. I should just like to remind you, Sir, of his peroration today. He said he did not want to fight for this and he did not want to fight for that, as though a person, when he is fighting for his country and defending his country, is fighting for the policy of the Government that happens to be in power at that time.

Will the hon. the Minister fight for job reservation?

I should very much like to mention an example which the hon. member, to my mind, ought to follow. Recently, a week ago, I had the experience of having talks with the Executive of the Indian Representative Council. They called for the hon. the Minister of Defence to establish and arm an Indian Corps in South Africa so that they might contribute their share to the defence of South Africa. They stated very clearly that this should not be interpreted as implying support from them for the Government’s policy. They also stated very clearly that this should not be interpreted as implying support from them for the things for which that member says he refuses to fight; but whether they criticize or condemn the Government’s policy in detail or in any particulars, does not, nevertheless, detract from their duty to stand by South Africa at this moment. The hon. member for Hillbrow tried to steal a march on us and by means of the manner in which he linked Angola to his attack on this side of the House, he is trying to weaken the patriotism of our people. I must say in all honesty, in my experience of the hon. member and of this House, I have never yet witnessed a poorer effort from a front-bencher of the Opposition than that which I witnessed here this afternoon. He was peddling suspicion here. He conceded that it might be necessary for the Government in the public interest not to divulge certain things, but then he immediately created suspicion with this suggestion: “Is it not merely a stratagem in order to bluff the people?” Is this the way in which to approach a difficult matter under these circumstances? He himself pointed out how the world of today differed from that of 25 or 30 years ago, how colonialism had been destroyed completely and how a whole series of new independent states had come into existence.

But in spite of that he had the audacity to compare the presence of our troops in Addis Ababa during the previous world war, with the four young men who were exhibited there by our enemies. Of course there is a difference. In fact, he himself explained why there is a difference. In the previous world war we were welcome in those countries of Africa which were under the rule of a colonial power on whose side we were fighting.

We were not dealing with independent States. We were not dealing with communist infiltration, or even communist domination, in a number of those States. We were not dealing with an Africa divided in the ratio of 22 to 22 in favour of and against communism. But in order to steal a march on us, he drew a comparison between South Africa’s position in the Africa of that time, when things were so different, and its position in the Africa of today.

Is this the level on which we should conduct a debate under these serious circumstances under which we are living today?

I think he is hoping to receive a medal from Haile Selassie.

I want to go a bit further. He said that unless we first destroyed the so-called racist policy of the National Party, we would not succeed in motivating the nation to the full in the defence of South Africa.

[Inaudible.]

In a moment I shall come to what was said by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and I only hope he will not leave this House with his tail between his legs again. [Interjections.]

You are overrating your own ability.

I am grateful to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout for his interjection, because it gives me the opportunity to drop the hon. member for Hillbrow and to come back to the important debate we are conducting. All of us have appreciation for the standpoint of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and of the hon. member for Durban Point up to this point in this debate today. In some respects highly critical, but they were responsible throughout. They revealed throughout that they were trying to understand the problems of South Africa at the present moment. They showed very clearly that if South Africa were to need the Opposition, of which they are the leaders, in a struggle which might develop in Southern Africa, we could rely upon them. For this I wish to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation. We debate in this House as members of different political parties and consequently debates may become harsh and sharp words may be exchanged. It is right that this is so, because it is a function of Parliament to test one idea against another. However, we do not always debate simply as party against party. There are days when we debate as South Africans amongst ourselves. Today was such an occasion. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition set the tune and we started debating as South African against South African, but with one another and amongst ourselves in the interests of South Africa. For that we have sincere appreciation.

I listened attentively to the contributions of hon. members on the opposite side and it seems to me as though there are one or two questions which really worry them. One of these is the extent of South Africa’s involvement, upon which the hon. the Minister of Defence has already replied in full. [Interjection.]

Nothing!

I shall come back to this later. The other question which worries hon. members, is what we have in fact attained through our action. I think I should stress once more what the hon. the Minister of Defence said, and that is that the world, the whole of Africa, realizes today that when the hon. the Prime Minister says that we are in Africa and of Africa, he is speaking the truth and that we as a nation are prepared to keep his word in this regard. Africa and the world know today that South Africa is a state of Africa in Africa and that our interests are locked up in the future of Africa. We also proved that we shall not shirk our responsibilities towards those people on this Continent who are opposed to communism. Perhaps more important: We shall not shirk our responsibility to defend our own people against the danger of communism either. The steps we took to defend the Ovambo’s water supply indicated that those people for whom we are responsible may rest assured that we shall in fact meet our responsibilities.

We also attained a third objective: We made the world understand very clearly what role Russia and its satellite Cuba are playing in the struggle. As the hon. the Minister of Defence told us today, the MPLA’s own troops were disappearing and the struggle against the freedom-seeking elements of that territory was being waged solely by Cubans and troops from Eastern Europe. This fact is as plain as a pikestaff, to be seen by the world and by the members of the Progressive Party. It is not a struggle between people of Africa and other people of Africa, but a struggle between people of Africa and imported slaves of an ugly ideology, i.e. communism. [Interjection.]

Everybody knows this.

Everybody may know this, but everybody is not aware of the consequences thereof. This is what we attained, and it is important that these things should be known. So, when we pass judgment on these matters, we should keep these facts in mind. In repeating emphatically that we appreciate the sense of responsibility of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and that of the hon. member for Durban Point during and even prior to this debate, we cannot, unfortunately, say the same of all the hon. members on the opposite side of this House. For the moment I want to say nothing about the hon. member for Rondebosch and the Progressive Party, because I am not concerned about them. Since joining the Progressive Party, that member has alienated himself from the real South Africa. However, I should not like to say this of the United Party and for that reason I now want to direct the language, which they and their newspapers use, at them. I want to say this to them: They should realize that the people of South Africa have “the right to know”. I think they should react to the right of the people of South Africa to know what is happening in that party. Where does the United Party stand? We know where its Leader stands. We know where the hon. member for Durban Point stands. We know where one or two other people stand.

You are talking petty politics again.

Sir, here we have a member of Parliament who does not like politics. I wonder what else he talked in order to come to Parliament. Mr. Speaker, we have the right to know where the United Party stands as a whole. To what extent do the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Durban Point speak on behalf of all the members on that side of this House? Are they unanimous? Do their hearts beat as one? Sir, if they complain that they have been denied the right to know, why would some of their leaders go to the newspapers, newspapers which did not play a very fine role in our recent history, and pass judgment there, pass a full judgment on events in Angola while they themselves say they do not know what is happening? Why would members on that side of the House appropriate the right to make final pronouncements in the absence of that knowledge which enables one to pass judgment? I am not referring to the hon. member for Rondebosch. I pity him, Sir, because I believe he is experiencing a tremendous inner conflict. With his background, Sir, his instincts are at variance with the duties that party is forcing on him.

In The Cape Times of Wednesday an interview with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout was published. I should like to ask him a few things and also read out to the House extracts from the interview. The first thing I want to ask him, is whether he went to The Cape Times with this story of his own accord?

Can’t you read?

Did he take the initiative, Sir, or am I correct in saying that The Cape Times invited him to grant an interview?

Read what is written there. [Interjections.]

Very well, I am sorry. Let me put it to him as follows: Did he, when he held this meeting at Middelburg, expect that a newspaper like The Cape Times would not get hold of that speech?

He gave it into their hands himself.

But listen to what the hon. member advocates.

Note what an important man he is—

The same Parliament that he now loves so dearly, laid down in the Defence Act in section 95(1)(a) that the Minister of Defence has the right to ask South Africa’s national servicemen to operate anywhere in Southern Africa, not only in South Africa, and to ask them to consent to cross the borders of South Africa. Was it the intention of Parliament, when it entrusted the Government with that important, essential power, that Parliament should first be summoned to meet every time it was necessary to cross the border to a greater or lesser extent and to act in the interests of South Africa? Parliament should have known what it was doing when it passed this measure.

Is there no concern in the country over these affairs?

Mr. Speaker, of course there is concern in the country over these affairs. As the hon. the Minister of Defence indicated to you, he took trouble time and time again, and the hon. the Prime Minister took trouble time and time again, through the Press, on the television screen, over the radio, to take the people into their confidence. [Interjections.]

That is nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, what we have here is a curtain, an iron curtain, that they deliberately draw over their own eyes and their own ears and their own minds so as not to appreciate the attitude of the Government and the attitude of the hon. the Minister of Defence. They are more interested in debating points. They are more interested in trying to save their declining fortunes in the politics of South Africa than to listen to the facts I have put before them.

Let us continue, Sir, with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I quote—

*Could anyone have chosen a more unfortunate example here than the American Senate? This just shows where his thoughts are. [Interjections.] He went further—

Sir, this is indeed an outrageous judgment. It is a case of Solomon making pronouncements, without the facts. He does not know what is going on, yet he can say these things. He continues—

Does the hon. member not believe the Minister of Defence? He has proved time and time again, giving chapter and verse, that the communists, Russia, Cuba and Eastern Europe, are in Angola precisely with the aim of eventually making trouble for South Africa and producing unrest in South West Africa through the actions of Swapo. What has he now said, besides confirming that it is necessary for South Africa to be on its guard, that it is necessary for South Africa to protect its borders, that it is necessary for South Africa to take preventive measures, even beyond the border at those places where we are involved, where our capital, our skill and the survival of our people are concerned? Why do it in this way? Why make these judgments? Why make these accusations if he does not have enough information to enable him to make these pronouncements? Or did he do this in ignorance? Did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout make these important statements and draw these important conclusions about what is really happening in Angola without any knowledge of it? I give him credit for not having done this without any knowledge. He knew enough to be able to speak, and perhaps to draw wrong conclusions from the facts which were available to him; otherwise he would be the most irresponsible member who has ever set foot in this Parliament. That is how simple it is. But what he said does not agree with the attitude and the point of view of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition today, nor with the attitude of the hon. member for Durban Point. These are two entirely different voices, two entirely different points of view which we have heard from the Leader of the Opposition and from the leader of the United Party in the Transvaal. I would like to put an honest question to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout today. I know him well and he will give me an honest answer if he answers me at all. I want to ask him what he is doing in the United Party. [Interjections.]

I am not running away as you did.

Mr. Speaker, he is just as ill at ease in the United Party as I had become there, yet he remains. [Interjections.] Why does he remain in the United Party? To promote the cause of the United Party? To improve the United Party’s chances of gaining support in South Africa? Or is it to put the United Party in an awkward position, to embarrass the United Party with this type of declaration, which does not make the task of the hon. Leader of the Opposition any easier? Did he first discuss the speech which he delivered at Middelburg with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition?

Never!

No, Sir, he did not. That is typical of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He is what the Englishmen call “a lone wolf”. He goes his own way; he does not owe any loyalty to anybody; he does not consult his leaders nor does he consult his followers. He is only concerned with one thing in life and that is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I want the hon. member for Bezuidenhout to participate in this debate. He must not waste any time. I know him—it takes him two days to prepare a speech. What is the hon. member doing in the United Party? Surely he belongs over there, behind the skirts of the hon. member for Houghton. That is his spiritual home. I have come home. Why does he not go home as well?

I want to reply in all earnestness to an interjection, the one concerning a “right to know”; concerning the attitude that everything must be made known to the people and that Parliament should be summoned to make special decisions. All of us who know anything about publicity and propaganda are aware of the danger of “over-killing” in a case like this. We are always being warned not to build up greater expectations or fear than is necessary. I wish to tell the hon. members on both sides of the House in all good faith that if, considering the limited operation which South Africa undertook in Angola, the Government had raised a storm and made extensive propaganda in order to whip up a mighty lust for war in the population—because this is what they mean by “motivation”—and had at the same time summoned Parliament specially, then we would have given an impression to the people and to the outside world which could not have been justified by the facts. What we are dealing with here is an essential operation in the interests of South Africa, an operation which was limited and which was meant to be limited. To have given overmuch attention to this and to have made a big fuss about it, whereby the population could have been given the wrong impression, would not have been in the interests of South Africa or of the undertaking concerned. I can safely say that if it should ever be necessary for South Africa to proceed to full-scale action in any military area, if we should really proceed to involve ourselves in warfare, Parliament will be consulted in the matter. However, if Parliament were to be summoned especially for a matter such as that which we are dealing with, then we would know that it is a very serious matter and that we are involved in something which is really dangerous. However, we dare not give the population the impression that we are involved in a full-scale war while we are only engaged in a limited operation.

The hon. members on the other side spoke about the “right to know”, but there was no indication from their side of the things they did not know and thus wished to be informed about. There were no clear or pertinent questions. The hon. Minister of Defence replied fully to those questions which were asked, in so far as there were any questions asked. The hon. Minister of Defence told us about certain newspapers in South Africa which wanted more information, but when he discovered what it was that they wanted to know, he realized that they were looking for that type of propaganda which originated in Luanda. We also know of certain newspapers that did not want to say certain things themselves, but went out of their way to reprint long articles which appeared in newspapers in London, and which proclaimed the enemy’s view of the situation. I even read in certain newspapers in Cape Town how certain English newspapers proclaimed that the Russians and Cubans were only in Angola because South Africa had interfered there. This is the biggest nonsense in the world. The hon. Minister recently pointed out that the Russians had begun to use the MPLA as an agent ten years ago. However, the presence of South Africa in Angola was used as propaganda to confuse the issue, to bring the peoples of Africa under the wrong impression and to turn South Africa into a scapegoat, while South Africa really acted in the interests of what was right and necessary. It is therefore this type of propaganda which the newspapers wanted to be allowed to broadcast in South Africa and which they then brought into the country by a round about way.

We are responsible people, after all. Even my hon. friends in the Progressive Party are responsible in the sense that one cannot say of them that they are irresponsible merely because they are stupid, because they are by no means stupid. Therefore I think that one can appeal to all the parties in this House to act as far as the Angola question is concerned, in the spirit in which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Durban Point, the hon. Minister of Defence and the hon. member for Bloemfontein have acted and to avoid the dangerous path which the hon. member for Hillbrow has begun to take and down which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is rushing headlong. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout will find it difficult to trace his steps on that path and to uphold a true South African point of view.

This could have been a great opportunity and may yet become a great opportunity, but then it must be realized for heaven’s sake that we are dealing with such an opportunity. Let us not merely go on fighting as one party against another; let us also discuss the matter with one another—as South Africans.

Mr. Speaker, with his usual brilliance the hon. the Minister has created varying atmospheres, ranging from the deadly serious atmosphere of the situation facing South Africa to the hilarious atmosphere where he was having fun at the expense of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. Part of his speech, however, was self-destructive because on the one hand he chided the hon. member for Hillbrow for playing party politics while for a large part of his speech he did the very same thing. To this extent his speech was self-destructive.

To the extent that the hon. the Minister created this atmosphere of seriousness and put to this House the need for the debate to be conducted not on a party political basis, but as South Africans talking and debating the affairs of South Africa seriously with one another at this critical stage, we accept what he said. However, I think the hon. the Minister will also be fair-minded and will not argue that he has a monopoly of patriotism, or that the Government has a monopoly of wisdom and that it has a monopoly of responsibility towards South Africa. I hope he will not argue that, wherever in the exercise of our duty and responsibility it becomes necessary for us to criticize the Government in the interests of South Africa, it is not the duty of an Opposition party to do so.

For the past three months, while many South Africans have been going about their ordinary business, some going on holiday, many young South Africans have been on the border, some of them involved in humanitarian work, trying to ease the tragic lot of the refugees of Angola. Others have been on lonely patrol in the border areas and others have been involved in a state of war. On behalf of us on these benches I would like to pay a tribute to young South Africa. We believe that they have risen to the occasion and that they will continue to do so in future. As those in times gone by, so these young South Africans too are a credit to South Africa. Twenty-nine of these young men have died in action, some have been captured and others wounded. We would like to express our sincerest sympathy to the parents and families of those who have lost their lives. To those young men who will be handicapped for the rest of their lives by the scars of war, through loss of limb or other injuries, we pledge ourselves to do everything in our power to ensure that their lives in the years ahead will be as normal as possible. I believe that this is the responsibility of all of us in this House. To the families of the young men who have been captured, the Government and the Opposition should give the assurance that we will not rest until they are safely back in South Africa. I believe that this is the least we could say to them.

I would also, on this occasion, like to pay a tribute to those gentlemen who head our defence forces. In a critical time like this, South Africa is indeed fortunate to have at the head of our forces men who combine such a high degree of competence and integrity. Our confidence in them goes a long way towards offsetting the degree of lack of confidence that we have in those who head the political arm of Government. I believe that the defence forces deserve the support of the people of South Africa. I accept the view that the Defence Force per se should not be part of a party-political conflict. Within the Defence Force there are youngsters of all parties, and I believe that the people of South Africa of all parties want to give them their support, but it becomes more difficult to motivate people to give support to the Defence Force when the people of South Africa have not been told of the mandate, the instruction or the goal which the political leaders of the country have given to the defence forces. This is what this debate is about. The hon. the Minister made certain disclosures and he gave certain information, but there are a couple of very important questions which he has not yet answered.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is now perhaps an appropriate time to move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.