Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, when the debate was adjourned yesterday evening, the hon. member for Albany was giving us an interpretation of our constitution and of other laws of the land, and my first reaction was to wonder whether Saul was amongst the prophets, because I must say, Sir, from his interpretations even I, as a layman, was able to deduce that the hon. member did not know a great deal about the Constitution or about the other laws of the land. The first argument he advanced, was that a petition should have been presented to the House of Assembly by interested parties so as to render the independence of the Transkei possible. My second impression was that if the Opposition had to clutch at small technical points such as that on an occasion like this in order to be able to advance arguments, it really did not have any argument to advance in opposition to this great event which is going to take place. Section 114 of the Constitution to which the hon. member referred deals with inter-provincial arrangements between the provinces.

It deals with the powers of the provinces, the abolition of a provincial council and the taking away of the powers of the provinces. Throughout the debate hon. members advanced the argument that in 1909-’10, at the time of the initial drafting of the Constitution, there was no question of independence being granted to a homeland. In other words, at that time there was no mention of an independent homeland. These were purely inter-provincial arrangements between the various provinces, inter alia, arrangements relating to boundaries. [Interjections.] Sir, that section is based on a section in the Constitution of the Union. The hon. members advanced the argument that there could not have been any mention of that, so I want to tell the hon. member that this section deals with border arrangements between the various provinces, something which is not at all relevant in this case. In the second place, no powers are being taken away from the provinces by this measure. As far as powers over that specific area, the Transkei, are concerned, certain powers were transferred to the Transkeian Government in 1963 in terms of the Transkei Constitution Act, inter alia, powers relating to roads, education and hospitalization. Therefore I say that the hon. member indulged in minor nonsensical arguments because he failed to see major argument or because he had no answer to this great event.

The hon. member said that the agreements entered into with the Transkeian Government should be included in this Bill in the form of an appendix. Sir, I want to point out to the hon. member that South Africa has many agreements with many countries in the world. Now I want him to tell me of a single case of such agreements having been included in any Act by means of an appendix.

But this is a special Act.

I am asking that hon. member to mention one single Act, or to say where something of this kind has been written into the Constitution of the Republic. Surely that was not done. After all, what we are dealing with here is a living matter, with agreements. Are we to amend this legislation each time a new agreement is entered into or an amendment is effected to an existing agreement? Surely, Sir, this an absolutely ineffective proposal. Surely it is not in the interests of the good government. The hon. member went further and said that the Bill before us, automatically turned him and his wife into citizens of the Transkei.

Read clause 6 and schedule B.

Yes, the hon. member said it. Now I want to ask the hon. member to consult somebody who has some legal knowledge. Surely he must see that reference is made here to people who are not citizens of another territory. Now, does he consider himself not to be a citizen of South Africa? But if he wants to apply for citizenship of the Transkei, I want to suggest to him to apply to the Government of the Transkei. In that case the matter will probably be referred to the body established in terms of the agreement between Chief Minister Matanzima and our Prime Minister, so that the Transkei may decide whether or not they want him.

When one examines the arguments advanced by hon. members of both opposition parties, one sees their arguments are chiefly concerned with four points. The first point which is raised, is that a mighty confrontation exists between the Government of South Africa and the Government of the Transkei with regard to the question of citizenship. My contention is that this is absolutely untrue and that there is no question of a confrontation. If hon. members refer to the Constitution of the Transkei, they will see that the Constitution provides that it is the wish of the Transkei for Transkeians to become Transkeian citizens. Moreover, provision is being made for all persons who are at present citizens of the Transkei in terms of the Transkei Constitution Act of 1963, to obtain citizenship of the Transkei automatically when it becomes independent. This is laid down in the Constitution of the Transkei which goes on to provide what persons inside and outside the Transkei will obtain citizenship automatically.

If hon. members on the opposite side of this House leave their hair splitting for a moment and look at the set-up as it really exists, they will see that it has been provided that the question of the identification of those who are citizens of the Transkei not on grounds of a blood relationship, but on grounds of a linquistic and cultural relationship, must be referred to a board. A provision to this effect does not appear in the Transkei Constitution Act but it is laid down in the agreement entered into with the hon. the Prime Minister. Therefore I want to contend that the confrontation to which hon. members referred, does not exist, because the matter has been settled by the hon. the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of the Transkei and it has been decided that a board consisting of members of the Government of South Africa as well as of members of the Government of the Transkei will be established, and that the board will decide borderline cases in connection with citizenship. What cases does this board have to decide? It has to decide the cases of persons having to be identified on grounds of language and culture. In the Transkei there are two languages and two cultures. These are the Xhosa and Sotho languages and cultures. However, these people are also found outside the Transkei, in the Ciskei and in QwaQwa. It will be clear if hon. members read the Transkei Constitution Act, that the Transkei is not trying to render its citizens stateless. On the contrary. The Transkei is trying to incorporate its citizens into itself. However, the Transkei does not want to accept people who may belong to other states without its having considered the matter, and such cases will first have to be investigated. This, however, does not prove the argument which the hon. members advanced, it is that there will be a mighty confrontation and that 1,3 million people will be stateless. It proves that the Government has always been correct in saying that identity and the maintenance of the identity of peoples must be recognized and respected. The Transkei is desirous of having its citizens with it, but the Transkei first wants to give consideration to those citizens of another country. This is a recognition of identity, but the hon. members fail to see this.

I should like to deal with the second argument advanced by the hon. members, and this is that the Government is not making provision for the rights of the minorities in the Transkei, particularly not for the rights of the Whites who are going to remain there. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana, or one of the other speakers, said that the position of the White officials was guaranteed by means of an agreement. The hon. member also asked why the same thing was not done in respect of the other Whites there. The hon. member should consult the agreements he has been given. The agreements go even further, because they provide that land set aside in terms of the White Paper and in terms of the S.A. Bantu Trust and Land Act, may be purchased after independence. A similar agreement to the one which exists for the officials, also exists for the property owners. In clause 5, however, further provision is being made so as to enable the Trust to purchase land within the Transkei after independence and to enable the officials of the Trust to enter the Transkei in order to do the necessary work. Provision for this is being made in clause 5 of the legislation and provision is also being made for buying out Whites, and this will be done. This is also stated in the agreement. There are other guarantees as well. Do the hon. members have no confidence whatsoever in the Government of the Transkei which has been governing the territory in a responsible manner for 13 years? Do they have no confidence in the Government of South Africa? I think this is the biggest motion of no-confidence of the Opposition in themselves, because they say that governments can change, and if the Government in this country is to change, what party is likely to come into power? Surely that party. Therefore, if they are afraid of a change of Government, they are afraid of themselves.

You are completely wrong there.

I know, because it will not happen. The other argument that was advanced, was that consultations had not taken place and that a referendum should have been held for the citizens of the Transkei so as to determine whether they wanted independence or not. Yesterday evening the hon. member for Port Natal indicated at length that exhaustive consultations were conducted to the level of tribal government within the Transkei and that consultations were conducted outside the Transkei in the urban areas as well, and that the outcome was overwhelmingly in favour of independence. It is only a party or a person who does not feel or experience the heartbeat of nationalism in itself or in himself or who does not respect it in another nation who argue as they do. The leaders of the Transkei know their own people and consulted them. From the tribal level and the regional authority level up to the level of the Legislative Assembly itself, the people, including members of the Opposition party there, voted in favour of this draft constitution. The Legislative Assembly of the Transkei was converted into a constitutional body when a decision was taken on the Constitution. A large number of Opposition members were also in favour of the Constitution. In other words, the vast majority was in favour of it. Now hon. members on the opposite side say that consultations should have been conducted, that a referendum should have been held. I maintain that it is only a person who does not understand the nationalism and aspirations of a people who wants to hold a referendum at every turn. Let me give an example. Do hon. members still remember that before this country became a Republic a referendum was held in which the question as to whether we should become a Republic within the Commonwealth was put to the people? Dr. Verwoerd went to the Commonwealth Conference and at that Conference, without consulting his people and in spite of the fact that the outcome of the referendum was that we wanted to remain within the Commonwealth, he withdrew South Africa’s application on his own. He was able to do so, because he knew the aspirations, the nationalism and the heartbeat of the people and had experienced it. What has become of that Republic? It has grown and prospered and the hon. members on the opposite side who were opposed to our becoming a Republic, have to admit this. Now they want to give the impression that they were the ones who achieved our Republican status. In spite of the referendum Dr. Verwoerd acted as he did. A time ago, our present Prime Minister said at a Republic Day festival that that action was the most courageous step ever taken by any leader of South Africa. I want to suggest that the independence of the Transkei is as courageous, if not more courageous, a step which is now being taken by the hon. the Prime Minister, the Government as well as the Government of the Transkei. I believe that history will prove that, at constitutional level, this was the most important step which influenced the future of South Africa. Therefore I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to tell the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, who has been working unceasingly, as well as the hon. the Prime Minister, who has been tireless in his endeavours, that the citizens of South Africa want to thank them for this step initiated by them on behalf of the nationalists in White South Africa and in the Transkei.

Hon. members have advanced another argument by saying that since there was never any question of independence in 1913, when land consolidation proposals first came before Parliament, the Transkei may not become independent now. Did Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts ever speak of a republic when the Union of South Africa came into being? Surely they did not say at the time that we would become a republic. A country and a nation develop in the political sphere and from our development came the Republic of South Africa in spite of the fact that those people had never spoken of it. In spite of the fact that they never mentioned independence by name, surely it is a logical step that independence will flow from the foundations which they laid. Both Opposition parties are hide-bound and unable to comprehend a step such as this is too great a step for them and they are unable to take it. They are able to take a hand in minor matters, but when it comes to major matters which influence the history of South Africa, such matters are beyond their comprehension. They are too hide-bound. I should like to read only one passage from a book by C.F. Strong, Modern Political Constitutions, in which the author deals at length with the reasons for the collapse of political systems. In respect of the ancient Greek system he expressed the following opinion—

This, according to him, was the reason for the collapse of the ancient Greek political system; the people were unable to move with the time. What we see before us today in the form of the two Opposition parties, is a manifestation of this very thing. They are unable to move with the time and they are unable to see a logical development.

If we look at the coming event, we see that it fits into the framework of the greatest events that have ever had a drastic influence on the history of South Africa. I am referring to events such as the occupation of the Cape by the Dutch and British, the Great Trek which led to the establishment of republics, the annexation of the Republics and the establishment of the Republic itself. When one looks at these events, one sees in them events based and built on nationalism. Events based and built on that, remain. Even if they do disappear temporarily as happened in the case of the small republics, they reappear later in a greater form. Events built on colonialism and imperialism, however, went under and stayed under; they were incapable of development. The independence of the Transkei is a step and event which has its roots in nationalism. It is not only the nationalism of the Whites, but a joint action of nationalism in South Africa and nationalism in the Transkei. It is true that some people in South Africa and in the Transkei are opposed to it because they do not understand it and because something of this nature is too great for them to participate in.

In the third place the step which is to be taken, will be creative, it will create a state. In Europe, America and Asia the creation of states have brought satisfaction, but on those continents this took the powers of history centuries and was accompanied by violence and conflict to have the various states crystallize into the form in which they exist today. While on those continents there was no power which understood and recognized nationalism and was able to channel it, there is a power in South Africa which understands, recognizes and channels the nationalism of the various peoples. This is why this peaceful change is taking place in our country.

In the history of the world colonialism and imperialism were the powers which clashed with nationalism. These two powers, however, became obsolete and disappeared. In their place communism arose to counteract and clash with nationalism. The best example which we see, is that in Angola. There we have people with aspirations towards self-determination. There are also various groups and identities, however, and in spite of the fact that they have a common ideal—to achieve self-determination—they differed and fought one another. What is being done today in preparation for what is to happen on 26 October—i.e. the independence of the Transkei—ensures that what happened in Angola cannot happen in South Africa; i.e. a clash of various national groups so that each may express its own nationalism. We are ensuring that this change will come about peacefully.

Hon. members on the opposite side always say that they are in favour of development in the homelands and in favour of development in the Transkei. They say the Transkei may develop economically, agriculturally, educationally, legally and administratively, but the Transkei may not develop constitutionally. Its development is to be pegged down at a certain point. Now they accuse us of imposing our authority on the Transkei. They, however, are the people who say that constitutionally the Transkei may develop up to a certain point, but no further. With that attitude they negate their pious talk suggesting that they want the homelands to develop. This is the best proof of the fact that one should attach no importance to their statement that they are in favour of the development of the homelands.

I want to conclude by indicating that this is a great step. In both Opposition parties there are people who have intimated before that those parties have to do something great, in fact, do some resounding deed, so as to grip the imagination of the South African people. Now I want to take the hon. member for Yeoville as an example and quote a headline which reads—

That report read—

When Mr. Schwarz said that South Africa’s interests must come first, he said that the Transkei must become independent and that they must assist in making it independent. This is the man who wants to do great deeds. Now he has the opportunity to be a party to a great deed, but what is happening? His courage deserts him like that of a mouse because he is afraid of his fellow party members.

On 28 May 1972 the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said the following in the Sunday Times, in an article which he himself wrote—

This is exactly what is happening now. Those two hon. gentlemen must stand up and say whether they have had a change of heart and have new convictions or whether they simply do not have the courage to stand by what they believe in.

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening very attentively to the hon. the Deputy Minister, but it seems to me as though there is something wrong somewhere in this debate.

It is you!

Just give me a chance. I say this in consequence of a comparison between what was said by the hon. the Minister himself and the present theme of the debate. It would appear to me as though a full measure of common feeling is looking on the side of the Government. In fact, I have found the contributions from the Government benches to this debate disappointing up to now. Their contributions did not deal only with the independence of the Transkei per se.The only two speeches from the Government benches which dealt with the actual theme, were the speech of the hon. the Minister himself and the speech of the hon. the Deputy Minister which contained a very brief reference to the theme. Both made the point that the issue was political authority in South Africa. This is what this debate is about. I should like to quote from the hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech in order to point out the philosophical and intellectual background against which we should conduct this debate, because ultimately all of us are concerned in the outcome of something which is a very important constitutional matter. I quote from the hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech. He said (unrevised Hansard, 7 June 1976, page BBB.1)—

And these are the important words—

†Then follows the quote of the words of the late Dr. H. F. Verwoerd, former Prime Minister, who said in this House on May 20, 1959 (Hansard, Vol. 101, col. 6526)—

*Mr. Speaker, this is what this debate is about. The question quite simply concerns the nature of political authority in South Africa. There are only three standpoints with regard to this question as a source of conflict in our fatherland. One of these is that the Whites appropriate for themselves all political authority outside the homelands. The second is that White and Black in South Africa find a way in which that authority can be shared. In the third instance the question concerns the Blacks who want to appropriate for themselves all that political authority. These three standpoints run through all political divisions in our country. On this score we must not try to bluff one another. They run through all political divisions in our country, and these are the three standpoints which we must debate. This legislation which we have to judge today and the effect which it is going to have on our civilization, heightens, in my opinion, the likelihood of the ultimate debate in South Africa being conducted between those, on the one hand, who want to retain all political authority—the Whites—and those, on the other hand, who want to appropriate all authority for themselves—the Blacks. [Interjections.] This is the background against which we must judge this Bill, and against which we must consider the vision presented to us by the hon. the Minister with regard to this Bill.

I have already pointed out that this vision of the hon. the Minister indicates a White South Africa in which there will be no citizens other than Whites. The rest will exercise their citizenship in some homeland. [Interjections.] Surely this is exactly what this is all about. [Interjections.] Precisely, I have no argument on that score. This is what we have to debate. If we project this vision to the year 2000, the following is more or less the scenario … I just want to mention in passing that there are many demographers who have ventured projections concerning population growth, etc. I shall use one of them, and I am quite prepared to accept that hon. members may argue that I am out by a million this way or that way.

I put forward the projection made by Prof. M. G. E. Leistner. If we are out by a million this way or that way, it does not matter very much. The dimensions of the problem remain the same. Prof. Leistner says that by the year 2000, in terms of the present policy and based on demographic projections, there will be 42 million people in so-called White South Africa, of whom 6 million will be Whites. Thirty million are not going to be White; they are going to be Black. Even if we make the most generous concessions—and let us do so—with regard to the Government’s policy, and assume that all the homelands will be independent at that time, it means in effect that that Defence Force, Police Force and Fleet of which the hon. the Minister spoke when he quoted Dr. Verwoerd, will have to be manned by Whites, while the industries, the Public Service, our towns, our cities, every community, will be manned by foreigners; foreigners created by this Government by means of legislation, legislation such as we are judging at the moment.

Why don’t you flee to England?

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to flee. I want to come to the nub of the problem. This is what we have to debate. The foreigners we are going to create, are indispendable to our economy. They are indispensable as a source of skilled labour. They are going to crowd into our urban centres as a growing proletariate, and they are going to agitate for better employment opportunities, for better living conditions, for better housing, for better educational facilities; they are going to agitate in all those spheres of life with regard to which a normal person has expectations. What is our answer to them in this regard? We turn them into foreigners by telling them that they have privileges here, but no rights and obligations.

Earlier on reference was made to federalism and it was also pointed out with great relish that federalism was a very difficult political system which under given circumstances, had very seldom worked. I want to concede that federalism is a difficult political system, but nevertheless, it does work under certain circumstances. Of one thing I am certain, however, and that is that the vision of the hon. the Minister and the possibility he outlined here, have no precedent in the world. There is no place where it has ever worked. The hon. the Minister and the Government want me to sell this vision to my child. This is the kind of South Africa in which they want my child to believe. This, however, is easy enough, because I and those hon. members can try and do so. This is what we must try and do, because we are Whites and we have to try and sell this idea to our children. However, the Government also wants the Black father to sell this vision to his child. Consequently, this is the vision which is going to be the source of conflict in South Africa, because in this way the Government is trying to find an answer to the problem of political authority as a source of conflict in South Africa.

What is political authority all about? It concerns two things. On the one hand, political authority can be an instrument for resolving conflict and improving living conditions, which simply means that one creates the circumstances, structures and organizations in which groups of people can negotiate with one another. On the other hand, however, political authority may become an instrument of suppression in South Africa. There are two precepts in political science which are virtually laws. The first is that there has never been any situation in the world where a dominant minority has been able to maintain its position of privelege indefinitely exclusively by means of violence. At the same time there is also the precept that there is no political minority that has made voluntary concessions in respect of the authority and structures which it does not want. This is our dilemma. We are the Whites in South Africa and in this society we ought … [Interjections.] In spite of what that hon. member is saying—he may go on nagging and complaining about colonialism—I am more concerned than he is about my own future and that of my children in this society, because he believes in dreams emanating from the vision of the hon. the Minister which we are supposed to take seriously. In other words, if we want to get away from these two precepts—this means in effect if we want to get away from violence in South Africa—then we shall have to find a way to share, to negotiate and to conduct talks with these people. There is no other way out. This is the historic role of the White in South Africa. He must be able to show that he can remain here through negotiation, dialogue and peaceful bargaining. If he does not do so, the matter will end in violence and conflict. Therefore, this debate is in fact the prelude to the greater debate which is going to take place in South Africa. Therefore, the issue here is not, in the last instance, the independence of the Transkei per se.

My hon. Leader spelled out very clearly under what circumstances the independence of the Transkei would have been a fine thing. We support the Transkei. No matter what happens, we shall adopt a favourable attitude towards that independent country which is going to struggle to survive, but the point which we are not prepared to accept and which should actually be the subject of this debate, is whether it is going to help us in any way to solve the problems of political authority in South Africa. In the last instance, the issue surely is the peaceful continued existence of the Whites in South Africa. This legislation, and the philosophy in which it is rooted, does not help us in any way to solve that problem. This year the hon. the Minister of Justice introduced security legislation in Parliament. We opposed that legislation but also said we could understand security measures being necessary in future and additional measures possibly being required. We also said, however, that those measures could be acceptable and implemented only if we could expect support from all the people in South Africa for the plan of change we were heading for. One thing I do know, however—there are adequate indications of this for anyone who wants to study the circumstances in urban areas—and that is that the plan spelled out in terms of this legislation and in the Second Reading speech of the hon. the Minister, has not yet been sufficiently motivated and rationalized by hon. members of this House in terms of what possibilities it has for moving away from conflict. Indeed, we gain the very opposite impression here, i.e. that the urban Blacks are being told to tell their children that in future they will be foreigners in the place where they have grown up and that they, as such, will have to ask for their privileges and opportunities. I want to quote what the hon. the Minister said. This is not what I am saying but what the hon. the Minister said. He said—

These are explosive words. If one reads what The World had to say this morning with regard to this standpoint, one will understand that we are stimulating conflict in South Africa, and that we, as Whites, are ignoring the real problem of our own continued existence. I want to concede that the debate, in the last instance, is not going to be between the hon. members on the opposite side and us. We may suggest alternatives and speculate about alternative possibilities. In the last instance, however, the debate in South Africa will be between those hon. members who want to retain all effective political power and the Blacks who demand that they themselves obtain the power. We on this side say that now the time has arrived for a method to be found for debating, reflecting on and negotiating about the real problem in South Africa. Then the question will be: How can a way be found in which to share political authority? If we cannot do this, we may write Ichabod across all the romantic illusions presented by the hon. member for Port Natal and other hon. members. Hon. members on the opposite side may disparage us as being imperialists or colonialists. Long after that hon. member will be sitting in Canada watching the whole affair on TV, I shall still be here. [Interjections.] I have already decided that this is my country. But I have also decided that I am not going to lie to my children. I am not going to conjure up visions for my children in which they cannot believe. I am going to confront them with the realities of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Rondebosch expressed only one decent thought in his speech, and that was when he said that the debate about relations in South Africa was beginning with this legislation. I want to concede that point to the hon. member; it is true that the debate about relations in South Africa is commencing today with the passing of this Bill, and I do not think there can be any doubt about the fact that the Bill will in fact be passed. Even that hon. member will concede this to me.

However, there are two other aspects which are quite clear. The difference between the approach of the PRP and that of the UP to the legislation is very slight. For the purposes of argument in this House, we may consider their approaches to be the same, because there is not much difference between the UP and the PRP in respect of their opposition to this Bill. However, there is one small difference we should indicate. The hon. member for Rondebosch virtually said in so many words what a previous president of Nusas, Paul Pretorius, said: “Let us surrender now to the Blacks and hope that we will be treated as trusted friends.” This is the standpoint of the hon. member for Rondebosch.

Another difference between the PRP and the UP is that the hon. member for Umhlatuzana was actually surprised in this House yesterday to hear that the Transkei was going to attain independence in terms of the policy of separate development. He was so surprised that he could not find words in which to express his astonishment. The only point on which he fell back was to tell the hon. the Minister that there had been no historical evolution culminating in this legislation. To put it very euphemistically, this is really a naïve remark which the hon. member for Umhlatuzana made. I think the hon. member has been dealt with adequately, for example by pointing out what happened to him in Zululand. The fact is, however that whether Dr. Verwoerd or Dr. Malan or anyone else started this policy, it was started by the National Party. It does not matter at what stage it was started. What is important is that it was in fact the National Party which brought about an absolute watershed in relations thinking in the world after the last world war, and which realized that there was only one solution to the relations situation in Southern Africa, i.e. the implementation of what the Third World will refer to today as the Black consciousness idea. It was the National Party, too, which caused this idea to crystallize into a political policy, because the National Party knew that these people would not be satisfied with a paternalistic federal system or a system of qualified franchise.

Sir, I think we are wasting time by arguing with one another about what led up to this situation. We are wasting time by telling one another what the various policies of our parties are in respect of the independence of the Transkei. We are dealing with a Bill which is to grant independence to the Transkei. If those hon. members had suggested political solutions which could satisfy the Transkei, I would readily have conceded that we could debate such suggestions; but let us quote the Chief Minister of the Transkei himself on the subject of the political solutions offered by those hon. members for the Transkei. I just want to make one or two quotations. The following report appeared on what Chief Minister Matanzima had to say about the policy of the Progressive Party on 8 April 1974—

We need not say anything more about this, Sir. We are dealing with the attainment of independence by the Transkei, and the Chief Minister of the Transkei has rejected the political solution to relations in South Africa propounded by that party. But what did the Chief Minister of the Transkei have to say about the United Party’s policy? In this connection I want to quote from Die Burger of 14 May 1973. We must remember that when the Chief Minister made this remark, he was about to hold an election in his country, an election in which the issue of independence was being raised. The Chief Minister said on that occasion—

I do not want to quote any further from these reports. We now have the situation that the Legislative Assembly of the Transkei has accepted and acted in accordance with the idea of separate development in South Africa. This attitude of theirs is not a new one. We can go back to 1959. Because such a fuss is now being made about these so-called citizenship clauses, we must dwell on this situation for a moment. I want to ask the hon. members opposite to look at this in all seriousness. Those hon. members also have the proposed Constitution of the Transkei available to them, after all. They also had the Constitution of 1963 available to them. I do not want to make any quotations now to prove this, but in the academic world and in legal circles people wrote about those citizenship clauses after 1963, and said that citizenship of the Transkei had been instituted even in the 1963 Constitution. We have been travelling in that direction since 1963, and those hon. members cannot say now that this was not requested by the Transkei. It was requested by the Transkei. What did the Transkei ask for? The Transkei asked for exactly the same provisions as those contained in the 1963 Constitution. Section 57 of the draft Constitution is almost word for word the same as the provisions of schedule B of this Bill, where “citizenship” is defined, while section 58 of it is an extension of the definition of “citizenship” contained in the 1963 Constitution. I take no notice of Press reports about the statements made by certain people concerning the true nature of citizenship. What matters is what is written in the Bill which is before the House today and what is written in the proposed Constitution of the Transkei. It is written there and it has been accepted. What has also been accepted is the agreement to which the hon. the Deputy Minister referred between the hon. the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of the Transkei. Surely we cannot argue today that we cannot pay any attention to this agreement. Surely we cannot say that. Surely it was made quite clear in this agreement that borderline cases would be decided by the board which is to be established. It is also provided in the agreement that the board will choose its own chairman and that the board will consist of three members of this Government and three members of the Transkeian Government. The board can choose its own chairman and such a chairman retains his office for only one year. During the following years the chairmanship will be held by the two Governments alternately.

Sir, I believe that the whole problem has been solved. There cannot be any more problems as far as citizenship is concerned. I now want to make an appeal to hon. members on that side of the House. There are many of them who have a legal background. It is a precept of our law that the terms contained in a contract are the only terms applicable to that contract, and those who wish to allege that there are other terms as well must be able to prove that what has been put in writing, what has been embodied in the contract, does not represent the full contract between the parties. We must accept this. We are adults, after all. There are the contracts. Both sides of this House have seen those contracts. But we must be careful, while knowing that there are accepted contracts, not to say or to do things to make people think that what is written in the contracts does not represent the full content of the agreement. By doing so, we would be creating expectations and the possibility of a continuous dispute which we ought not to have.

In the last few minutes available to me, I want to say that the citizenship which is being created in this Bill and in the Constitution of the Transkei is one of the things which must be aimed at by all nations in South Africa. We shall come to the situation where this creation of citizenship which is taking place here will be the most important aspect of co-existence in South Africa. What have we done about it? Hon. members may grin about this, as the hon. member for Hillbrow is doing. That is what he looks like anyway, so one can forgive him. What have we done, Sir? And I say to the hon. member for Rondebosch and I say to the Opposition on that side that what Dr. Verwoerd said, that we want to maintain our White identity, that we want to maintain our White sovereignty over our own country, is the policy of the National Party. We are not ashamed to say so, but what we are achieving in establishing citizenship of an independent Transkei and other future independent Black States in Southern Africa is the elimination of one of the biggest dangers for co-existence in South Africa, the fear of political domination. Chief Minister Matanzima and other Black leaders have said that they do not blame the Whites of South Africa for their fears in connection with their identity as Whites. These hon. members impress upon us morning, noon and night that we are in Africa. I agree that we are in Africa, but we are not necessarily of Africa, just as the Christian is in the world, but is not necessarily of the world. If steps are taken to remove this fear which may exist in the minds of people—not only in the minds of Whites, but in the minds of Blacks as well—we shall be able to create a much more easy-going and a much more relaxed relationship between peoples and between individuals. This citizenship, and all that the citizenship entails, can also be used as an instrument for removing the so-called discriminatory measures to which hon. member like to refer. I should like to refer to one of these measures, although I am sure that hon. members are going to tell me that it is not a discriminatory measure.

The hon. members are always saying that section 10 of the Urban Areas Act grants certain rights to the Black people in White South Africa. However, it must be said once and for all that section 10 is nothing but a permanent exemption from influx control, a provision which can be repealed by this House at any time. Citizenship for the Black people has always been recognized. It has never been said that White South Africa will be without any Black people. This has always been recognized, but it has never been recognized that section 10 of the Urban Areas Consolidation Act grants any rights to those people, although it is recognized that it enables them to obtain certain privileges. If the fear has been removed by granting citizenship to those people, section 10 of the Urban Areas Act can be deleted and privileges can be brought into being around citizenship which will surpass the privileges created in section 10 for the Black people in White South Africa. Then it will be possible to think in terms of the future and then we shall no longer regard the Black man who is present here as a person who threatens us in any way. That Black man will then be regarded as the citizen of another country who can be dealt with here as such. Then we shall be able to extend to the citizenship of areas which have seceded from our country in order to accept independence a status which will be different from the ordinary citizenship of other countries, such as Germany, England, or Italy. It will also be possible to give an identity to that citizenship which will be peculiar to South Africa, i.e. without necessarily following the example of other countries. In this way we shall be able to do justice to the status of the Transkei, and we should be grateful for the fact that we have been able to carry out our Christian task at the southern tip of Africa to such an extent that we are able to stand here and to say to the world with a clear conscience: We have accepted our task and we have led these people to a stage where they can be told that they can now obtain their independence. In fact, those people have asked for it and we are not forcing independence upon them. Therefore I reject with contempt the words used by the hon. member for Umhlatuzana in this House yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Schweizer Reneke has made a very serious speech and has devoted particular attention to the idea of citizenship. I do not want to dwell on that at any length, but nevertheless I do want to say something in that connection. The Bill which is before the House contains provisions concerning citizenship of the Transkei. The Transkei itself has a Bill which lays down provisions in connection with citizenship, also of the Transkei. When the Transkei becomes independent on 26 October this year, however, there will be only one Act which will regulate citizenship of the Transkei and that will be the Transkei Constitution. That will be the only Act which will be of any value as far as Transkeian citizens are concerned. In consequence of that Constitution, the situation may arise where the Transkei may say that certain people who have a link with the Transkei but who are present in our area will not be recognized as citizens of the Transkei. What is then to become of such people? Such a person who is not recognized by the Transkei as being a Transkeian citizen will virtually be a stateless person in terms of the whole constitutional set-up.

What about it?

What shall we do with such a person? We cannot send him back to the Transkei, because the Transkei will not want him. You and I will be saddled with him. We do not know how many people will be affected in this way. The hon. the Minister may be able to inform us, but I do not know the number concerned. I want to say to the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke in all seriousness that if the situation were to arise in which hundreds and perhaps thousands of people will become stateless, I foresee great problems, especially for South Africa, since we would be saddled with those people. I want to say to the hon. member that the matter is not as simple as it seems. Let me put it in a different way. I do not always wish to believe newspaper reports, but it does appear from newspaper reports that there is some dispute—I do not want to put it any more strongly than that—between the Chief Minister of the Transkei and the hon. the Minister who has introduced this Bill. The crucial question is what the dispute is about. It seems that no one wants to clarify the matter for me.

We have explained it, but the hon. member was not listening.

No, Sir. It is a great pity that the hon. the Minister did not clarify this matter when he introduced the Bill. If he had done so, we would have known where we stood. However, the hon. the Minister is a good debater and perhaps he was just keeping back a few aces for his reply.

I want to say that I agree with all the hon. members who have said that we are concerned here with a great event. In addition, no nation and no country readily changes its boundaries or reduces its field of sovereignty unless there are good reasons for doing so. It seems to me that the matter which is before us at the moment is so important that it is really something of a pity—I say this in all courtesy towards the hon. the Minister—that this Bill was not introduced by the hon. the Prime Minister himself. If he had introduced it, it would have enhanced its historical significance and placed it in the correct historical perspective.

Would that have changed the hon. member’s opinion?

Before I come to my argument, I want to say at once to my hon. friend on that side of the House that I am one of those people—and I believe this applies to all my colleagues on this side—who accept the sincerity of the Nationalists and of the hon. members on that side of the House in this matter. I have no argument with them on that score. I believe that they are sincere and that they are trying to act in the best interests of South Africa. But when I say that, I also want them to accept my sincerity in saying that I have problems in this connection. But then they must not accuse me of colonialism and imperialism. That is not justified, because I know that I am sincere and that I am trying to serve the interests of South Africa. I accept their bona fides and I hope that they will accept mine.

On 26 October 1976, the Transkei will become independent. I want to say at once that I wish the Transkei a very good future. I hope that things will turn out very well for them, because if they have problems and if South Africa has problems with the Transkei, there will be no purpose, to my mind, in saying “I told you so”. Those problems will become the problems of South Africa and my problems as well, and that is why I am concerned. For that reason it is my duty and my right to ask certain questions and to say to the hon. the Minister that this is his last chance to convince a South African whose feelings for his fatherland, with all respect, are just as sincere as his own. I want to be convinced in the interests of South Africa, but the hon. the Minister must convince me.

You said “this day six months”.

Do not try to get technical; the matter is much too serious to listen to this type of nonsense. The matter I want to put to the hon. the Minister is that it is for him to convince me of the validity of his case. I say I am entitled to do so; it is my duty to criticize.

While I was preparing myself for this debate, I read the debates of the past as well. I went back a little in history, too, and I am struck by two great tragedies which emerged when I turn back the pages of our history. No matter what fine-sounding words hon. members on the other side use, no matter how lofty the sentiments they express in this regard, the tragedy of “aparte ontwikkeling” or separate development is that its story is written under the heading “apartheid”, with all that this entails for South Africa. I am not the only one to say this. Hon. members and I must realize, as Whites in South Africa, that the Black man knows that story too. I need not tell him anything; he knows what apartheid has meant through history. He remembers. Separate development, separate freedoms, whatever it is called, is a story written under the heading of “apartheid” and all that this means.

There is a second tragedy—and now hon. members may page back through Hansard and through history again—and this is that the Whites in South Africa have never been able to achieve consensus on this extremely dangerous subject, a subject which affects their whole future, and to discuss the matter with one another like citizens of South Africa. If we as Whites could come together round a table—forget about the other race groups—I am absolutely convinced that the answers of the White people of South Africa would not be the answer we are dealing with here today. It would be a different answer. I do not have the slightest doubt about that.

What does history show me? The first point is that history shows me convincingly that no matter what the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke says, the National Party receives no support whatever from the history of South Africa in passing this Bill. Nowhere was it written, nowhere was it said by any great leader of our people that independent Black States would be the answer to the future of South Africa. As recently as 1957, the late Mr. Hans Strijdom, the Prime Minister of South Africa, still denied this and used the term “White supremacy”. [Interjections.] The second point is that Dr. Verwoerd must be recognized and accepted as the father of this policy. The third point I get from Hansard is that no matter how much we have talked to one another, the Whites on this side of the House and those on that side of the House have always spoken at cross purposes. They have never found common ground in the debates. We have been speaking at cross purposes, and I remain just as unconvinced of the arguments advanced by that side of the House as I was 25 years ago. That is the tragedy of South Africa.

Now I want to come back to the Bill. Here I want to say that hon. members have voiced fine sentiments. “Freedom is the natural aspiration of a nation,” so we are told. That is true. Freedom is the natural aspiration of any nation. Is the freedom which will be created by the independence of the Transkei the natural aspiration of the people of the Transkei?

Yes.

Where does one find proof of that? [Interjections.] A nation which is proud of its freedom, a nation such as the South African nation, which knows its history, has a burning desire for freedom. This is precisely what enables it to achieve its freedom: a burning, fighting, struggling desire for it. Where does one find that in the people of the Transkei?

Who says they do not feel that?

If that had been so, what reason would there have been for arguing about citizenship? If the citizens of the Transkei had been so fired by their love for their fatherland, surely they would have queued to say: “Do not insult me; there lies my fatherland.” No, there is no burning desire. This being the case, what is the reason for this measure? [Interjections.] There is another reason for the freedom which is being granted here.

Order! [Interjections.] Order! The hon. member for Port Elizabeth North! When I call for order, I expect hon. members at least to listen to me. Otherwise I might as well leave the Chair. The hon. member may proceed.

Basically, this Bill before the House is not concerned with freedom. The motivation for it is not the desire for freedom on the part of the Black man. No, it is the desire to reconcile the conflicting political aspirations of Black and White in South Africa. That is what it amounts to. That is what we are dealing with here—the conflicting political aspirations of Black and White, not in the Transkei and not in the Bantu reserves, territories or homelands, but here where Black and White meet on the labour scene of South Africa. That is what it is about.

However, if this is the problem we want to solve, what have we actually achieved? Let us suppose that the date is 26 October today and that the Transkei is free. In what way will this make any difference to this country, South Africa? The Bantu will still increase by their thousands every year until there are millions of them in the future. We shall all have to continue training them and using them on the labour market. We shall have to go on giving them the facilities which educated people ought to have, and as we go on, the aspirations of those people to exercise political rights will bring stronger and stronger pressure to bear on the White man. There is no doubt about that. What have we really achieved?

Dr. Verwoerd realized it all. He tried so hard to teach those hon. members the lesson which they do not want to learn. It is written in his book. He said that ultimately, numbers would win. So those hon. members may argue as much as they like. They may free all the Bantu states, but as long as the present conditions in South Africa continue, Dr. Verwoerd will be proved right in his allegation that in the end it will be numbers that count. That is why the late Dr. Verwoerd said we must separate. That is why he said, amongst other things, that border industries must be created so that the Bantu may live in their homelands and work in our territory in the border industries. He wanted to remove the Bantu up to a point where the Bantu would be outnumbered by the Whites in South Africa. That is why we got the magic date of “1978”. However, that party has deviated from their policy and for that reason they have forgotten about 1978. They have destroyed the philosophy of Dr. Verwoerd, but they still want to go on building upon it. They are doing precisely the wrong thing. Conditions in White South Africa are steadily worsening, but that party accepts only one part of the solution he offered. We cannot go on in this way. Therefore this side of the House says that the Nationalist Party has solved nothing. They can give the Transkei its independence. I should be glad for it to get that independence; as I have said: I wish the Transkei all the best for the future.

Now you and old Jaap Marais are bed-fellows.

By granting this independence, the Government has not only left conditions here in South Africa just as they were; it solved not anything either. However, it is creating other problems for South Africa. Hon. members must not think that they will always be able to speak to Chief Matanzima. I do not know him, but he seems to me to be a reasonable person. However, he will not be there for ever. You know the politics of Africa, after all. Who will be there tomorrow? To whom will you be talking tomorrow? When the Bantu in South Africa begin to voice their aspirations, and when they begin to demand more and more rights, they will be supported, in this very attempt to make their power felt, by the Black people in the Transkei and elsewhere. Have we forgotten the reasons and the grounds for the Anglo-Boer War?

Where are you going now?

No, it is true. Was Britain not used as the focal point? Was the fire of instigation among the aliens not lit from Britain? Was it not from there that they were incited to demand the vote? Now we are creating a number of Britains. May this never happen! May all my visions be mistaken! South Africa deserves a better fate. I want to say to my friends in the National Party that in expressing my opposition to this Bill, I am not playing politics. I speak because I believe that there are dangers, dangers which my hon. friends must face. Unless the hon. the Minister convinces me—and I am open to conviction—I have no other choice than to oppose this Bill, as my party is in fact doing.

The standpoint of you and your party shouts against it!

Mr. Speaker, that hon. member says I am shouting. He is free to accuse me of shouting.

You are shouting against your own standpoint.

No, Mr. Speaker. I ask that hon. member to rise. Please cut the knot which was recognized by the late Dr. Verwoerd, the knot which his party has left as tightly tied as ever. Please cut it for me. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, how can any hon. member in his right mind believe that in future, in the year 2000, he will have 25 million or 30 million Black people as against 6 million Whites in White South Africa and that he will still be able to tell the Black people where to vote? Surely that is a fairy tale! That is our problem. The Black man will insist on the vote, because political franchise is the key to all other rights. He will demand the vote and he will get it. In this he will be encouraged by the free states which are now being created by this Government. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I hope I am quite wrong, but I am afraid that I am right. Therefore I must vote against this Bill.

Order! There is no objection to an occasional interjection, but then I do expect hon. members to be silent again afterwards. What I feel we must guard against is continuous interjections by one specific member, or by a few specific members, which eventually turn into a stream of interjections. This certainly does not promote order in this House and enhance the dignity of this House. That is why I call for order from time to time and expect a request from the Chair to be respected.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to the speech of the hon. member for Maitland. During the years I have come to know him as a person who is honestly and sincerely looking for a solution; a solution also for the population problems of South Africa. I also know that he is honestly trying to find a way in which people with different backgrounds, different cultural compositions and so on can live together peacefully in a particular geographical area. I have listened to the manner in which he presented the problems he sees for South Africa. I became aware of the anxiety with which he views certain matters.

However, it is a fact that, in a political debate, one cannot do what the hon. member for Rondebosch did and still believe that one is dealing with a political dissertation. This debate is not an academic forum where anxiety about certain things can be expressed in a peaceful way, where one could try to solve certain academic problems. We do not find such a situation in this debate. It is not an academic discussion after which one can peacefully go to bed and start looking for other problems the following day. The reality of politics is that a political party has to govern when it comes into power. It is a fact that the UP, which was a strong party and which certainly played its part in the history of South Africa, greatly erred on a few matters at a certain stage. In particular the United Party erred on the solution it offered for the population problems of South Africa. This happened because the younger generations did not accept the proposed federation as seen by the United Party and because the UP was unable to prove in any way that its proposed federation could be successful. I think one of the frustrations of the hon. member for Maitland is perhaps that he feels that, after more than 20 years, they did not have the chance to try out their policy and that they, in formulating their policy during elections, did not succeed in convincing people.

When considering both Opposition parties, I nevertheless see them as an entity in a certain sense, although they are sitting here as two parties today. When one considers the composition and development of the United Party from the previous century and since 1910 up to the time of the first break-away by the PRP in 1958-’59, the schools of thought of these two parties were combined in one political party. It is quite clear that through all these years a certain group of people, like the hon. member for Maitland, was present in the United Party, a group of people that sees something meaningful in the survival of the White man. They also see something meaningful in the values brought to South Africa by the White Western community. This is in contrast with the other group—I want to call them the Jan Hofmeyr group—which, on the basis of a certain world view and philosophy of life, simply do not want to recognize the diversity of people on the one hand and, on the other hand, do not want to see the Blacks as people who also have their faults and shortcomings. In course of time this contrast polarized and the two different parties came into being.

The more moderate group, the hon. member for Maitland and those of kindred spirit, must pardon me if, in the course of my speech, I pay particular attention to the Jan Hofmeyr group of the United Party. My first opponent in politics was the hon. member for Bryanston who was well and truly defeated at that time, in 1966. The two of us will be in this House for a few years more. He will be sitting here until 1979 and then he will leave this House but before that time I shall take the hon. member to task for certain things he said in my constituency, not so much towards the older people, but towards the young people. I am told that this hon. member has set his sights on the young people of the University of Pretoria, because the PRP realizes that they will not be able to make any headway in South Africa unless they win the support of the Afrikaner youth.

It so happens that I am the representative of that constituency and to me it serves as a little intellectual relaxation to consider the way of thinking, arguments and modus operandi of the PRP. For that reason I want to pay particular attention to them today and, in passing, consider what was said by the hon. member for Sea Point in the debate of 25 May 1976 when he opposed the First Reading of this legislation. He said, inter alia, the following (Hansard, 1976, col. 7495)—

The hon. member went on to say—

He also said the following—

The latter vision is the vision of the Jan Hofmeyr group of people in South Africa, the Jan Hofmeyr wing of the UP.

I think I would be correct in saying in the light of this statement that the hon. member for Sea Point made two basic statements. The first is that the NP wants to fragment South Africa. This is the first standpoint the hon. member adopts. The second standpoint which the hon. member adopts, is that, according to the PRP, no nation or ethnic group in southern Africa should have any need—not in the past, not now and not in the future either—for an identity of its own within the borders of a particular territory as a sovereign, independent, political entity.

I did not use those words.

Well, I have only formulated it better for hon. members. This need for people in South Africa—not the 25 million people the hon. members mentioned—to be autonomous and independent, is in conflict with the political philsophy of the PRP and we should therefore not only know that they will fight this need on the political level, but that the PRP will also muster all the energy, bodies and methods in South Africa to achieve their objective.

What do you mean by “methods”?

Any political party has its methods.

I now want to present the counter-statement. It is not the NP that fragmented South Africa in various little groups, but it was British imperialism which, from approximately 1806—the beginning of the second British occupation—created the said single—and I am using the hon. member’s own words—constitutional entity not only by means of physical violence, but also with the assistance of certain philosophic tendencies and individual frame of mind. I hope it is quite clear to the hon. member that my statement is the very opposite of what he said, i.e. that constitutional entity in South Africa was created by British imperialism by means of violence and various other methods which applied in the previous century. There is a second point I want to present in a positive way. Since human groups have moved into South Africa a need for independence did exist among ethnic groups. I want to prove these two statements this afternoon on the basis of the first encounter between the Whites and the Xhosa, or the South Nguni group.

We can take the history of the Transkei as an example. What is the history of the occupation of this particular territory by newcomers? The history is extremely important to everyone who wishes to take part in this debate. Even though the history extends over a few centuries, and even though a few centuries is a long time compared with one generation it is only a short period of time compared with the history of a nation. My sources in respect of the occupation of the Transkei are, inter alia, the publication—and I shall not quote it—of J. H. Sogu—The AmaXhosa Life and Customs, and various other sources. My time is running out. I want to refer hon. members to an article written by Monica Wilson, i.e.: “The Early History of the Transkei and the Ciskei”, as published in African Studies, volume 18, No. 4 of 1959. She published this article as a result of the statement made by the late Adv. Eric Louw at that time. She wrote the article as a result of a statement he made in Die Burgernamely that the White man and the Bantu arrived in South Africa at more or less the same time. However, I shall leave the matter at that. From the sources I consulted—and I tried to consult most of the authoritative sources—I want to draw the following conclusions: In the first place I want to draw the conclusion that patches of south-moving Bantu groups occupied the East Coast of Africa from the 14th century—if I have to accept what Monica Wilson said. In the second place I want to draw the conclusion that, through this occupation, they effected real geographical divisions of the occupied areas. Therefore, history does not mean in any way one single constitutional entity which existed at that time. The historical facts do, however, prove the opposite, i.e. that separate tribes occupied separate areas. The manner of division among the tribal groups and to what extent their relationship was strengthened or weakened, is irrelevant here. The third conclusion I want to draw, is that this occupation was characterized by the typical human history, i.e. peace and hostility. I want to say this most emphatically for those who have ears to hear. In the fourth place, when it comes to the occupation on the part of the Whites from the South, there were two different White groups with two different political beliefs. Today we find those beliefs again in the National Party and in the PRP. The one group was the Africans. They were indigenous and they were people who established a new national organism in southern Africa and who, because of their clash with imperialistic Whites, were looking for new fatherlands. They constantly had to move away elsewhere to avoid clashes. This they did by moving through unoccupied territories, and in this way they were also instrumental in further subdividing southern Africa. This was one characteristictic of this group. Another characteristic was that they placed their freedom and their identity first. It makes no difference to me who is going to quote me in the following 50 or 100 years, but to me, as a descendant and as a member of this group of Africans, it remains part of my being and of my history that my freedom and my independence and my identity has always been part of my life. This I am saying to those hon. members and to the rest of the world. Another aspect was that, in our occupation of territories, we have never acted in an imperialistic way. We have never deprived people of their territory or their tribal area. We never wanted to dominate them. On the contrary. We respected the boundaries in South Africa. However, I want to make it quite clear that there were two kinds of Whites in the history of South Africa. There are the members of the Progressive Party and there is the National Party. Their history is different, if we go back to 1806.

We have not been in existence that long.

Their history is that they, like a creeping cancer, took possession of the White areas and the Bantu areas by means of imperialistic forces. I do not have the time to deal with this in detail, but I refer them to the work, The Ethnical Position of the Transkei and the Ciskei,written by Mr. Jackson. In that publication they will find all the dates of proclamations in respect of the Transkei. For that reason, Sir, I want to tell the leader of the PRP that he should not tell the younger generation that the National Party is in the process of fragmenting South Africa. He does not know this history. If he does know it and still says so, he is so blinded by the imperialistic characteristics that he refuses to recognize this even in this day and age. These people, the PRP and its predecessors, were the deliberate destroyers of the structures of authority of the Bantu tribes. Again I am able to furnish numerous examples in this regard.

I want to conclude by telling the story of Nongqause, the 13-year-old Bantu girl who was persuaded by Chief Sandile to kill the cattle and to destroy the grain and the food, and that the Whites would then be chased into the sea in a mysterious way. What were the results? The result was a period of violence and cannibalism; tens of thousands of these people were killed and tens of thousands more people fled to the Whites in search of work. I want to tell you, Sir, that the PRP is the Nongqauses of the modern time and that they are being instigated by the Sandiles of modern times, and that they want to kill by depriving the indigenous ethnic groups of South Africa of their right to identify and their right to survival. But I want to tell the Bantu, as well as the Transkei that, in spite of everything written in the English Press and in spite of everything people had to say about us, the NP has tried to follow an undeviating course in South Africa. We have never tried to steal and plunder. We have never tried to take things away from people, and if we had made mistakes, it was mistakes because we had erred. My final word is that as far as I am concerned and the generation I represent, we offer the inhabitants of the Transkei the hand of friendship, and I know and they know that there is a long road of problems ahead, but with the goodwill and sincerity in our hearts we in South Africa will succeed with a multi-national policy, and we shall be able to be an example to the world.

Mr. Speaker, one would have expected the hon. members of the Government, in putting their policy, to be on the offensive, but throughout the debate they have actually been on the defensive the whole time, no more so than when the hon. member for Rissik spoke. His whole speech was a rather pathetic defence of their policy.

Until the hon. member for Rondebosch and the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke spoke in this debate, I was afraid that the debate would never get down to the crux of the policy of separate development in so far as its application to the Transkei was concerned. The hon. member for Rondebosch challenged the Nationalist Government to tell us what this Bill and their policy was all about. Very soon afterwards the hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke got to his feet and with courage and without hiding the facts admitted to this House that the policy of separate development, particularly in the form of the Transkei Constitution Bill, was aimed at preserving for the Whites the so-called balance of South Africa as their political arena and to free that political arena from Black political participation. Now that the truth is out, although many of us have always suspected it to be the truth, we see it as a cynical and vicious proposition, frightening in its simplicity. Black political participation is to be removed from the White political arena by the simple proposition that the citizenship of millions of South Africans is to be transferred from White South Africa to the Bantu homelands and the belief is expressed that by that action the problems of South Africa can be solved. But there is a question everybody must ask himself in this debate. Let us assume that the Government succeeds in removing Black political participation from South Africa to the homelands, while there remains in White South Africa the Black political aspirations of 30 million Black people by the year 2000 whose South African citizenship has been removed from them by the Whites of South Africa, whose whole existence and socio-economic aspirations are in White South Africa, who have become sophisticated, who are the co-builders of this society and of this economy, who are deprived of rights and who experience the injustice of that deprivation. The question is: Will the White man by this action of the Government be safer than he would have been if those Black people participated fully in South Africa as a whole in meeting all their aspirations? The question is a simple one. I believe that by the year 2000, or even sooner than that, if the Government by that time has successfully carried out its plans, the Whites will be in far greater danger than they would otherwise have been. The Nationalist Government is, by the implementation of the policy of separate development, in no way solving any of South Africa’s problems and in no way creating a safer and a better future for South Africa. Instead of that, by depriving people of their basic rights, they are creating for South Africa a far more dangerous situation than ever before. I would like to quote two of the points raised by the hon. the Minister when he introduced this legislation. He said—

Do you know what this shocking statement really means? It means that this Government is saying to Black South African citizens, who are Black South African citizens today: If you are prepared to renounce your South African citizenship, we are prepared to give you more rights than a Black South African citizen will have who refuses to renounce his South African citizenship. We are prepared to give you better conditions of service, better housing, greater freedom of movement within the White area, hospitalization, transport, schools, etc. It is a shocking and deplorable statement. This Government will yet regret that it was so unashamedly made by the hon. the Minister. The hon. the Minister made yet a further statement. He said—

The hon. the Minister says that the lives of Black South African citizens who refuse to accept the dictates of the Government to renounce their citizenship, will be made miserable. The hon. the Minister in effect says: In this way we will force the homelands to give those persons citizenship in the homeland. This is, in other words, blackmail of Black South African citizens and blackmail of the homelands to fall in with the policies of this Government. I think this is a very serious and dangerous situation.

On the other side of the line the situation is that Chief Kaiser Matanzima has clearly indicated that he is not prepared to accept this Government’s attitude towards Transkei citizenship in respect of which Black citizens of South Africa who do not wish to become Transkeian citizens, will be deprived of their South African citizenship and be rendered stateless. We are faced, whether we like it or not, with the development of a dangerous confrontation between the Government, whose policy has been stripped of credibility and of all decency, but who are nevertheless determined to continue with these measures irrespective of what the consequences may be and irrespective of what dangers are involved and, on the other hand, a rising opposition from the side of Black political leaders who are saying that they are not prepared to accept this deal which means very little to them and is aimed only at providing a safe political refuge for the Whites. What this policy really means is this: That the Whites of South Africa are depriving Black South African citizens of rights and citizenship in order to maintain White political privilege and White political domination. This will clearly not be accepted.

I believe that if the Government is prepared, even at this late stage, to put their policy on a basis that has a reasonable claim to legitimacy and morality, they can yet save the situation. I believe the Government must dispense with the legislation in the way in which they are proceeding with it at the moment. Clearly it will not meet the objectives; clearly it will not bring about peace; clearly it will lead to a confrontation. I believe that at this late stage the Government must call a national convention of homeland leaders and of Coloureds, Indians and Whites in South Africa and that they must charge this national convention with the responsibility of re-examining in detail the entire policy of separate development. I believe that, if the Government does that, it will give their policy some claim to morality and legitimacy.

What should happen at such a convention is very important. At such a convention every delegation will come with certain non-negotiable attitudes. The Whites also have non-negotiable attitudes. We shall not accept any proposal if it does not mean that there will be no discrimination based on race in South Africa; if it does not mean that there will be equal opportunities for all South Africans; if it does not mean that all South Africans will participate in the government of the country; if it does not mean that the rule of law will be maintained; and if it does not mean that there will be real safeguards for the rights of minorities. I believe it is important that such a national convention should decide first of all whether they wish to reconsider the philosophy of separate development, whether they want to look at this policy as a possibility for South Africa. If, after considering this philosophy and ideology, they decide to proceed, there are four things that must be looked at. Firstly, the boundaries of South Africa must be redrawn to create larger States which will be viable from a geographic, economical and political point of view. It is important that installations such as harbours, towns, cities, industries and so on that are needed for economic viability, be included. The second point is that we need all the funds that are available for the building up of socio-economic, educational, sociological, administrative and industrial infrastructures in the homelands and that we should not use these funds to buy up White properties to hand them over to the Black Governments. What we should do instead, is to invest that money in the infrastructures and services of the countries concerned. We should in fact encourage the Whites to remain there. The homelands require and want them to remain there with their skills, their capital and their ability to help the homelands build up their economies. The third requirement is that all South African citizens should have the right to choose, individually and personally, whether they wish to be citizens of South Africa or of the homelands concerned. We must also accept that within South Africa and within the homelands both citizens and non-citizens alike must be ensured of equal socio-economic rights in the country in which they prefer to live and work.

The fourth requirement is, when the whole situation has been considered and studied and all the aspects have been analysed at such a national convention, that only if the electorate of any homeland approves the independence of that homeland under conditions that have been clearly spelt out, are we entitled to consider, support or grant such independence.

The overriding requirement is that if we want a solution for the future, if we want the solution to have viability and permanency, if we want the solution to be peaceful it can only be achieved provided the solution is the expressed wish of the people of the area concerned after they have been fully informed of all the pros and cons. In no way has this Government consulted the people of South Africa or of any homeland. In no way is this Bill the expression of the wishes of the people of any of the areas concerned. In no way has any South African had the right to choose independence. The hon. member for Bloemfontein West said: "Ons is hier besig om ook aan ’ n minderheidsgroep die unieke geleentheid te bied om burgers te word volgens hul eie keuse.”

*At no stage have the so-called citizens of the Transkei been offered the opportunity of personally and individually expressing their views in respect of their citizenship. They are simply told that they will be deprived of citizenship of South Africa in terms of this legislation and that they will have to appeal to the Transkei to grant them citizenship. Under those circumstances there is no future for the policy of separate development, for this legislation or for South Africa. What is most important is that there will be no future for the White minority on the Black continent of Africa if the Government is determined to continue with this policy.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bryanston acted on the premise that the people of the Transkei have never been consulted on this matter. I do not know where the hon. member was last night, because last night we had an excellent explanation from the hon. member for Port Natal when he proved at great length how the Transkei Legislative assembly had consulted their people on this specific matter from time to time. The Transkei citizens were properly informed on the long term as to what they want to achieve with independence. At the same time it is also a fact that, since 1948, there has never been any doubt in the minds of any voter in South Africa as to what this Government want to achieve ultimately as far as its policy in respect of homelands was concerned. Therefore, the hon. member cannot raise any doubt on this score. The hon. member also made another statement when referring to the speech of the hon. the Minister, when he said, inter alia, that he would give particular attention to the citizens of the Transkei, who will obtain citizenship in terms of this legislation as well as the Transkei Act. The hon. member now suggests that what the hon. the Minister is doing, is “blackmailing”, that he is discriminating between Black and Black in South Africa. I think it is the moral duty of the Government when it creates citizenship for people of the Transkei in White areas also to see to it that, in view of the status they have obtained, special consideration be given to their position in South Africa. I think it is only right that this should happen. The problems of hon. members on that side of the House are to be found in the fact that they see South Africa as one large entity. Let me now demonstrate this to hon. members in a practical way. Hon. members put one White man against 20 Blacks. They say the Blacks are in the majority and as a result of that some kind of formula should be laid down in South Africa with all kinds of technicalities and qualifications with regard to the franchise in order to protect the rights of minorities and the rights of the Blacks. But this does not work in modern politics in South Africa. The policy of those hon. members is outdated. It no longer works in the world of today; the tendency in Africa, in the whole world, today is a right to self-determination of peoples and nations, of cultures and of people with different customs. All this Government is doing, is to develop that tendency further.

The Republic of South Africa gave the Transkei an undertaking that, with its assistance and its guidance, independence will be granted to it. We want to express the hope that this great step, to which reference was made on various occasions in this debate, will develop into considerable and new cooperation between these two countries. The two neighbours need one another in a particular sense as a result of a relationship which developed between the two of them, a relationship I want to describe as interdependence. This feeling of inter-dependence was further promoted by way of the growth and development of both countries through the years. In this respect I want to refer to one important sphere, i.e. the labour sphere. 26 300 workers from the Transkei join our labour market annually. The position in the Transkei at present is such that the Transkei cannot accommodate all these workers in its own economy. Consequently the Republic accommodates a large proportion of that labour force in its economy. This is a system which has developed through the years. At present 350 000 contract workers are employed in the Republic of South Africa. This is one example of the inter-dependence in respect of the needs that exist between the two territories. If there is mutual appreciation of inter-dependence between these neighbouring states, there can therefore be no question of fragmentation or division, because liaison and co-operation on common matters will be continued after the Transkei has become independent. For that reason we have in this legislation what I want to call a binding clause, i.e. clause 5(1), which provides for all the agreements between these States which have been developed through the years and will have to be developed further in future, to have the status of international agreements. Not only is provision being made for it in this legislation, but also in the Transkei Constitution. This clause is proof of the need for inter-dependence between these two States.

Of course, the development of interdependence not only rests on supplementing common needs. It is also based on mutual confidence. It is also based to a large extent on the fact that we should not cause political embarrassment for one another as the PRP and the UP are trying to create political embarrassment. We should not create opportunities for malicious thoughts with regard to our relationship, because we need one another.

Of course, both the RSA and the Transkei have equal bargaining powers. In other words, it does not mean that the Transkei is going to be a subservient or inferior partner as a result of this agreement. We are completely equal partners because the Republic needs its people, and, from the nature of the case, it has to use our economy, Of course, we will have to help the Transkei in certain matters. A large number of our economic sectors are, of course, dependent on Black labour and I am referring in particular to agriculture, manufacturing and mining. In those spheres we are dependent upon Black labour to the tune of between 80% and 90%. Our economy needs those people, but in this process they also need us greatly because they cannot accommodate all these people.

I want to refer here to a very interesting speech, after the speech of the Minister of Labour during the discussion of this legislation in the Transkei Legislative Assembly. I quote from The World of 12 May—

The member went on to say—

Then she mentions a few “safeguards”.

She went on to say—

The thoughts expressed here by the Transkeian Minister of Labour are clear proof of the concepts those people have of interdependence as far as labour matters are concerned.

However, I should like to refer to another sphere of inter-dependence between the Republic of South Africa and the Transkei. This is the sphere of agriculture and of food. It is generally known that agriculture in South Africa at present is at a far higher level than that of the homelands, including the Transkei. It is also a well-known fact that we are at present in a position to provide food for our 23 million people in South Africa. At the moment the homelands can feed approximately 2 million people. They do not even utilize 5% of their agricultural potential—and here I am referring specifically to the Transkei. For that reason it is essential, particularly with a view to the future—to the year 2000, when this country will have to feed at least 50 million people—that certain agreements with the Transkei Government will have to be concluded, agreements relating to a common agricultural policy. The Republic of South Africa can provide the Transkei with knowhow and new methods of production in particular. In this way the fertile soil of the Transkei could be incorporated into the process of food production in Southern Africa.

What is at issue here is not only South Africa and the Transkei. We are dealing here with the whole of Southern Africa. As far as inter-dependence is concerned, we should not only concentrate on satisfying the needs of individual states, but we should also bear in mind the fact that inter-dependence deals with the responsibility of individual states—jointly and separately—towards a community of states. In this case we have the community of states in Southern Africa. For that reason it is essential that we shall accordingly conclude agreements with the Transkei.

If we consider the present production figures of the Transkei, we notice that, during 1973-’74, 164 000 tons of maize and maize products were imported by the Transkei. During this same period the Transkei exported only 1 000 tons of maize and maize products. During the period 1974-’75 the Transkei imported 188 000 tons of maize and maize products from the Republic of South Africa as against an export of approximately 5 000 tons only. Agriculture remains the key factor of economic development in the Transkei.

We should have no doubt on this score. I think that in view of the status the Republic and the Transkei have now reached we will be in a position to conclude many important agreements in future as a bond between the two countries. The Transkei should help South Africa with food production and for that reason we are quite prepared to accommodate some of their farmers in order that they may see how we operate on our farms. We do not want to plough their land for them; they can do it themselves, but it is essential that the citizens and the Government of the Transkei should learn how to develop their agriculture not only in their own interests but also in the interests of Southern Africa. I want to mention one specific example where inter-dependence can serve as a bond between States. The European Economic Community is nothing else but a product of the realization of the importance of inter-dependence between States. If my time allows me to do so I shall state the objectives of the European Economic Community. The European countries have reached a stage where they appreciate that if they do not rationalize in respect of both food and agricultural products, Europe will run the risk of having to import very expensive food from other countries because they are unable to feed their people from their own soil. I think agriculture is one of the most important contact points and one of the major common problems of States in Southern Africa. Because this common problem does exist, I think it will constitute a stronger bond between our country and the Transkei once we realize this, and then I cannot see why there should be clashes between Black and White in South Africa. This will not happen in the least because when we need one another, why should we threaten one another? Why should we make war against one another? Black and White nations need one another here at the southern tip of Africa.

Therefore I think this is a major step and it was a particular privilege for me to speak to the Transkei Parliament from this Parliament on this occasion.

Mr. Speaker, ever since Chief Kaiser Matanzima first became the political leader of the Transkei, I have been following his statements and actions very carefully. I also had the privilege of holding political discussions with him from time to time. I know there are others who have done this as well, and have come to know him even better. Everyone will probably have arrived at his own conclusions concerning the leader of the Transkei and his objectives.

From the beginning I considered him to be a purposeful leader, an influential leader and a leader with a course of his own. At no stage was he a “stooge”, or an instrument of the Government, and I do not believe he will ever become one. On the contrary. In spite of his initial economic and financial dependence on the Republic, the Government is going to find in him the most outspoken opponent of their race policy. Chief Kaiser Matanzima is no less of a nationalist than the Afrikaner. He is a fierce opponent of apartheid and of everything which is injurious to his people. As I see it, the crux of the matter is that it is not South Africa he wishes to escape from. It is the Government and the system of apartheid that he wishes to escape from. The freedom he seeks is that of the open and tolerant community, away from the oppressive climate and the institutions of apartheid. For that reason our attitude on this side of the House to the dilemma of Chief Minister Matanzima is one of comprehension. We sympathize with him. Our quarrel is not with him and with the people of the Transkei, but with the mode of action of this Government.

Every speaker on the Government side pointed out that we are dealing here with an historic event. No one denies the fact that this is an historic event. No country abandons pieces of its sovereignty without this action having historical consequences. In spite of the fact that we do not even possess sovereignty over South West Africa, we have not yet succeeded in abandoning South West Africa. Undoubtedly the break-away of the Transkei from the Republic of South Africa is a far-reaching event of national importance—and I emphasize the words “national importance”. That is why it astounds one that the Government is handling the matter, not as a matter of national or of general Parliamentary importance, but as a matter of party interest. If there is any group in this House which has allowed a great opportunity to pass, it is not the Opposition, but the Government. Over the years the UP has made no secret of where it stands in respect of constitutional development, such as that of the Transkei. I do not mind admitting that just as the Government was compelled to make adjustments to the times and circumstances as far as its affairs were concerned, the UP also made adjustments. We have never been opposed to the large-scale economic, social and political development of areas such as the Transkei. On the contrary. The fact of the matter is that it was this side of the House which, after the publication of the Tomlinson Commission report, insisted during session after session that the Bantu areas should be developed economically in the only possible way, i.e. by the utilization of the capital and initiative of the Whites, and in such a way of course that the rights of the Bantu were not prejudiced. It is the Government that was opposed to it. It was the Government of Dr. Verwoerd, and it was that hon. Minister, who opposed it for years and who in that way delayed the economic development of the areas for years.

As I have said, we were strongly in favour of the political development of the areas. We have always been in favour of the decentralization of power; that is why we are federalists. The decentralization of power forms the basis of every federal State in the world. It is in fact the one constitutional guarantee which exists against the domination of one by another. It is true that in our pleas for the development of the areas—economically, socially and politically—we saw a federal structure as the end of the development. Nor were we the only ones who saw it in that light. The leaders of the Tomlinson Commission also saw it in that light. They conceived of a future federation or confederation in South Africa. Leaders of the old Sabra also conceived of it in that way. They spoke openly of a future federal structure in South Africa with the Bantu areas developing autonomously, as far as possible, as a part of it. Even Dr. Malan raised the idea of an ultimate federation. In a letter which Rev. John Piersma wrote to. Dr. Malan from America in 1954, he asked him: “How do you see the ultimate object of your policy?” The policy was at that time still known as apartheid. Dr. Malan’s reply was:

Dr. Malan’s reply was published by the National Party in pamphlet form. I am not implying for one moment that Dr. Malan was a federalist, but he certainly believed that something along those lines would be better than absolute partition. Decentralization of political power, in so far as it is possible, with a point at which all the units can co-operate on a federal basis in the interests of the whole without the one being dominated by the other, is the only policy which is going to succeed in South Africa. We on this side still believe that it is the correct and sensible course to follow. We believe that if the Transkei had had any choice in this matter, it would have preferred unequivocally and by a great majority to have become part of a South African federation as an autonomous area. I am not saying for one moment that the Transkei, or any other area, will accept the federal plan of any party in detail. Nor is that our intention. We do not maintain that. There will have to be negotiations on the particulars of any plan. It is an integral part of our outlook and of our entire policy that there will have to be consultations and negotiations on the particulars. The particulars in our own plan are merely a basis for discussion. What is important is the major principle of co-operation without the one dominating the other, and that this can only be done in a federal structure. Therefore, our policy is and remains a federal South Africa.

At the same time we are not unrealistic. For years already this party has been declaring that certain undertakings were given to the homelands. Promises were made, and no one denies it. Our attitude is consequently that if there is a homeland which wants to accept the promise that was made, and has already prepared itself for and has geared itself to it, and has come close to the point of independence, we would not use any position of authority to put a stop to any such exercising of self-determination. This has been the standpoint of the UP for years. Therefore, if there has ever been an opportunity for a Government, in view of the standpoints which this side has maintained over the years, to approach an important matter such as this on a national basis rather than on a party basis, then it was this opportunity.

What is the logical process which the Government ought to have adopted with this Bill? It should have advised the Transkei first to have addressed a request for independence to this Parliament, to have stated why they want independence and what had been done to ensure and to establish beyond all doubt that the majority of the people of the Transkei want that independence. That would have been the normal, correct procedure. I understand that the Government of the Transkei held a kind of opinion poll on this matter. At no stage, however, was any evidence submitted to this Parliament that the majority of the people of the Transkei preferred an independent State. Where is that evidence before this Parliament, on the basis of which it can reach a decision on the principle? If the matter had been dealt with on that basis and submitted to this Parliament in that form, and if the principle had first been accepted on a parliamentary basis, then a committee of this Parliament could have been of assistance in finding a collective solution to the serious problems which are now arising on the question of citizenship.

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member trying to imply that the majority of the inhabitants of the Transkei are opposed to independence?

No, I never said that. Nor am I prepared to say that. All that I am saying is that nothing was submitted to this Parliament on the part of the Transkei to indicate that the majority want it. The South African Government held a referendum in South West Africa and took the result to the UNO, for what that was worth. A precedent was therefore created, and all I am saying now is that it would have been better if the Government had come to this House with a motivated request from the Transkei, a request to this Parliament, with the necessary evidence that the majority of the people of the territory want independence in this form. As things are at the moment where do we stand? As things are at the moment, the new State begins on a note of confusion and of hostility between the two Governments, if I have to accept the statements which are appearing in the Press. [Interjections.] It also begins on a note of opposition in Parliament, and does so on a matter which is of cardinal importance. This could have been avoided. Sir, does the Government not realize what it could mean to the Transkei and what it could also mean to us if there is too much opposition and division at the outset, as appears to be the case at present? The normal procedure with a territory which is becoming independent, is that all the persons—I am referring now to citizenship—who are domiciled there, or who are recognized citizens of that territory, automatically become citizens of the new State, with this proviso that those who do not want to accept it have to be afforded an opportunity of renouncing it. We have precedents in South Africa on the change of citizenship. After South West Africa was occupied by the Union and came under the care of the Union, there were problems with the question of the citizenship of the Germans, and in 1923, I think it was—at any rate in the early ’twenties—all South West African Germans were automatically made South African citizens. However, they were granted a period of six months to renounce their new Union citizenship. The result was that as against the 3 228 Germans who automatically became South African citizens, 300 objected and remained Germans. But that choice was given to them before a new citizenship was forced upon them.

We also had something similar in our Citizenship Act of 1949. Sir, you will recall that that Act put an end to dual citizenship here in the Union, to British and Union citizenship. In section 16(3) of that Act, it is provided that any person who is a South African citizen by virtue of the provisions of subsection (2) of section 2, or subsection (3) of section 9 could, at any time within a period of 12 months after the date of commencement of the Act, make a declaration in the prescribed form renouncing his South African citizenship. There are other provisions as well in that Act which entail that one ceases to be a South African citizen if one has resided outside the country for a period of seven years. Now one asks: Why, then, apply a different criterion here when we are also dealing here with the position of citizenship? Obviously a similar procedure should have been adopted in the case of the Transkei as well. This ought to have been made applicable in this case as well. Not only are there people of Xhosa descent who were born in the Republic and who do not regard themselves as Transkeians, there are also Whites who go to become Transkeian citizens, who would prefer to be citizens of the Transkei. Why is a different criterion being applied in this case to the criterion in regard to the Germans in South West Africa, and the then British subjects in South Africa who preferred to remain British citizens. With all the confusion which is now prevailing and the prejudicial consequences which it could have for everyone, the Bill before us has become an instrument which is so unsatisfactory that we as an Opposition cannot support it.

There is one thing above all that we must avoid, one thing we cannot afford in this country, and that is that the Whites of the Republic are subsequently accused by those generations of Black people who are now growing up, of having tricked them and deprived them of their civil rights to which they were entitled. I must honestly say that something like this could arouse great hostility in future and could create grave problems for South Africa, and we on this side must certainly want no part of it. It was within the means of the Government to have resolved the citizenship issue in a satisfactory manner and without any ill-feeling, and I think that it was its duty to have done this before it came to Parliament with this Bill. After all, the Bill proceeds from the standpoint that the people of the Transkei want independence. If that is true, and if it is correct that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Transkei want independence and that they insist on the Transkei becoming independent, then the small group of individuals that wants to remain outside, and which does not want to regard itself as inhabitants of the Transkei, ought not to have presented any major problems.

There is another important reason why the Government should have proceeded with greater circumspection in regard to the Bill. It is of cardinal importance that the Transkei receives international recognition if independence is to mean anything to the territory. Unfortunately the chances that the territory will receive any meaningful recognition appear to be extremely slender. I regret to say that I have to put the blame for this on the Government. Once again it is a case of handling the matter incorrectly, for surely the Government knows what the attitude of other countries is to its race policy. It is the one policy with which no one in the outside world wishes to be associated. In the interests of the Transkei and in the interests of South Africa, the Government ought to have been more careful about where it allowed the emphasis to be put in the presentation of the Bill. In the propaganda of the Government it is being stressed that the independent Transkei is a winning point in the Government’s policy of separate development, that is a demonstration that its policy is a success, in spite of the fact that it affects only a small portion of the Black people in South Africa. It is regarded as a high-water mark in the implementation of the Government’s policy of separate development. The result is that no one outside South Africa wants to have anything to do with it. The indications are that most European countries, and I am saying this with regret, will be absent from the independence celebrations of the Transkei. The Government ought in this case—which I describe as a matter of national importance—to have forgotten about itself and about its party-politics for a change, and to have regarded the matter from the point of view of the Transkei. The matter should have been seen from the point of view of the Transkei, and the step should have been publicized as a case of self-determination by the Transkei, and nothing more. The evidence for it being the will of the Transkei that this be done ought to have been submitted to Parliament by the hon. the Minister. If the hon. the Minister had done that, and the emphasis had not been placed on the policy of the Government, but on the will of the Transkei, the Transkei would have been in a far more favourable position.

I want to conclude by saying that members on this side of the House have a great deal of sympathy for the people of the Transkei. They, as an independent country, will always receive the utmost assistance and the utmost support on our part. We wish them nothing but the best, although we regret that the matter was dealt with in the manner in which it was done. However, it remains our sincere attitude that the views of the UP, of a constitutional association of units at the southernmost point of Africa, will still be borne out in future.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout concentrated his attack on the Bill on three main points. The first was the positive statement which he tried to make that federalism and federation as proclaimed by the UP is the solution, and that the model of the Government is the wrong model. In this regard the hon. member stated that co-operation is an integral part of a federation, that co-operation is the solution and is the only guarantee that can be given for peace and for peaceful co-existence in Southern Africa. We do not dispute his argument in respect of co-operation, but I differ radically with the implication that the Government is making States independent because the Government does not want to co-operate and is turning its back on them, because I think it is unfair, even by implication to level a charge like that at this Government.

We must choose in South Africa between methods of co-operation among the peoples of South Africa. Hon. members opposite recommend the method of federation. However, it is a kind of patriarchal co-operation under which the Whites wish to co-operate with the other peoples from an over-protected position in a White Parliament which will keep the keys of the State and will transfer its powers unilaterally as it suits the Whites. This is a cooperation which inherently implies that the non-Whites, despite their numerical majority, must continue to accept a minority position and must allow the Whites a protected and privileged position. This is the model of co-operation of the UP as well as the PRP.

We also have a model of co-operation, but the basis of our model of co-operation is that we will co-operate as equals. Its basis is that we can say to a Bantu nation: “You are becoming independent, and we shall recognize you as a free, independent and full-fledged State.” Then we shall co-operate as good neighbours. The proof that we are building this model of ours on co-operation is the 22 agreements—or whatever the number is—to which the hon. members had access. The proof is that the independence of the Transkei is now becoming a reality by means of negotiation. That we are aiming at co-operation is proved by the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister envisaged the growth of a bloc of states in Southern Africa. Further proof is that we shall remain friends owing to our economic independence and owing to our historical ties, friends who will by means of separate freedoms continue to extend their hands to one another and co-operate in our common interests.

His second point dealt with the question of choice in respect of citizenship. I shall return to that at a later stage and reply to it more fully. At this stage let me just say that the ethnic diversity within our borders requires a formula which will eliminate a power struggle. Their formula will result in a power struggle, while our formula will result in the elimination of a power struggle. That formula is so important that if we have to make arrangements in respect of citizenship in order to eliminate a power struggle, it will be worth while for us, the Xhosa, the Zulu, or for any people.

His third point was a new point which has not been made before in this debate. He wanted to charge this Government in advance with any problems which the Transkei may have in regard to international recognition. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that it was our handling of this Bill which is going to make it difficult for the Transkei to be accorded international recognition. Surely that is precisely not the case. Because we are sensitive in regard to the matter and because we should like international recognition to be accorded to the Transkei we are granting the Transkei its independence in a unique way. We are withdrawing our sovereignty, but the substance of their constitution is their own business. How can anyone in the world then say that we created this State. The State is creating itself. How can anyone in the world say that the constitution of the new independent Transkei will be the product of our policy? They are drafting the relevant Act themselves. We are in fact handling this matter in a way which will allow the Transkei to say to the world in all honesty and sincerity: “We are what we are because that is what we want to be. Our constitution is our own. We established ourselves.” On an historical basis, as a result of historical factors—it does not matter what the reasons are—it is a free, independent state which is not a second class state, but which is forming itself and which will give substance to itself. Therefore like any other Black State in Africa, they will be able to say: “My constitution is my own creation, unlike many others which are being recognized today, which became independent with Acts emanating from other Parliaments which ruled over them in earlier stages.”

It is true, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and others before him said, that this is a momentous subject, that this is a momentous Bill. The finality of it makes all of us think. Its radicality grips our imagination and the possibilities contained in the fact of a completely independent Transkei stimulates the idealism of those who think positively, and compels the pessimistic, of whom the hon. member for Maitland was an example this afternoon, to make dire forecasts and predictions.

Convince me.

The wonder of a peaceful birth of a new State in Africa is no less thrilling to us and the Transkei than the birth of a child is to its mother and father. It is in such an atmosphere that we are reflecting today on the question of whether it is fit and proper that the Transkei should become independent and whether the way in which we are doing it and the arrangements according to which we are going to settle our relations are correct and fair.

I should like to attempt to answer this question on the basis of the application of a two-fold test. I want to ask: “Is it, in the first place, morally justifiable and is it, in the second place, juridically justifiable?” More specifically, too I want to test the question of citizenship which has been much discussed against this two-fold criterion of whether it is morally and juridically justifiable.

Firstly, are the Transkeian independence and the citizenship provisions morally justifiable? I want to reply to that, and we on this side of the House reply with a loud and clear “yes”. “Yes,” because the Transkei and its people are asking for independence. They were not forced into this, regardless of what arguments the hon. members try to advance. No one has yet refuted the powerful arguments and facts with which the hon. member for Port Natal confronted the Opposition last night. The mere name of the party of Chief Minister Matanzima, the Transkei Independence Party, is proof that they are seeking independence, and that they are geared to it. In addition it is a fact that the Transkei is glowing over its independence. Hon. members are pretending that the Transkei accepted it almost half-unwillingly. Did hon. members not read the speeches that were made when their Parliament was recently in session? Did hon. members not observe the pride which is already beginning to glimmer through in their speeches? I maintain that it is morally justifiable, because they want it.

Secondly, it is morally justifiable because historic justification exists for the view that the Transkei is an entity on its own. Once again the Opposition parties are not listening to what the Transkei itself says. They did not hear how Chief Minister Matanzima, in his speeches and in his claim to international recognition, based his argument on the historical fact of the existence of the Transkei as an entity? Moreover, it is morally justifiable because the granting of independence to the Transkei is in line with the political thought of our time, with the international demands of the time, viz. that a people is entitled to political self-determination. The citizenship provisions, too, are morally justifiable.

Owing to several factors which are known to us all, but which are difficult to outline in full in 20 minutes, White South Africa—the hon. members and ourselves—has sought urgently for solutions, solutions which would be fair in respect of the Black peoples, but solutions which would also be fair in respect of the Whites in South Africa. This searching resulted in three formulae, three policies of the three parties which are represented in this House. The solution of the UP rests on a federal citizenship which will not have much substance. It will not have much substance because the White Parliament, according to some exponents of their policy, will in fact retain the power and will decide what it will transfer and what it will not transfer, and when it shall do so. Therefore, a federal citizenship which is dependent for its substance on the future unilateral decisions of the Whites. In this connection the policy of the UP is also unacceptable because their federation, which establishes blanket citizenship, will have very little power and will be without any geographic substance. It will be prone to the same defects which they profess are inherent in our policy. Take, for example, the farm labourer at Standerton who will in fact have to exercise his political powers in some Black federal unit or other, or wherever the powers are centralized. He will not be living within the relevant geographic boundaries either, but outside those boundaries. He will also have to exercise his lesser citizenship outside those boundaries, a citizenship which will nevertheless be important as a result of the ties with his ethnic group which a government, which has many powers over him, is going to have. Their policy will result in confusion and will not satisfy any national group because it favours the position of the Whites. It will unleash a power struggle.

The solution of the PRP is based on classified citizenship. This is their offer to the people, first-class citizenship if you are educated, a second-class citizenship if you are not educated but are literate …

Like Horace.

This means two votes for a Std. 8 or higher and one vote for a Std. 2 to Std. 8. There is also a third-class citizenship for those who have no learning at all, but this has no substance because there are no political rights attached to it.

That is Dalling now.

Once again this is a solution which will not satisfy any Black people.

Now, I want to contrast our solution with these solutions. Our solution gives the Xhosa first-class citizenship in a State which is fully independent, a viable State which forms part of a vital, economically interdependent Southern Africa. According to the Bill, Transkeian citizenship is full-fledged citizenship. Whether the Transkeian is in the Transkei or in Soweto, his citizenship remains full-fledged citizenship. The hon. member for Schweizer-Reneke has already, in a competent way, pointed out the positive contents of this citizenship. He held out the prospect of our adding to it even further. We want to help to expand Transkeian citizenship, and we hope that the Transkeian Government will also expand it into a concept which will be important to every Xhosa, to something which he can seize upon and make his own, as our citizenship, too, has become dear to us. The inevitable conclusion is that our model for the Xhosa will lead to full-fledged citizenship of the country of its people, governed by the people of their blood and with their mother tongue as the official language. That is the basis for real, meaningful citizenship. What more can an individual ask for in the way of citizenship?

There will, however, be those who, like the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, will say that they must have a choice. Their argument will be: It is all very well for those who see it as you see it, but give them a choice. In the time at my disposal I can try to formulate only a few statements in reply to this. Citizenship on the basis of ethnic allegiance, even on a basis of colour which is associated with ethnic allegiance, is not without precedence. A good example of this is the Ivory Coast, where thousands of French people have, since the Ivory Coast became independent, been living, working, having children happily in increasing numbers without having citizenship there, but citizenship of a country across the ocean. There are also many foreigners in South Africa. We know them all. They are in our constituencies. They are happy, but are still clinging to the citizenship of their country of origin; they do not want to relinquish their citizenship.

Then there are a whole group of people—approximately a half million—from the Black neighbouring states of South Africa who are at present here in South Africa, people who are living here, working here and doing many other things here. My question is whether those hon. members want them to become citizens of South Africa as well. Do they want to give the citizens of Lesotho who are living here a choice to apply for South African citizenship? Do they want to give the Malawians, the Angolans, the Black Rhodesians, the people of Mozambique and all the others that choice?

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Speaker, this is not an entirely comparable situation. However, they are happy here, and they are accepted here as citizens of a foreign country. There is no insistence that they obtain citizenship.

Would you be happy with citizenship in Holland?

Therefore it works in practice in other countries. It works here in our country. It can work. The second reason why they should not have a choice is because the choice which they do not have now is counter-balanced by the value which Transkeian citizenship is going to have for them in the Republic. I reject with contempt the accusation by the hon. member for Bryanston, the accusation that the Government is blackmailing the Black people of the Transkei. The Government is not bribing anyone and it is not blackmailing anyone. The Government is putting it to the people of the Transkei that we, owing to our historic ties and mindful of the long road we have travelled together, owing to the fact that we are going to remain good neighbours, will look after and will care for them as citizens of the Transkei, for it is a factual situation that they are now becoming citizens of the Transkei. For the sake of good neighbourliness this Government is going to allow the Transkeian citizens to exercise their citizenship here. Unlike the general practice, this Government is going to allow them, while they are sojourning in the Republic, to be politically active in the politics of their own country, to vote here, and so on. Apart from diplomatic representatives, no South African citizen may vote in another country. This Government is coming forward with a unique new system. This is a system which is already in operation in a few countries, and this Government is also going to apply it here with success. The future of each one of us depends on it.

This brings me to the most important reason why there should not be a choice. If this formula is not applied, such a power struggle will develop in South Africa that South African citizenship—the mere concept of it—will no longer be an attractive idea for anyone, because we will be afflicted by a power struggle and by instability. Citizenship is important owing to the cultural ties and the stability it offers. South African citizenship in a country which is internally divided, in a country in which a struggle between peoples is waging, is not a viable concept. That is why we, as peoples in South Africa, must reach an agreement with regard to a formula. In my opinion the only formula for peaceful coexistence—for both Whites as well as non-Whites—is the application of the policy of this Government. The free choice of citizenship is a luxury which Whites and Blacks in South Africa cannot afford.

The second question to which a reply has to be given, is the question of whether the independence of the Transkei and the attendant citizenship provisions are juridically justifiable. My time is limited; I shall therefore deal with this matter briefly. If one analyses the law of nations and constitutional law, it is clear that the concept of citizenship of the Transkei—as it is contained in our own Constitution Act and in their draft constitution—is internationally acceptable and complies with the requirements of the law of nations and of international law. Citizenship on the basis of presence, on the basis of blood ties and on the basis of origin is precisely what this Bill entails. The concept of citizenship of a country in which a person is not living is no new concept in international law either. Hon. members would do well to study the constitutions and citizenship legislation of countries such as Ghana and other countries, for they also grant admission and allow people, who were outside the country when such laws were promulgated and who were even born outside the country, to become citizens automatically. There may be a difference in regard to how far this is taken, but the principle that a person who has never been in a country unilaterally, through the promulgation of legislation, becomes a citizen of the country on the basis of his origin, descent and blood ties, is not a new principle and is internationally acceptable. That is why we believe that our system is morally and juridically justifiable. We realize that we may experience problems in the practical application of this concept in future, and that there will be bottlenecks and situations which cause friction. We shall have to accommodate one another, for there is no future at all for us in the model of those hon. members.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vereeniging spent a great deal of his speech talking about the question of citizenship. Other hon. members of this party will deal with that particular aspect. However, at the same time, the hon. member stated that the Transkei was going to become a free, independent State, that it was not going to be a second-class State, that it was an economically viable State and that the decision of this Government was a moral one. Each one of those statements is subjective and I want to address myself primarily to the economic implications of the independence of the Transkei, which are, of course, inseparable and indeed flow from the political concept of separate development.

The economic effects of the independence of the Transkei must be seen as a precedent or as the forerunner of the other homelands, if this Government is going to adhere to its grand design. As such, they are of profound importance to all of us who live in this land, because the independence of the Transkei on 26 October will constitute an economic Rubicon from which all in this country, Black, White and Brown, will be the poorer, whilst the policy runs its course. I say “whilst it runs its course”, because it will inevitably founder and fail and the gross injustice which is inherent in the independence of the Transkei, as put forward by this Government, will inevitably be swept away. The tragedy actually is that we have to endure a self-inflicted wound in the interim, and that when it is swept away, it is likely that as a result of the ill-feeling and frustration which will grow in the interim period, other things of which the White man in this country can justly be proud, will also be swept away.

The hon. the Prime Minister has stated that he will share neither the political power nor the assets of so-called White South Africa. Certainly, in so far as the Transkei is concerned and in relation to the assets of so-called White South Africa, the facts bear him out. I should like to draw to the attention of this House the basic facts in relation to the independence of the economy of the Transkei. Some of these figures go back a couple of years simply because it has been impossible to ascertain from the Government, despite queries, what the more recent figures are. The first fact that should be remembered is that the Transkei has a population of just over 3 million of which 1¼ million, conservatively speaking, live outside its borders. That is about 12% of our total population of approximately 25 million. The land area is 36 850 km2 or approximately 3% of the surface area of our country. Also in relation to that land, it is important to remember what the Tomlinson Commission said in this regard. It said—

The 1973 estimate of this Government was that the per capita income of the citizens of the Transkei was R110 a year. In the same year the estimate for the whole of South Africa on a per capita basis, including all Blacks and Browns, was R644 a year. Of the total remuneration of employees, together with the income from property for households in 1973, it is estimated that the Transkei earned a total of 4,2%, i.e. R261,8 million, or 2,1% from those resident in the Transkei or commuting from there. The commuters, in fact, earned the vast bulk, viz. R181,1 million, and R273, 1 million was earned by those permanently resident outside. In the report of the XDC on its ten years of existence, the Chief Minister of the Transkei said that it had created 12 100 new employment opportunities. That is equal to 0,4% of the total population of the Transkei, or 0,7% of the population that actually lives within the Transkei’s borders.

From the Government we know that there are no mining concerns within the Transkei. The latest figures given to us by the Government show that the gross value of crop production was a mere R13,9 million in 1973, the gross value of the pastural production, R15,6 million and that of industrial production, R6,6 million.

Finally, I think it is worthwhile bearing in mind that the gross domestic product, estimated for the Transkei in 1973 at R131,2 million, is a mere 0,6% of the gross domestic product of South Africa. On the basis of that evidence it can be said that there had certainly been very little, if any, sharing of the assets of White South Africa. From the other side of the House we are undoubtedly going to hear comparisons between the Transkei and other countries elsewhere on the African continent. However, that is a false analogy. Our economy has been multi-racial from the beginning and every single inhabitant of this country has contributed to it by his/her efforts. The only valid comparison that can be drawn is between the economy of the Transkei and that of the country as a whole. Even if one pushes separate development to the extremity of one’s imagination, there will be a very substantial overlap in economic interests.

The hon. the Minister of Finance is on record as having, in March 1960, called for the abandonment of the fantastic Bantustan economic policy which offends against every canon of economic sense. However, times have changed and the hon. the Minister told us last year that the Government was building ten separate viable economies within our country. The only possible justification for that would be if they were separate, but equal. I hope the Government will bear in mind the statistics in relation to the Transkei, a homeland which is among the vanguard of the homelands as they now stand. When one closes one’s ears to all the rhetoric and discards the attempt of the Government to solve its political dilemma through the medium of homelands, the reality of South Africa is an ever-increasing degree of economic integration. The South African yearbook for last year includes the following—

Here we have an explicit admission by the Government that the development of the homelands is not an alternative to, but a consequence of the growth in the established complexes in White South Africa. What the Government is, in fact, owning up to by such a statement is their wish, for political reasons, to entrench inequality. In so far as the residents of the Transkei or any other homelands that may become independent are concerned, they are determined that they must remain the poor relations, the have-nots, in comparison with White South Africa. That is bad enough. The sordid means adopted to coerce the urban Black South African are worse. In pursuit of its aim, this Government is prepared to use, to put it mildly, unjust means. The blackmail of the Black citizens of the urban areas is something for which they cannot be forgiven. There they sit, extolling the virtue of the free enterprise system in a mixed economy while at the same time enforcing the advantage or benefit of citizenship of a homeland. That is not only bad faith in itself; it is a deliberate and wholly despicable threat, because where then stands the promise to have done with discrimination? It means that if you happen to be born in our land without the choice to have enough prenatal intelligence to be White, you will be placed at a crippling disadvantage against both White South Africans and any foreigner who has had the good fortune to come out of the accident of the night White. That is what the Government is doing. It is perpetrating a crime of the most hideous nature not only upon the Black and the Brown, but on the White as well. In short, it is perpetrating that crime on all of us who live here.

Mr. Speaker, when will this Government learn? It is of no value whatsoever to talk about the “White” assets of our land. Of course this land has assets, developed or standing ready to be so, which are rightly the envy of the world, but those assets know no right of ownership based on colour. They are in that sense anonymous. Indeed, it goes further, for if this Government is, as it evidently is, concerned about preserving the contribution that the Whites have made to the development of our land for our children, if not for posterity, then they must accept that prosperity is indivisible and that there is no way that a society can survive when it is split into the haves and the have-nots. That is bad enough in itself, but when the division is arbitrarily based on colour and when the latter are deliberately forbidden by law and customs from joining the former, then such a society cannot and will not endure on such a basis. Class distinctions can destroy societies, but provided it is possible for an individual to cross class barriers, you have at least some flexibility for improvement. When, however, your class distinction is based on colour and enshrined in legislation, you have the worst of every world. If we are to make our land what it could and should be, if we accept what the Government tell us, i.e. that private or free enterprise is the best road to growth and to increasing standards of living, and if we believe, which I think is incontrovertible, that racial peace and the latter are different sides of the same coin, then it is time for this Government to be true to its word and sweep away the discrimination which is not only inherent in this Bill, but which still affects every Black South African both within and without the homelands.

Sir, let us be quite clear about it. The White man has made a contribution beyond value to the development of our country, but he was never the sole contributor, and if he wants to preserve or to perpetuate the benefits of what he has achieved, then the doors must be thrown open to let all of merit earn for themselves the right to enjoy the benefits of the system. What else, Mr. Speaker, is the economic birthright of the South African Xhosa than the right to participate in the benefits from the assets he has helped to build? For instance, the Xhosas provide some 60 000 or 36% of the South Africans who work on the gold mines. If they are not allowed to participate, for them any alternative offered from outside will have an unwarranted attraction.

Mr. Speaker, my party stands for justice, for equity, for the development of a united land where all our peoples have an increasing stake in the development of our assets, and for the maintenance of the private enterprise system by the only way in which it can be maintained, and that is by the willing admission to its benefits of those Black people who have the ability to profit by it. The alternative, namely the exclusion of Black people from the benefits of private enterprise, will most certainly lead in due time to the establishment of the sort of African socialist State that the Government is most apposed to, because if there are no Black capitalists, then the Black Government will have to be socialist. In the face of all that, however, the Government is running like lemmings to the edge of the cliff. If they go over that cliff, it will in time destroy all that has been built by the White man and all that this Government is standing for, which is a permanent acknowledgement of that.

As I have said, my party stands for justice. This Bill serves no purpose to that end, either for the Black or the Brown or for the White. The hon. the Minister and the Government should, even at this late hour, stand back, because if they cross this Rubicon, not only they, but tragically all of us, are going to be the victims. To divide, in this instance, is not to rule but in time to destroy not only what the White man has already done in the economic development of this country, but also the future as it might otherwise have been.

Mr. Speaker, I can only tell the hon. member for Johannesburg North that he has been in this country for too short a time to be able to understand everything which is happening here. I want to tell him that when he knows the history of this nation and of the NP, he will be much more careful in his behaviour than he was this afternoon. I do not know how long he will remain here, but I hope that if he grows old here, he will understand the standpoint and idealism of the NP and of the people of South Africa better, than he does today.

It is a pleasure to me to take part in this discussion. I think it is a privilege to participate in this discussion today, but before I proceed to do so, I want to thank those persons who made giant contributions towards what we have achieved today with respect to the development of the Transkei. Since the Transkei is becoming an independent State on 26 October, we must pay tribute to those people, some of whom are no longer with us, for the gigantic task which they performed and for the vision they had of the future, for the faith they had in the difficult task they undertook, a task which will have a result which we shall be privileged to witness on 26 October. I want to thank the hon. the Minister and his department this afternoon for the nights and hours they spent working. They did not have an easy task. The road which they had to follow was a road with many problems, a road upon which they were faced with many obstacles. Thank God for their stout-heartedness, which brought us where we are today. Today I should also like to thank and to pay tribute to our commissioner-general who served in that area, Mr. Hans Abraham, a man who knew the Xhosa people and their traditions, a man who spoke their language and could communicate with them upon every level.

I should like to thank him very much in this House today. I also want to thank the present commissioner-general of that area for the work which he does there. It is good work. The outside world believed that this task would not succeed, and that it was simply an illusion. The outside world, and the Opposition on the other side, believed that we would never reach this point which we have reached this afternoon. That is why they are so confused. I thank those people, but I also want to thank every Black official who has served in the Transkei, no matter how lowly the position which he filled. I visited that area of our country many years before I came to this House. I knew the Transkei long before I came here. I considered it my duty to traverse it in order to determine whether those people are able to make a living there. I believe that the Xhosa made a good choice when they chose that area long ago. He was wise in choosing the slopes of those great mountains and those beautiful valleys, because there he could farm with his cattle, his sheep and his goats. I want to say in this House this afternoon that the potential of the Transkei is high because it is one of the best and most fertile parts of the country, and the Transkei can provide sufficient food for its people. The Transkei does not only provide for its own requirements, but can also export to the Republic of South Africa or further afield. As far as agriculture is concerned, the Transkei is much better equipped than many other homelands which may obtain their independence in the near future.

It should actually have been a great day for both sides of the House because we have progressed to the point where a nation which has lived in the Transkei for years will become a free, independent nation on 26 October. Instead of unanimous support, we hear the lamentations of Jeremiah. Yesterday was a sad day for me because I had to listen to the speech of the hon. member for Umhlatuzana. It was a bad speech and if I had been a Black man in the Transkei or in any part of the Republic, I would have dismissed the hon. member’s speech with the contempt which it deserves. The hon. member did not offer any constructive criticism in respect of those people, but he disparaged them and filled them with fear, as indeed every member on the Opposition side has done. Hon. members who point a finger at this side of the House every day and say: “Do away with discrimination” are the people who are actually discriminating against the Transkeian nation because those hon. members do not want that nation to have the things which every nation desires, namely its own identity, its own nationalism and its own fatherland. Those hon. members are afraid to do so, but their fear of this is not greater than their fear of the success of the policy of the NP.

The people in the Transkei must be congratulated and they must be wished God’s greatest blessings. Furthermore every Black man or woman in the Transkei, big or small, must be taken by the hand and told, “You have a task to carry out in your country in future. However, your task does not only affect yourselves, the Xhosa people and the small group of Basuto that lives there, but you also have a task towards the Blacks of this country as well as towards the Whites of this country.” I have the fullest confidence that the Xhosa people and the Government of the Transkei, whatever Government it may be in the future, will always be grateful to those men in their ranks who years ago stood up for and hungered for a free, independent State. Has it not also been a privilege for me and everyone on this side of the House to experience something like this?

There have been two particularly beautiful days in my life, two days which I can never forget and which I am even prepared to say were more beautiful to me than the day on which I was married. Those two days were the day in 1948 when the NP came into power and the day when the sun rose on the free, independent Republic of South Africa. At that time I was working in many constituencies and when I arrived home that morning, the sun was just rising. I stood on the stop and my wife asked me why I did not come inside.

Return to the Bill.

Oh, if that hon. member only had the feeling and the love for it, he would appreciate what I am saying. I told my wife that I wanted to watch the sun rising over a free Republic. [Interjections.] You may laugh, Englishman, but you will not understand it. You will never understand it.

Order! The hon. member must refer to another hon. member as an hon. member.

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I meant “the hon. member”. However, the hon. member will not understand it, and that is also why he is fighting this legislation in connection with the Transkei. Nor will he understand the nationalism and love which the Black man has for his country, because he remains an imperialist and cannot be anything else.

Order!

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a happy day in our history. We appreciate it and can live together with those people. On the road ahead this young nation will still come across many stumbling-blocks. They will experience difficult days. There will be days when they will be at a loss for solutions. But they have the assurance that the those members of the White population who are Nationalists will not stab the Transkei in the back. I do not know whether they have that confidence in the other part of the population. If I were a Black man and I listened to the negative speeches of the hon. members on that side, I would not trust them, even if I only had one broody hen nesting under a bush. I would not trust them, because they would deprive the chicks of their mother.

I said in the beginning that I considered it a privilege to participate in this discussion. Perhaps there are also hon. members on the other side who feel like I do, but I doubt it. If there are such members, I should like to tell them that the various nations in the world began in more difficult circumstances than the Transkei. Nations on the continent of Africa also began like this. One murder after another was committed and thousands of people died on the way to the freedom which they desired. The people of the Transkei, on the other hand, are receiving their freedom without bloodshed.

I should like to put a question to the PRP, the party that wants to give divided franchise. I shall address it specifically to the hon. member for Johannesburg North, who is a very rich man. He must tell me how many votes he expects to obtain, according to their procedure. If the people had to vote according to their manifesto and their policy, he would have lorry-loads filled with votes, while in my case they probably would not even fill a wheelbarrow. What is more, as they qualify the franchise, there will be others who receive nothing. The hon. members must search their hearts. They must leave these things alone. If they want to differ with the National Party as far as policy is concerned, let them do so, but they must keep their hands off a nation which is in the making. They must not stand in the way of a nation which wants to be a nation. They must not stand in the way of somebody who loves his identity just as much as they love theirs.

Mr. Speaker, it is the duty of this House—I hope it happens tomorrow—not to criticize those people and not to tell them that they are immature. It is the duty of this House not to tell them that their country cannot provide them with food and that their per capita income, as that hon. member put it, amounts to R110 per year. That figure is quite wrong. My friend the hon. member for Lydenburg provided the correct figures. It was R175 per annum, if I remember correctly. I admit that this is very small, but it is nevertheless one of the highest in Southern Africa. It is much higher than the per capita income in Lesotho or Botswana. The hon. member is shaking his head. Sir, there is one group of people I shall never understand. I struggle to understand legal people, because they put a full stop where there should be a comma. Then there are also the economists and the people who are involved with financial matters. If everyone of them had been right—that is why the hon. member is shaking his head—we would have all been bankrupt or rich as Croesus long ago. I do not understand them. I should just like to tell this group of doubting Thomases that it is much better to believe, to trust that you will succeed, better to believe in the future than to wait and see. I should like to say something to this young nation today. I believe in my Creator, I believe that we are all here for a purpose. I do not know whether I will ever have another chance, but I want to say this to the nation of the Transkei—Black nation, learn this today. Know your God in all your ways and you will not be put to shame. Work, because that is why we have been placed on this earth. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read Psalm 121 to the nation of the Transkei this afternoon. I quote—

If this is the slogan of the Black nation of the Transkei, I want to tell them this afternoon that things will always go well for them, but that sometimes they will have very difficult times as well. Then, however, they will have a good friend in the White people of the Republic, who will be able to work shoulder to shoulder with them—even though they differ in many spheres—for this beautiful country on the southern tip of Africa, the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Stilfontein has demonstrated a great enthusiasm in his address to the House this afternoon. As I listened to him, I felt a deep regret that we were not discussing a measure that was designed to build a greater South Africa which would justify his enthusiasm, but that we were starting with the dismembering of South Africa into various States by means of this legislation which is before us this afternoon.

I want to return to the question that was dealt with by the hon. member for Vereeniging, namely the question of citizenship. I would say to him as a fellow lawyer that one can always state a case and then find a good legal argument to substantiate the conclusion one wishes to come to. It is essential that we realize that in this stated case when we are dealing with citizenship, that it is a factual one. The Xhosa people had their citizenship within the Cape Colony and as citizens of the Cape Colony, entered the Union of South Africa and acquired their Union citizenship. Subsequently, when the Republic came into being, they acquired their citizenship of the Republic of South Africa. Any diminution in that citizenship was not through the evolution of those people, but was by an act of this Government in introducing dual citizenship as far as the Black people in South Africa are concerned. When we talk about the rights of citizenship, I think we are morally obliged—and the hon. member for Vereeniging talked about the moral justification for what we are doing—to look at the citizenship to which these people were entitled and the extent to which we have diminished that citizenship. We should also decide whether we have any right to go further and to diminish it to an even greater extent. I think it is trite to say that citizenship is one of the most fundamental of civic rights which any person can enjoy.

Throughout history the preservation of a man’s rights of citizenship and attempts to restrict those rights have led to more bloodshed and conflict, I think, than any other cause, even religious conflict. Our citizenship in South Africa is something we South Africans have jealously guarded. It is safeguarded in a number of statutes which have been adopted by this House. Citizenship is the basis upon which the rights of the individual within a nation or country is founded, and it is also, in my submission, the basis upon which loyalty is founded, loyalty which ensures the safety of the State. In our legislation in South Africa over the years we have coupled to citizenship residence as the basis upon which we have founded our whole electoral system and based the functioning of our democratic system of government. The Blacks in South Africa possess the qualifications of both citizenship and residence, but they have not been given the political rights which flow, for the Whites, from those two concepts. With the evolution of the Black people, and their development within the body politic of South Africa and their greater contribution to the growth and development of this country, we in South Africa are faced with the need to find an acceptable formula in terms of which their political aspirations can be reasonably satisfied.

It is a simple truth that that is what we must seek to achieve, but the Government does not believe that such a formula for continued co-existence in South Africa as a single national entity is possible, and that is why this Bill is before us today. It is argued that the political aspirations of the Xhosa people will be satisfied by this Bill. There would be some merit in that argument if the Xhosa who are to be affected by this legislation and deprived of their South African citizenship were solely those Xhosa who reside in or are domiciled in the Transkei. Those who are to be affected could then exercise their political rights by reason of citizenship and residence or domicile in the Transkei, which is to become an independent State.

This Bill does not, however, provide for that. Enshrined in our laws in South Africa is the principle that a South African citizen loses his citizenship when he voluntarily assumes citizenship of another country, and even then the hon. the Minister of the Interior still retains the discretion to allow that person to retain his South African citizenship. Nowhere in the history of the legislation of this Parliament, and nowhere throughout our constitutional development, have we ever provided that a person may be deprived of his citizenship by arbitrary legislative or administrative action. That has never been an accepted principle. We have always said that a man can only be deprived of his citizenship when his conduct is such as to negate his right of retention of that citizenship, in other words where positive, unacceptable conduct on the part of the individual justifies such deprivation. Now, however, we are being asked in terms of this Bill to jettison those fundamental principles by which this country has stood, for which this country has fought and for which this country has suffered internal conflict. We only have to look at the sad periods of our own history in which the right of citizenship has been fundamental to strife in this country. And now, with the stroke of a pen, the hon. the Minister tells us we must take an entirely different attitude towards the Xhosa people, and the one reason is that this Government cannot believe that it is possible to find a way of achieving peaceful co-existence with those people within the boundaries of our nation. What is more, we are being asked to use our exclusive legislative authority—our exclusive authority here in this Parliament—in terms of this Bill to deprive those people of their citizenship. The Government is not prepared to look at the alternatives, or even to test the alternative forms of constitutional government which have been suggested. What then is to happen to those people? If we look at this Bill, we find that they will be permanently resident in our midst. They will be permanently necessary for our economic welfare and advancement. They are without residence or domicile in the Transkei. They are told that they will lose their South African citizenship, but will not forfeit any existing rights, privileges or benefits, other than the mere fact of citizenship. The hon. the Minister, when he introduced this Bill, did not give much attention to what the status of these people was to be. They will not be aliens, because they have the right of residence here at the present moment. They will not be aliens, for they have some right of residence. However, I hope that the hon. the Minister will—perhaps during the Committee Stage—elaborate further on just exactly what he regards this status to be, because those people are to assume some new, undefined status. Presumably, the hon. the Minister expects the Transkei Government to give the Whites, Coloureds and Indians in the Transkei a similar sort of dispensation in regard to rights and privileges, whatever they might be. We have been shown, for example, a large number of agreements to regulate the movement of South African and Transkei citizens after independence. What is to happen to them when they enter the Republic? Is a Transkei citizen entering the Republic on a travel document to have the status of a foreign Black such as from Ghana or Zambia entering South Africa on a travel document, or is he to be in a lesser degree, in a lesser status, a foreigner in regard to his treatment in this country, because of the fact that he was a South African citizen, although his citizenship has now been taken away? That he will not have full alien status when he comes here, is indisputable.

I shall be glad if the hon. the Minister will elaborate. If a Transkeian citizen comes to South Africa as a visitor to tour South Africa on a travel document, will he have the same status, the same access to hotels, as any other Black coming from a foreign Black State as a traveller or a tourist to South Africa? Is that to be the position? Whenever one looks at the further provisions, the steps that are envisaged to control the movement of those people, a number of provisions are contained in a lengthy agreement which is to be reciprocally applicable as soon as independence is achieved. I note with interest that, in the schedule to this document of control of movement, there is provision for ports of entry, which is the name generally used by the Department of the Interior and by the Department of Immigration. Border control posts and border crossing-posts are enumerated in this schedule.

According to the agreement there are to be 61 ports of entry between the Transkei and South Africa. The total number of ports of entry we have now along the whole of our international border, from the west coast of South West Africa right through to the east coast of northern Zululand, are 109. We are now going to add, through our administrative procedures, another 61 border posts to control the movement of those Black people.

If this sort of pattern is also going to be followed with regard to the successive homelands, can one imagine the number of border posts that we are going to have to establish around every unconsolidated part of KwaZulu? Must they all be encircled by control posts, because that is the only way which this form of citizenship can be controlled, and by which movement can be controlled? It is appalling to see that this is the situation. I can do nothing further than to merely draw the attention to these facts. There are matters which we will raise again during the Committee Stage. What is important, and we on this side of the House have said over and over, is that we have always stood for the development of the homeland areas to the maximum of their capacity to provide for the maximum number of Black people to live there. But time has been frittered away by this Government by refusing to allow White enterprise and White capital to go into those countries, and this is the very difficulty they have created for themselves in so far as there are Transkei citizens who cannot be accommodated within the independent State which they are about to establish. For those reasons it is abundantly clear that I cannot accept the measure which is now before us.

Mr. Speaker, I have frequently listened to the hon. member for Green Point in the past, but I have seldom heard him speak as unconvincingly as he did this afternoon. And that applies not only to the hon. member for Green Point but also to most members of the official Opposition who have participated in the debate so far.

I want to refer briefly to the hon. member for Green Point’s reference to the citizenship issue. It has already been said to the point of tedium in this debate that we are unilaterally depriving people of their South African citizenship. Surely that is not the truth. Surely the Government of the Transkei have already discussed their draft constitution and it is a fact that, in terms of that constitution, the Xhosa people intend, according to statements made by their Government, to make all present citizens of the Transkei, whether they are living within or outside the Transkei, citizens of the independent Transkei. Surely that is the factual position. The hon. member for Green Point said that citizenship is one of the most important methods of instilling and promoting loyalty to one’s country. Then what better method is there for the Transkeian people of instilling and encouraging loyalty among the Xhosa to their people and their country than by granting them citizenship of the Transkei?

For us on this side of the House it is a special privilege to be able to participate in this debate because, unlike the official Opposition, which is fighting a rearguard action here, we are carrying out the task, which a National Party Government took upon itself in 1948, to its logical conclusions. This puts me in mind of how the late Field Marshal Smuts held a vast protest meeting on Church Square in Pretoria shortly after 26 May 1948. At that meeting the Oubaas exclaimed: “What is apartheid?” He supplied the answer himself, and said that it was a catchword. It is as untrue that apartheid and separate development is a “catchword” as it is true that we are today standing at the logical culminating point of the policy of the National Party. However, it is not only the culminating point of the policy of the National Party, but also the policy and the standpoint of the White people of South Africa. The dilemma of the official Opposition, and of the PRP, is that the Government is the mouthpiece of the majority of the White people of South Africa.

I want to pause for a moment to consider the standpoint of the PRP. The hon. the Leader of the PRP gave us to understand that they would be prepared to accept the independence of the Transkei, but subject to certain conditions. He said for example that they would be prepared to accept the independence of the Transkei on condition that a referendum be held …

That is only one of the conditions.

I concede that; it is only one of the conditions, viz. that a referendum be held among the inhabitants of the Transkei to determine whether they are in fact in favour of independence. I find it very interesting that this is the party which is unconditionally prepared to accept Swapo in South West Africa as the mouthpiece of the non-White nations of South West Africa.

Without a referendum?

Yes, without a referendum. It is merely fortuitous that Swapo, which was brought into the world by communists and which is nurtured and inspired by the communists, is acceptable to the PRP as the mouthpiece of the non-White peoples in South West Africa? The party which governs the Transkei, the party of Chief Minister Kaizer Matanzima, a nationalistic party that was elected in a democratic way and that expressed its desire for independence in a democratic way is not, however, acceptable to the PRP.

The hon. member for Rondebosch said that the issue in the debate was not merely the independence of the Transkei, but that it was the general framework for the political future of the various peoples in South Africa. I want to agree with the hon. member. He told us—I hope I understood him correctly—that we in this country should, apparently, now choose between White domination and Black domination, or the sharing of power. I cannot agree entirely with the hon. member on that score. I do not believe—and it is my sincere conviction—that the sharing of power between various peoples has ever before, in the history of the world, been a solution. This has never yet been the case in any part of the world, to say nothing of Africa. If the Opposition is of the opinion that the policy of the NP of the division of South Africa is heading for a confrontation, then I want to address a friendly warning to the Opposition. We too believe—and we believe it from the bottom of our hearts—that the Opposition does not want to embark on a course of confrontation in South Africa. It is a fact that the majority of the Whites in South Africa have accepted the course of separate development and the course of the division of South Africa as the solution to the ethnic problem of South Africa.

We can tell those hon. members that the majority of the Whites in South Africa are relentlessly adhering to that course. If those hon. members now wish to disrupt that course, which was chosen by the majority of the Whites, they will be co-instrumental in any confrontation and conflicts which might arise in future. Mention has been made in this debate of the problems and conflicts which might arise, but I want to repeat that the White Nationalist has finally chosen his course. The White Nationalist is not prepared to deviate from that course. If they are going to stand in the way now, they will not make a contribution to a solution to the ethnic problem of South Africa.

The independence of the Transkei, which we can accept as an accomplished fact which will take place on 26 October, is not an act of magnanimity or of condescending paternalism towards the Xhosa nation. It is a simple act which gives recognition to the practical reality of South Africa. It is not an experiment, as some hon. members opposite have called it. It is an act which arises from the conviction that the Xhosa people has reached the stage at which they can and must, finally and in the highest form, take over the control of their own destinies. It is our task, not only the task of the NP, but the task of all the Whites in South Africa, to help the Xhosa people along that course, if they want our help, to achieve the greatest good for their country as well, as we demand for ourselves. Any people, and the Xhosa people as well, is entitled to this.

What would the alternative be if the amendment of both Opposition parties were to be accepted by this House, and if we were not, at this late hour, after all the negotiations with the Xhosa Government, to proceed with this Bill? Is it conceivable that any level-headed person could come to this House and move what was moved by both Opposition parties? Is it conceivable that we can turn round at this stage, after the Xhosa Legislative Assembly has virtually finalized their draft constitution, and say to the Xhosa people that they are no longer going to become independent? Sir, can you imagine the despair, the hatred and the bitterness which such a step could unleash in South Africa and in Southern Africa? Is that what the United Party wants? Is that what the Progressive Party wants, that we should at this stage of our history retrace our steps and break our word to the Black man of the Transkei and say: We who are governing White South Africa reached an agreement with you, but a minority group of the Whites were not satisfied with that agreement, and consequently we are no longer able to proceed? Sir, this reminds me of what a good friend of mine told me after he had met a well-known Kenyan leader, a Black man who was not favourably disposed to our country and its policy and who did not conceal the fact. Of the White South African he said: “We have no time for you, but I can tell you one thing, and that is that you are the only honest White people on earth; the British in Kenya think they are bluffing us, but in the meantime they are bluffing themselves.” [Interjections.] No, this Government, the National Party Government, has given its undertaking to the Black man of South Africa that we will give them their share of the country in which they will ultimately become independent and will be able to govern themselves, as is happening now in the case of the Transkei, and the Government is going to honour that promise, and no one, least of all the Opposition, is going to stand in our way.

I want to make a final appeal to members of the Opposition. Their federation policy is not acceptable to the Whites, nor to the non-Whites. If I may make an appeal to them, to those who want to contribute to the building of a happy South Africa, then it is this: Join us, and help us to build a new Southern Africa, a Southern Africa which will consist of various nation states, each of them having sovereign political independence, but for the times which are coming, interdependent in every other sphere. Come and help us to build the future Southern Africa and you will really be making a contribution to solving the problems of our country.

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great respect and attention to the hon. member for Barberton. It is very clear that for many members of this House it is a very momentous and serious step that is being taken here, and I have appreciation for the fact that there are members on the opposite side who emphasize the momentousness and the importance of this step. As a person who for many years of my life has advocated the socio-economic and political development of the homelands, I share the realization of the importance of this moment. And naturally it is a test for an honest person whether what he says is in accordance with his conscience.

I want to associate myself with what has been said by members on this side and members on the opposite of the House, namely that our best wishes accompany the Transkei on its future course. These wishes I want to emphasize unconditionally. In addition I want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said, and say that I, too, have the greatest appreciation for the leaders of the Transkei. I have known those leaders longer perhaps than most members of this House. It would indeed have been a great day if hon. members had not been divided on an issue such as this, but had indeed, on an occasion such as this, not only been united in this House, but also united throughout the country as a whole.

What are the points at issue? As I listened to the debate, studied the legislation and listened to the hon. the Minister, it appeared to me that fundamentally it involves three issues. Firstly it involves the concept of independence for the Transkei. In this regard it is very clear that there are two schools of thought. On the one hand there are people who feel sincerely that South Africa should not be fragmented, and who, in fact also feel that the people of the Transkei were not given a proper choice. They feel that there are other alternatives which could have been applied without fragmenting South Africa, alternatives which would also have complied with what I consider to be the primary motivations of some members opposite, viz. a desire to prevent the possible domination of Whites by Blacks or Blacks by Whites. I believe that we will in fact have to return to the federal policy as the only policy which offers that possibility. Perhaps I shall return to this idea later. Other people, on the other hand, feel that the situation has already gone so far that the point has been reached where the Transkei has already asked for independence, and for that reason we are compelled to comply with this request.

The second point at issue, concerns the treatment of, firstly, the non-Bantu in the Transkei, i.e. the Whites and the Coloureds in the Transkei, and the question of whether sufficient protection is indeed being afforded these people in the situation and, secondly, the Black people who are at present Transkeian citizens but who have a dual citizenship because they are permanently established outside the Transkei. In the third place the point at issue concerns treaties and conventions the full scope of which has not yet been discussed in this House.

I should like to return to the question of independence and say at once that one is dealing here with two separable concepts, viz. independence and citizenship. If the citizenship issue had not been dragged into this—and how easily could that not have been prevented—there would have been far less mistrust of the concept of independence. I am saying this in all earnest, because it would have been equally possible for the Government to have said that it wants to make the Transkei independent because it is convinced that the majority of the inhabitants of the Transkei want it, but that they are granting those persons who are permanently established outside the Transkei an option as to whether they want to retain South African citizenship or whether they want to accept Transkeian citizenship. The Government should have known that the fact that the citizenship element is linked to independence would have led to opposition to the measure on the part of both Whites and non-Whites. I accept that the Transkeian Government addressed the request and that as far as that Government is concerned, with reference to all the preceding events, a clear wish to become independent was expressed. In this regard I have no fault to find with what the hon. member for Port Natal and others said.

Let Japie hear that, too.

I shall, however, discuss that matter further in a moment. This fact is clearly apparent from the report of the recess committee which was appointed, and from all the other information which was obtained in that regard, as well as from the election manifesto of Chief Minister Matanzima, the leader of his party during the 1973 election. I should like to quote from the manifesto, for it is clear what is at issue. He states, in the second and third points of his manifesto—

I shall return to this last point again. It is clearly recorded here. He went further, and said—

That is correct. That is as everyone understands the position. I want to add that Chief Minister Matanzima said something else as well. He said—

He also went on to say—

Chief Matanzima said at the time that he wanted independence, and I accept it, for the voters so expressed their opinion. However, I recollect that the hon. member for Lydenburg said yesterday that the voters of the Transkei supported the motion with such a great measure of enthusiasm that there was almost no difference of opinion. I have already said that the majority of the voters have accepted independence, but we should also be level-headed and honest with ourselves, and look at the results of the election. The Opposition party made a stand against the party of the Chief Minister Matanzima during that election, and were opposed to the idea of independence. The result of the election was 327 856 votes in favour, of which 4 854 were spoilt papers, out of a total of 773 526 registered voters, who were able to vote in the opposed constituencies. The percentage poll, therefore, was 42,33%, in other words less than half. Of the 323 002 persons who voted—and it is interesting to note that this was 278 000 fewer than during the 1963 election and 118 000 fewer than the 1968 election—175 000 voted for the Transkei National Independence Party, the party of Chief Minister Matanzima, and 100 000 for the Democratic Party.

What does that tell you?

I have already told the hon. member that he must not come and tell us here that there was an overwhelming and clamorous enthusiasm among all the inhabitants of the Transkei., for that is simply not true. I did not fabricate these figures. Let us go further. When it comes to the Bantu who are permanently established outside the Transkei, I want to say that no more than 5% of them participated in this election. I can give the hon. members the particulars. [Interjections.] Do not, therefore, let us bluff ourselves. I want to repeat: No more than 5% of the Transkeian citizens who were permanently established outside the Transkei, voted in this election. In other words, there is one thing we cannot say. We cannot say that the Transkeian citizens who are permanently resident outside the Transkei and who are entitled to vote in terms of the Constitution Act of the Transkei, did in fact indicate by way of an election or a referendum that they were in favour of either independence or of being deprived of their citizenship. We must understand this very clearly. In addition I want to say that the question of their being deprived of South African citizenship has never been tested among either the citizens of the Transkei who are resident in the Transkei itself or those who are permanently resident outside the Transkei. All I am asking is that we be honest with ourselves in this regard. We must not mislead ourselves by saying that the vast majority of people of the Transkei …

You all voted against the Republic. [Interjections.]

I should very much like to point out certain fundamental misconceptions which emerged here and which were also contained in the speech made by the hon. the Minister. The hon. member for Umhlatuzana has already pointed out a few of them. Let me say by way of summary that the self-government to which the late General Botha referred, was not the self-government which is being contemplated there. It was part of the “direct and indirect rule” which was at the time the general practice in respect of British colonies. No one thought at that stage of constitutional independence.

In the second place I want to repeat what I have already stated repeatedly here, namely that at the time of their passage the laws of 1913 and 1836 had nothing whatsoever to do with independence. In the third place I want to say that even in the ’fifties it was not the policy of the National Party to accord independence to the homelands. I want to repeat what I have said on other occasions. In 1956 when we had the national congress at Bloemfontein, the then Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration refused to appear on the platform because one of the other speakers on that platform had referred in his address to the possibility of an independent Transkei.

Who was he?

It was Mr. Daan Nel. [Interjections.] He said he refused to appear on the platform because that statement in the other address was diametrically opposed to the policy of the Government. He said that it would embarrass the Government if he were to appear on the platform. I can tell hon. members that it was only with the utmost difficulty that that person was persuaded, for the sake of peace, to remove the specific reference from his address.

What was your standpoint?

I have already made it very clear …

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? [Interjections.]

Those hon. members opposite must not come and talk to me about the independence of the Transkei if it is made impossible for any thinking South African to accept the independence of the Transkei because of the other things which are included in the Bill.

Now I should like to discuss the question of citizenship and I want to associate myself with what hon. members on this side of the House, inter alia the hon. member for Green Point, said. If the question of citizenship is an attempt to find a solution to the political dilemma in which we find ourselves—and we all admit that we are in such a dilemma—I want to tell hon. members that this political dilemma lies in the plural nature of our society. This political dilemma can only be solved in one way: Either one has to find a political arrangement within the plural society, therefore with an acceptance of the plurality, which is going to be acceptable to all, and which is going to prevent the domination of the one by the other; or one has to undo the plurality physically so that there is no longer any plurality.

But we cannot solve the problems of this plural society by means of a legalistic formula which states: You live here; you have been living here for generations; you are permanently here; but you are not citizens and you must exercise your franchise in the Transkei. This is a legalistic formula with which we are merely bluffing ourselves and which is only going to mean that it is going to make it impossible for us to cope properly with the concrete problems confronting us. We cannot undo the factuality of the pluralism. We cannot remove those people physically. If we had been able to do so the problem would have been solved. But we cannot do so because we need them and because the homelands cannot absorb them, and those hon. members also share the blame for the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission not having been carried out, and because we would in any event not be allowed to remove them physically by violent means of violence. If we had been able to remove them by means of violence or by whatever other means, hon. members must not think that they are going to be satisfied with the division of land which we have made in South Africa. That is totally unthinkable.

In the remaining time at my disposal I just want to say that I cannot support this Bill. The dissatisfaction which already exists among our urban Bantu will be greatly exacerbated by their being deprived of their citizenship. It creates a world of growing unreality. It gives the Transkei Government the right to intervene in our domestic arrangements. It gives them that right if those people are their citizens and not South African citizens. We are also destroying the concept of an undivided devotion and loyalty to the Republic, and, it is moreover going to undermine the stability of the Transkei Government. I want to issue a warning by saying that if hon. members are really interested in the Transkei, in the independence of the Transkei, they must not do this to the Transkei Government. In addition to that I want to say that it is going to mar relations between the Transkei Government and the Government of the Republic immeasurably. For this reason I do not see my way clear to supporting this Bill, for if I support this Bill I shall have to give my support to what I consider to be a tremendous injustice to a large number of people. Then I would be voting for the creation of a greater potential for confrontation and a greater potential for strife within the Republic, for the lawful intervention of another State in our domestic affairs, and for the destruction of a common loyalty and an undivided devotion to the Republic of all those who are permanently resident within our borders.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Edenvale told us today that for many years he helped to build the policy of separate development. I want to concede that the hon. member did indeed help to build this policy. But because he helped building this policy at the beginning only, he probably does not feel too good today when he sees how the policy is being taken to its full consequences while he is a member of a party that totally rejects and disparages those consequences. He is a member of that party because he has turned a somersault, or, as the people of Namaqualand say, “hy het baka-orie geslaan”. The hon. member also said that he had a high regard for the leaders of the Transkei and that he knew them very well. He also said it would have been a very great day if everyone had been at one and satisfied with this Bill. All the NP members, of course, are satisfied with this Bill, the Government of the Transkei is satisfied with the Bill and the Xhosa people, too, are satisfied with it. It is only the Progs and the UP members who are not satisfied. [Interjections.] The hon. member also said that the Transkei should have been afforded the opportunity of hearing other solutions concerning the future development of relations between peoples in South Africa. However, various speakers told that hon. member today that the Black peoples rejected the policy of the UP and that of the PRP. I quote—

This was in Butterworth. I quote further—

The hon. member for Edenvale also tried to indicate here today what a small number of voters had voted in a certain election in the Transkei in favour of the idea of independence for Transkei. However, all of them on that side of the House voted against our becoming a Republic.

Not I.

The hon. member for Edenvale says that he was loyal enough to vote for the Republic. All the other hon. members of that party, however, voted against the Republic, yet they accept this Republic today. The hon. member for Edenvale said another thing here today which we cannot allow to pass unnoticed. He said we could not remove the Blacks living in White South Africa by means of violence. Now I want to ask him: Who on this side of the House has ever said that the Blacks in South Africa are going to be removed by means of violence?

I did not say that.

That hon. member did say it.

He said they would not be welcome here.

The hon. member for Edenvale went on to say that if he had to vote for this Bill, he would be voting for a Bill which would make it possible for the citizens of another country—the Transkei—to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Republic of South Africa. The hon. the Deputy Minister of Bantu Development, however, made the position very clear in this debate. The citizens of the Transkei will be no more able to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Republic of South Africa than are the citizens of Lesotho or Botswana—and there are thousands of them who are working in the Republic of South Africa. Various speakers on this side of the House indicated that the UP and the PRP had been no more than spectators at all the significant moments on the road of South Africa’s constitutional development. Not only were they spectators at, but also a drag on South Africa on its road of constitutional development. When South Africa became a Republic, those two parties fought that development with might and main. Having regard to what happened when South Africa became a Republic, I understand why the hon. member for Durban Point said in this debate: “We vote against this Bill because we are opposed to fragmentation.” The hon. member for Cape Town Gardens also said by way of interjection a moment ago: “You are fragmenting South Africa!”

That is true!

Now we can well understand why, before South Africa became a Republic the UP was opposed to the fragmentation of the British Empire as well.

The UP itself is fragmented!

Because this Bill is supposedly effecting fragmentation, the hon. member for Durban Point and his party support the amendment that this Bill be read this day six months. Nevertheless, it is stated very clearly and unambiguously in the preamble to this Bill: “Whereas the Government of the Transkei should be an independent State …” Just as the UP opposed the advent of the Republic—when the NP was desirous that South Africa should become a Republic, the UP and the PRP are in opposition to the desire of the Xhosa people to give their fatherland, the Transkei, the status of an independent republic. The hon. member for Albany alleged last night that this was a very stupid Bill. I should like to advise the hon. member to read once again in Hansard what he and his party had to say when South Africa became a Republic. Now his party recognizes the Republic of South Africa. Possibly he will then admit shame-facedly that his party’s standpoint at the time was a stupid one. Possibly that hon. member and his party will admit shame-facedly in a few years’ time, that their standpoint in connection with the independence of the Transkei was a stupid one. [Interjections.] Yesterday evening the hon. member for Umhlatuzana advanced a serious argument here. He said the Xhosas were losing their citizenship of a large, strong and industrialized country and gaining in its stead the citizenship of a small, poor state. He went on to argue that this Bill was depriving people of their citizenship where it was valuable to them and giving them citizenship of a place where it was worthless to them.

Unfortunately the hon. member is not present at the moment. However, I should like to put a question to hon. members of his party. Basically, is this not the same type of argument which they and their predecessors used when Natal wanted to “march”? Is this not the same type of argument with which they tried to wreck the advent of the Republic of South Africa?

In my opinion it is scandalous that the hon. member for Umhlatuzana could advance such imperialistic arguments here. I want to remind him of the words of General Christiaan de Wet: “Ek staan liewer op ’n mishoop te midde van my volk, as om in paleise tussen vreemdes te verkeer.” This is why it was the ideal of the NP to give South Africa the status of a Republic. This is why the Xhosas want to give the Transkei the status of an independent Republic. I believe it was scandalous of the hon. member to have belittled the citizenship of the Transkei in that way, while he was aware of the fact that the hon. the Minister had said that the citizens of the Transkei would retain their privileges in the Republic of South Africa; that they would in fact be better off.

Whereas the Transkei has expressed the desire to become an independent Republic, the standpoint of the Opposition with regard to this Bill is one which may cause bitterness and hatred between White South Africans and Xhosas. The Xhosas have not yet forgotten, and the Opposition have not yet deviated much from the policy of Sir George Grey and his régime. I should like to quote from the book Africa is my Witness by Visamazulu C. Mutwa. He wrote—

1. (1)To break superstition and confidence in witch doctors;
2. (2)to achieve this through education and Westernization;
3. (3)to turn them into a labour force so that they might serve a useful purpose. It was thought that their lust for war was prompted by sheer idleness.
4. (4)To break or diminish the power of tribal chiefs, as this element stood in the way of all the rest.

What year was that?

1857. This policy resulted in one of the greatest tragedies amongst the Xhosa people. The hon. member for Rissik referred to it this afternoon. The tragedy had its roots in the Xhosas’ hatred of the Whites. I am referring to the history of Nongqaus—this was in 1857—a young Xhosa girl to whom three spirits allegedly appeared. They told her that upon a certain day the sun would rise red in the west. Then all the Xhosa chiefs and warriors would rise from their graves, chase the Whites into the sea and bring back much food and many herds of cattle with them, the condition laid down by the spirits, however, was that the Xhosas should kill all their cattle and small stock, destroy all their grain and not plough or sow the lands. The Xhosas believed these spirits and did so. The predicted day arrived, the sun rose as usual and no Xhosa warriors rose from their graves to chase the Whites into the sea. The result of this was that approximately 30 000 Xhosas died of hunger and those who survived, had no cattle, sheep or goats left for effecting a continued existence. Subsequent to this event the Xhosas had to go and work as labourers for the Whites to survive. I think in time to come the Xhosa people will be filled with a sense of gratitude to the NP with its policy of separate development in times of which they were told: There is the country demarcated by history for the Xhosa. There you may become a farmer, a doctor, an advocate, a lawyer, a shopkeeper, a member of Parliament, a Minister, and even a Prime Minister and there you may do creative work for your own fatherland and for your own future.

Today three spirits are appearing once again, like those who appeared to Nongqause in 1857, with a great promise to the Xhosa people. The message given to Nongqause at that time, led to the downfall of the Xhosa people. The three spirits which appear to the Xhosa, and to this House today, are the UP, the PRP and the English-language Press. Once again these spirits have a message of great promise, a message of an undivided South Africa, a message of the sharing of political power, total elimination of discrimination and a share in the riches of South Africa. These three spirits are trying to convince this House by means of this great promise that this Bill should be read this day six months, i.e. should be rejected, and that we should not comply with the desire of the Transkei for independence. These are the three spirits who are making the Transkeian people afraid and are trying to convince them to abandon the desire of becoming an independent republic. Today, however, these spirits come up against hard reality. Here I should like to quote from the preamble of the constitution of the Transkei and I believe that this will exorcise those spirits—

In clause 13 of the Transkeian Constitution Bill, to be passed by the Transkei later this year, provision is being made for a national flag for the Republic of Transkei.

In clause 14 provision is being made for their own coat-of-arms and in clause 15 for their own national anthem “ ’Nkosi Sikelel’i-Afrika!”, or “God bless Africa!” I should like to quote the following here with regard to the symbolism of the coat-of-arms of the Republic of the Transkei—

The slogan is: Unity is strength.

I should also like to tell this House of the symbolism of the flag, which will also exorcise these spirits. I quote—

Sir, my time has expired. In conclusion I therefore want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Stilfontein today in his tribute to the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, who spoke in 1970 of a dynamic third decade which we were entering and during which we would realize this fine ideal, not only for ourselves, but also for the Xhosa people. I should like to associate myself with the fine words and the congratulations which the hon. member expressed towards the hon. the Minister and his Deputy Ministers, as well as the Deputy Ministers who now have other portfolios in the Cabinet and the loyal officials of Bantu Affairs. In the time of Garibaldi, when Italy was down, there was a man called Guiseppe Mazzini. He addressed himself to the young people of his time and said, and this is also our message to the people of the Republic of the Transkei (translation): “Believe in your country, because without your country you have no place in the world. Believe in your people, because without your people you are alone and have no voice in the world. To live in a country and to belong to a people, is the privilege which God gave to man. ”

Mr. Speaker, the one aspect of the speech of the hon. member for Kuruman with which one can agree is that this is a historic debate. The political significance of this particular debate is something which other speakers have stressed and which should be apparent to all. However, what is to my mind important is that we should see the debate in the setting of history in South Africa. Looking at it that way, this is perhaps the most important debate in South Africa since 1948. In my view it is far more important than the debate on the Republic, because the debate on the Republic did not give independence, but merely changed our form of government. This, however, is to my mind, without detracting from the importance of the republican issue, the most important debate since 1948. What is significant is that in this important debate the prince is missing from Hamlet. This is Hamlet without the prince. Because where is the Prime Minister of South Africa in this debate? In this most constitutional matter, a Bill which in fact should have been introduced by the hon. the Prime Minister, a Bill of which the significance should have been put to the House by the hon. the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has been silent. I would have thought that the hon. the Prime Minister would have introduced this Bill and that thereafter the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would have risen and that we would have had a debate in which the whole focus would have been on the significance of this issue.

However, that is not what has happened. It is remarkable that this debate, to my mind, has deliberately been placed in a low key. It should not be placed in a low key, because depending on the outcome of this debate—and we know what the outcome will be—the future of South Africa in regard to a particular direction, is sought to be determined by this Government. That is why this is like Hamlet without the prince, if the Prime Minister does not participate in this debate.

I do not think that anybody can say that the giving of independence to a people, the giving of independence to a territory, particularly if it comes about by peaceful means, is not an important occasion. In fact, in normal circumstances it should be a case for celebration. It should be an event pregnant with confidence and hope for the emergent State. I want to say that it is a matter of regret that, if independence were in fact desired by the Transkeian people, this could not come about as a result of a unanimous Act of the legislative bodies of both the Republic and the Transkei.

I want to say without hesitation that many of us in this House who are going to vote against the Bill would, in fact, have liked to have voted for a Bill creating a new State. We would have liked to have voted for it. Even though the creation of such a State might not be in accordance with the implementation of our own federal concept, such a State could fit into a Southern African federation. In accepting the reality of the situation, the reality of what is going to happen in South Africa, there is no doubt that the Transkei will in fact become independent. That is a reality we have to accept when we are in Opposition. Knowing this, we would have liked to have voted for the creation of a new State by peaceful means. To me the creation of this would have been an exciting moment in which I would have liked to have participated.

However, the hon. the Prime Minister and the Government have made it impossible for me to do that, and for the same reason that it has made it impossible for me and for people who sit in these benches to vote for this measure, he has made his own position and the position of the Government and of the Transkei extremely difficult. He has done it delibereately.

The question that could be asked is what is, in fact, the purpose of Transkeian independence. Is it the act of a colonial power, as the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has virtually indicated?

Where?

Where? I shall quote it to the hon. the Minister.

†It says here: “This is the necessary legal step to relinquish its guardianship over one of its wards by declaring it to be independent.” What does that mean? The hon. member for Bloemfontein West, as well as other hon. members, find themselves in the predicament that this is now portraying South Africa as a colonial power, busy divesting itself of its colonies. This is the most disastrous thing the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development can do to South Africa, i.e. to brand us, an African power, as a colonial power. It is the most disastrous thing he could do. We are not decolonizing in Africa. We are supposed to be part of Africa. That has been the whole difference between us and the metropolitan powers. But now the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development portrays us to the world as a colonial power giving up our guardianship over territories we have ruled until now.