I move—

In debate after debate in this House we hear a beautiful little fairy story from hon. members opposite; we hear how the beautiful princess, South African Economy, was imprisoned and starved by a heartless stepfather, the United Party Government, until you could not tell her from Olive Oyle, Popeyes’ girl-friend. From this sorry plight she was rescued in 1948 by the dashing prince, Nationalist Party, who immediately married her and ever since she has never stopped growing until to-day she must look like Twoton Tessie. Sir, what are the facts? Has there been this tremendous acceleration of economic growth throughout all these years since this Government came into office? These are some of the adjectives to which I have listened in this House in the past to describe the growth that is supposed to have taken place—“remarkable”, “phenomenal”, “explosive”, “exceptional”. I think the hon. the Minister of Finance will agree that there is only one simple test as to whether a country is getting richer or not, and that is the national income figures. Let us see what has happened to the national income figures. In the South African Journal of Economics of September 1963, Mr. Stadler of the University of Pretoria has collated all the national income figures over a long period and given the rate of growth of a national income ever since 1911. When we look at these figures, what do we find? We find that in 1938 the national income was R752,100,000. This increased to R1,735,900,000 in 1948, which is an increase of plus-minus 120 per cent over these ten years under the United Party Government. What happened in the next ten years? From 1948 until 1958 the national income increased from R1,735,900,000 to R3,938,300,000, also an increase of plus-minus 120 per cent. In both these periods retail prices increased by about 50 per cent. We thus see that the South African economy grew just as fast between 1938 and 1948 under, according to hon. members opposite, a terribly bad Government, a useless Government, which left South Africa impoverished and its economy in a very poor state, as it did in the subsequent decade of 1948 to 1958 under a wonderful Government of all the talents. There was, of course, this difference, that in the ten-year period from 1938 to 1948 the United Party Government had the little difficulty of a world war on its hands—six years of world war when there was of necessity a tremendous divergence of the country’s resources and manpower to wasteful wartime production. On top of that we know what problems we had with shipping, with imports and exports, and imports and exports are more important to South Africa than to most countries in the world. As the result of these difficulties gold production actually declined over this period, and on top of all that one had an Opposition which to say the least was not very helpful. I have looked at some of the speeches which were made in that period by hon. members opposite who now occupy very important positions—and talk about Jeremiahs! You should read some of those speeches! They seem to resent every development of the economy in South Africa in that period.

In contrast to that period the present Government has governed in ten of the most prosperous years that the world has ever seen as far as economic growth is concerned. Never have the Western countries and countries like Japan grown so rapidly as in this post-war period. The value of gold production, through a whole lot of fortuitous circumstances, has increased over this period from R200,000,000 to R440,000,000, which is more than a doubling in value compared with the almost static conditions under the United Party Government. Despite this good fortune and, if we must believe hon. members opposite, the genius in their ranks, we find that in fact in this post-war period we have had no faster rate of growth than in those difficult war years, surely it is quite clear that we have not had this economic miracle which we are always told about by hon. members opposite. We have had very normal rates of growth in a period during which the rate of growth should have been much faster if one has to judge by other Western countries. I think the Minister of Finance will agree with me that all economic growth depends on investment and that the rate of net fixed investment decides how rapidly your economy will expand. Now, let us see what has happened to this rate of net fixed investment—the rate of the investment figure over the national income figure—since this Government took over. When this Government took over this figure was in the region of about 20 per cent, and since then, according to the Bureau of Economic Research of the University of Stellenbosch, we find that this is what has happened since 1951 onwards: When we look at Table V on page 14 we see that the rate of net fixed capital formation, expressed as a percentage of net national income, showed a strong downward tendency from 1951 onwards. If the Minister of Finance looks at that table he will see that in 1951, 1952 and 1953 it was 18.6, 21.6 and 20.6 per cent, respectively, which was more or less the level which obtained when this Government took over in 1948, but then it showed a downward tendency until in the last three years, in 1960, 1961 and 1962, it dropped to 13.3 per cent, 12.4 per cent and 11.7 per cent respectively. Private capital, the most productive form on which the returns are highest, dropped even more alarmingly from 12.7 per cent, 14.3 per cent and 11. 7 per cent in the first three years to 6.9 per cent, 6.4 per cent and 5.3 per cent, that is to say, less than half of what it was when this Government took over. How can the Minister come and tell us here, when your investment rate drops to such an extent, that this is a wonderful Government and that the country is growing very rapidly? How is it possible, unless they have found some magic whereby we can grow rapidly in spite of the fact that our investment rate drops all the time. No other country has ever solved that problem yet. Sir, it is because of this low rate of investment that the rate of growth that we have witnessed in the last 18 months, which is regarded as normal in the Common Market countries, should so quickly threaten inflation here so that the Minister himself is already feeling for the footbrake of the car and appeals for self-control as far as prices are concerned. Sir, I would like to say to the Minister that the best form of self-control is rapid economic growth and competition. There is nothing that induces an industrialist or a commercial man or for that matter a farmer to exercise self-control as much as competition, and unfortunately, for reasons which have been stated on this side again and again, this Government, in its policies generally, does not allow a free play of competition in our economy because of the artificial restrictions in so many spheres of our economic life. Sir, it would indeed have been remarkable if South Africa had the remarkable growth rate which Government members imagine. South Africa could then have been an object lesson to the whole Western world; hon. members opposite could then have explained to the Common Market countries and Japan, “If you want to grow rapidly, what you must do is to restrict your supplies of labour in the big cities by influx control; remove certain types of labour completely from certain areas, as is being done in the Western Province; restrict the acquisition of skills amongst large sections of your workers through job reservation and threaten to carve up your country into a number of new states but do not tell potential investors where the borders will be; keep out skilled immigrants by a restrictive immigration policy, and in this way you will grow rapidly. ” Sir, what has happened in fact? The Common Market countries, not being as clever as this Cabinet of all the talents, did exactly the opposite and grew twice as fast. Far from South Africa’s growth under this Government having been exceptional, it has slowed down tremendously. That is if one looks over the whole term. If the hon. the Minister wants to look just at the recent past he probably will feel very pleased but if he looks at the trend over the whole period and if he looks at his investment rate he will realize that this economy is growing far below its potential rate. Because the economic growth has slowed down so much the improvement in the standard of living of the people has also been very slow, and not very rapid as hon. members opposite claim.

On page 329 of its report, the Odendaal Commission, for instance, gives a table of the compound rate of growth of real per capita income. In other words, the figure that measures how rapidly the standard of living improves in any country. They give the figures for 31 countries over a period of seven years, eight years, 12 years and 13 years. It shows how enormously this figure which measures the improvement in the standard of living in countries has varied. It shows that in countries like the Argentine and Chile there has actually been a decline in the standard of living. South West Africa is one of the countries where there has been a great increase in this figure. Japan shows a rate of 7. 9 per cent per annum; the United Kingdom, which is regarded in the Western world as a country which is growing slowly—the Labour Party in the United Kingdom is certainly very worried about the rate of growth—has a figure of 2. 3 per cent; the Federation of Rhodesia grew at a rate of 3. 5 per cent; Germany at the rate of 5. 9 per cent, France, 3. 6 per cent, Italy 5. 4 per cent. Those are the figures at which the standard of living was improved, Sir. No South African figures are given because the source on which the commission relied did not give figures for South Africa. But according to the figures given in Table IV of the survey made by the Stellenbosch Bureau I have calculated—the Minister can tell me if I am wrong—that over a somewhat similar period, say from 1950 to 1962, our compound rate of growth per capita of real income was 1. 6 per cent and for the shorter period from 1955 to 1962 it was 1. 2 per cent. So it is quite clear that as long as the Nationalist Party Government remains in power the slower will our standard of living rise. If you compare these figures of mine, 1. 2 per cent and 1. 6 per cent—the Minister can take whichever he wants—with the table given here of 31 countries, and I take it that the Odendaal Commission took those 31 countries at random, you will find that far from heading the economic league, as hon. members opposite think, South Africa is near the bottom. We are amongst the last six countries of these 31.

Surely you know that is nonsense.

If it is nonsense, then the Odendaal Commission is talking nonsense in their report. As far as more or less Westernized communities are concerned, I am not talking about under-developed countries, I think South Africa’s rate of improvement in the standard of living, far from being one of the highest, is one of the lowest. It has probably developed half as fast as it should have. This is the economic sacrifice that we always hear such a lot about from hon. members on the Government benches that South Africa must make for apartheid and which we have in fact made. We have forgone an improvement in the standard of living that would probably have been twice as high as that which we have achieved. Of course, hon. members on the other side are entitled to say that this sacrifice was necessary to maintain White civilization. Whenever things are not going so well we have the slogan: Rather poor and White than rich and Black. It is only when there is a bit of a boom on that they forget that slogan and point out the tremendous development that has taken place. What has happened, Sir? Has the apartheid policy kept us poorer but whiter? If you look at the latest census figures I very much doubt this too. Because according to the latest census figures, over the decade prior to 1960, the Bantu had increased by over 1,000,000 in the cities compared with only 500,000 Whites. In the platteland the Whites had decreased by 46,000 and the Blacks had actually increased by 1,300,000. I think the true slogan should be: Apartheid makes us poorer but not whiter. I think that is a far more true description of apartheid than that it makes us poorer but whiter. How could it be otherwise, Mr. Speaker? Just look at the rate at which our labour force is growing. Professor Sadie recently made a calculation of the rate at which the White male labour force increased every year in South Africa and was likely to increase over the next five years, excluding White females and excluding immigration. He found that our White labour force increased by only 14,000 per annum. Sir, how can you expect a country with an economy of the magnitude of South Africa’s, a country with the capital formation which we have, a country with the resources which we have, to grow to its fullest extent with such a slow rate in its labour force? If apartheid is applied 100 per cent it implies that our whole economic development must be based largely on White labour. How can you have economic development if your rate of growth in the labour field is as slow as that? How can you have economic development if you do not have large-scale immigration; if you do not have a scheme of immigration which, until two years ago, the hon. the Minister and hon. members opposite have refused to embark upon?

Hon. members can claim that with more rapid industrialization the White man would have been swamped even to a greater degree but rapid economic growth, with a vigorous immigration policy, would probably have increased the White population by 1,000,000. We would, therefore, not only have been a richer country but Western civilization would have been far more strongly entrenched. The cost of this Government to the country, if you look at it objectively, Sir, has not only been a much slower rate of growth and much slower advancement of standards of living but the cost has probably been a million White people. Can you imagine what the immigration policy of this side of the House, a policy which has at last now been accepted by the Government, a policy which is equivalent to General Smuts’ policy before 1948, would have meant to South Africa, especially to Cape Town? Do you think the Foreshore development—which, incidentally is another monument to the United Party—would have been as undeveloped as it is today? That area would have been totally built-up, Sir. Every White person who comes to this country, with his greater technical and administrative skill, increases not only the national income in proportion to his own productive efforts but magnifies it because …

I want to ask the hon. gentleman, if he does not reserve jobs in the trades for those White men whom he is so anxious to come to this country how does he expect them to come?

Had I known it would be such a stupid question, Mr. Speaker, I would not have sat down for it. The proof of the pudding is that we had 47,000 immigrants during the last year of the Smuts Government without job reservation. They have only now reached that rate of immigration with job reservation and all. What the hon. member does not seem to realize is that if you do not restrict the development of South Africa, that development would be so rapid that there would be a continuous shortage of the type of skills which the Western immigrant has, skills which the ordinary non-White in this country, for historical and traditional reasons, has not got. The more rapid you grow the greater your shortage of White people, comparatively speaking, will become. That is what the hon. member does not understand. In any event, look at the large-scale immigration we had before this Government took over without job reservation. By restricting the economic development of this country you will in the long run restrict immigration too.

Without apartheid we would not have been so totally isolated from the Western world. South Africa would still have had powerful friends amongst the great Western powers. The Minister knows as well as I do that this isolation is one of the indirect reasons why we are not developing as rapidly as we should. Because we are so isolated and because these threats are constantly made against South Africa the climate for confidence is impaired both locally and overseas amongst industrialists. It is not only the direct results of apartheid that slows down the rate of growth of our economy but also the indirect results. One can only deduce, Sir, that apartheid, far from safeguarding the White man, has only led to a great slowing down of our economic growth and isolated the Western community here politically from the great Western communities overseas.

I realize, of course, that because of what I have said here, because I have pointed out how Government policy has slowed down South Africa’s development, I shall get the normal stock answer and be accused of slowing down that development myself. It is the old old argument that when we warn the Government about the consequences of its policy we are told that our warnings and not the Government’s policy are responsible for the consequences. It reminds me of the story I heard about President Kruger. He was out hunting and was sitting next to the camp fire one night. He had a tame baboon with him. The story goes that as it got colder and colder the baboon came nearer and nearer to the fire. President Kruger chased the baboon away every time and warned him that he would burn himself. But as it got colder the baboon went nearer and nearer to the fire until he did burn himself in the end. President Kruger then finished the story by saying: “Do you know what he did then? He bit my leg because he thought my warnings had burnt him instead of the fire. ”

The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) has tried hard, by jumping from one point to another, to prove that there is no longer confidence in the economy of South Africa and that things are not going well with us. The best that he could do was to admit that there was “a bit of a boom”. I can well understand why that is the hon. member’s approach. He always finds himself sitting between two stools. As a practical businessman with all his contacts in the business world he knows that things are going well. He knows that from reports. He has his hand on the pulse of this country’s economy. He knows how to use that knowledge. He knows how to advise others; he encourages others to come and invest here. That is his role as a businessman. But he also has another role and that is his role as a politician. As a politician his role is that of successor to the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson). At some time or other the mantle of Jeremiah must fall on his shoulders. That is why he has to attack and try, in his role as politician, to paint a sombre picture, a sombre picture which as a businessman he knows is not quite correct. When it comes to this sort of debate therefore he is a Dr. Jykell and Mr. Hyde. Before one can judge him one must always make sure which mask he is wearing. Let us hear, for example, what the hon. member said last year. According to Hansard he said this on 28 March 1963—

That is what the hon. member said last year. I can understand therefore why he is struggling to-day. Last year he said that we had an economy which was struggling on without a real future and to-day, in 1964, at a time when we are entering a period in which our economy is characterized by full employment, it is his duty, in his role as politician, to say something and to criticize us. Sir, we have an extraordinary degree of prosperity; we have increasing turnovers, we have a rising production, we have a bigger volume of rail transport, we have a bigger volume of exports. The ships which called at our harbours last month broke all records. In spite of what has been said here about our import restrictions, our imports have risen appreciably. Our companies have made bigger profits. There is an infectious optimism amongst all our businessmen, amongst entrepreneurs, amongst investors as well as amongst the general public. And that optimism is shared not only by our own businessmen but also by businessmen from abroad who come to this country.

Against this general background we can understand therefore why the hon. member over there had such difficulty in launching his attack in this debate. But he has to follow in the footsteps of the hon. member for Constantia who said earlier on in this debate that it took us 15 years to bring about a reasonable rate of growth. It is strange that even that hon. member is obliged to make this admission because he is the person who said in 1953 that South Africa used to be a country flowing with milk and honey but that South Africa had now become a land of locusts on a castor oil diet. The economy of South Africa has grown in recent years until to-day we find ourselves in this powerful position. The hon. member for Constantia says that the Government need not worry about capital. That is what he said the other day, but for years he has been telling us that South Africa is losing capital, that capital is being withdrawn from this country. To-day, however, he says that South Africa certainly need not worry about capital. Just think how sound South Africa’s position has become since those days. The hon. member for Constantia goes on to say that the decisive factor which has given rise to this development is the fact that industrialists and businessmen, after years of hesitation, have decided no longer to wait but to carry on with their programmes of development. That is correct; private businessmen have played an important role in this development, but the role which the hon. member over there ignores is the extremely important role which this Government has played with its policy in recent years in creating the confidence that there is in this country to-day. But apart from that, just think of the important role which has been played in this development by Government corporations like Iscor, Sasol, Escom and others. Think of the capital which has been ploughed into those corporations, and bear in mind the fact that this wheel which has been set in motion has not come to a halt yet. Private initiative has followed the lead given by the Government but the present upsurge is not attributable only, as suggested by the hon. member for Constantia, to an upsurge in the building industry or to the pay-as-you-earn system. Many other factors have contributed to the development which is taking place at the present time.

But in this matter hon. members on the other side, of course, are only following the lead which was given by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, because he himself visualized a very sombre future for South Africa. I want to remind hon. members that shortly after 1961 he stated that our policy would lead us to poverty; that there was no purchasing power in this country; that people were buying fewer goods than in previous years. This year there has been a rise of 8 per cent, and there was also a rise last year. He saw no future for South Africa. He said, “the Government’s apartheid obsession hits the living standards of all”. He saw no prospects for this country. He even went so far as to say: “The policies of this Government have undermined the confidence of the Western world and produced a stagnating economy in which living standards cannot rise. ” He could visualize no improvement in our standard of living. The hon. member for Jeppes had a good deal to say about this. Mr. Speaker, it is easy sometimes to juggle with figures. The hon. member for Jeppes referred to a 1962 survey of the economic situation in which our per capita growth was indicated. He referred to the period 1952-60. During that period our per capita growth was 1.4 per cent. Compare that with the growth of other countries. Our figure does not compare unfavourably at all with that of the United States or of Australia where there was the same rate of growth. It is even better than that of New Zealand and Canada. But the hon. member for Jeppes chose that period because that period suits him particularly well. Why does the hon. member for Jeppes not refer to the years which preceded 1952? In 1952 the National Party Government had been in power for four years. But the reason is clear. It suits him to refer to this period because the average was 1. 4 per cent. In the four years which he ignores the average was 2. 9 per cent. Their own average for the ten years from 1938 to 1948 was only 2. 6 per cent. That is why the hon. member for Jeppes remains silent about those four years when the figure was higher. The hon. member stops at 1960 because in 1961-2 it was 3. 2 per cent. He also remains silent about last year because in that year the figure was 3. 7 per cent. In dealing with our per capita growth therefore the hon. member takes the period from 1952 to 1960 because it suits him to do so, but he ignores the period from 1948 to 1952 when the figure was higher and he ignores the period after 1961 when the figure improved. After all, Mr. Speaker, we know that no country in the world has a constant rate of economic growth. The per capita increase is not always the same. We know that even in countries like Australia and Canada there has been a net decline in certain years. Our per capita growth is materially influenced by the position in other countries. The price of our raw materials dropped in 1948 and that had an effect on our per capita income. We know that after the war we had a period of full production and this had its effect on prices. But the hon. member does not take that into account: he says that we had a period of stagnation. When one analyses the situation one sees that the picture is not nearly as sombre as it has been painted here, particularly when one bears in mind that not one of the countries which he mentioned as countries with a high rate of growth—Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom—finds itself in the same position as the Republic. Those are countries where you have a stronger White group and a smaller low-income group. The position of no single country which he mentioned is comparable with ours. When one bears in mind the fact that our population growth averages 2. 3 per cent per annum and that the biggest growth in fact is in the lower-income group, I still say that our growth has been remarkable. I say therefore that there is no single country which is at all comparable with South Africa.

Sir, in past years the United Party tried to sow the seeds of distrust. They have tried to break down the confidence of our businessmen; with their predictions about our economic situation they have tried to influence the voters, to frighten away foreign investors and to deter the South African entrepreneur. That is what they have tried to do. They hoped and expected that there would be an economic setback out of which they could make political capital. They tried to do this particularly after Sharpeville; they tried to do so particularly after our withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations. Sir, you will recall the stories which they spread at that time.

To-day they come along with a new technique. Now that they realize that things are going well they come along with a new technique. The hon. member for Jeppes referred to a “little boom”. The hon. member for Constantia wants to know how long this situation is going to last. Once again they are trying to sow the seeds of doubt about our position. There are many factors which may influence our position, but, Mr. Speaker, there is still no material factor, as far as any reasonable thinking person can see, which can influence that development. Hon. members opposite want to know how long this situation is going to last, or they tell us that it will be of short duration. That is the new technique that they are following, and they do this in spite of the confidence which is reflected in all quarters Just think of the statement made by SEIFSA: just think of the report of the Economic Research Bureau of Stellenbosch University from which it appears that 80 per cent of the industrialists who were interrogated were expecting increased turnovers. Just think of the new undertakings which have been announced in just the past month, undertakings ranging from soda ash to the motor industry. There is hardly a sphere which is not covered by this expansion. We find that there is confidence everywhere but the question which is now being asked is how long this will last.

The Opposition has now obtained a new recruit in the shape of the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller). I notice that during the past few weeks he has also started to make contributions on economic issues. Amongst other things, he says—

If that is the hon. member’s approach I can only say that that is not the approach of this side. We have greater confidence in the future. In another article he wrote. “Our prosperity is not Nat.-dividend”. He then tried to show that all this development was attributable to foreign factors. All we can say is this, Mr. Speaker: In all these years this Government has demonstrated its confidence in this country: it has demonstrated it by deeds. It has taken the lead and the initiative. It has taken administrative steps to improve conditions. It has given the right stimuli to that development by means of its economic policy as well as its fiscal policy. But apart from that it has seen to it that the infra-structure is right and that there is sufficient water, sufficient power, sufficient transport facilities, sufficient roads, sufficient schools and hospitals, etc., for that development. The Government has not been idle during this period. It has ensured that we have the necessary infra-structure, which is so essential to the development which we are experiencing at the present time. If the Government had not had that confidence in the future we would not have been in the fortunate position of having been able to cope with this enormous development. Hon. members opposite overlook the fact that the Government acted timeously. Take immigration, for example. The steps which are being taken today were initiated and put into operation a few years ago already, and to-day we are reaping the fruits. As far as our labour is concerned the Government is called upon to meet our labour requirements to a certain extent, but here too the Department of Labour took timeous steps, by way of our industrial legislation, to ensure that we would have sufficient mechanics and other artisans who could make their contribution to this development. Hon. members on the other side of the House often forget the effect which the things that they said had on the minds of private businessmen. They now tell us that those private businessmen have made a great contribution to the development which is taking place at the present time. That is correct, but it was the gloomy prophecies of the Opposition which caused those people to wait so long. If they had not predicted such a sombre future—and I suppose most of those people are favourably disposed towards the United Party and in the nature of things they could therefore expect the United Party to give them a lead—those people would not have waited so long. This Government can say to-day that this development has taken place in spite of the efforts made by that side to sow the seeds of distrust. We have had this development as a result of the steps taken by the Government and in spite of the actions of the Opposition.

The hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) has referred to a so-called statement by Dr. Viljoen in which he stated that there were numbers of dying mines and that provision must be made for 130,000 people who were formerly employed in the mines. That statement may have appeared in the Press, but the hon. member says that that statement was not subsequently repudiated. We have tried to ascertain what the position is and it seems that a letter was written to the Star on 3 September 1963 in which it was pointed out that that report was incorrect. That correction was never published. Here I have the minutes of, I think, the Chamber of Commerce in which the statement made by Dr. Viljoen is set out. This is what Dr. Viljoen said—

He then proceeds to analyse where they should be absorbed. I can only point out that he stated in his speech that 48,000 per annum must be absorbed in our industries. When we analyse our industrial figures, we find that the increase in our industrial section in 11 months, up to the end of November, was not 48,000 but 63,000. It therefore exceeded the normal growth. The hon. member concentrated his attention on the report that these dying mines would increase the number by 132,000 people per annum, and now that he has been corrected he says that the report was not denied. But one expects the hon. member for Springs to know better; one expects him to know how many workers will be affected by the closing of these dying mines. Surely he ought to know that the closing of these mines will not result in 132,000 people per annum being thrown onto the street as unemployeds. When the hon. member for Springs talks about the effect of the closing of the mines he reminds me of the town-crier which one finds in some cities on the Continent of Europe. He is the first man and the last man who always shouts about it, but I think the hon. member cannot mention one sector of the economy of Springs, which he represents, where there has been any retrogression at all. The population of the municipality is increasing, the building activities of the municipality are increasing, as the building plans prove, and there has been industrial expansion. I do not know why the hon. member comes here time and again and raises a hullabaloo, which is quite unjustified, because after all there are many members in this House who know what the position is and the hon. member ought to know it too. Here sits the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg). More mines have closed there than in other parts but I think if I referred to Krugersdorp as a ghost town or a dying town the hon. member would very quickly correct me and say that that is not correct and that there is continued expansion, and the same applies to practically every town on the Rand.

Tell us about your policy in respect of these dying mines.

I want to tell the hon. member that there are negotiations going on, and those negotiations are going on with the Chamber of Mines. There are certain factors which make it desirable to keep certain mines with large ore reserves on their feet. But every mine, whether it be a gold mine or a copper mine or an asbestos mine, is faced with the inevitable fact that sooner or later it will have to close; there will be no more gold to mine and all the assistance in the world cannot save certain of those mines. Let us be practical with regard to this matter. They cannot be kept going, whatever assistance they may be given. But the assistance which is given must be given judiciously and must be designed to keep the mines going in the expectation of a higher gold price. Negotiations in that regard are constantly taking place. The hon. the Minister of Finance stated last year that the money was available and that a formula must be worked out in this connection. The hon. member need not be perturbed therefore. As a result of that negotiation, certain submissions have been made which still have to be considered and an announcement will probably be made by the Minister of Finance at the appropriate time, but to come along at this stage and to say that there are mines which are closing and that there is a great deal of unemployment as a result of the closing of mines is to paint the wrong picture.

May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether it is Government policy to encourage the establishment of industries on the borders of the reserves at the expense of the Witwatersrand area?

Let me just give the hon. member the figures. He says that the development of border industries is going to harm industrial development on the Witwatersrand. Mr. Speaker, here again the hon. member is trying to raise a false alarm, but he does not know what the facts are. Let me give him the facts. We admit that 1963 was a year of industrial expansion and the hon. member will also admit it, but an analysis has been made of all the industries which required import permits during 1963, and that includes all new industries which are based on imported goods as well as the expansion of existing industries; it therefore includes the majority of our industries, and it appears from an analysis of that industrial expansion that 55 per cent of those applications came from industries established in Southern Transvaal. In other words, more than 50 per cent, i. e. 55 per cent of our industrial expansion, took place in the Southern Transvaal. But when we go on to analyse this 55 per cent we find that 82 per cent of the 55 per cent are situated in the central Rand area. That is the position, that is the concentration which one finds in the central Witwatersrand area. The hon. member need not therefore be so terribly perturbed.

A good deal of reference has been made here to the problem of inflation, and I want to say that in my opinion the Government has shown in past years that it is well aware of the necessity to check inflation, and in that regard our Government, in comparison with the Government of any other comparable country, has had a very great measure of success. It appears from the 1962 returns of the First City National Bank that as far as South Africa is concerned the annual depreciation of our currency was 2. 9 per cent, that of Japan 3 per cent, that of Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom 3. 3 per cent, New Zealand 3. 4 per cent, Australia 4 per cent, France 4. 2 per cent. It is clear from this list that the depreciation of the South African currency was particularly low during that period in comparison with these other countries. But let us see what happened in the preceding year. In the Statist we find a comparison between different countries and it appears from this comparison that as far as South Africa is concerned the depreciation in 1961-2 was only 1 per cent—particularly low therefore—and that in Austria, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom it was 3. 7 per cent. So we can go on and quote New Zealand, France and Japan. In practically all these countries their currency depreciated to a much greater extent than that of South Africa. I can also refer hon. members to the survey in the Financial Times, in which a comparison was also made with regard to the cost of supper, bed and breakfast, cigarettes, petrol, food, clothing, rental and entertainment, and it appears that in Johannesburg which was compared with 20 other cities, the cost of these items was by far the lowest, except for Zurich, Lisbon and Delhi. It is not correct therefore to say that there has been a great measure of inflation here. But when we look at the latest figures of the Department of Statistics we find the same position. There is no great increase in our cost of living, and that is borne out by the fact that as far as food is concerned, for example, there was a drop in the index from November 1962 to November 1963. As far as our industrial products are concerned there was a very small increase of about 1 per cent. In the case of imported goods there was a bigger increase. This only goes to show that even in the case of our own industrial products the cost index has not risen as much as in the case of imported products. But apart from that we must bear in mind that we have fuller employment and that we have a much bigger production than we had in former years. Our own industries have expanded by 12. 9 per cent! This expansion has not been fortuitous. When we compare our own position with that of other countries, we find that in Italy the industrial expansion was 11 per cent, in France 6 per cent, in Japan 5 per cent, in the United Kingdom 2 per cent, in Germany 5 per cent. Our own industrial achievement in the past year therefore by far exceeds that of these comparable countries. It is interesting to see in which sectors there has been the greatest growth. Take the printing and paper industry. It has been our policy in recent years to encourage our own paper industry and to try to substitute our own product for the imported product. We have succeeded in doing so, hence this increased production. We feel that this is necessary because we have a large forestry production which can now be utilized to the best advantage in our own country. The other big increase took place in basic metal industries, in metal products, where there was an increase of 21 per cent. This increase too has not come about fortuitously; it is the direct result of Government policy, particularly in the case of our motor-car industry, to ensure a bigger South African content, to provide our own machinery, and to push up our steel production. It is not simply fortuitous therefore that this development has taken place in the private sector. The necessary encouragement has been given. [Time limit.]

The hon. Deputy Minister has dealt briefly with the question of the dying mines. One of my colleagues will follow him on that matter. I want to speak to the House this afternoon on another matter concerning mining activity. In 1962, we passed a Bill in this House dealing with pneumoconiosis, and I can say from the time that this Act came into force there has been much dissatisfaction amongst the mineworkers particularly, and also in the mining industry. I feel, Sir, that something has gone wrong seriously with the working of this Act. I am very perturbed at what the Minister told us here at the time of the introduction of the Bill. He told us that this was an agreed measure, he emphasized again last year that it was an agreed measure, and yet on reading through the address of Mr. P. H. Anderson, who was president of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines, we read with concern what he has said. That was last year, in 1963, and he says—

The hon. Minister at the time told us in no uncertain terms that all the investigations that were necessary had already been done, but when this mission returned, this private mission of the Gold Producers Association, it reported “that it was satisfied that the basis of assessment now laid down in our Act was medically unsound”. That is even before the Act came into existence. We passed it here and before it was promulgated the Chamber of Mines had already said that this Act cannot be of any use to the mineworkers. Not only that, but the present Act which was shown overseas did not have the support of the leading authorities in Europe. Sir, if that was an agreed measure, why was it necessary for the Chamber of Mines immediately to send a mission overseas?

Why don’t you ask the Chamber of Mines?

The Chamber of Mines did know quite well that this was an unsatisfactory state of affairs, and it makes us suspect even more that there was no concurrence between the Chamber of Mines, the mine-workers and the Government. Sir, the Act came into operation on 1 October 1962, and statistics have emerged from its working which confirm the industry’s fears. Not only is the industry perturbed, but the mineworkers are perturbed. A month or so ago, I had a deputation of mineworkers who came to see me. I took their names and particulars. It was a small group and I sent a letter to the Minister of Mines and I asked him to investigate the complaints of these mineworkers. They did not complain about conditions in the mines, they did not complain about their salaries. What they did complain about was the certifications that were altered. I want to make myself clear: The people who came to me had previously been certified in the second stage of pneumoconiosis. With new examinations they were classified as being in the group from 20 to 50 per cent. That put them back in the first stage. These people are thoroughly confused. But there might be some excuse for doing that. However, I cannot excuse the gross mistakes that have been taking place in the bureau. I am not talking without my book. I have the names, the P. F. numbers and details of some of these people here.

How many are there?

If there is one it is enough. I am not concerned about numbers. I am concerned about the efficiency of the system which determines whether or not a man is fit to do his work, and if it is only one it is sufficient. Numbers do not influence my attitude towards the certification that takes place. But we go further and see in this report—

That is rather disturbing, when we have an Act under which people must work, and then to find that directives have been sent out by the Minister which circumscribe the work of the medical profession who deal with this particular type of examination. And we have also found that since then, there has been a startling increase in the rate of certification. What does that mean? Surely it means that the numbers who have come up for examination have been fairly constant, that the numbers who have now been found to be suffering from these first, second or third stages of pneumoconiosis have gone up. Why have they suddenly gone up? Have the conditions in the mines deteriorated to make more people contract pneumoconiosis, or is the position that previously too many have been passed through who did not receive certification?

Do you speak for the Chamber of Mines?

This is a very serious state of affairs. And what is more serious, is that when we get people who come up for re-examination, such as this man here, of whom I have the particulars here, what do we find? This man was examined in 1957 and warned: First stage. In 1957 he was boarded out and put on the surface. In 1962, he was re-examined and put back in the first stage. A month later he was re-examined again, by request of his panel doctor, and he is now lying in the Sprinkell Sanatorium with tuberculosis. That is the sort of thing we find that has been going on. I have got the details here, but I am not going to bore the House with these details, but I would be pleased if I could meet the hon. Minister or the Deputy Minister of Mines to discuss this matter with them.

You can come and see me at any time.

But you see, Mr. Speaker, I have already submitted one list and have asked for an investigation to take place and I have not received a reply. I have received an acknowledgment of my letter, but a reply following the investigation has never been received by me. Sir, the hon. Minister said last year that he would be prepared to revise the Act if it is not working satisfactorily. I am telling him now that it is not working in a satisfactory way, and I say that the time has come now for him to revise this Act, not to let it go on as it is now. Because it is not satisfying the workers, and it is not satisfying the Gold Producers Committee.

The Minister is coming with an amendment.

I do not know, but until we see that amendment I must state my claim here for a revision and I must continue asking for a revision. It is only because of what we have been asking for in the past that there were certain changes made in the Act, but it is not being implemented properly, because directives have been going out from the Minister. The Minister has got no right to tell the doctors how they must examine. The Minister has got a schedule laid down and he must carry out that schedule and not determine who shall be in the first stage, the second stage or the third stage.

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with a group of 40,000 to 50,000 people. I do not say that 40,000 to 50,000 people in this group are all dissatisfied. But let us make these people in this group satisfied that they are going to receive a fair deal when they go up for examination; let them feel that the best is being done for them. That is what they are asking for. They are not asking for anything else. I will be told that these are exceptions and difficulties that have arisen, and that the Examining Board is not infallible, that people can make a mistake in diagnosis. I know that, but I have been saying this here for six years that mistakes are being made, over and over again. This is a very disconcerting feeling for the mineworker when he goes up for examination and he thinks that he is not going to get a fair deal. I have had it said to me over and over again by these people that it is no good going over there: “I always get the same reply that nothing is wrong with me. ” Is it possible that there are people who have been working on the mines for 30 years and who still show no signs of fibrosis of the lungs? Is it possible that they are not yet in the first stage of pneumoconiosis after working underground for 30 years? How can these people have confidence in the Examining Board if year after year they go up and year after year they are rejected? The panel doctors will tell you that these people are suffering from ill health that some of them are almost incapable of going to work regularly, that the absenteeism is increasing among these people. Yet when they go up for examination they are rejected and are being told sometimes that they are good for another 30 years. Some of them do not live another 30 months after that. I cannot let this opportunity go by without expressing my fears that there is something seriously wrong with the whole certification system as it stands now. We cannot possibly allow it to go on as it is now, and I ask the hon. Deputy Minister to investigate this matter forthwith, to see if there are any grounds for these people’s fears, to see if there is any fault with either the doctors, or the machinery, or the interpretation of the findings. But please let us find out what the reason is for these mistakes and let us remove the faults. We are dealing with a group of people who are the keystone of our economy. Let us keep them happy. They do not want to be pampered. All they ask for is a fair deal, and we on this side of the House want to help them to get it.

I want to know from the hon. member for Rosettenville (Dr. Fisher) whether he spoke on behalf of the mineworkers or on behalf of the mine owners. I know he is very concerned about the contribution the mine owners have to pay into the Pneumoconiosis Fund. But we do not want to disclaim paternity for the Pneumoconiosis Act of 1962. We want to remind the hon. member for Rosettenville that he was one of the great advocates for that measure.

Yes and I shall be the first to say that things have gone wrong.

We should like to refresh his memory as to what he said about that legislation because it is very easy to come here and to pass judgment before the legislation has been given a reasonable chance. The hon. member for Rosettenville said the following—

Quite right; I stand by that.

That was the admiration he had for that legislation. But after that Bill was thoroughly discussed in this House at the time and after all the clauses were properly considered in the Committee Stage the hon. member expressed himself as follows when the third reading was reached—

Then he goes on and says—

That was what the hon. member said a year ago.

Quite right.

We know that certain irregularities may take place in the application of the Act and that certain defects may manifest themselves, but I now want to know from the hon. member, as I asked him at the beginning of my speech, whether he spoke on behalf of the mineworkers or the mine owners. I want to ask him how many complaints have appeared in the public Press over the past six months in connection with the working of the Act. We who represent mineworkers constituencies live in the closest contact with the organized mineworkers and we know what is happening within their ranks. We know they are negotiating with the Chamber of Mines and various institutions in order to have the Act improved. I recently read the following in the latest issue of the Mynwerker—

They say that if it does not become law in 1964 it will in 1965. They say the executive council is not prepared to approach the Government with legislation with which they are not satisfied and that because of that it is desirable firstly to come to an agreement with the Chamber of Mines before the Minister is asked to introduce legislation. Briefly it amounts to this that the Mineworkers Union is having a new Act drafted which will in due course be submitted to the Minister. I think it is a pity that the hon. member for Rosettenville should try this afternoon to make political capital from the dissatisfaction that exists in the ranks of the mineworkers and that he does not wait to see what amendments they themselves will suggest. I have the utmost confidence that this Government will, as in the past, look after the interests of the mineworkers and that it will lend a sympathetic ear to the representations of the Mine-workers Union to revise the Act. We just want to tell them that they will gain nothing by trying to make political capital out of this dissatisfaction. Nor is it correct to say that the Chamber of Mines did not agree to the Pneumoconiosis Act of 1962. The hon. member has quoted what Mr. Anderson said, but here I have the speech made by Mr. Koch to the Free State and Transvaal Chambers of Mines, in which he said—

Surely it is an agreed measure as far as the Chamber of Mines is concerned and we always have the word of the Minister that after the Act has been tested out for a reasonable period, he will effect the necessary amendments. I can give the assurance this afternoon—this is how I feel—that those amendments will be made as soon as the Mineworkers Union are sure what they want in the Act.

Mr. Speaker, the attitude adopted by the hon. member for Welkom (Mr. H. J. van Wyk) does not merit much reply, but I would ask him to consider whether he thinks that we on this side of the House must act and live on the basis of trusting the Minister if we find that people come to us with complaints, and that we must keep quiet about such complaints because if we say something about them we are making political capital. According to him, therefore, we are precluded from bringing to the notice of this House certain things which are not working out as anticipated.

From there I want to come to some of the remarks made by the hon. the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs. He tore into the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Taurog) in regard to his remarks about the marginal mines and replacing them by industry on the Reef, and he said inter alia, that the hon. member for Springs was deliberately giving a wrong impression of the future of Springs and of the Rand. If my colleague is wrong, the Minister himself was wrong because in 1961 this is what he said, in December of that year—

This was in December 1961. We had been raising the matter for years before that and it seems that we will have many more years to wait. He went on to say—

So much for his stricture on my hon. colleague, who was not talking about this month or next month, but about the future of Springs and about the Rand.

Equally scathing was the hon. the Minister of Finance when he dealt with the speech of the hon. member for Springs, particularly in regard to his appeal for assistance for the marginal mines. The Minister stated that his Cabinet always had the interest of the Rand in mind and the destiny of the marginal mines. Now, let us see what has really happened over the last few years, and let us remember the constant reminders given to us, when we spoke common sense and economics, that where the life of a people is at stake economic laws must be broken down if necessary. And let us remember the constant reminders to the hon. member for Jeppes that when he is giving sound economic advice he is forgetting the imponderables. So we are always rather at a disadvantage on this side when we talk sense, because some psychic factors are brought up which cannot be explained in words but which really affect the position according to the hon. Ministers.

Let us look at what this Government has done in regard to this problem, which under present conditions more and more hits at the heart of our economy. In 1956 we were told by the then Minister that the question of these marginal mines was under close scrutiny, and that he had arranged a conference to investigate and report. We had been arguing about this for years before 1956. In 1958 the report was published and we were told by a new Minister that he had seen the report and that he intended approaching the Cabinet for support in connection with the proposal that certain railway charges be met out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund in order to assist the marginal mines. In 1959 the same Minister under pressure stated that he was still going into it, and that was all we could get out of him. The year 1960 passed, and in 1961 he told us that he could not recommend help through railway rates and from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Believe it or not, he said that a difference in railway rates could not be made to benefit only one section of the community, a very wise statement indeed, in view of the fact that everyone on this side knows what the mining industry means to the country. We have been pressing this matter for years and all we have got out of the Government was the statement in 1958 that the Minister was approaching the Cabinet for assistance to the marginal mines, probably through a reduction in railway rates, and then we were told in 1961 that the Minister of Transport has refused this concession. Now what control the Minister of Transport has over the Consolidated Revenue Fund is something which is probably understood only by the Government and its Cabinet. Then in 1962 we got a new Minister, and at least his verbal approach to the problem gave us a ray of hope. Then in 1963 the Minister of Finance advised us that he had appointed a Cabinet Committee to investigate the matter, and later in the session the Minister of Economic Affairs told us that the Government had decided to give R1,000,000 to meet the cost of pumping out water under certain conditions. We stated at the time that this assistance was not nearly enough, and now I want to tell the House of some things that have happened since.

In Benoni, my own constituency, the New Kleinfontein Gold Mine gave notice of closing, and a deputation from the Benoni Municipality interviewed the Deputy Minister in December and he told them, inter alia, that the International Monetary Fund rules precluded the Government from subsidizing the gold mines. He told them it was not a good proposition to pay £1 2s. 6d. for £1’s worth of gold, but that the Government was still investigating and hoping to find ways of helping. In the Press he is reported as saying this—

If anyone has heard a more fatuous argument on such an important matter, I should like to know about it—

Sir, this problem of helping the marginal mines is of paramount importance. On a parliamentary tour of the gold-mining industry towards the end of last year, we were taken to Crown Mines and we were told that with costs as they were then there was gold worth R77,000,000 in the mine which could not and would not be mined. The estimate at New Kleinfontein was R20,000,000. The Minister himself advised us in this House last year that each 25c rise in costs would cost the country, R287,500,000 worth of gold, which could not be economically mined, and yet we can get no further at all with this question of assisting in the production of this gold. The Deputy Minister said that the International Monetary Fund rules precluded a subsidy, but Rhodesia is assisting its marginal mines. I am reading from the Financial Mail of 6 December—

The report goes on to say—

So much for the fact that assistance cannot be worked out on a basis which will satisfy the I. M. F. I say quite definitely that this problem is being played with, and at the same time the interests of the whole Reef are being played with.

I read just now the speech made by the Deputy Minister at Springs, to the effect that if the mines closed existing industries would have to double and then still increase. Now let me tell you what happened to one particular industry in the Roodepoort area. A big factory there found it difficult to get labour, and it was encouraged to open another factory at Rosslyn, near Pretoria, where they would finish up with five or six Whites and probably 200 or more Bantu, and would receive very great assistance in other ways, such as lower wages, etc. I do not want the Minister to tell me that Rosslyn is a border area. Rosslyn is on the border of Pretoria; it is in the peri-urban area of Pretoria, and within a very few miles of a portion of the country densely populated by Whites. For practical purposes it is no further from Pretoria itself than some of the African towns to the south-west of Johannesburg. This factory was encouraged to open another factory at Rosslyn, where, I repeat, the proportion of Blacks to Whites would be many times greater than was permitted in Roodepoort. The factory in Roodepoort, in terms of influx control regulations, was precluded from getting labour from anywhere outside its own area. Just over the boundary there was plenty of labour available in the south-western Native townships of Johannesburg, but they were not allowed to get labour from there. They were encouraged to go to Rosslyn, where obviously they could produce more cheaply using only African labour, to all intents and purposes. To show the nonsensical attitude in regard to their not being allowed to get labour from other areas adjoining Roodepoort, I asked a question this Session—

Please remember, Sir, that on the Reef they are not allowed to draw labour from the adjoining areas, no matter how much labour is available. The reply was as follows—

Pretoria can draw from a vast hinterland, but Roodepoort cannot draw the available labour just across the street. I wonder what the hon. member for Roodepoort has to say about this. One Deputy Minister says that on the Reef we will need more than double the industries to replace the marginal mines, but then we get this claptrap from some other Minister.

Mr. Speaker, I want to show you how far this is going on the Reef and at Roodepoort. The Consolidated Main Reef Mine has given notice of closing. It is within a stone’s throw of this industry which is being forced out of Roodepoort, and my information is that the C. M. R. will cease mining operations completely in March. So there we have it. In regard to assistance to the marginal mines, we are fed with words every year, and finally a little drop is given to keep us quiet in regard to this matter which affects our economy so terrifically; we are given R1,000,000 to pump water. We are very grateful for that, but I do not think it amounts to much. As far as Roodepoort and every other Reef constituency is concerned, we find exactly the same position. An industry established there is refused permission to expand and is forced to move to Rosslyn where there is a vast hinterland of labour, whilst in fact in Roodepoort they can get all the labour they want from just across the street. So all that is happening on the Reef is that the Government are killing off the mines and the industries. So much for their words. Let us have actions.

There is one other matter I should like the Minister to consider. It is perhaps not within his power to do anything about it, but he must realize that when he is at the helm of finances he has to consider every factor. Along the Reef every business organization and industry says: Please make the Reef one influx control area, and do not cut us up into little, more or less, municipal areas, where, if we happen to be short of labour and the municipality next door has labour, we cannot use it. This is a very sensible suggestion, but I am sure that just because it is sensible it will not be accepted.

Then the Deputy Minister advised me in reply to a question that the Government this Session was still considering ways of helping the marginal mines. I wonder whether the Minister of Finance can tell me when we can expect that information? I realize that he will not give us his Budget secrets, but cannot he give us some idea? We have been waiting for eight years; can he not tell us whether it will be another eight years, or whether it will be a question of months? I am afraid that every mine will close down before any real assistance is given.

Lastly, I want to ask the Deputy Minister whether he still stands by what he said in Springs in 1961, and if so, how does he reconcile this statement with the inducement given to the factory in Roodepoort to move to Rosslyn just at the time when the mine which is the backbone of the economy of Roodepoort is closing down. Perhaps the hon. member for Roodepoort himself might tell us.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) will forgive me if I do not go further into the question of the border mines in his constituency. I admit that that is a national problem, but the hon. member has not convinced me on two points. The first is that the Government is now supposed to be responsible for those declining mines, and the second is that the Government is not doing anything to meet that difficulty. That is why I want to follow another direction. I want to talk about the declining United Party.

Having listened to this debate over the past few days, Sir, and having summarized the achievements of the United Party you realize how true the words are which Professor Edgar Brookes uttered when he referred to the United Party as follows, and he said this as far back as 1958. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) will find this reported in African Affairs, and the hon. member will admit that Professor Brookes is not really a friend of the National Party. He says this—

The hon. member for Hospital will agree that Professor Brookes has hit the nail on the head. I do not think it will be long before the final chapter on the party opposite is written. I just want to give you a summary, Sir, of the way hon. members have acted in this debate. Just think how they have hedged away from the cardinal problems of the country and think how they have dwelled on the smaller issues. Take the debate we have had to-day. The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) advanced his financial arguments. He states that there was a 120 per cent increase in our national income from 1938 to 1948 and then he complains that it was only 120 per cent from 1948 to 1958 as well. He realizes that under our régime the growth has indeed been greater because if you compare the total figure of the national income of 1938 with that of 1958 you will find a big difference. But he reduces it to a percentage basis in order to water down the figures somewhat.

Hon. members opposite—and I want to be quite fair towards them—no longer have the bite in them which they used to have; they are only barking to-day. Even the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) no longer has any teeth. They either bark or growl, but they no longer have the political teeth you would have expected them to have. Over the years their teeth have been extracted. I am now referring to the older guard such as the hon. member for Constantia, but when you look at the younger ones you would think they have never had any teeth.

I ask myself this question: How is it that during the short period since 1948, the United Party has deteriorated so consistently. I have philosified over the question and come to the conclusion that various factors have encouraged that deterioration. The first, of course, is their policy, but I do not want to go into that at the moment. I refuse, however, to accept that it is only the policy of the United Party that has sent them downhill at such a pace. It is hard to imagine how a party which had a policy and which still had such a large majority in 1943 could have deteriorated to such an extent. Another reason for their rapid deterioration is this: I think the United Party has finished playing its historical role in South African politics. There is no more room for them. They have simply finished their political role; they had to fill the gap between, what I shall call the colonial period in the South African history and the period when we became a Republic, a Republic of which I believe the hon. member for Pinelands is as proud as I am. Now that we have the Republic there is no role left for them to play. That is why I say that if anything has passed judgment on the United Party it is this period and all that remains for us to do is to bury the United Party. I also found another reason why the United Party is going downhill at such a pace and that is because they have lost all confidence in themselves. They do not know where they are in politics. That is why they have developed this disease of always allowing a section of the English-language Press in South Africa to dictate to them. I do not want to treat the entire English-language Press in South Africa on the same basis but certain elements in the English-language Press in South Africa have taken the United Party in tow. It was actually amusing, before we had the no-confidence debate this year, to see how the English Press in South Africa actually first put the United Party through their paces, they made them turn to the right and to the left, made them march, and then fed them on the arguments which they had to advance in this House; they practically took the United Party by the scruff of the neck and shook it so that it would afford us a little opposition. I understand, of course, that the United Party must to a large extent take the English Press in South Africa in consideration. They are no longer concerned whether they comply with the wishes of the voters; they are only concerned about one thing and that is for how long the English Press in South Africa will continue to support them and for that reason, of course, they have to dance to the tune of the English Press in South Africa. What will become of them without the support of that Press? There is not a single newspaper worth mentioning that supports them. If the English Press in South Africa were to lend their support to the Progressives or to the Liberal Party, the United Party would tumble from the top to the bottom like a bag of potatoes.

Hon. members opposite suffer from another ailment and that is to oppose everything that comes from this side of the House. They tried to learn their lesson, of course, in the days when the National Party was still in Opposition, but they must not confuse the two parties. When the National Party was in Opposition they had, from the nature of things, to oppose everything suggested by the United Party Government because that side did very little that was right, that was South Africa. To-day they think: Well, the National Party was a good Opposition by opposing everything and we are going to follow their example exactly; if that side of the House introduces legislation, no matter what it is about, we shall simply oppose it. Because they act like that they say “no” when the Government says “yes” and when the Government says “no” they say “yes”. The Opposition do not always know why they are saying “no” with the result that their sins are beginning to catch up with them as has happened in the case of the General Law Amendment Act which they supported last year. When they get outside, away from the parliamentary atmosphere, they become afraid of the voters and of the English Press and then they start looking for excuses. They then return to this House and say: No, this or that section of the Act is really not good. Hon. members on that side of the House should study their role as Opposition in South Africa better and then we shall have a better atmosphere in this Parliament.

But the United Party suffer from yet another ailment and that is that they are actually harbouring two groups. The one group is the moderate group which consists of members like, let us say, the hon. members for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) and Pinelands (Mr. Thompson), etc., but then they also harbour the liberal group, a liberal group which uses the United Party to get into this House and who then become unmanageable and take advantage of the United Party. They use the United Party as the Trojan Horse just to come into this House and the moment they are here they forget about the principles of the United Party and then they really run amuck …

Along the road to Houghton.

…after the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman). The hon. member for Houghton sneaked into this House in the Trojan Horse. The former member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) did the same. All those chickens were hatched on the other side of the House. Those liberals are to-day sitting in Parliament. Do not think for a moment, Sir, that they are only making things difficult for the National Party Government; they are also making things even more difficult for hon. members opposite. I think the biggest hiding hon. members opposite have ever had, they have had from members who formerly belonged to the United Party.

I briefly want to refer to the Colour policy of the United Party in respect of which there is still a great deal of misunderstanding. You can take 15 hon. members opposite, Sir, and no two of them will tell you the same explanation of the United Party’s Colour policy because nobody knows precisely what it is. As somebody once said there was really only one person who knows the United Party’s policy and that was the hon. the Prime Minister. There is not a single member opposite who can tell me exactly whether according to United Party policy, non-Whites will come to this Parliament or whether non-Whites will not come to this Parliament, or whether, as the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) has said; even the Prime Minister of South Africa could be a non-White. I had thought that the United Party would avail themselves of this debate, particularly the debate on the motion of no-confidence, to give us a clear exposition of their Colour policy and to say to the voters: “Listen, you must not say to us that we proclaim one policy on the platteland and another one in the cities; we have now set out our policy in Parliament; it appears in black and white. That was what I expected, but what did I find? I found that they carefully hid their policy under the bushel. They wrapped their policy in the proverbal head-cloth and buried it deeply.[Interjections.] Does the hon. member for Pinelands who is sitting over there making remarks know what the policy of the United Party is? Of course he does not. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) does not know what the policy of the United Party is. If the hon. member for Hospital knows what the Colour policy of the United Party is let him get up when I sit down and tell us what it is. I shall welcome it. I want to tell you this, Sir: There are always two roads in the policy of the United Party; the one road is their policy as advocated and the other is the implication of that policy and those two roads can never meet as far as hon. members opposite are concerned. When you talk about “one man one vote” they deny that that is United Party policy, but every act of theirs, their entire policy, shows that they are veering in the direction of “one man one vote”. They are on that road.

That is your policy.

The United Party, the Progressives in this House and the Liberal groups are all on the road to that policy of “one man one vote”. It is only a question of “first gear, second gear and third gear”, but they are all on that road.

And you are in the “run away” gear.

They say they are opposed to the policy of “one man one vote”. But they want a multi-racial Parliament in South Africa in which all the various groups, the Whites and the non-Whites, will sit together in the same Parliament. To crown it all the hon. the Leader of the Opposition comes and admits that no restrictive laws can ever be the final solution in South Africa. Here I have his exact words.

May I ask a question?

If it is a sensible question I shall reply to it but that hon. member never asks a sensible question. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the following in this House in 1959 (col. 6038)—

He is quite correct. He says—

Does that not also apply to restrictive laws under a race federation policy? If they were to establish a federation in this House, for instance, a federation under which the Whites will have a certain number of representatives and the non-Whites a certain limited number, the non-Whites will simply reject it. That restriction in their Federation legislation will not work; it will not be worth the paper it is written on. Then hon. members opposite are still continually talking about racial friction. They want us to remove everything that can cause racial friction. They however want a Parliament in South Africa in which they will fight till the end of time about one subject only namely the fact that the Whites in this country who are far in the minority have considerable representation in this House. Hon. members of the Opposition ought to know that if we were to have a Black government in this country which was based on this principle and where the same atmosphere prevailed which you find in other African states, there would be no such thing as representation of the minority in this Parliament; it would simply be government by the masses. I want to quote some very striking words uttered by an American Negro who investigated the position in Africa. His name is Louis E. Lomax. He writes as follows in The Reluctant African—

Hon. members opposite try to make the voters believe that they are not moving in the direction of a one-man-one-vote government, but all their deeds, their whole attitude and the implication of their policy, show that they are fast heading that way. They are trying to discredit our policy of separate development. Under the National Government we at least have in South Africa a system of separate development with which a large number of Bantu have already expressed their satisfaction and with which the White voters in South Africa have expressed their satisfaction. Now the United Party wants another system, namely, the system of a race federation. I would have given him half a mark if he could have proved that apart from the Whites the Bantu of South Africa would accept that system of his. But he cannot do so. No, not even the Blacks in South Africa accept that federation plan.

How do you know; how can you make a statement like that?

The hon. member asks how I know it. I want to quote to him what a prominent non-White has said, a non-White who supports the United Party and who is a moderate person, namely Albert Luthuli. I am not talking about people like Mandela and that group. Let me quote what the so-called moderate Albert Luthuli said. He said—

They say that the United Party federation plan simply amounts to this that they will be poisoned slowly and is consequently unacceptable. Not a single Bantu in South Africa accepts the race federation plan as the final solution to the South African problem. That is why I say that I would still have given the United Party half a mark had they been able to prove it to me, but we have the facts of the matter before us, Sir. Neither the Whites nor the Bantu accept those hon. members’ solution to the racial problem of South Africa. What right has the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to say that his race federation plan will bring about a Utopia in South Africa? Of course the extremist Bantu would rather accept the policy of the United Party than that of the National Party but I say again that they will not only regard it as the Trojan Horse to get into this House but once they are here they will say “Away also with the United Party’s policy in South Africa”. That is why I ask hon. members opposite to start being realistic in South African politics. They should become more serious because we are living in serious times. They should realize that what they say in this House is an indication to the world outside and to the extremist Bantu how we fight in the political field in South Africa. They must be serious and I say the people of South Africa demand it from them.

I do not intend to reply to the speech made by the hon. member who has just sat down. I would like to say that if I were a reporter reporting the proceedings of this House I would simply say, “A certain Mr. van der Merwe also spoke.” Sir, I am limited to 10 minutes and I do not wish to deal with any of the details of the harangue of the hon. member who has just sat down save to say that it is a twist in our political set-up that a member who represents South West Africa which does not contribute one single farthing to our finances, should get up in this House and waste our time talking when he is not a bit interested in the Part Appropriation Bill which is before us.

The hon. the Minister has painted a rather gloomy picture of the future of South Africa. Hon. members opposite themselves are to blame for that gloomy picture because the hon. the Minister through an Act of Parliament has created an economic and financial closed circuit in South Africa. It is a closed circuit which is creating a little whirlwind in South Africa, a whirlwind which is gradually becoming a tornado and which will blow us to pieces. That is why the hon. the Minister is issuing a warning to the people of South Africa to be careful. Sir, that is most unfortunate in regard to at least two aspects. The one is in regard to municipalities because if the hon. the Minister is going to carry out his intentions in regard to capital expenditure by the municipalities, then the first people who are going to suffer will be the Coloured people whom we represent in this House. The hon. the Minister must realize that a municipality like the Cape Town Municipality engages thousands of Coloured people, the vast majority of whom are engaged on capital works, and it is important for their economy that those Coloured people should be constantly in employment. Any interference with the capital expenditure programme of large municipalities in the Cape will affect the Coloured people very materially, and I hope that the hon. the Minister will not revert to what happened some years ago when in fact the Government scrutinized the capital expenditure of all municipalities and erased what they said should not be done; they said, “We will agree to this but we will not agree to that. ” There we have blatant interference with the autonomy of the municipalities, with their freedom to carry out programmes which they felt were urgent. Yesterday we had a warning from the Minister that that situation might again arise. Well, I sincerely hope that the Minister will not do so, because if he does he will create an economic situation amongst the Coloured people here which will be difficult to overcome. It is already difficult for Coloured people to remain in constant employment. We already find that due to the Transkei policy of the Government, where the Coloured people are to be removed that the Government brought in nearly 800 Coloured people from the Transkei to work in the docks in Cape Town, thereby taking away work from our local people. If in addition to this the Minister is now going to apply the brake to municipal expenditure he is going to hit the Coloured people. That applies also, of course, to a great extent to the provincial authorities. I do not know to what extent. I would have had a great deal to say if Coloured education had still fallen under the province.

Sir, that brings me to the other point which I want to raise very shortly. We were told last year that until there are sufficient schools and until there are sufficient teachers, compulsory education cannot be introduced for the Coloured people. I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to see to it that there is a large increase in his Budget in the amount allocated to the Minister of Coloured Affairs in respect of Coloured schools. I do not have to go deeply into that question, but I think the hon. the Minister should know and does know that there is a very great derth of schools; there is a demand for more Coloured schools. There are far too many Coloured students in classes, and I do hope that the Minister will realize this and that he will give the Minister of Coloured Affairs not only the amount which was previously given to the province but that he will give him very much more to enable him to accelerate the building of more schools, and to make it possible for compulsory education to be brought into force in respect of the Coloured people much sooner than the hon. the Minister indicated here last time.

Sir, I think I have just about used my 10 minutes. There are very many other aspects of the minor Budget which affect the Coloured people, but I think we will deal with the Minister when he makes his Budget speech and when we come to his vote.

I am evidently one of the last speakers to participate in this debate, and you will forgive me if I do not follow the hon. member who has just resumed his seat. I just want to say that personally I very much doubt whether he really sits in this House to represent Coloured interests. I leave it there, but as far as I am concerned I doubt it.

During this debate we have seen how the Opposition has projected its projects on the screen on which it wanted to show certain images. I am not gullible or afraid: I am not referring here to the sort of image of which the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Mr. Raw) immediately reminded me. He reminded me of the old song to the effect that the one old ghost was fat and the other old ghost was thin. We have seen quite a number of ghosts and their shadows during this debate.

Also a short little one.

Towards the end of this debate I should like to refer to the images projected on to that screen by the United Party. In the first place it is quite clear to me that a great attempt was made—great according to the magnifying glass of the United Party’s speakers, but very small in terms of the facts of the matter’by the United Party to belittle our economic growth and the confidence business men in the world have in it, although their shadow Minister of Finance, the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson), who will perhaps become Minister of Finance if he lives a few hundred years, said that there was confidence in our economy. The United Party speakers who followed him tried to get away from that attempt he made of at least trying to be honest and to realize the facts of the situation. Sir, all the attempts to try to belittle our economy have failed. The hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) predicted last year that we would be facing a difficult future, but the facts have proved that once again he was wrong. I am not a prophet and fortunately I am not the prophet Jeremiah, but I want to make bold to say to-night that those members of the United Party will again look back on their speeches next year and discover that they have spoken a lot of nonsense, because the Republic and our people are still making progress without in the least being hampered by the attempt of the Opposition to belittle our economic growth. That is the one image we see on the screen, which they try to project. I leave the object of it aside, but I just want to point out that were I to seek a name for that picture, with reference to all the projections we have seen already, I would find it difficult to find any name other than “The Sabotage of South Africa”.

Further hon. members opposite pleaded for “a modification of the Government’s policy”, which amounts to a plea for integration. This integration policy they have propounded here from time to time was not so much intended for this House itself; it was aimed at the non-Whites in the country and also at the liberals outside the country. I feel that the liberal group for which it was intended is really related to the communists. It has clearly emerged in the past that all the subversive elements in this country are linked with the liberal elements in one way or another. To our regret we also have an Opposition in this House in which there is a large element of liberalism, and they advanced the argument that we should ameliorate our policy, that we should move in the direction of integration. Sir, there are people who have studied this matter and who are of the opinion that no one will succeed in combating Communism by making use of one’s financial power and one’s potentialities. Here I have, inter alia, what Lord Malvern said in connection with this matter—

Mr. Speaker, when I use these words, “abolition of colour prejudice”, does it not sound to you as if they had come from the mouth of the United Party? It is in line with the refrain we continually hear from that side of the House, that racial prejudice should be eliminated. I do not want to expatiate on this point because it has already been proved clearly that one cannot combat Communism by making use of one’s capital and financial strength. This whole attempt of the United Party to persuade us to deviate from our policy is, as they say, intended to influence world opinion in our favour, but there is no proof that if we depart from our policy world opinion will change in our favour so much that we will never again hear in South Africa the policy of one man, one vote, which is continually being propounded here. I fear that we will perhaps hear it and experience it, but then it will only be the Black races who will have one man, one vote. It is peculiar that while we are so concerned about the rights of humanity, nobody is concerned about the rights of the settled White population in this country. When it concerns the rights of the one group who in fact have rights which we recognize, that is all well and good, and then it must be projected. But when it concerns the rights of the other section of the population, then it is no longer a question of valuable human rights which must be preserved or must be granted.

I come to another point, Sir. It has emerged very clearly in this debate that the Opposition is very concerned about the uniting of the two main racial groups, the English and the Afrikaans-speaking groups. One of their chief organs of propaganda, the Sunday Times, started even before this Session with preparatory work in conditioning the electorate for the attack launched here by the Opposition. The main object was to keep the English and Afrikaans-speaking people apart. That was quite clear. That is why the Opposition did not launch a frontal attack on the National Party, because it knew that it would make itself ridiculous, because English-speaking South Africans sit in our ranks and co-operate with us. They launched this attack in a subtle manner by using an Afrikaner organization as the basis of the argument by means of which they hoped to foster racial dissension in South Africa. That is one of the greatest mistakes they have made and for that one can award them 100 per cent. If they had to qualify for something or had to sit for an examination …

Then they would fail.

Yes, they would fail if they were marked strictly, but if they were tested on mistakes they would all pass first-class—A’s right throughout, 100 per cent.

I say the United Party dare not deny that there was a period of preparation for the launching of the attack against the National Party by making use of an Afrikaner organization. That fear was fomented because increasingly more English-speaking people are entering the fight for the maintenance of the White man as against the Black man in this country. The policy of that party is not only destructive and fatal for the settled White population of the Republic, but just as fatal for the Black people and the Brown people in this country. Is there not sufficient proof yet that wherever the White man was driven out in the north and in Central Africa no racial peace and harmony ensued? Let those hon. members now get up and tell us that as the result of the removal of the Whites, or by placing the Black man in a dominant position, economic growth and racial peace were obtained there.

What about your Bantustans?

That hon. member talks about Bantustans, but I want to tell him frankly—he will have to admit it later—that it is much better to give an ethnic group the opportunities the National Party is now giving them. If you continue with your integration policy, with the abolition of job reservation, etc., you will get what we find in the north, mainly, no co-operation; there will continually be racial friction and conflict. Even if one were to abolish job reservation completely, even if one granted the franchise on certain conditions, one would still have that agitation and friction between the various groups. No, Sir, the arguments they are advancing here now are just intended to distract my thoughts from this crucial matter, namely that the Opposition has made itself guilty of a very strenuous attempt to drive in a wedge between the Afrikaans and the English-speaking people. It began when the hon. the Prime Minister appointed English-speaking people in the Cabinet. The country has reaped nothing but good from that. It was encouraged further by the resignation of two United Party members in Natal, one in the Senate and one in this House, two members who later, for good reasons of their own, joined the National Party, where there is no division between English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people. Our Cabinet and our party and our leader concentrate on eliminating that division because we must stand together as White people in order to ensure a good future for our children and for the Brown people and the Blacks.

They want to prevent it.

What the hon. Whip says is correct, but they do not want to prevent it because they hope in that way to create a future for the Republic; they do so because they think that by that means, or by means of other manoeuvres, yes, even by means of the Federation Plan, they can gain the necessary votes to overthrow the Government. I am afraid that as the stream runs to-day, the stream of English-speaking people to the National Party, they will not catch those votes. The closer the National Party adheres to its policy, the more hon. members opposite can forget to project those pictures of theirs in the hope of catching votes. They can now despair of harming our economy and our policy overseas with their projections. There are numbers of voices—and you are aware of it—being raised in favour of our policy. The idea has also gained ground in the minds of our Western friends that this policy of the National Party is not as bad as the Opposition professes it to be. I am very sorry, but we are not prepared to depart from that policy in order to give you votes against the National Party.

The other danger in connection with their policy is that eventually not only would we have Black domination, but we would get communist domination in South Africa, and then we would be incorporated by the enemies of the West. What could be more destructive in all spheres than that? Throughout the years those hon. members have tried to protect the enemies of South Africa, as can be proved from Hansard. They are still doing so to-day. If one looks at the list of questions, one sees how concerned they are about people who are brought before the courts in terms of the General Law Amendment Act. If one compares that concern of theirs with their concern for the prisoners who have been sent to gaol for theft and murder and other crimes, then no right-thinking person can come to any conclusion other than that they are particularly concerned with protecting and in voicing concern for the subversive elements, the communist and the agitator. [Interjections.] What is the motive of those hon. members in adopting that attitude? They can have no other motive. If that is not their motive, I ask what impression they create in the minds of persons who are not in this House? What is the impression they create in the minds of the Black people with whom we have to cooperate?

I want to conclude by saying that I hope that party, will now once and for all project an image on the screen which is in the interest firstly of White unity and secondly in the interest of co-operation between the Whites and the other races in the country, in the interest of a future and a way of life for all of us in the Republic of South Africa.

The viewpoint of the hon. member who has just sat down would be the height of impertinence, if it were not so laughable, namely, that this side of the House wishes to divide the Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking peoples of this country. Who are the architects of division in this country, and of separation? Who are the architects of the separation of children in the schools? Who are the architects of building up two ways of life in this country? Who are the architects of the absorption of sections of the community by one dominant group? Were it not laughable to listen to the hon. member in this particular era talking the way he did, we would have regarded his attitude as the height of impertinence to the sanity and the intelligence of this House.

One of the themes of the hon. member has been that this side of the House wishes to deprecate the strength of the economy of our country. I say “our country” in variance to the viewpoint expressed on the other side that they are the country. It is our country, Sir, not their country. It belongs to all of us. We, as the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) has rightly said, realize—and we have played our part—that there has been an upsurge in the economy of our country. We have played our part, not only as a party, but we have played our part as South Africans. The upsurge in the economy of South Africa is a credit to the South African people; not to the policies of the Government. We say that the credit the hon. the Minister of Finance wishes to take for Government policy for the upsurge of the economy, is completely fallacious. Because, if anything, the policy of the Government is the thing that is making the economy of the country vulnerable. It is our fear that the economy will eventually suffer as a result of Government policy, unless they change it. We are not alone in this point of view, Sir. This is not the point of view of a political party; this is the point of view of even the very people who invest in this country. It is the point of view of world opinion abroad and the hon. the Minister knows it.

I should like to tell the hon. the Minister this. We have had quotations from the Economist, from the Statist and from the Financial Times. But in order to substantiate some of the points that have been made on this side of the House you have to take into account, firstly, the figures given to us by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) in reply to the figures given to us by the Minister of Finance. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance the following questions: Did he not use gross figures of national growth when giving us the figures about the national growth of the country without allowing for the inflationary tendency and the increase in price levels? Did he not give us figures of other countries which were figures of constant prices allowing for such inflation and price level increases?

Whom are you quoting?

That does not matter because the hon. Minister quoted himself. Where did he quote from? I would like his sources of quotation as well, Sir. The House is entitled to accurate figures if the Minister wishes us to accept as correct what he has said. We are not decrying the national economic growth in the country. What we are saying, Sir, is that the Government is not entitled to claim credit for that as a result of its policies. If they maintain that attitude and encourage their supporters to follow that policy they are creating a potential source of danger to the future of our country and the future of the people of this country.

I also want to quote from an article written by a gentleman who is also an economist. He is the editor of an important weekly publication in this country. I want to quote him in order to substantiate what I have said. He said this talking about the economic expansion of South Africa—

We must remember that gold production still remains the mainstay in the entire economy of South Africa. It does not matter what the production is in this country; you have a constant rise in that export product called gold, something which is not only contributing to the development of our economy but which is putting a great deal of money into the coffers of the country for which the policy of the Government cannot take any credit at all. The dangers we have pointed out and the warnings we have issued to the Government must be taken notice of by the hon. the Minister. He must not pooh-pooh them by means of the political harangue to which we have had to listen and which was not the level which a debate of this nature demanded.

Here is a further quotation from the same economist—

These are analyses made by economists; these are not just political statements made by a party. Then it goes on further—

It is a trite fact that if you want to keep a boom going you have got to keep your production of that boom; you have to make provision for artisans. Why did the hon. the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs and other speakers on that side not come to the House frankly and say: We have made a mistake, our policy was wrong; for 13 years we did not allow immigrants into the country to help to build up the country; for 13 years we allowed all the other economies of the world to profit by this tremendous flow of immigrants with all their skills and their capital and their know-how; we have allowed approximately 150,000 persons to emigrate to countries like Australia, right into the Antipodes when we, who were almost in the centre of world affairs, did not get any? No, Sir, the Government had to build up its ideologies: it had to rely on the prophetic pronouncements of men like the Deputy Minister of Labour who made this statement when he talked about a pincer movement to destroy the political foundations of this country; he called it a pincer movement directed to the Afrikaner, the Church and the moral foundation of the Nationalist Party. He said—

But he forgot to add that had he had a sound immigration policy, had they carried on with what previous governments had done, he would not have been afraid of a pincer movement like this. This is the most ridiculous statement any man could possibly have made.

I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the fact that there is no confidence abroad, not in South Africa, but in the Government. People who have travelled know that people invest in this country because they have faith in South Africa, in the South African people, but they look with a tremendous amount of concern at the policy of this Government. Here is a South African, a member of a firm of top business consultants, who has travelled abroad. He seems to have the same point of view which a number of us have. He says this—according to the report—

What is his name?

His name is McGregor. I am quoting from the Star. He is on the board of a company which operates both here and overseas. This gentleman says this and I think anybody who has travelled abroad will agree with him. He says he would raise two other points for inclusion in his new approach—

He says—

It is narrow and parochial for any Government to take to itself the full credit for an economy of the magnitude of that of South Africa’s. It does not depend initially on the policy of a government. It is there. Its maintenance and its strength and its future durability and viability depend on the wisdom of the policy of the Government. I say this Government has been far from wise in its doings and in what it has been propagating to the people of the country.

I should like to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to something. Not being a trained economist, Sir, I am not prepared to underwrite it, but I think it might be interesting to have an answer from the Minister to a letter which appeared in the English morning paper this morning. This letter was written by a man who is a professor of economics at the university—Professor Hutt. The hon. the Minister smiles, but I have not stated that I accepted the statement. But I think the Minister could perhaps explain the position to us, because as far as the public is concerned it does seem to indicate certain similarities of trend. We were suddenly startled some months ago when the hon. the Minister attended a dinner given by the South African Institute of Insurance-men and warned the country suddenly of inflation and told the country that he would have to remove his foot from the pedal so that he could hold it back …

Not hold it back—not encourage it.

I say “hold back” because prior to that other hon. members of the Minister’s party had made statements to the effect that this forward surge of the economy would interfere with certain of the traditional attitudes of this country, more particularly with the policy of the Government. That was what the Deputy Minister of Labour said. In fact, the Prime Minister himself, issued a warning similar to that.

The point on which I want to conclude is this, that when this side of the House seriously criticizes certain important aspects of Government policy, we believe that it is not sufficient for the hon. the Minister merely, blandly and generally and broadly, to take to himself the credit, or take to his party the credit for what is taking place. We believe that these criticisms should be answered. They should be met. If they are groundless the hon. the Minister should prove it.

I just want to give him this further statement so that he will realize that one does not talk with one’s tongue in one’s cheek. I want to quote from the article by Mr. Palmer in Optima of December 1963. He says this—

That, Sir, is one of the main pillars of the economy of our country and we are very happy about it as well. For that reason this side of the House is concerned about things like dying mines; for that reason this side of the House is concerned about that particular industry. We are not concerned about the “mynbase” as my friend over there says, that is the capitalists who control the mines; we are concerned with an industry which is the foundation of our country. I believe that we are entitled to an answer to-day to the criticism that has been levelled by this side of the House and we are entitled to some comment on the figures which the hon. member for Jeppes, in introducing this debate, placed before the House.

The hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller) who has just sat down, has made a great deal of noise here. It seems to me that he is still suffering as a result of the hiding which he got from the hon. the Minister of Finance yesterday. He is still licking his wounds.

I can only say in the case of the hon. member that there are none so blind as those who do not wish to see. The hon. member, like other members of his party, has again referred to the Government’s policy and said that it makes our economy vulnerable. Nothing is further from the truth. If the hon. member had listened to what was said on this side he would have heard that it is precisely because of the firm policy of this Government that our economy has made so much headway. He went on to say that the policy of this party amounts to this that we are the architects of division between the two large language groups. Let me tell hon. members opposite who are the real architects of division. We on this side said that an Afrikaner organization had deliberately been dragged in by the Opposition to check the stream of English-speaking people joining the National Party. Let me tell the House what an hon. member on the other side said. I should just mention here that when I raised this matter in the Lobby with one of those hon. members, he repudiated it. I hope the hon. member is here so that he can listen to this. The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) made a speech in the Durban City Hall on a certain occasion last year. I quote his speech as it was reported in the Press, and I do not think there is a single hon. member on the other side who can repudiate this. I challenge them to do so. This is what appeared in the Vaderland of 25 October—

Then he went on to say—

He went on to say—

Sir, who are the persons who are keeping the Afrikaans-speaking and the English-speaking apart?

The Broederbond.

Here we have a speech by one of the members of the United Party in which that is just what he does. He went on to say—

Have you ever heard anything worse? And then he says—

And this is what the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn) said on one occasion about his Leader, “He has the killer instinct.” What has he killed? He is killing his own party.

When did I say that?

I apologize, it was the United Party leader in Natal, the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) who said it.

As an educationist I should like to conclude with a few brief words on education and make an appeal to the English-speaking section, since the hon. the Leader of the Opposition refuses to do so and since not a single member of the party over there has done so up to the present moment, to contribute their share to the education of our youth. It is a well-known fact that the Afrikaans-speaking people are also called upon to take upon their shoulders the function of educating the English-speaking children. There are numerous schools in the Transvaal, and probably also in the other provinces, where Afrikaans-speaking persons who are bilingual are the heads of English-language schools and where more than half the staff in certain cases consists of Afrikaans-speaking teachers. The reason for this is that this task is entrusted to the Afrikaans-speaking section, instead of the English-speaking section also making their contribution. Instead of coming along with promises of better salaries which they will pay if the United Party ever comes into power, which they have no hope of doing, they ought to make an appeal to the English-speaking section to enter the teaching profession to join Afrikaans-speaking teachers in carrying out this task of serving our nation. We accept that at this stage most English-speaking persons still belong to the United Party. But look what is happening even in Natal. We believe, on the strength of what is happening there, that more and more English-speaking people will join the National Party and if, in due course, we then make that appeal to the English-speaking section, they will probably pay more attention to it. Sir, we often find that hon. members opposite refer in disparaging terms to the fact that the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) (Mr. Odell) has joined the National Party, but let me give them the assurance that in joining the National Party that hon. member has opened a canal which will flow more and more rapidly in the direction of the National Party and hon. members opposite know that that is so. Mr. Speaker, let me read out this quotation in connection with education—

Who said that?

I support this statement which was made by Mr. S. Osier, one of the members of the National Advisory Educational Council. Sir, I do not want to weary you with the statistics which I have before me, because by the time we come to the end of this debate hon. members on the other side will never be able to digest them. I want to mention just a few figures because these statistics are very revealing. At the beginning of 1963 there were only 1,976 English-speaking teachers in the Cape Province as against 6,730 Afrikaans-speaking. In Natal there were 1,923 English-speaking as against 954 Afrikaans-speaking. In the Free State there were only 123 English-speaking as against 3,080 Afrikaans-speaking. In the Transvaal there were 2,243 English-speaking as against 9,456 Afrikaans-speaking. In the Department of Education, Arts and Science there were 259 English-speaking as against 1,299 Afrikaans-speaking. That gives us a total of 6,525 English-speaking as against 21,512 Afrikaans-speaking, a ratio of roughly one to three. And if we take into account the fact that the Afrikaans-speaking population is 1,790,988 we find that 1.2 per cent of the Afrikaans-speaking population is employed in the sphere of education, and if we take the English-speaking population which, according to these statistics, was 1,150,738 at the beginning of 1963, we find that only 0.5 per cent of the English-speaking section is employed in the teaching profession. That is the contribution which is being made by the English-speaking section because they are not being encouraged by, amongst others, the leaders of the party on the other side to enter what they would regard as a less remunerative profession. And this task us undertaken by the Afrikaans-speaking, in spite of the insults which the Afrikaans-speaking section has to endure from time to time. Last year in Bloemfontein at the Congress of the United Party one of the United Party delegates—I think it was the Krugersdorp delegate, a former member of the school board—addressed the conference, and those who were at the congress will be able to confirm that the language which he used there can hardly be described as nice language. You, Mr. Speaker, would call me to order if I used the language which was used on that occasion. That delegate said that, “We must wipe the floor with the heads.” And he said that in spite of the fact that this service is being rendered by the Afrikaans-speaking section.

What was the reason?

In spite of the sacrifices which are being made by the Afrikaans-speaking section in this respect we get no expression of appreciation from hon. members opposite. The hon. member over there is one of those people who constantly talk about indoctrination. If the Afrikaans-speaking teacher teaches the youth who has been entrusted to his care to love this country with an undivided love and to owe an undivided loyalty to the Republic of South Africa, then he is accused of indoctrination. If a teacher performs that task in any other country and encourages patriotism he is described as a person who imbues the children with a sense of patriotism. But when the Afrikaans-speaking teacher does it he is accused of indoctrination. We want to make a friendly appeal once again to hon. members on the other side to encourage their people to enter the teaching profession. After all, their own people will then also have an opportunity of indoctrinating the children and I hope that like the Afrikaans-speaking teacher they will imbue them with a love for South Africa, and if they do, then we will definitely make no charges against them.

The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether there has been any improvement in this situation. Unfortunately it has not improved. The position remains unchanged; it is deteriorating rather than improving. I tried to get the statistics in connection with would-be teachers enrolled at the normal colleges in the Transvaal. At the moment there are five normal colleges in the Transvaal which are training teachers, only one of which is an English-medium institution. The position at this moment is as follows: The four Afrikaans-medium colleges in the Transvaal have a total of 5,080 students while the one English-medium college, the Johannesburg College of Education, has 1,600, that is to say, 24 per cent of the total number. As an ex-teacher I once again ask hon. members opposite to give us their support in this matter. Do not let them always criticize the teachers when they do this work which involves a certain amount of sacrifice. Sir, great improvements have been brought about in the teaching profession; there has been an improvement in the salaries and there has been an improvement in the standard of the training of teachers in the Transvaal. The Transvaal Department of Education, for example, has decided no longer to allow the two-year course but to make the minimum a three-year training course, so the argument that we do not have sufficient well-trained teachers to fill the various vacancies is also beginning to fall away. That position is constantly improving. The conditions of service have also improved, and that is why we find to-day that large numbers are being attracted to the teaching profession.

In the six minutes at my disposal I would like to deal with the speech of the hon. member for Pretoria (East) (Dr. Otto). He was good enough to bring up a matter which has relevance in this debate, and that is the subject of education unlike the hon. member for Middelland (Mr. van der Merwe), with whose speech I would like to deal a little later.

Sir, the hon. member for Pretoria (East) said in effect that the English-speaking people to this day are supporting the United Party—as to the majority—and he said that the majority of the Afrikaans-speaking people supported the Nationalist Party; and then he went on to point out the dereliction of duty on the part of the English-speaking people in our educational system, and he quoted the percentages of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking teachers in our educational system. He emphasized, with some truth, that in regard to the teaching of English the responsibility was on the shoulders of the Afrikaans-speaking people who, obviously, were supporters of the National Party. That was the analogy that he tried to draw.

Why “obviously”?

“Obviously”, because he and the National Party claim the entire credit for this educational system. But I suggest that he should get together with the hon. the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, who is presumed to have some close knowledge of the position in regard to our educational system, and he should ask the hon. Minister this question: What on earth possessed him to say, as he did in October of last year at a certain occasion in Pretoria (which had an educational background) what possessed the hon. gentleman to say “the most devastating criticism in regard to the schools of our land, and the whole community as one huge and compound educating force, is the ghastly spiritual and cultural poverty of the majority of the people”. That is what he claims to the credit for the National Party for what he calls their indoctrination, their justifiable indoctrination of our children. The hon. member for Pretoria (East) says that the majority of the people—and, of course, then he refers only to the White people—are Afrikaans-speaking, and that the majority of the Afrikaans-speaking people are supporters of the National Party. So when he talks about the “ghastly spiritual and cultural poverty of the majority of the people”, he is talking about the majority of the Afrikaans-speaking people, and he is talking about the majority of the supporters of the National Party. Mr. Speaker, whereas I do not claim an apology on behalf of the supporters of the National Party, I think the hon. member owes the majority of the Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa an apology for this gratuitous insult.

I would like to deal very briefly with the hon. member for Middelland. Mr. Speaker, there you have a perfect example of the poverty that exists, despite their apparent numbers (I say “apparent” advisedly) that exists on the side of the Government, the poverty they revealed in replying to two speeches we heard this afternoon just before that hon. member rose—the one by the hon. member for Benoni, about the dying mines, the moving of industries unnecessarily to the so-called borders of the reserves, the chapter and verse in that speech; and the other speech by the hon. member for Jeppe (Dr. Cronje), studded with facts and figures and statistics. What did we get in reply, against the background of a Part Appropriation debate, from the hon. member for Middelland? What did we get? A tearjerker, as they call it in the film business, about the United Party and its sorry condition. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, you were not here, because it was an impressive performance. The tears were virtually streaming down the face of the hon. member, as he beheld the sad condition of this honourable Opposition. Now, Sir, is that proof positive that where all argument fails, or where there is no argument at all to oppose the arguments of my colleagues on this side of the House, it is always a good diversion to start bemoaning the fate of this poor Opposition. Now I have got news for the hon. member for Middelland long after he has stopped bemoaning the fate of the Opposition, he and his party will be out of power, and this woeful Opposition will be sitting there! And I will tell him why up to a certain point politics and ideologies are very impressive. (Of course, we live by politics and ideology in this Chamber), but outside as we talk here about the United Party and its difficulties, and as we talk about this, shall I say, insult to the Afrikaans-speaking community and our educational system the majority of the people outside are worrying about how they are going to make ends meet this day, and to-morrow. This is what the Government will find it has to answer for, and I would like to say this to the hon. Minister of Finance last year, I recall that, like his colleague the Minister of Transport, he quoted a certain French essayist by the name of Montaigne. The hon. Minister of Transport is very fond of Montaigne. Somebody writes his speeches and says “Now here you must quote Montaigne”. So last year, I remember, the hon. Minister of Finance took up this Montaigne creed and he quoted something against me and he then went out of his way to drag in the late William Shakespeare. He said “perchance to dream”, which was the quotation I had used, and he said that the Opposition was just being given a chance to dream of getting back to power. I want to agree with the hon. Minister that to-day the National Party undoubtedly sits on the throne. There is no question about it they are solidly ensconced on that throne. But the same essayist, Montaigne—and I say that as much for the benefit of the hon. Minister of Transport as of his colleague, the Minister of Finance—the same Montaigne was heard to say in his day, and it has been preserved for us in the library—

I wish I had coined that phrase, Mr. Speaker one day this Government will come right down on its bottom, and with such a jar, that they will not know what has happened to them. They will come down, Mr. Speaker, because of economic facts, nothing else; not ideologies, not through politics.

You will not live long enough to see that.

I wish I could vouch for my longevity, but I will say this …

Business interrupted in accordance will Standing Order No. 99.

I want to congratulate the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje) that this time he was not left at the post! He almost jumped the gun when this third-reading debate started to-day, and I am sure we are all very glad that he was able to make his speech to-day which he really prepared for yesterday. It seemed to me when I listened to him, and remembering what the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) had said, that there was a very distinct contradiction between the two speakers. The main thesis of the hon. member for Constantia was that it had taken 15 years of National Government to produce a reasonable rate of growth. But the main thesis of the hon. member for Jeppes was apparently that our growth is still tremendously slow; these two statements need some reconciliation. But then most of the statements of the hon. member need some reconciliation with realities. I remember the time, not so long ao, when this member too indulged in the expression of some financial foresight, and all I can say is that the whole economy as it is to-day, and as it has been described by the hon. member for Constantia, is an utter condemnation of the financial judgement of the hon. member for Jeppes as expressed in this House. I want to refer you to what the hon. member said in 1961, that is when we had introduced the measures to control the outflow of capital. Then the hon. member indulged in some judgments, what he considered the financial position was going to be. I want to quote just a few, because I have not got much time.

You have got all the time in the world.

No, only half-an-hour. Read your rules. The hon. member for Jeppes said on 21 June—

Is that not what has happened? Even the ranks of Tuscany can scarce forbear to cheer!

He went on—

Was the Minister wrong? Or was the hon. member for Jeppes wrong in his financial judgment? Let me take another statement by the hon. member. In the same speech he said that there was not going to be any confidence in South Africa, that there would be no foreign investments. He said “that the Minister had over-estimated the remaining overseas confidence in this Government’s policies as far as overseas investors are concerned”. In other words, there was no capital coming in to South Africa from overseas anymore, no new factories would arise, we would be stagnant and we would go from bad to worse. But the hon. member went on in that speech and returned to the question of confidence. He said—

That was the financial judgment expressed in 1961 by the hon. member. Well, Mr. Speaker, is it necessary for me to show that only last week the mighty Plessey group started here and this is what was said—

This was sent from London, and when Mr. Underwood the Deputy Managing Director was asked further questions he said “Well, you must judge for yourselves” He continued—

Hear, hear!

I could refer the hon. member to Phalaborwa. In the Plessey case it is merely a matter of R2,000,000 that is being introduced into this country, but in Phalaborwa over R75,000,000 is invested there and most of it is foreign capital. Lord’s has come not only with his capital, but with his whole factory. Do you want us to send them back?

The price of shirts has gone up.

I am afraid the hon. member for Jeppes is still at his old game of decrying the economy of South Africa, and then blaming the Government if there is not sufficient capital or immigrants entering the country.

At the present time is there a net-outflow or influx of private capital as far as South Africa is concerned?

To-day there is a net-outflow of capital and in the third quarter of last year alone, R23,000,000 of the outflow was caused by the repatriation of South African shares which had been held by overseas owners. R23,000,000 in one-quarter! The hon. member can go and study the most recent Quarterly Bulletin and he will find that in the third quarter of 1963 there was a net-outflow, and then they break it up and they come to the conclusion that R23,000,000 of the outflow was due to the repatriation of foreign-owned South African stocks. We have got those shares now. A lot of the shares that were held overseas a couple of years ago have been repatriated. It is an excellent thing and I wish we could allow a further outflow of capital to repatriate shares, but unfortunately there is a limit to all these things. We are allowing as much as we think is reasonable. But I can tell hon. members that that is not for investment in companies overseas, but for investment in our own shares. These people realize how advantageous it is if they can pick up shares at bargain prices overseas.

Why bargain prices?

They are only too happy to bring them out to South Africa. The price gap, I may say, has also considerably been reduced since two years ago, considerably reduced. I do not know whether I can take the matter much further. The hon. member for Jeppes has quoted a lot of figures. I quoted figures which are not hidden away, but which are in the report—they are figures of the gross national produce and I compared it with similar figures of other countries. I did not compare two things that are not comparable: Net figures with gross figures. I gave gross figures. The hon. member has not been able to show that these figures are wrong.

But I come now to the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller). I must commence by saying that I really admire his courage in coming back, a little punch-drunk, perhaps, but still he has come back. Yesterday I accused him, and I quoted two statements of his, that he was trying to belittle South Africa’s economy. The first is where he said in effect that our economy is perhaps rosy on the outside, but it is not healthy. He was not referring to the Government, but to our economy. He said our economy was not inherently sound. That is the point he made yesterday. The other point he made yesterday was that our growth was really nothing. He mentioned other countries, including some American states, and said that they were enjoying a buoyancy certainly not less than our buoyancy, and that there was greater progress there than in South Africa. I quoted comparable figures. He was not attacking the Government; he was attacking South Africa’s economy, but to-day he says: No, I am not attacking the economy of South Africa; I am attacking the Government. He has not the courage to withdraw the statements to which I took exception yesterday, and to which every decent South African will take exception. (Laughter.) To-day he tries to wriggle out of it and to pretend that it was not really an attack on South Africa’s economy, but on the Government. As far as we are concerned, we as a Government can stand these little short-arm jabs of the hon. member. I think that if I must say his words mean anything to-day, compared with what he said yesterday, he is now actually in effect identifying South Africa with its Government. If he tells me that he was attacking, as he was attacking, the Government of South Africa, and I quote what he said about South Africa’s economy, I can come to only one conclusion—if he does not withdraw the first statement—and that is that he is identifying the state with its Government, which is not an unusual thing. If I think of the United States, I do not think in terms of any particular administration which is in power there; I identify that state with the Government it has at the moment, and that is what people overseas are thinking about South Africa. I have a lot to do with people who seriously think about those things, and they do not separate the two. For them the Government of South Africa is South Africa, and South Africa is the Government, and that is what the hon. member has tacitly admitted here.

He quoted the Economist and other papers. I said right from the beginning that the strongest economy in the world can never be equally strong in every part of its structure at the same time. There are always weaknesses and dangers which have to be averted, and that is true of South Africa too. That is shown by our whole past history. It is the achievement of this Government that in spite of these recurrent weaknesses in various sectors of the economy we have been able to overcome them. He mentioned the under-utilization of our factories. Yes, that was our difficulty at one time, but it is not our difficulty to-day. Unemployment was at one time our difficulty, but it is no longer. Those things will recur. At the moment we have other weak points and difficulties, but these new ones will be overcome too.

The hon. member said that if our economy is sound—which it is not according to him—we have no reason to claim credit for ourselves as a Government. But I wonder, if the economy had deteriorated, would the hon. member have adopted the same attitude? Would he then have said that it was not due to what the Government had done, but due to some force majeure, and the Government is really the innocent victim of what happened? That is a childish argument of the hon. member, and by virtue of the fact that he has come back to the attack to-day I can only say of the hon. member for Florida that failure has gone to his head. I know he was assiduously coached by the hon. member for Jeppes (Dr. Cronje), who was at pains to explain something to him just before he spoke. [Interjection.] I can understand what the hon. member said to-day, and if I compare it with what he said yesterday I can only remind him of the word, “and the last state of that man is worse than the first”—the hon. member’s second lapse was even worse than his first. But I am quite prepared to accept, as an extenuating circumstance, that he was coached by the hon. member for Jeppes!

The hon. member also referred to a statement by Professor Hutt that inflation has been engineered by this Government. Sir, if there is one thing which South Africa cannot afford and which the Government is very well aware that it cannot afford, it is inflation. We are more vulnerable to inflation than many other countries. Our gold mines and our export trade will be hard hit if there is any inflation in this country. To say now that we deliberately engineered it, when we have been warning against it—at the same time not falling into the error of many people who try to over-state the dangers—is quite wrong. We believe that if timeous steps are taken inflation will never happen, but if there should be inflation we will have to take much more drastic steps. That is the experience to-day of countries of the Common Market. They have had their industrial honeymoon and now we find that the cost of living has gone up there by 7 per cent to 8 per cent, and that is the position we never want to allow here. That is why I made this plea, that we should be realistic about it. There is no inflation and there is no immediate danger of it, but it is always one of the things against which one has to be on one’s guard when the economy is prospering. The greater the prosperity, the more one is exposed to this danger. But do not let us have an obsession about it. Do not let us create a kind of inflation psychosis. That is what I warned against. Let us look the facts in the face soberly and see whether we cannot, by taking timeous steps, prevent any such disaster.

Did I understand the Minister rightly to say that there is no inflation?

Yes, I said it yesterday and I repeat it to-day. There is no inflation.

Then why are prices rising?

If there are sporadic rises in prices of various articles, that is not inflation, and I am quite sure that if we do not talk ourselves into an inflation we will not have it. We have had rising prices all the time. The cost of living has risen, and one of my colleagues has given notice of one of the brakes which could be applied if there is any abuse of our present prosperity. I said yesterday that we have to take a firm hold and see that there are not exorbitant abuses of rising wages and incomes and profits and rents. Those are all things we have to guard against, but there is no inflation yet and I hope there will never be. But there may be inflation if we go and proclaim that there is inflation, as the hon. member is doing here now. Sir, I am beginning to be a little disappointed in the hon. member now. I have praised the hon. member sky-high for his more realistic approach to our economy, and I do not want my dear old friend to disappoint me now by taking up this line.

I am only trying to help you to tell the truth.

A few hon. members spoke about the marginal mines. I do not want to go into details. I have already explained that the Government has already given assistance and that it is discussing the matter. We have to have regard to many factors which the hon. member and others are perhaps not aware of. We have to consider the attitude of the International Monetary Fund. They are not against all forms of help to the marginal mines, but there are certain forms which are not acceptable to them, and we have to take that into consideration, and we also have to consider the opinion of the mines themselves.

I want to say in conclusion that it is unnecessary for me, if hon. members want to see how we advanced during the last 15 years, to say much more than to give a few simple figures in regard to our exports, which increased from about R215,000.000 in 1947 to R954,000,000 in 1962, which is not even the latest figure. Our balance of payments on current account was in the red by R392,000,000 in 1947, and it is now plus R307,000,000 for 1962. I already explained why the position of the capital account is as it is, and that it is due to the big amounts that came into the country when we opened up the goldfields. There are no new goldfields that we can open up to that extent again, but that resulted in a large increase of capital flowing into the country. I am not talking about the capital account in 1947. That was a bogus account, because it was due to flight capital which came into the country. In any case, it is very difficult to compare a war-time economy with a peace-time economy, but I think what is remarkable—and I want to commend that to the attention of the hon. member for Jeppes—is that our economy has shown such a rapid rate of growth while the price of one of our chief products, gold, has remained unchanged since 1949. I wonder how many countries in the world can say that?

I want to conclude by repeating the remark made to me by a very prominent banker when I was in the United States last year, when he said that by and large, relatively, our economy in South Africa to-day is the soundest in the world.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.